2024. Disponible
by Émilie Martinet. — Book in French.
The question of how elites were formed is crucial to understanding the stability of the Pharaonic civilisation, one of the oldest and most enduring political entities in history. The Old Kingdom (2700-2160), characterised by the construction of the pyramids and the establishment of a territorial state, represents a relevant field of application due to the considerable increase in epigraphic, papyrological and archaeological documentation in recent years.
Provincial elites played an essential role in the Egyptian state and the monarchy's access to the various resources found in or passing through the provinces.
Émilie Martinet proposes an innovative theory to explain the emergence of provincial elites at this time, based on an exhaustive cross-analysis of sources and contributions from the renewal of studies on elites in history and sociology. Divided into five chapters, this historical essay looks successively at the concept of elites in Egyptology, the mechanisms of emergence and enrichment of provincial elites, the gradual spread of elite culture from the capital to the provinces during the Old Kingdom, the factors of social reproduction of these elites and their sometimes violent opposition, as well as similar processes of the rise to power of elite groups in ancient societies.
Table of contents and more details
