Kingdom Society in the Ramesside Period

New Kingdom Society in the Ramesside Period
Social Relationships and Gender Roles

• Social Structure and the Roles of males and females

ISSUES:

• Hierarchy of Ramesside society – entire Egyptian society was ranked hierarchically.
• Role of the pharaoh within the social structure and the impact of the social hierarchy with the decline of his status
• Nobility followed in the social hierarchy
• Roles of the royal administration and position on the social hierarchy – the increase in officials/viziers status during the steady decline of the pharaoh
• Average official was man situated in wealthier structures of society.
• Change in the government bureaucracy from NK à Ramesside in regards to the wealth distributed amongst officials
• Vizier in north continued to enjoy equal status as the vizier in the south.
• Relationships between males and females – amongst both the royal and lower classes
• Similarities between women of the upper and lower classes and the roles of women within Egyptian NK and Ramesside society

SECONDARY SOURCES: Scholars views/quotes

• Robins, Gae Women in Ancient Egypt

• “In the Egyptian world view, the organization of society was hierarchical
• Women too were ranked hierarchically
• The Tomb of Ipy reveals women conducting trade up and down the Nile [Shows that women within the areas of the skilled working class did contribute to the social order of society
• It was the decline of royal religious authority, military prestige and political powers which resulted in the change to social structures of the Ramesside period.

•  O’Connor, David Ancient Egypt: A Social History
• “The significant but gradual change in the nature and strength of the royal power seems to become evident first in the late nineteenth dynasty and increasingly in the twentieth dynasty”
• “Political weakness of the religious system” led to the gradual disintegration of the social order
• It was the “military officers not priests who” which were responsible for change in social structures [ evident change occurring from the NK into Ramesside society]

• Callender, Gae The eye of Horus
• Viziers of Dynasty 20 did not seem to have any hereditary links with each other – showing a significant change in the social traditions within the administrative successive roles.

• Jablow, A   Women: Their economic role in traditional societies
• Women were “bounded by the domestic framework, concerned with familial, private sectors of society” [providing a perspective of the social roles of women]

  ANCIENT SOURCES:

• Breasted, JH Ancient Records of Egypt - [showing the power structures with the vizier]
• The installation of the Vizier and The Duties of the Vizier
• The Tomb of Paser – “It is he who dispatches every official of the royal domain and who sends to nomarchs and heads of division”
• Papyrus Lansing – “it is worth more than an inheritance in Egypt, than the tomb in the west” [understanding the position of the scribe within the social hierarchy of New Kingdom society was far greater than any other position]
• WENAMUN’S NARRATIVE – most useful source in providing an understanding of the pharaohs decline – Ramesses XI pharaoh no longer attended the great festivals occurring on the West Bank resulting in change of social hierarchy of the royal administration
•  Unfurnished tomb of Ramesses XI shows weakened social, religious and political status of the pharaoh.