The wab priests carried out the essential but fairly mundane tasks of taking care of the temple complex and performing whatever function they were called upon for, such as helping to prepare for festivals. In time, however, the priests began to serve themselves more than either. Egyptologist Marc van de Mieroop writes: The god made decisions of state in actual practice. Ancient Egypt Daily Life. Ancient History Encyclopedia Foundation is a non-profit organization. In the fire ritual, the priests would gather before dawn in a sacred room close to the god's shrine and re-enact the first appearance of the sun by lighting a fire in a brazier. When the first pharaoh came to power, the sepats remained and were much like the counties in many countries today. Retrieved from https://www.ancient.eu/article/1026/. Amun increasingly was regarded as the King of the Gods and became the political power at Thebes through his grand temple at Karnak and the manipulations of the priesthood there. Ancient Egypt map domain stretched from the delta of the Nile in the north, to Elephantine Island, where is the first cataract of the Nile in the south. The temples of ancient Egypt were not houses of worship for the people but the earthly homes of the gods. Following Lighting the Fire came Drawing the Bolt which was when the door was unlocked to the shrine room where the statue of the god resided. There were as many duties and rituals as there were priests, but the high-ranking clergy participated daily in two which were considered of utmost importance: Lighting the Fire and Drawing the Bolt. For the most part, however, the people of Egypt interacted with their gods privately or during the many festivals held throughout the year. The priesthood was therefore allowed to flourish and became especially powerful at Thebes. All the people, by observing ma'at, helped to maintain the order established by the gods through heka, but a special class was responsible for honoring and caring for the gods daily, and this was the priesthood. The population of ancient Egypt was divided into groups of people with different jobs and responsibilities to society. Ancient Roman priests were charged with performing the religious rituals with exactness and scrupulous care so as to maintain the gods' good will and support for Rome.They didn't necessarily have to understand the words, but there could be no mistake or untoward event; otherwise, the ceremony would have to be re-staged and the mission delayed. Temples. A ka-priest (also known as a ka-servant) was paid by a family to perform the daily offerings at the tomb of the deceased. Egyptologist Margaret Bunson comments on this: In time the priests would witness the downfall of their own shrines and temples and others of their ranks would enter the political world with ambitions. Last modified March 07, 2017. It extends to 30 BC when Egypt finally became a province of Rome. The priests not only lived off the offerings given to the gods but were able to profit from the land they owned, whose bounty was out of reach of the royal treasury. Head of the Egyptian Priest Iufenamunby Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin (CC BY-NC-SA). This social pyramid shows the levels of each social class in terms of importance. Ancient Egypt had its origin in the course of the Nile River.It reached three periods of great pharaonic splendor: the Ancient Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom. Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River, situated in the place that is now the country Egypt.Ancient Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3100 BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology) with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under Menes (often identified with Narmer). A regular Festival of the Divine Audience took place at Karnak when the god's statue communicated through oracles, by nodding assent when he agreed. 46. The high priest was considered sanctified enough to share the presence of the god but no one else until the New Kingdom when the office of God's Wife of Amun was elevated under Ahmose I (c. 1570-1544 BCE). Ancient History Encyclopedia. The priests served the gods, not the people. This behavior was directed by the central cultural value, ma'at (harmony and balance) which was sustained by an underlying force known as heka (magic). 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