LINEN]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
Bey; the original is at Gizeh

If one had held a post in the royal household, however low the
occupation, it was something to be proud of all one's life, and after
death to boast of in one's epitaph. The chiefs to whom this army of
servants rendered obedience at times rose from the ranks; on some
occasion their master had noticed them in the crowd, and had transferred
them, some by a single promotion, others by slow degrees, to the
highest offices of the state. Many among them, however, belonged to
old families, and held positions in the palace which their fathers
and grandfathers had occupied before them, some were members of the
provincial nobility, distant descendants of former royal princes and
princesses, more or less nearly related to the reigning sovereign.*

* It was the former who, I believe, formed the class of
_rokhu sûton_ so often mentioned on the monuments. This
title is generally supposed to have been a mark of
relationship with the royal family. M. de Rougé proved long
ago that this was not so, and that functionaries might bear
this title even though they were not blood relations of the
Pharaohs. It seems to me to have been used to indicate a
class of courtiers whom the king condescended to "know"
(_rokhu_) directly, without the intermediary of a
chamberlain, the "persons known by the king;" the others
were only his "friends" (samirû).

They had been sought out to be the companions of his education and of