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
How to Become a Pharaoh How to Become a Pharaoh I am the mighty pharaoh of all Egypt That means I am very powerful and extremely rich I rule over a huge territory that stretches from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to Nubia in the south Pharaoh actually means royal palace The bigger the palace the more powerful I appear to my cowering subjects It helps them understand that I make the rules You may wonder how I B ECA M E T H E M I G H T Y P HAR AOH I am the son of a pharaoh and his Great Wife so I followed the rules and inherited my title We pharaohs have several wives but the Great Wife is the most important I chose mine because she comes from a noble and very rich family Wealth is power I just love power 8
Now that I am pharaoh I CAN CHANGE THE RULES WHENEVER I WANT So I am going to pass my title on to the son of my favorite wife She’s way below my Great Wife in status but I get along with her better It helps to be a man to become a pharaoh but there have been some very powerful female pharaohs too But I have no daughters yet YOU MAY WONDER HOW YOU CAN TELL I AM THE PHARAOH Well it is obvious who I am when I emerge from my palace and visit my lands You cannot miss me as I wear the most gorgeous clothes I make sure that no one else looks like me There are dress codes for every class in society which I can change whenever I like I enjoy seeing peasants and building workers in their simple white flax clothes Simple for them is good As for me I drip with gold jewelry studded with precious stones A gold cobra symbol curls around my crown My subjects believe it spits flames at our enemies Of course I don’t actually mix with my subjects Fiendish Fact File Powerful Ancient Egypt was created through warfare when King Narmer or Menes united north and south Egypt in about 3100 BCE Ramesses II was one of the most fi endish pharaohs He ruled for sixty six years from 1279 to 1213 BCE This was so long that his fi rst three sons died before he did His fourth son Merneptah succeeded him 9
