Thursday's Blog 2/13/14

          The social hierarchy of ancient Egypt was used to rank people into social classes.  The Pharaoh was on the top of the hierarchical pyramid and political, jurisdictional, military, administrative and religious power was considered divine.   Egyptian pharaohs ruled by themselves without consulting with nobility or people who were despots, while the form of government was despotism. Pharaohs were viewed as divine or semi-divine and were worshiped like gods. Sometimes they married their sisters to protect the purity of royal family.

     Pharaoh’s orders were carried out by hierarchically organized administration on top of which were the viziers. Viziers were often pharaohs’ sons or members of the royal families who gave direct orders to the head of royal offices for the army, construction, navigation, trade, medicine, foreign relations, frontiers, tax collecting, crop supply, animals, and fields.

     Everything depended on the river in ancient times as it still does today to a large extent. It is quite simply Egypt's lifeblood. Even with all the modern progress attributed to today, Egypt's settlement pattern mirrors closely that of older times, in as far as viable habitation is, and was only possible within the Nile's floodplain; a narrow strip of land, limited to several miles each side of the riverHabitation was only possible within the Nile's floodplain, where all agrarian activity took place and where much depended on the river's behavior and the regularity of its inundation.