Patronage in Early Egypt?

CAMPAGNO, MARCELO

Egypt at its Origins 5. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference "Origin of the State. Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt", Cairo, 13th ? 18th July 2014

Peeters

Lugar: Leuven; Año: 2017; p. 777 - 790

The importance of patronage practices in Ancient Egypt has been suggested for certain epochs such as the First Intermediate Period, when the prevalence of extra-kinship criteria of social subordination not directly linked to the monopoly of coercion can be detected. Although it has been proposed that patronage may thrive because of the crisis of the state, the same lines of evidence that indicate the existence of patronage in the First Intermediate Period are also available for the Old Kingdom ? which allows us to think that patronage could also thrive within the framework of the state dynamics ? andthey can be suspected for even earlier times. For the Early Dynastic Period, this paper will consider certain officials? ?rank? titles such as ?ms and smr ? which mainly indicate a relation of proximity to the king ? as well as the place of subsidiary tombs within the space organisation of some early state elite cemeteries, in order to propose a reflection on the relevance that patronage could have had in the structuration of society from the earliest stages of the Ancient Egyptian state.