Highly complex degrees of rank are revealed to us on the monuments of the people who immediately surrounded the Pharaoh.  His person was, as it were, minutely subdivided into compartments, each requiring its attendants and their appointed chiefs.  His toilet alone gave employment to a score of different trades.  The guardianship of the crowns almost approached the dignity of a priesthood, for was not the urseus, which adorned each one, a living goddess?  Troops of musicians, singers, dancers, buffoons and dwarfs whiled away the tedious hours.  Many were the physicians, chaplains, soothsayers and magicians.  But vast indeed was the army of officials connected with the administration of public affairs.  The mainspring of all this machinery was the writer, or, as we call him, the scribe, across whom we come in all grades of the staff.

The title of scribe was of no particular value in itself, for everyone was a scribe who knew how to read and write, was fairly proficient in wording the administrative formulas, and could easily apply the elementary rules of book-keeping.  “One has only to be a scribe, for the scribe takes the lead of all,” said the wise man.  Sometimes, however, a talented scribe rose to a high position, like the Amten, whose tomb was removed to Berlin by Lepsius, and who became a favourite of the king and was ennobled.

V.—­The Memphite Empire

At that time “the Majesty of King Huni died, and the Majesty of King Snofrui arose to be a sovereign benefactor over this whole earth.”  All we know of him is contained in one sentence:  he fought against the nomads of Sinai, constructed fortresses to protect the eastern frontier of the Delta, and made for himself a tomb in the form of a pyramid.  Snofrui called the pyramid “Kha,” the Rising, the place where the dead Pharaoh, identified with the sun, is raised above the world for ever.  It was built to indicate the place in which lies a prince, chief, or person of rank in his tribe or province.  The worship of Snofrui, the first pyramid-builders, was perpetuated from century to century.  His popularity was probably great; but his fame has been eclipsed in our eyes by that of the Pharaohs of the Memphite dynasty who immediately followed him—­Kheops, Khephren and Mykerinos.

Khufui, the Kheops of the Greeks, was probably son of Snofrui.  He reigned twenty-three years, successfully defended the valuable mines of copper, manganese and turquoise of the Sinaitic peninsula against the Bedouin; restored the temple of Hathor at Dendera; embellished that of Babastis; built a sanctuary to the Isis of the Sphinx; and consecrated there gold, silver and bronze statues of Horus and many other gods.  Other Pharaohs had done as much or more; but the Egyptians of later dynasties measured the magnificence of Kheops by the dimensions of his pyramid at Ghizel.  The Great Pyramid was called Khuit, the “Horizon,” in which Kheops had to be swallowed up, as his father,