Utilisateur:Soutekh67/Brouillon
- → N'hésitez pas à publier sur le brouillon un texte inachevé et à le modifier autant que vous le souhaitez.
- → Pour enregistrer vos modifications au brouillon, il est nécessaire de cliquer sur le bouton bleu : « Publier les modifications ». Il n'y a pas d'enregistrement automatique.
Si votre but est de publier un nouvel article, votre brouillon doit respecter les points suivants :
- Respectez le droit d'auteur en créant un texte spécialement pour Wikipédia en français (pas de copier-coller venu d'ailleurs).
- Indiquez les éléments démontrant la notoriété du sujet (aide).
- Liez chaque fait présenté à une source de qualité (quelles sources – comment les insérer).
- Utilisez un ton neutre, qui ne soit ni orienté ni publicitaire (aide).
- Veillez également à structurer votre article, de manière à ce qu'il soit conforme aux autres pages de l'encyclopédie (structurer – mettre en page).
- → Si ces points sont respectés, pour transformer votre brouillon en article, utilisez le bouton « publier le brouillon » en haut à droite. Votre brouillon sera alors transféré dans l'espace encyclopédique.
Brouillon du brouillon
The household was the basic unit of ancient Egyptian social organization. Its composition varied, however, depending on administrative or sociological considerations: administrative records focus on nuclear families, while private sources stress the importance of the extended family. Households included not only people linked by family ties, but also serfs, clients, dependants, and “friends,” sometimes encompassing hundreds of people. As for their sources of wealth, households consisted of patrimonial and institutional goods, and strategies were employed to keep and increase resources within the family. Nevertheless, menaces such as debts, shortages, or disputes over inheritances could lead to the disappearance of households—hence the importance of ideological values that tied together their members while celebrating their cohesion, autonomy, and genealogical pride.
The Egyptian term pr (“house” or “household” being its commonest designations) appears in administrative documents as the basic unit of social organization, and the rich ideological nuances it bore are particularly evident in its inclusion in phraseology for certain territorial units (e.g., pr Hww “the domain of [the governor] Khuu”) or even kingdoms (e.g.,pr Hty “the House of Khety,” the Herakleopolitan kingdom in the First Intermediate Period). It is not insignificant that both the pharaoh and the state were equated with the notion of the pr-aA “the big house,” and Egyptologists such as Lehner have argued that the entire Egyptian state should be interpreted as a “household of households” instead of a heavily centralized state. However, administrative and sociological images of households could diverge widely. Censuses, for example, tended to focus on nuclear families, thus giving a partial and biased picture of Egyptian society because their main purpose was to record fiscal information (manpower and resources available in fixed, accessible units) rather than (changing) social structures: “I assessed households at the (appropriate) numbers thereof and I have separated out the gangs from their households” (statue biography of Amenhotep, son of Hapu); indeed households usually provided goods and manpower to the state: Yet occasional archaeological and textual evidence reveals the importance of extended families and kinship, an aspect hardly evoked at all in official sources. This does not mean that households were highly cohesive, hyperresilient structures either. Inner and external threats tested their endurance and opened the way for change: on the one hand, conflicts of interest between the demands of kin and the particular ambitions of individuals could lead to the disintegration of a formerly solid household, whereas heritage concerns might encourage special arrangements aimed at the preservation of family assets, as in cases where brothers held (together) fields and houses. Other risks, which weighed heavily on the cycles of family reproduction (especially of peasants), and household strategies and their viability in the long term, were debts and serfdom, whereas elite households faced specific threats such as falling from favor or factional discord—including the murder of entire families. What emerges from these considerations is that the very notion of “household” encompasses a broad range of situations, subject to changes over time, and that it would be misleading to found its study only on administrative sources.
