Abstract:
Thirty-eight years since the publication of Wolfgang Helck’s seminal Wirtschaftsgeschichte des alten Ägypten im 3. und. 2. Jahrtausend vor Chr., the study of Egyptian economics has advanced considerably. Papyrus archives from the Fifth Dynasty pyramid (Mortuary) Temples of the kings Neferirkare Kakai and Neferefre Izi (Raneferef) allow a far broader knowledge of these economic processes. As such, Egyptologists are now in a position to delineate the economic structures of the royal state in this period. Despite this opportunity, however, no broad study has yet emerged which connects the activities of these cult centres with the socio-economic milieu of the Fifth Dynasty and the era which immediately preceded it. This thesis aims to make some contribution towards rectifying that situation. Primary among our investigations is the economic status of the Mortuary Temples and their adjuncts, the Sun Temples. Successive examination of non-royal land-holdings, royal funerary Domains and the Abusir temple economies allows an integrative study, placing these cult centres within their proper ideological and cultural context. It will be shown that although the Sun Temples formed the main nexus in a necropolis-wide distribution network, their functions did not overshadow the Mortuary Temples or the king’s Residence. Instead the three institutions formed a unified group of complexes, each contributing fundamentally to a core component of royal economy and cult activity. As a royal-dominated society (predicated upon the Königsideologie of service to ma’at ‘Order’), Egypt of the Fifth Dynasty was a place in which cult activity, economic behaviour and royal prerogatives were highly integrated.
