King Snefru founder of the Fourth Dynasty
He is the first king of the Fourth Dynasty, and he wanted to imitate his great grandfather “Zosser”, so he built two tombs close together, both of which are pyramid-shaped, and they remain until now. The people called it the false pyramid due to its irregular shape, and we are completely unaware in which of the two pyramids King “Sneferu” was buried. During his reign, a great naval expedition to the Syrian ports was carried out. The Egyptians returned with about forty ships loaded with timber for construction that was cut from the forests of Lebanon. The wood was brought from The regions of Lebanon to Egypt by all means because the regions of the Egyptian country were free of forests. Egypt, during the era of this king, was a united kingdom with fixed pillars. All the combined power was in the hands of the king, who replaced the chiefs of the tribes. Since the king was the inheritor of the idol of the tribes, the people came to believe in him that he was a true god. When he moved around his palace or outside it, his flock had to kneel before his divine majesty and kiss the dirt under his feet, and at his coronation, a great celebration was held for him. The coronation day was considered a day of feast and joys, celebrated annually, and since he was the mediator. Among the people and their gods, it was an acquired right for him to take the position of the chief priest in all temples and all religious rites, as well as the king was considered in the eyes of the greats of his country and his entourage that he was a god. After his death, the tomb containing his remains was sanctified as the shrine of any god. His entourage was The dignitaries of the country are buried around his grave or near it to render their services to him in the abode of the hereafter with the same loyalty and sincerity that they are accustomed to while alive.
Egypt was divided into provinces, which tribes may have inhabited since the pre-dynastic era, which Greece called the word “noom,” meaning a province. From the first waterfall to Memphis, Upper Egypt consisted of 22 provinces, and Lower Egypt included 20 provinces.
In the era of “Sneferu”, each province had a governor appointed by the king, nicknamed “the first after the king.” The orders came from the king alone, who had everything in his hand. Since the king lived in Upper Egypt, it appears that he did not delegate anyone to represent him in carrying out his orders in this section of the kingdom, unlike Lower Egypt, for he was deputizing for him a senior official called the bearer of the king’s seal in the face. Al-Bahri, or the bearer of the seal as it is called in our time, was elected from the royal family.
Under the administration of the governor of the province or directorate, many officials helped him manage the affairs of the province. The royal family had to marry one of the daughters of the royal house, which was necessary for his successor to come with royal blood running through his veins.
And the gods in this time immemorial had temples made of stone, while the king used to live in a simple shelter made of mud, or of the Nile mud dried in the sun, and no one had the right to live in dwellings of stone except the dead because they were considered as gods.
It was thought that the temple of the king was free of inscriptions, but recent discoveries indicated that the temples of the kings were engraved like stones belonging to the tombs of the princes and the attic of the people. Which the dead was watching in his life, and its purpose was to represent to the king the life as he enjoyed it while he was in his world; in addition to that, these drawings give us a complete idea of ​​the social life in this era at the lofty people and the general public, they give us an idea of ​​art in this art The era and the extent of the Egyptian civilization in all its aspects. The idea that these social scenes first appeared in the tombs of notables and princes prevailed until the discovery last year of the funeral road extending between the valley temple and the funeral temple of the pyramid of King Unas, the last king of the Fifth Dynasty. On both sides of it appeared inscriptions and scenes indicating a clear indication that the kings first began to use these scenes, then the princes and nobles imitated them.