La politique territoriale du roi Sahourê à la lumière de récentes découvertes

Abstract

The territorial organisation in the early Fifth Dynasty remains little known compared to the Sixth Dynasty, for which the data are more numerous. However, in recent years, there have been several discoveries concerning the reign of Sahure (c. 2487–2475 BCE). This latest information, combined with a re-examination of the textual and material sources known for a long time, shed new light on the policy of territorial organisation of Sahure by enabling us to answer the following questions: To which provinces did this king give his attention? What are the characteristics and the motivations of this territorial policy? Sahure carried out a huge policy of development in Lower Egypt, in particular in the south-east of the Delta, and in the south of Upper Egypt. By using a global approach, analysis of all the data allows identification of three main reasons explaining this territorial policy: to facilitate the recovery of valuable resources at the margins of the country and abroad, to support the increase in the number of officials and to carry out the construction projects of the monarchy. Moreover, a new theory is proposed about the creation of the 8th nome in the south-east of the Delta.