Pharaoh

It seems important to stress early on that the term 'pharaoh', regularly used in this book, comes from the ancient Egyptian word per-aa, which means the great house' and originally referred to the palace. It was not until the New Kingdom that Egyptians used it to designate the person of the king. p9

Inscriptions in the temple of Ramses Ill at Medinet Habu (western Thebes) give a glimpse of exactly how much. In this temple alone, ssoo loaves, fifty-four cakes, thirty-four dishes of sweets, 204 jars of beer and other foodstuffs were offered daily!"* However, these offerings were part of a relatively eco-friendly system, because any perishables were distributed to the priestly staff. The gods would themselves be nourished by the enticing aroma of the cooking meat. P74

Over the decades and centuries, this phenomenon of statue dedication must have cluttered courtyards, processional avenues and other temple spaces with sculpture: a very different appearance to the managed emptiness of the temple as modern tourist attraction. Egyptian priests developed a pragmatic approach to this challenge, periodically burying groups of star-ues within the temple grounds. These eight statues were found in one such deposit, known as the Karnak Cachette, one of the most significant discoveries in the history of archaeology in Egypt (fig. 2.34, p. 102).'

Over 800 stone statues were found, the majority (like these eight) showing non-royal individuals, though some were considerably larger in scale.

The cachette also yielded smaller numbers of stone altars, stelae, ceramic and wooden statues, eye inlays from colossal statues, animal mummies and faience objects, and over 17,000 small bronze figurines. Recent research, combining 3D modelling of historic photographs with careful study of the inscriptions, allows insights into how such a monumental project was undertaken, and what it might have meant.? Statues from over twenty-three centuries of Egyptian history were buried together, with the carl-est sculpture dating back to the era of the pyramids: a granite statue of King Niuserra (c. 2400-2375 BCE). P100