Theban Administration in the Late Middle Kingdom

Abstract

Summary: The survey of 210 Late Middle Kingdom sources attributable to Theban officials aims to define the highest offices of the local administration in order to describe local administrative structures, and to pinpoint the administrative titles that were predominantly used in the Theban administration, thus distancing it from the administration of the northern residence and other power centers of Late Middle Kingdom Egypt. The paper emphasizes the role of wḥmw “reporters” as top local officials at Thebes and in a number of other regions in the Late Middle Kingdom. The spellings of the word ḫnrt with in administrative titles is only characteristic of Upper Egypt. Among titles used predominantly in Theban and Upper Egyptian administration were ḫrp wsḫt “director of the broad court”, wr mḏw šmꜤw “chief of tens of Upper Egypt”, (sꜢb) rꜢ-nḫn “sab, mouth of Hierakonpolis”, smsw hꜢyt “elder of the portal”, ḥrj n tm “master of the tm”, sš n spꜢt “scribe of the nome”, jmj-ḫt sꜢ-prw “security official estate guard”, and nfw n pr-ḥḏ “treasury captain”.