| Contents > “Silent Partners”. The Horse and Chariot and the Image of the King by Susan Turner |
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Temples and palaces were built throughout Egypt, in wadis and oases and along the Nile, the major thoroughfares of Egypt and in the national capitals such as Thebes. The walls of these huge monuments provided the canvas for the kings to advertise their success to the world. This process already had a long tradition by the 17th dynasty ( Grimal 1997: 68) but from this period a new opportunity presented itself as a new reality for Egypt emerged. ( O’Connor 2001: 206) As far into the past as the Old Kingdom and earlier ( Wilkinson 2003:180) Egypt had extended its borders into Nubia, into the east ( Grimal 1997: 66) and against the Libyans to the west, but it was in the 17th Dynasty that the foundations of the golden age of imperial Egypt were laid down. ( Steindorff 1957:35) This period saw the appearance of the imperial warrior pharaohs and the new representation of them would be included in the corpus of Egyptian art until the end of pharaonic Egypt and even later.
Along with the monumental building programmes to honour and satisfy the gods, the pharaohs conducted monumental artistic programmes to unashamedly advertise to all and sundry that Egypt’s prosperity issued directly from their successful execution of all their roles and that their control of the power base in Egypt was firmly and mightily in their hands.
From the time of Ahmose 1’s pursuit of the retreating Hyksos, Egypt extended its direct power over the Levant and then further into Mesopotamia. The campaigns of Thutmose 1 and then Thutmose 111 had given domination and thereby enormous wealth to Egypt and this in turn fuelled the massive building programs of the kings of the 18th and 19th dynasties. Maat was certainly being maintained and to celebrate this and to advertise their success the kings emblazoned their exploits on the walls of these new edifices.
Horses and chariots arrived in Egypt earlier, when its power and that of its kings were at a particularly low ebb. It appears from excavations over the last 30 years ( Bietak. 1996) that Egypt had been reduced to a state subordinate to the Hyksos kings in the north and one, which was sandwiched between them and the Nubians to the south. The Theban kings of the late 17th Dynasty challenged this state of affairs and after years of war, defeated both the Hyksos and the Nubians and re-established a united Egypt under a native dynasty. Order was restored out of Chaos. During this period of war the Egyptians were able to acquire limited numbers of horses and chariots, which appear to have been the rare and prized possessions of the Hyksos kings. ( Simpson: 2003:345) They gradually built up their numbers and used them as adjuncts to their initial pursuit of the Hyksos and eventually in their conquests of foreign lands in the Middle East. Warrior pharaohs like Thutmose 111, extended Egyptian dominance as far as the Euphrates (Grimal 1997: 215) and consolidated it by the formation of alliances, tributary states and some fortification. Meanwhile the proceeds of this adventure poured into Egypt enriching it beyond any previous period and establishing a golden age. The warrior kings were certainly maintaining Maat. Horses and chariots had been the silent partners in supporting this venture and were to take a major role in establishing and maintaining the general perception of this new imperial power.
Large-scale building programs were undertaken. Huge temples and palaces sprang up and on their walls, inside and out the kings blatantly advertised their success. Traditional scenes were continued and were shown worshipping, accompanying and serving the gods, sending out expeditions to exotic places like Punt in order to enrich Egypt even further, rewarding their officials for their services and receiving foreign embassies. They continued the traditional illustration of the warrior king too.
This depiction of Ramses 11 from Abu Simbel ( Oakes and Gahlin. 2002: 207) is the traditional image of the king destroying the enemies of Egypt. It’s a dramatic image, and there is a narrative element contained in the relief. The king raises his mace to smite the enemies of Egypt who he holds by the hair. The scene was part of the established iconography of the king from the time of the first dynasties to the New Kingdom and beyond. But a new image began to emerge and in both military and artistic terms it was due to the appearance of the horse and chariot.
Where did the new image come from?
As mentioned already, the horses and chariots themselves came from the Hyksos. The first images of them in Egyptian art have been found by Stephen Harvey during his excavation of the Ahmose Pyramid Temple at Abydos (Harvey 1998:150) These reliefs are fragmentary but they do indicate that this king was in possession of horses and chariots a proposition well supported by the textual sources of the period. ( Simpson: 2003: 348). It seems that they were not distributed amongst the king’s followers as rewards after the conquest of the Hyksos capital Avaris. So they remained the rare and prestigious possession of the king. It was only later when their numbers increased that he seems to have allowed their filtering down to elite officials. They were never to occupy a common role such as that of the donkey in Egypt.
As part of the war against the Hyksos and then the drive to empire under successive warrior kings the horse and chariot were of increasing importance as military strategy changed and chariot warfare developed. They were the silent partners in creating the empire and they were the silent partners in creating the new image that announced and celebrated it.
Stephen Harvey, having examined the fragments of relief found by Bruyere in 1926 (Harvey 1998: 308) has suggested a reconstruction of a battle scene from the temple of Thutmose 11 which depicts the new image of the king and he has extrapolated this, guided by the findings at the site, into a similar image of Ahmose 1 in battle from the Ahmose Pyramid Temple. If this is correct this is the first known instance of the new imperial image of the king. The king is seen as a mounted conqueror, in battle, fighting Egypt’s enemies and extending its borders. (Harvey 1998: 550).
Egyptian iconography up to the Amarna period was inherently conservative and governed by artistic canons laid down in the country’s early history. The new imperial image was not a revolution but an adaptation and incorporation of traditional features to suit a new reality. Kings not only advertised their maintenance of Maat, they validated themselves and exalted in their exercise of power not only in Egypt but also in the wider world.
These images were so successful that they were to become traditional depictions themselves even when they were not based on reality. They were so successful they found their way onto the walls of temples and palaces and even into private tombs and they declared and reinforced the power of the king.
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| Contents > “Silent Partners”. The Horse and Chariot and the Image of the King by Susan Turner |