and tombs which have
withstood the wear and tear of thousands of years; the willingness and
capacity of professionals, technicians, skilled workers, and the masses
of free and slave labor to co-exist and co-operate over the long periods
required for the completion of such extensive structural projects; the
utilization of an extensive economic surplus not primarily for personal
mass or middle-class consumption but to enhance the power and glory of a
tiny minority, its handymen and other dependents; and a considerable
middle class of merchants, managers and technicians.

Speaking sociologically, the structure of Egyptian society from sometime
before 3,400 B.C., to 525 B.C., passed through four distinct phases or
stages. During the first phase, the Nile Valley, which had been
separated by tribal and/or geographical boundaries into a large number
of more or less independent units, was consolidated, integrated and
organized into a single kingdom. This working, functioning area (the
land of Egypt) could provide for most of its basic needs from within its
own borders. In a sense it was a self-sufficient, workable, liveable
area. Egypt was populous, rich, well organized, with a surplus of
wealth, productivity and man-power that could be used outside of its own
frontiers. Some of the surplus was used outside--to the south, into
Central Africa, to the west into North Africa, to the north into Eastern
Europe and Western Asia, inaugurating the second phase of Egyptian
development. During this second phase Egyptian wealth, population and
technology, spilling over its frontiers onto foreign lands, established
and maintained relations with foreign territory on a basis that yielded
a yearly "tribute," paid by foreigners into the Egyptian treasury. The
land of Egypt thus surrounded itself with a cluster of dependencies,
converting what had been an independent state or independent states into
a functioning empire.

The land of Egypt was the nucleus of the Egyptian Empire--center of
wealth and power with its associates and its dependencies. The empire
was held together by a legal authority using armed force where necessary
to assert or preserve its identity and unity.

Expansion, the third phase of Egyptian development, involved the export
of culture traits and artifacts beyond national frontiers, extending the
cultural influence of Egypt into non-Egyptian lands inhabited by Egypt's
neighbors. Merchants, tourists, travelers, explorers a