The Egyptian Household
The nuclear family has been traditionally regarded as the core of social structure on the basis of architecture (both civil and funerary), iconography, and administrative records. Nevertheless, architectural evidence comes mainly from a limited number of sites, such as Deir el- Medina, Lahun, and el-Amarna , often designed by the state according to an orthogonal grid and created to fulfil specific purposes. But a careful re-examination of their remains, as in the case of Lahun, shows nevertheless that houses apparently planned for nuclear families were subsequently modified by their inhabitants and adapted to the needs of extended families . As for private tombs and statuary, the iconography stresses the central role played by the owner, his wife, and sons; however, secondary shafts and inhumations were also arranged for other members of his kin, a characteristic mainly visible in provincial mastabas, whose multiple burials prove that they were often designed for the needs of extended families . Finally, it cannot be excluded that dwellings housing nuclear families in villages, towns, and cities were in fact grouped by neighborhoods or residential quarters mainly inhabited by extended families: a passage in the Instruction of Papyrus Insinger , for instance, lists the house at, the extended family >mhwt<, the village/town tmj, and the province, in ascending order . Some archaeological evidence has also been adduced . In any case, the collapse of the state at the end of the third millennium was followed by frequent mentions of the extended family (Abt) both in private inscriptions and funerary texts. Taking care of one’s >Abt< figures prominently in monumental texts, while some formulae in the Coffin Texts enumerate the categories of people encompassed by this term and constituting the household of the deceased; its core was formed by the deceased’s father, mother, children, siblings, and serfs (>mrt<) (CT II: 151, 152, 154-155, 164, 181-183; III: 52), as well as by other people related to him by social, not familial, links, such as fellow citizens (>dmj<), companions (>jrj-rmnw<), friends (xnmsw), loved ones (mryt), associates (smAw), and concubines (mt-Hnwt) (CT II: 181-183). Broadly speaking, a distinction was made between his extended family (Abt, including his serfs) and his dependants, subordinates, and acquaintances (hnw) (CT II: 174-177; Urk. IV: 1398:“all his kindred together with the household”, a distinction outlined by other sources where the extended family (hAw, also including the serfs,bAkw) together with the friends (xnmsw) constituted (rmTj nbt “all my people”. Other late third-millennium sources, such as some execration texts, confirm this picture as they also evoke, for the first time, the members of a household instead of the traditional lists of Egyptian and foreign enemies . Like the ink inscriptions found on many jars at the necropolis of Qubbet el-Hawa , they provide detailed insight into the composition and social life of the households of local high officials, their tombs being foci of rituals and the deliveries of offerings tying together their kin as well as a dense web of relations, including clients and eminent local personalities . The dead were also considered members of the household (a Late Period stela explicitly represents the deceased relatives among the extended family [Abt] of a lady, and petitions were addressed to them in order to solve domestic problems . Later on, during theMiddle Kingdom, private stelae evoked complex genealogies and were often placed in family cenotaphs; in some cases, they took the form of long lists of what seems to be the heads of households linked together by unspecified ties .New Kingdom texts mention individuals involved in lawsuits over family property held by a group of brothers or by a group of descendants of a common ancestor . Finally, during the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods, censuses list only nuclear families while private archives reveal that personal affairs and sales concerned, in fact, other relatives as well as the members of extended families . To sum up, Egyptian households should not be considered limited to nuclear families as they were frequently multifaceted social networks embracing other relatives, serfs, clients, subordinates, and dependants, especially at the uppermost levels of Pharaonic society. Thus, the silos in the richest villas ofel- Amarna could be interpreted both as indicators of status and as the foci of a redistributive system involving not only their owners but also their relatives and dependants, also considered members of the household . “Middle class” papyri and houses show that the same principle was operative, although on a smaller scale, in the households of relatively modest officials and individuals
Households Composition
