According to mythology, the Pharaoh is of divine essence.
According to the Heliopolitan cosmogony, before humans, the creator sun god who governs Egypt (see here and here). But Ra, tired, disappointed men decided to retire, leaving power to his descendants. After the episode of the Osirian myth, power falls to the Horus falcon. It transmits power to his descendants kinds of demigods, "the following of Horus" who themselves transmit to men, the Pharaohs. It is Horus who made the connection between royalty of gods and men. This transmission of royalty by the god Horus is an iconographic theme that keeps coming in the royal statuary.
The transmission of power
The legitimacy of the pharaoh based on the dogma of divine ancestry, power transmission occurs naturally from father to son or from brother to brother. The simplest case is the transfer of power to the eldest son of the Great Wife, but many kings awarded the title of "king's eldest son" to many of their son. To avoid succession disputes, Pharaoh takes care to incorporate the son who is to succeed him in power either by appointing him crown prince or commander in chief of the armies, or by linking to the throne as co-regent. At the time of Ramses, the crown prince is referred to as "Répat". In the battle scenes or ritual, the young prince participates alongside his father.
Seti I (not visible here) and his son (the future Ramesses II) recite the praises of previous rulers designated by signs placed below their cartridge. Temple of Seti I (nineteenth dynasty) at Abydos.
For lack of a male heir, the pharaoh function can befall a woman but rarely as pharaoh, usually as regent of power until the successor is male age to govern. For details, see the page.
In the absence of heir or disorders, the choice of the pharaoh could be a problem, it can not argue his divine essence by blood. Several means, such as theogamy, allowed the new pharaoh to be linked to a divine origin. In theogamy is the creator Re fruitful himself the king's mother, Pharaoh is generated directly by the god. The use of this method is employed for the first time to explain the origins of the Fifth Dynasty, and during the eighteenth dynasty Queen Hatshepsut and Amenhotep III. The term "son of Re" to refer to the pharaoh, has been known since the Fourth Dynasty. Thutmose III proclaims about Re: "is my father I'm his son He ordered me to sit on his throne, while I was in his nest He led the seed... his desire".
Other means allow the pharaoh to proclaim the elected creator: a wedding, a prodigy, a dream or an oracle can attest to the legitimacy of the new ruler. Thutmose III, born of a concubine and Pharaoh, legitimize their status by marrying his royal blood half-sister. Thutmose I, while he was sleeping at the foot of the Sphinx, was warned in a dream that he would become Pharaoh. Horemheb was appointed by the oracle of Amun.
In the case of a takeover by force, the new Pharaoh could argue that it is God who gave him the victory and had therefore elected.
Pharaoh: God or man?
Pharaoh is not a real God and not an ordinary man, he wants the intermediary between gods and men. Many pharaohs were openly criticized by their own subjects, showing the humanity of the king. What is divine is the function. One who has the power is the actor of the divine will. If divine inspiration through it, it does not have divine powers. The pharaoh can benefit wonders but never fulfilled them himself, the God who acts through him. The Pharaoh is only an intercessor.
The objective conditions that favored the emergence of monarchy
Geographical conditions and population probably played a decisive role in the formation of the Pharaonic monarchy. Egypt is a desert crossed by a capricious river that forms all along its course an oasis that gives life. Deserts surrounding Egypt isolate it from the rest of the world, creating a unity along the Nile. However, the settlement was originally highly fragmented, it resulted from the settlement of tribes of semi-nomadic pastoralists repressed deserts by the advent of an arid climate phase. The Nile flood forced these tribes to become agricultural focus in villages on hills. But each of these scattered human groups retained its traditions and its own gods. The Nile flood, like any natural phenomenon, was erratic and it could not be profitable without gigantic earthworks involving coordination of labor. This need to organize imposed a patriarchal monarchy *. Driven by necessity, this system of social organization set up the redistribution of the economy model. Political power became the owner of the land and the means of production. He was collecting the entire production and then distribute it among all members of society based on individual needs. But this organization necessarily implied a class of directors who were not producers and that should be better paid than farmers. The birth of a privileged class led to the development of a luxury craft and trade on the Nile. Some areas were specialized in certain productions or as commercial intermediaries. To avoid having to purchase the goods or to finance intermediary services, the ambitious princes used the war to appropriate neighboring regions. This annexation process leading to the unification of the three kingdoms in Upper Egypt around Coptos, and Hierakonpolis This. This absorbed the other two kingdoms of Upper Egypt and then around 3200 BC, she managed to conquer the Lower and Middle Egypt.
This violent unification should not appear as a crass material will of the prince but as inspired by the gods. Political unification was to lead to the cultural and religious unification, but to guarantee social peace, the gods of the conquered lands were incorporated into theological systems increasingly large and complicated. The god of the winner kept the prominent place, the gods of the conquered remained but were subordinate. With the total unification, the sun god Ra gradually became the main deity. We came to see that each of the deities could be interpreted as the local form of a single deity whose Ra was the main event.
However, controlling a vast state was not easy, even using the religion. The invention of writing would allow the administration to overcome this task.
* Jean yoyotte and Pascal Vernus in the "Dictionary of the Pharaohs", however, state that "if the early development of high culture in Egypt undoubtedly comes from the silty fertility restored annually by its river, the birth of the pharaonic state arises not the need to collectively develop the distribution of water the oldest evidence of a basin irrigation -. consequence of saharisation - date from around the year - in 2000, well after the old Kingdom and the powerful builders pyramids ".