Often, especially in the XIIth Dynasty, the king associated his heir on the throne with him to ensure the succession.
From time to time feudal conditions prevailed: the great landowners and local princes had establishments of their own on the model of the royal court, and were with difficulty kept in order by the monarch. In rare cases during the Middle Kingdom (inscriptions in the tomb of Ameni at Beni Hasan, graffiti in the quarries of Hanub) documents were dated in the years of reign of these feudatory nobles. Under the Empire all power was again centralized in the hands of the Pharaoh. The apportionment of duties amongst the swarm of officials varied from age to age, as did their titles. Members of the royal family generally held high office. Under the Empire Egypt was administered by a vast bureaucracy, at the head of which, responsible to the king, was the vizier, or sometimes two viziers, one for Upper Egypt, the other for Lower Egypt (in which case the former, stationed at Thebes, had the precedence). The duties of the vizier and the procedure in his court are detailed in a long inscription which is repeated in three tombs of the XVIIIth Dynasty at Thebes (Breasted, Records, ii. § 663 et seqq.). The strictest impartiality was enjoined upon him, and he was advised to hold aloof from the people in order to preserve his authority. The office of vizier was by no means a sinecure. All the business of the country was overlooked by him—treasury, taxation, army, law-courts, expeditions of every kind. Egypt was the vast estate of Pharaoh, and the vizier was the steward of it.
Army.—The youth of Egypt was liable to be called upon for service in the field under the local chiefs. Their training consisted of gymnastic and warlike exercises which developed strength and discipline that would be as useful in executing public works and in dragging large monuments as in strictly military service. They were armed in separate companies with bows and arrows, spears, daggers and shields, and the officers carried battle-axes and maces. The army, commanded in chief by Una under the VIth Dynasty for raids in Sinai or Palestine, comprised levies from every part of Egypt and from Nubia, each under its own leader. Under the New Empire, when Egypt was almost a military state, the army was a more specialized institution, the art of war in siege and strategy had developed, divisions were formed with special standards, there were regiments armed with battle-axes and scimitars, and chariots formed an essential part of the host. Egyptian cavalry are not represented upon the monuments, and we hear little of such at any time. Herodotus divides the army into two classes, the Calasiries and the Hermotybies; these names, although he was not aware of it, mean respectively horse- and foot-soldiers, but it is possible that the former name was only traditional and had characterized those who fought from chariots, a mode of warfare that was obsolete in Herodotus’s own day: as a matter of fact both classes are said to have served on the warships of Xerxes’ fleet.
Arms and Armour.—From the contents of graves and other
remains, and the sculptured and painted scenes, an approximate
idea can be obtained of the weapons of the Egyptians at all
periods from the prehistoric age onwards. Only a few points
are here noted. Stone mace-heads are found in the earliest
cemeteries, together with flint implements that may be the heads
of lances, &c., and thin leaf-shaped daggers of bronze. Stone
arrow-heads are common on the surface of the desert. Thin
bronze arrow-heads appear at an early date; under the Empire
they are stouter and furnished with a tang, and later still,
towards the Greek period, they are socketed (often three-sided),
or, if of iron, still tanged. The wooden club, a somewhat primitive
weapon, seems to have been considered characteristic of
foreigners from very early times, and, in scenes dating from the
Middle Kingdom, belong principally to the levies from the
surrounding barbarians. The dagger grew longer and stouter,
but the sword made its appearance late, probably first in the
hands of the Sherdana (Sardinian?), mercenaries of the time of
Rameses II. A peculiar scimitar, khopsh 
, is characteristic of
the Empire. Slings are first heard of in Egyptian warfare in the
8th century B.C. The chariot was doubtless introduced with
the horse in the Hyksos period; several examples have been
discovered in the tombs of the New Kingdom. Shields were
covered with ox-hide and furnished with round sighting-holes
above the middle. Cuirasses of bronze scales were worn by the
kings and other leaders. The linen corslets of the Egyptian
soldiery at a later time were famous, and were adopted by the
Persian army. According to the paintings of the Middle Kingdom
in the tombs of Beni Hasan, the battlements of brick fortresses
were attacked and wrenched away with long and massive spears.
No siege engines are depicted, even in the time of the Empire,
and the absence of original representations after the XXth
Dynasty renders it difficult to judge the advances made in the
art of war during the first half of the last millennium B.C. The
inscription of Pankhi, however, proves that in the 8th century
approaches and towers were raised against the walls of besieged
cities.
Priesthood.—The priesthood was in a great degree hereditary, though perhaps not essentially so. In each temple the priests were divided into four orders (until Ptolemy Euergetes added a fifth), each of which served in turn for a lunar month under the chief priest or prophet. They received shares of the annual revenues of the temple in kind, consisting of linen, oil, flesh, bread, vegetables, wine, beer, &c. The “divine servants” or “prophets” had residences assigned them in the temple area. In late times the priests were always shaven, and paid the greatest attention to cleanliness and ceremonial purity already implied in their ancient name. Fish and beans then were abhorred by them. Among the priests were the most learned men of Egypt, but probably many were illiterate. For the Hellenistic period see W. Otto, Priester und Tempel im hellenistichen Ägypten (Leipzig, 1905 foll.).
For ancient Egyptian life and civilization in all departments, the principal work is Ad. Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, translated by H. M. Tirard (London, 1894), (the original Ägypten und ägyptisches Leben im Altertum, 2 vols., was published in 1885 at Tübingen); G. Maspero, Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria, translated by A. P. Morton (London, 1892), (Lectures historiques, Paris, 1890); also J. G. Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, new ed. by S. Birch (3 vols., London, 1878). The annual Archaeological Reports of the Egypt Exploration Fund contain summaries of the work done each year in the several departments of research.
Of the innumerable publications of Egyptian monuments, scenes and inscriptions, C. R. Lepsius, Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien (Berlin, 1849–1859), and Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of the Egypt Exploration Fund, may be specified. For antiquities in museums there is the sumptuous Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du musée de Caire; for excavations the Memoirs of the Egypt Exploration Fund, of the Research Account, of the British School of Archaeology, of the Liverpool School of Archaeology, of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, of the Hearst Egyptian Expedition, of the Theodore M. Davis excavations (Tombs of the Kings).
Trade and Money.—There is little evidence to show how buying and selling were carried on in ancient Egypt. A unique scene in a tomb of the IVth Dynasty, however, shows men and women exchanging commodities against each other—fish, fish-hooks, fans, necklaces, &c. Probably this was a market in the open air such as is held weekly at the present time in every considerable village. Rings of metal, gold, silver and bronze played some part in exchange, and from the Hyksos period onwards formed the usual standards by which articles of all kinds might be valued. In the XVIIIth Dynasty the value of meat, &c., was reckoned in gold; somewhat later copper seems the commonest standard, and under the Deltaic dynasties silver. But barter must have prevailed much longer. The precious metals were kept in the temples under the tutelage of the deities. During the XXVth and XXVIth Dynasties silver of the treasury of Harshafe (at Heracleopolis Magna) was commonly prescribed in contracts, and in the reign of Darius we hear of silver of the treasury of Ptah (at Memphis). Aryandes, satrap of Egypt, is said by Herodotus to have been punished by Darius for coining money of equal fineness with that of the king in Persia: thus coinage had then begun in Egypt. But the early coins that have been found there are mainly Greek, and especially Athenian, and it was not until the introduction of a regular currency in the three
