other materials needed in construction; a corps of engineers,
technicians and skilled workers, and a substantial mass of humanity
which provided the energy needed to erect the temples, monuments and
other remains which testify to the political, economic, and cultural
competence of the ruling elements and the technical skills present in
the Old Kingdom.

Foremost among the factors responsible for the success of the Old
Kingdom was the close partnership between the "lords temporal" and the
"lords spiritual"--the state and the church. The state consisted of a
highly centralized monarchy ruled by a Pharoah who personified temporal
authority. This authority was strengthened because it represented a
consensus of the many gods recognized and worshiped by the Egyptians of
the Old Kingdom. The monarch was also looked upon as an embodiment of
divinity. Some Egyptian pharoahs had been priests who became rulers.
Others had been rulers who became priests. The two aspects of public
life--political and religious--were closely interrelated.

In theory the land of Egypt was the property of the Pharoah. Foreign
trade was a state monopoly. In practice the ownership and use of land
were shared with the temples and with those members of the nobility
closest to the ruling monarch. Hence there were state lands and state
income and temple lands and temple income. The use of state lands was
alloted to favorites. Each temple had land which it used for its own
purposes.

Political power in the Old Kingdom was a tight monopoly held by the
ruling dynasty of the period. During preceding epochs it seems likely
that rival groups or factions had gone through a period of
power-survival struggle which eliminated one rival after another until