Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE OLD KINGDOM: GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY, INDUSTRY AND ART 65. At the dawn of the Old Kingdom the kingship had attained a prestige and an exalted power, demanding the deepest reverence of the subject whether high or low. Indeed the king was now officially a god, and one of the most frequent titles was the Good God ; such was the respect due him that there was reluctance to refer to him by name. The courtier might designate him impersonally as one, and to let one know becomes the official phrase for report to the king. His government and ultimately the monarch personally were called the Great House, in Egyptian Per-o, a term which has descended to us through the Hebrews as Pharaoh. When he died he was received into the circle of the gods, to be worshipped like them ever after in the temple before the vast pyramid in which he slept. 66. Court customs had gradually developed into an elaborate official etiquette, for the punctilious observance of which, already in this distant age, a host of gorgeous marshals and court chamberlains were in constant attendance at the palace. There had thus grown up a palace life, not unlike that of modern times in the East, a life into which we gain obscure glimpses in the numerous titles which the court lords of the time,with ostentatious pride, have displayed on the walls of their tombs. Every need of the royal person was represented by some palace lord, whose duty it was to supply it. There were many ranks, and the privileges of each, with all possible niceties of precedence, were strictly observed and enforced by the court marshals at all state levees and royal audiences. The king’s favourite wife became the official queen, whose eldest son usually received the appointment as crown prince to succeed his father. But as at all Orienta…