Kingship In Ancient Egyptian Society

Literary and artistic practices have long since given us an idea about the practices and culture within ancient civilizations, that we are still attempting to discover information today. Two civilizations that we have received the most knowledge about through their written text are Mesopotamia and Egypt. For the Egyptian perspective, The Instructions of Merikare, a letter addressed from a father to a son about how to be an effective pharaoh, is able to be analyzed to determine facts about kingship from the region. In Mesopotamia, to identify the same principles, we are able to look at an epic poem referred to as The Epic of Gilgamesh. The poem discusses a tale of a wretched king undergoing a journey to find immortality to show characteristics of what a king should …show more content…
During a side by side comparison of the pieces, the aspects of similarity and difference between the two to gather a full range of what it truly means to be a king can clearly be identified. Religion is a key component of any society, even those we have today. This is why it stands to reason that the perception of Gods in both Egyptian and Mesopotamian societies mold aspects such as libation, the afterlife, and even kingship. To begin, a key point of comparison between the two regions is the practice of a king claiming divine rule. In other words, the King is declaring that he is a direct descent of the Gods. While this practice takes place in Egypt, Mesopotamians have a fear of such statements. This can be seen in the beginning of The Epic of Gilgamesh when Gilgamesh is depicted as an out of control, horrendous man who claims to be two-thirds god. He sleeps with married women before their husband, starts brawls, steals for the fun of it to name a few. Gilgamesh is behaving