The composition of households varied greatly depending on their social status, as the Egyptian vocabulary displays a wide range of terms, from those referring strictly to blood relations to those including individuals linked to the household as co-residents, serfs, clients, “friends,” or dependants—their nuances being quite often difficult to specify (cf. <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy"> Abt, wHyt, mhwt, hAw, hnw, Xnw, Xrw </tei:foreign> , etc.; <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib014">Franke 1983: 178 - 301</tei:ref> ). <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000032">Heqanakht</tei:ref> , a moderately well-off official of the <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000332">Middle Kingdom</tei:ref> , mentions eighteen people belonging to his household, including his mother, his second wife, his son, two daughters, his older aunt or daughter, his youngest brother, his foreman (and his dependants), three cultivators, and three female servants ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib003"> Allen 2002: 116 - 117 </tei:ref> ). The contemporary general Sebeki represents in his <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000071">stela</tei:ref> his wife, two sons, two daughters, his brother, his sister, his mother, her (second?) husband with his five sons, his mother, the daughter of his mother, seven cultivators, ten female servants, and three other men ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib054"> Schoske 1995: 97 and fig. 108 </tei:ref> ). As for the households of the highest members of the elite, they could integrate hundreds of people (including dozens of servants; according to <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000332">Middle</tei:ref> and <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000115">New Kingdom</tei:ref> sources, from 60 to as many as 150 serfs were transferred to dignitaries: <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib043">Moreno García 2008: 115 - 116</tei:ref> ), many of whom are depicted in their tombs (e.g., the Old Kingdom Saqqara tombs of Ti or Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep). But archaeological evidence suggests that the average number of people living in a small to medium house would have been six, and an average of two or three children living with their parents seems logical. One or two more people—either dependant relatives or servants—were possibly also resident. Therefore it can be estimated that the number of people living in such a house was five to eight, with an average of six ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib026">Koltsida 2007</tei:ref> ). <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000150">Hellenistic</tei:ref> censuses show that an Egyptian household included two adults and two children on average ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib056">Thompson 2002</tei:ref>
<tei:ref type="citation" target="bib008"> Clarysse and Thompson 2006: 226 - 317 </tei:ref> ). In the case of high officials a formal distinction was made between their family household and the domains allowed by the state. Thus, Hapidjefa of Siut, in the early <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000332">Middle Kingdom</tei:ref> , distinguished carefully between his own family household ( <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">pr jt</tei:foreign> , “the house of the father”) and the domain granted to him as a reward for his position as governor ( <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">pr HAtj-a</tei:foreign> , “the house of the governor”); domains of this kind usually included not only provisions but also serfs, fields, specialized workers, and a suitable residence ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib028">Lacau 1933: 11</tei:ref> ). Leaving aside these rather specific cases, the autonomous household is thought to have been an ensemble formed by an extended family ( <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">Abt</tei:foreign> ) and their fields ( <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">AHwt</tei:foreign> ) put under the authority of the residence ( <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">pr/Hwt</tei:foreign> ) of the household head, an ideal echoed by the ritual texts (CT II: 159). </tei:p> <tei:p xml:id="para5"> Nevertheless, such an ideal of self-sufficiency was hardly achievable for many Egyptians, who were thus obliged to depend on powerful or influential fellow citizens and to join their patronage networks to the point of being considered part of their households. In other cases, such networks provided a kind of “vertical integration” in addition to the “horizontal” one constituted by family and neighbors, thus linking high officials to minor ones, local potentates to courtiers, and officials to ordinary workers and citizens. A <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000115">New Kingdom</tei:ref> <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000096">ostracon</tei:ref> , for instance, reports that fugitive oarsmen were found in the company of prominent officials at different locations in the <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000458">Delta</tei:ref> ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib017">Gabolde 2008: 187 - 190, 196, fig. 2</tei:ref> ). Interestingly, <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000331">Old Kingdom</tei:ref> lists of personnel frequently state that workers were actually replaced by their wives, fathers, brothers, sons, or daughters, or by other persons (referred to by such terms as <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">sn-Dt</tei:foreign> or <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">Dt</tei:foreign> ) ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib042">Moreno García 2007: 126 - 129</tei:ref> ). <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000332">Middle Kingdom</tei:ref> papyri from <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000461">Lahun</tei:ref> confirm this practice: in one case the names of several workers were accompanied by annotations specifying that they should be brought in person or replaced by their wives, mothers, or <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000361">Asiatics</tei:ref> (serfs?) ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib033">Luft 2006: 92 - 93</tei:ref> ); in another case, a governor requested two workers or, in their place, men or women from among their own dependants ( <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">Xr</tei:foreign> ) ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib032">Luft 2002</tei:ref> ); finally, another papyrus not only listed a labor force but also identified the persons (usually priests and officials) for whom the worker answered the call (in one case the substitute was a <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">Xr</tei:foreign>
