tures, a natural event. Since people did not die on any significant scale from the effects of war, famine, cold, or floods this tended to focus people's attention on the occurrence of death as a primary, inexplicable disruption in their otherwise peaceful, repetitive lives.
It is often noted that the Egyptians had little interest in history. The Old.Kingdom left no signs of any historical writing nor did they often to refer to the example of those who had gone before them. The natural setting of Egypt was conducive to believing that things would always be as they were: the same rainless weather, the regularity of the stars and the seasons, the same life-giving rise and fall of the Nile year after year, and freedom from most of the external disruptions suffered by other civilizations. "History implies change, but life for the ancient Egyptians was unchanging and orderly" and this order was maintained by the person of the pharaoh (Jenkins 143).
This "world order" was embodied in the concept of ma'et, called after the goddess Ma'et who had the responsibility of maintaining the continuous regularity of existence (Malek 96). The responsibility was shared with the kings. The kings, viziers, for example, were both priests of Ma'et and the supreme administrators of justice and keepers of order in the kingdom (Malek 96). The Egyptians placed the highest value on continuity for only in the absence of change could this orderliness be maintained. It was not a goal they worked for, as most religions have utopian goals or visions of the perfection of the afterlife. Instead the ma'et existed in the here-and-now. Life as they knew it was order and the institution of kingship and the person of the king guaranteed it would not change.
It was not, of course, possible to avoid all change. Internal political conflict or the occasional failure of the Nile floods could disrupt the entire world of the Egyptians. In the face of such even...