The Story of the Pharaohs Author:James Baikie General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1908 Original Publisher: A. and C. Black Subjects: Egypt History Egypt History / Ancient / Egypt History / Middle East / Egypt Juvenile Nonfiction / History / Middle East Social Science / Archaeology Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It... more » has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III SOCIETY, ART, AND LITERATURE IN THE OLD KINGDOM We have now to attempt to reconstruct for ourselves the state of society in that ancient kingdom the outlines of whose history we have been tracing. The picture, of course, cannot pretend to minute accuracy, and can only offer a general truth in its main outlines ; for it must be remembered that we are dealing with a lengthened period of history, in the course of which there must have occurred many important changes of detail which are now quite imperceptible to us. Supreme head of the whole complex of the national life stands forth the king -- a greater figure, perhaps, in the earlier days of the Fourth Dynasty than he came to be later, but always immeasurably removed, in theory at least, from the greatest of his subjects. The reverence due to him was expressed in his title,' The Good God,' in the prostrations which were required of everyone who entered his presence, and very significantly by the impersonal manner in which it was considered proper to refer to him. The title ' Per-O ' -- ' Great House ' -- which first of all belonged to the palace, gradually came to be applied to the reigning monarch in a manner somewhat similar to that in which ' the Sublime Porte' has come to be applied to the Government of Turkey, and, in the formof ' Pharaoh,' has become for us the regular title of the Egyptian monarchs. This lofty and dignified being w...« less