This book explores the administration and social organisation of ancient Egypt during the New Kingdom, the age of empire, through the lives and careers of the highest classes of Egyptian society. Based on analysis and interpretation of a wide range of hieratic and hieroglyphic texts (from administrative documents and accounts, to biographies and literature), as well as iconographic and archaeological evidence (reliefs, statues and steles), it compares the transmission of power and the relevance of social provenance during the New Kingdom to other periods of ancient Egyptian history and examines the changing relationship between central power and periphery in the empire.

Both texts and figural sources are set in their historical contexts, with the aim of encouraging readers to deepen their understanding of some less-studied aspects of New Kingdom society, such as state control and the recruitment or enrolment of the elite classes. This detailed but straightforward approach will be of use to both scholars and students of Egyptology and Egyptian archaeology, and to those engaged in comparative studies of ancient history, society and culture.