Accounting and redistribution: The palace and mortuary cult in the Middle Kingdom, ancient Egypt

Accounting Historians Journal, The, Jun 2002 by Ezzamel, Mahmoud

Lo, Yebu, [This] ... are not taxed because of strife ... What good is a treasury without its revenues? ... See now, the land is deprived of kingship by a few people who ignore custom ... See, the mighty of the land are not reported to . . . The king's storehouse is 'I go-get-it', for everyone, and the whole palace is without its revenues [Lichtheim, 1975, pp. 152-159].

At the end of this traumatic period, Egypt was re-united again and the Middle Kingdom was born. What is at times lost in the midst of concern with the anarchy and social upheaval referred to above is that, almost paradoxically, the First Intermediate Period provided the foundations for the unique civilization of the Middle Kingdom and its fundamentally different mode of government. As Wilson [1951, p. 105] has remarked, 11 we can see the period [The First Intermediate Period] as being the formative time of the classical Egyptian literature, with a productive literary movement of considerable vigor." These literary works are immensely important in explaining the form of government and administrative arrangements that emerged in the Middle Kingdom.

Responsibility of Government, State Bureaucracy, and the Economy: In contrast to the Old and New Kingdoms, Egyptologists typically ascribe to the Middle Kingdom a weaker and more decentralized government. The chaos which permeated the First Intermediate Period was not totally eliminated during the early years of the Middle Kingdom, as evidenced by the continued existence of provincial governors of considerable influence [Kemp, 1983, pp. 110-111]. Wilson [1951, p. 106] has also suggested that the Middle Kingdom "was at first very decentralized and has justly been called a "feudal" state. The tight control of the Pharaohs of the early Old Kingdom could not be regained." However, this is an over-simplification as some Pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom established a fairly powerful state underpinned by competent and innovative administrators (see below). Moreover, it was during the Middle Kingdom that a most important development, from the perspective of this paper, emerged in the form of more systematic and detailed bookkeeping [Kuhrt, 1997, p. 162] on a level not paralleled before in ancient Egypt. Despite the relative weakening of central authority, there remained a paramount expectation that the Pharaoh, at least in theory and most often in practice, protected, and provided for, his subjects and secured social justice. The ideal of social justice was rooted in the concept of Maat, which implied truth, justice, righteousness, and order not only among humans, but also between them and their gods, and between the living and the dead [Hart, 1986; Lichtheim, 1992; Watterson, 1996].

In the Middle Kingdom, the Pharaoh relied on four crucial functions; the Vizierate, the Treasury, the Priesthood, and the Military. These functions were attended to by a large number of officials, with the Vizier immediately below the Pharaoh, followed by officials, courtiers, locals and semi-officials, all with varying status within the hierarchy [Quirke, 1990]. Each town was governed by a provincial official (mayor, town governor) who was also responsible for delivering taxes to the Vizier.