<tei:ref type="citation" target="bib010"> Collier and Quirke 2006: 44 - 45 </tei:ref> ). Sometimes, workers recruited on a local basis came from the households ( <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">pr</tei:foreign> ) and districts ( <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">rmny</tei:foreign> ) of provincial potentates ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib004">Arnold 1990: 26</tei:ref> ). <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000115">New Kingdom</tei:ref> sources also mention tenants acting as agents of scribes ( <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000633"> Wilbour Papyrus A 90,8 </tei:ref> ). At a higher social level, clients or colleagues were expected to replace their “patrons” when performing ritual services in the temples ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib042"> Moreno García 2007: 128 </tei:ref> ). In exchange for their services, the superior was expected to take care of his subjects (for example, in case of illness, lawsuits, etc.: <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib007">Chauveau 2000</tei:ref>
<tei:ref type="citation" target="bib047">Müller, M. 2009: 264</tei:ref> ). Such bonds linking clients and subordinates to their patron’s household were significantly marked by the use of kinship terms. Thus, compulsory workers were sometimes described as the “sons” of prominent citizens: “N, <tei:hi rend="italics"> he is called the son of Senbebu, a priest of Thinis </tei:hi> ,” “N, <tei:hi rend="italics"> he is called the son of Hepu, a commander of soldiers [of This </tei:hi> ]” ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib018">Hayes 1955: 25 - 26</tei:ref> ), while palatial officials were explicitly labeled as “friends” ( <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">xnms.f</tei:foreign> ) or “(pseudo-)children” ( <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">Xrd.f</tei:foreign> ) of their superior ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib015">Franke 2003: 74</tei:ref> ). More clearly, the patron-client relationship was sometimes formalized by means of legal contracts ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib051">Pestman 1994: 37</tei:ref> ), even by fictitious adoptions that masked what constituted, in fact, the voluntary servitude of the person called <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">Srj</tei:foreign> “son” ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib034">Malinine and Pirenne 1950: 76 - 77</tei:ref> ). Lastly, vertical integration often implied that someone was the client or subordinate of another person who, in turn, proved to be the client of a third individual ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib042"> Moreno García 2007: 136 </tei:ref>
<tei:ref type="citation" target="bib044">2009</tei:ref> ). </tei:p> <tei:p xml:id="para6"> A further characteristic of the composition of a household is that it changed according to the life cycle and attendant circumstances of its members. <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000332">Middle Kingdom</tei:ref> papyri from <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000461">Lahun</tei:ref> show, for example, that the (nuclear) family of soldier Hori included his wife and his young son. Later on, after the death of his father, he appears as the head of a household also encompassing his mother and five aunts, thus suggesting that, in fact, his family and that of his father shared residence, that multiple family households were acknowledged by the administration if only one male family head was present in the household and, consequently, that two adult males in one household represented two unconnected units from an administrative point of view. At an even later period, Hori seems to have died and his son <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000832">Sneferu</tei:ref> became the head of the household, which now consisted of six people ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib027">Kóthay 2001: 354 - 355</tei:ref> ). Another example, from late <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000115">New Kingdom</tei:ref> <tei:placeName key="p000190">Deir el-Medina</tei:placeName> , describes a lady living in her husband’s house while, later on, she and her daughter lived in the house of a married son without children ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib012"> Demarée and Valbelle 2011: 6 and 35 </tei:ref> ). Outside these institutional settlements, where only one man could be (administratively) the head of a household, women are occasionally attested as heads-of-household in rural environments, as in the case of the 4th Dynasty household ( <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">pr.s</tei:foreign> “her house”) of the lady Tepi, made up of a scribe, a letter carrier ( <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">jrj mDAt</tei:foreign> ), and a “property