Latest / Ramses the Great: Egypt's Most Powerful Pharaoh — Fexingo History / Ramses the Great's Royal Scribe: The Power Behind the Throne
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Ramses the Great's monuments, his battles, his family — but I want to zoom in on someone who made all of that possible, someone who was basically the engine behind the throne: the royal scribe. Luna: The scribe? I feel like we haven't talked about them much. Lucas: Exactly. And in Ramses's Egypt, scribes weren't just copyists. They were the administrators, the accountants, the diplomats, sometimes even the viziers. One of the most powerful men of the era was a scribe named Paser. He served under both Ramses and his son Merenptah, rising to become vizier — that's like the prime minister of ancient Egypt. Luna: So he went from writing to running the whole country? Lucas: Pretty much. But to understand how that happened, we need to look at how scribes were trained. There was a famous scribal school at Per-Ramesses, the capital we talked about in episode 42. Boys — and it was almost always boys — started training around age five. They learned hundreds of hieroglyphic signs, but also a cursive script called hieratic, which was faster for everyday use. Luna: And I imagine they didn't just learn to write — they had to learn all the stuff they'd be writing about. Lucas: Exactly right. They studied accounting, law, geography, even foreign languages. The training was harsh — there's a famous text called 'The Satire of the Trades' that basically tells students, 'Be a scribe, it's the best job, everything else is terrible.' It compares being a soldier to being beaten with sticks, a farmer to being eaten by mosquitoes. But being a scribe? You're in charge. Luna: And Paser clearly took that advice to heart. Lucas: He did. We don't know when he was born, but we know he started as a royal scribe — basically a secretary in the palace. From there he rose to 'scribe of the treasury', then 'overseer of the granaries', then 'high steward', and eventually vizier. Each step put him in charge of more and more of the kingdom's resources. Luna: So he was managing the grain that fed the army, the gold that built the temples — all of that. Lucas: Exactly. And as vizier, he was essentially the chief judge and head of the civil service. He would have overseen the entire bureaucracy that kept Kemet running. We actually have a text called 'The Duties of the Vizier' from earlier in the New Kingdom that lays out his responsibilities: hearing legal cases, approving building projects, managing the food supply — it's an enormous job. Luna: So Paser is basically the prototype of the unelected bureaucrat who actually runs the country. Lucas: Yes, and he seems to have been very good at it. He served Ramses for decades, and then continued under Merenptah, which suggests he was trusted and competent. We know he was involved in the construction of the Ramesseum — Ramses's mortuary temple — and likely in the preparations for the Heb Sed festival and the treaty with the Hittites. Luna: And what about his personal life? Do we know anything about him as a person? Lucas: A bit. We know he was married to a woman named Tjau, and they had at least one son named Hori, who also became a scribe — so it was a family business. We also have a beautiful statue of Paser in the British Museum, where he's shown kneeling with a stela, his face calm and serious. And he built himself a tomb in the Valley of the Kings — not a royal tomb, but a private one, which was a huge honour. Luna: Wait, a private tomb in the Valley of the Kings? That's where pharaohs were buried. Lucas: It is. But a few high officials were granted the privilege. Paser's tomb is called KV16, and it's small and unfinished, but it's there. It was discovered in 1905 by the American archaeologist Theodore Davis. Sadly, it had been robbed in antiquity, so we don't have his mummy or many grave goods. But the walls have beautiful scenes of Paser worshipping Osiris and other gods. Luna: So even though he was powerful, he still made sure to show his piety. Lucas: Absolutely. And that's a key part of the scribal ethos. Scribes were supposed to be wise, just, and devoted to Maat — the cosmic order. One of the most famous texts, 'The Instruction of Amenemope', written around the time of Ramses, advises scribes to be honest, avoid greed, and respect the gods. Paser seems to have embodied that ideal. Luna: So Paser was the ideal civil servant. But I'm curious — how do we even know about him? What survives? Lucas: We have a number of monuments. Several statues, a few stelae, inscriptions on temple walls — at the Ramesseum, at Karnak, at his tomb. But it's fragmentary. We don't have a single biography, so piecing his career together takes detective work. For example, we know he was vizier under Ramses from an inscription at the Ramesseum that mentions both of them together. Luna: It's amazing that we can reconstruct so much from scattered stones. Lucas: It really is. And it reminds us how much of history depends on the work of scribes themselves. Without them, we wouldn't have the records of battles, treaties, festivals — even the names of Ramses's children. They were the ones who wrote it all down. Luna: Speaking of writing things down — it's funny, in a way we're doing a similar thing, keeping this history alive. And it's thanks to listeners like you that we can keep doing it. Lucas: That's actually a perfect segue. If you've been coming along with us through these conversations about Ramses and his world, and you'd like to support the show so we can keep making ad-free episodes, you can buy us a coffee at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small way to keep the history flowing. Luna: Yeah, every bit helps us dig deeper into stories like Paser's. Lucas: And speaking of digging deeper — you know, we often think of the vizier as the ultimate career goal for a scribe. But there were many other paths. Some scribes became priests, some became doctors, some even became military commanders. The skill of writing was a passport to almost any high office. Luna: So being literate in ancient Egypt was like having a university degree today. Lucas: Exactly. And the best scribes were not just technically proficient — they were expected to be wise. They were the keepers of knowledge, the ones who could read the sacred texts and interpret the will of the gods. That's why the god Thoth, the god of writing, was so revered. And the goddess Seshat, who measured time and recorded royal annals. Luna: So when Paser was recording the grain taxes or drafting a treaty, he was doing something sacred. Lucas: Exactly. And it's that combination of practical skill and spiritual duty that made scribes so central. Without them, the whole apparatus of the state — the temples, the army, the economy — would have ground to a halt. Ramses may have been the face of the empire, but Paser and his colleagues were the hands that wrote it into existence. Luna: And that's something we don't always think about when we see the big statues and the grand temples. Lucas: It's easy to forget. But next time you see a carved inscription on an Egyptian monument, remember that there was a real person, a scribe, who sat cross-legged with a reed pen and a palette, carefully shaping each sign. Their names may be lost, but their work remains — and sometimes, like with Paser, we get a glimpse of the person behind the pen.