CONTENTS Writing Down My Rules How to Become a Pharaoh Ruling this Life and the Next My Greatest Power Making Cities and Statues Building My Tomb How I Kee p Everyone in Place The Importance of FACTS Becoming Very Rich Being a Bad Neighbor My Powerful Death Gods and Goddesses Ten More Fiendish Pharaohs Index 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32
Writing Down My Rules Writing Down My Rules I am a pharaoh and have reigned over Egypt for many years This means that I am very wise which is why MY SUBJECTS MUST ALWAYS OBEY ME My knowledge is tremendous So I thought the next pharaoh my son should learn from me This is why I am writing down my rules with my my vizier my special adviser MY RULES MUST BE WRITTEN PROPERLY This is a great rule in itself My vizier and I do not write them all down by ourselves of course A row of scribes sits in front of us and my loyal vizier makes sure they write everything accurately I do not want any sly hieroglyphic jokes among my golden nuggets of wisdom I am quite old now and still very attractive It is amazing what a long wig and a false beard can do MY SUBJECTS MUST ALWAYS SHOW ME ADMIRATION But I do have a lot of aches and pains They remind me that I will be passing into the afterlife one day I call in my priests to tell me when my life on Earth will end They study the stars and do a lot of equations Then they make offerings to gods and goddesses It takes ages And even after all this they cannot tell me for sure So I tell them all to go away NOW 6
This leaves me feeling quite ill The vizier sends for the royal doctor MY DOCTOR MUST HELP ME LIVE LONGER My biggest pain is in my head So the doctor takes off my wig and lays his hands on a bald patch He tells me that the four channels leading to the bald patch are blocked He recommends I take frankincense yellow ocher and dung This will make me vomit and clear the channels Perfect But wait I can hear drums It’s the Sed festival celebrating my thirty-year reign as pharaoh I completely forgot I must go out and run beside the sacred Apis bull to prove that I can reign for even longer Ah I feel so much better The scribes have laid down their brushes The vizier collects the scrolls My work is done I know my son will appreciate these rules I hope you do too OR ELSE 7