manager” ( <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">jrj jxt</tei:foreign> ) ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib053">Posener-Kriéger 2004: pl. 16H</tei:ref> ) </tei:p> </tei:div> <tei:div> <tei:head>Forming and Dissolving Households</tei:head> <tei:p xml:id="para7"> Founding a household was a highly praised act in <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000116">Pharaonic</tei:ref> times, celebrated both in teachings and literature. The troubled times at the end of the third millennium introduced many ideological innovations in private beliefs and self-presentation, with emphasis now put on one’s own initiative, autonomy, and achievements. The concept of restoring the family household ( <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">grg pr jt</tei:foreign> “to restore the house of the father”) became quite popular, and the protagonists usually stated that they had found their family households ruined, but had successfully rebuilt and enriched them, and subsequently transferred them to their heirs, thus ensuring the continuity of their lineage. What is more, the same ideology outlined the piety of the protagonists by asserting that they had given houses to disadvantaged people such as orphans, young women, or, simply, persons deprived of a household. Finally, their own merit was further highlighted because of their condition as the youngest child risen from a family with many heirs ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib036"> Moreno García 1997: 39 - 45 </tei:ref> ). Such an ideal was, nevertheless, confronted with much harsher realities, when debts contracted in hard times, hazardous economic decisions, contested or problematic inheritances, or basic penury could result in the loss of family property or in the destruction of a household ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib005"> Bakir 1952: 85 - 86 </tei:ref>
<tei:ref type="citation" target="bib049"> Parker 1962: 49 - 52 </tei:ref>
<tei:ref type="citation" target="bib057">Willems 1991</tei:ref> ). </tei:p> </tei:div> <tei:div> <tei:head>Economic and Social Strategies of Households</tei:head> <tei:p xml:id="para8"> The economic strategies followed by Egyptian households naturally depended on their status and wealth. Nevertheless, certain points deserve attention. As stated previously, selfsufficiency was an ideal hardly attainable for many Egyptians, who were thus forced to borrow from richer neighbors, to work (at least part-time or seasonally) for institutions and wealthier neighbors, or to enter into patronage networks that perpetuated social inequalities between households. Late thirdmillennium sources evoke these problems, probably current in a rural environment: on the one hand, wealthy individuals boasted about their autonomy and acquisitions when lending staple cereals, yokes, and livestock, and acquiring fields, serfs, and flocks, especially in periods of crisis; on the other hand, indebted people lost their goods and became the serfs of other people ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib057">Willems 1991</tei:ref>
<tei:ref type="citation" target="bib036"> Moreno García 1997: 32 - 44 </tei:ref>
<tei:ref type="citation" target="bib037">2000</tei:ref> ). Young women seem to have been particularly vulnerable and the first members of indebted households to be enslaved ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib037"> Moreno García 2000: 136 - 137 </tei:ref> ). It is also quite possible that debts and loans reinforced the influence of local potentates and lubricated social ties between peers, as is exemplified in the archive of <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000032">Heqanakht</tei:ref>
- up to twelve persons owed
<tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000032">Heqanakht</tei:ref> cereals, while he himself leased land from well-off neighbors ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib003">Allen 2002</tei:ref> ). In some cases, the sources offer a glimpse of individual strategies: thus one Ikeni bought land from several persons (mostly priests) during a troubled year (lit. “the bad time”; in one case the field of a lady was actually sold by a male kinsman of her household). Most of the fields were located “by the well of Ikeni,” therefore suggesting that he pursued the control of land around a water source of his own ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib049">Parker 1962: 49 - 52</tei:ref> ). As for the lady Tsenhor, she built up a modest (but not unsubstantial) asset: she acquired a slave, obtained a building area, inherited part of a building, a cow, and a field of 11 <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000423">arouras</tei:ref> from her father, and, finally, she acquired some income as a <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">choachyte</tei:foreign> , or mortuary priest ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib051">Pestman 1994</tei:ref> ). The detailed archive of <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000032">Heqanakht</tei:ref> also provides a good picture of the composition of the household of a well-off Egyptian: it included about eighteen persons, a sizeable amount of land (between 55 and 110 <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000423">arouras</tei:ref> ) and 35 head of cattle, and its owner was also involved in other lucrative activities such as renting out and leasing land, and lending cereals to neighbors ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib003">Allen 2002</tei:ref> ). Other well-documented socio-economic activities in modest households include the domestic production of women (especially clothes), small credit, exchanges of gifts and agricultural products, and transactions between villagers ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib026">Koltsida 2007: 142</tei:ref> ). Wealthier households participated in more profitable activities like leasing land from temples, buying and selling real estate (especially urban houses), or lending money, as late legal manuals and contracts show ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib013">Donker van Heel 1990</tei:ref>
