Playing to the Crowd
Katja Goebs, Associate Professor of Egyptology, Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto
The Egyptian king was seen as the divine representative on earth, responsible for maintaining Maat – the cosmic order, justice, and truth established by the creator – and for defending Isfet, or chaos and disorder. Royal rituals were central to this role because they ensured that human actions remained aligned with the creator’s cosmic plan. Yet these rituals were not fixed: they could be deliberately adapted or altered by historical circumstances. This paper examines four examples of such changes and argues that the elaborate ways kings justified their actions, often through familiar myths, suggest that the audience was crucial to how these rituals were performed, recorded and understood.