<tei:ref type="citation" target="bib035">Martin 1995</tei:ref>
<tei:ref type="citation" target="bib002">Agut- Labordère 2011</tei:ref> ). </tei:p> <tei:p xml:id="para9"> If bad years tested the resilience of households, inheritances and the subsequent fragmentation of property holdings (including family land and houses) were another threat, which could be avoided through the collective possession of land and buildings, such as by creating (transmissible) shares giving rights to a part of a house or of the incomes from a field (cf. <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib024">Kitchen 1969 – 1976: 803 - 806</tei:ref>
<tei:ref type="citation" target="bib016">Gaballa 1977</tei:ref>
<tei:ref type="citation" target="bib048">Muhs 2008</tei:ref> ). Conflicts of interest between an official and his kin about the institutional goods granted to him were not unknown, for example, in situations where the (extended) family claimed the right to dispose of property while the individual tried to keep these goods for himself or for his immediate offspring; in some cases, officials actually forbade their siblings and family from using the funds allocated for their own funerary service ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib045">Moreno García 2010</tei:ref> ). </tei:p> <tei:p xml:id="para10"> Finally, sources are most explicit when dealing with strategies undertaken by powerful households to preserve their power bases. 6th Dynasty inscriptions from <tei:ref type="article" target="uee1641">Akhmim</tei:ref> show, for instance, that a high official called Tjeti- Kaihep abandoned a very promising career at the court, in <tei:placeName key="p000264">Memphis</tei:placeName> , and returned to <tei:ref type="article" target="uee1641">Akhmim</tei:ref> in order to replace his (prematurely deceased?) elder brother as chief of the local temple and “great overlord of the nome,” two positions traditionally held by his family and which ensured them a leading role in the province. Apparently, Tjeti-Kaihep preferred to control the traditional, local power-base of his family instead of developing a highranking career in the capital ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib039">Moreno García 2005</tei:ref> ). In the case of the <tei:ref type="gloss" target="g000332">Middle Kingdom</tei:ref> governor Khnumhotep II of <tei:placeName key="p000181">Beni Hassan</tei:placeName> , his claim to his position was hereditary right and royal favor, and his autobiography illustrates the degree to which power-blocks cemented by marriage alliances could arise, based on the control of some provinces, on positions held at court, and on connections with other powerful families ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib030">Lloyd 1992</tei:ref> ). Other inscriptions show that the position of governor of a city, held for generations within a family, could be sold to a member of the kin-group ( <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">hAw</tei:foreign> ) and thus preserved within the extended family ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib028">Lacau 1933</tei:ref> ). Even at a modest level, buying and selling official positions (such as priestly office) prevented a household from losing control over institutional income and sources of power ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib009"> Collier and Quirke 2004: 100 - 105 </tei:ref> ). </tei:p> <tei:p xml:id="para11"> In fact, the transmission of the household to the next generation was always a delicate affair. The elder son usually inherited a larger share of the family possessions, with the obligation to bury his parents and perform rituals in their honor ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib050">Pestman 1987</tei:ref> ). However, the family ideology was strong enough to mask other forms of transmission within a set of fictitious kin expressions (e.g., the simultaneous existence of several “elder sons,” pseudo-adoptions, etc.: <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib038"> Moreno García 2003: 346 </tei:ref>
<tei:ref type="citation" target="bib042">2007: 136</tei:ref> ). Significantly, the transfer of permanent legal rights to own and bequeath property was established by means of a document called <tei:foreign xml:lang="egy">jmjt-pr</tei:foreign> (lit. “what is in the house”: <tei:ref type="ciation" target="bib031">Logan 2000</tei:ref> ). In the end, family ideology was a powerful tool that not only ensured the cohesion of the household and preserved its identity, but also provided alternative values to the official ones. Multiple burials, the cult of dead relatives, the display of genealogies and pride of lineage, and economic self-sufficiency figure prominently as its most conspicuous elements ( <tei:ref type="citation" target="bib036">Moreno García 1997: 32 - 44</tei:ref>
<tei:ref type="citation" target="bib040">2006a: 223 - 232</tei:ref>
<tei:ref type="citation" target="bib045">2010</tei:ref> ). </tei:p> </tei:div> </tei:div> <tei:div type="bibliographic_notes">