"Nofirkerî," or some other of their sovereign virtues. Several Pharaohs
of the IVth dynasty had already dignified themselves by these surnames;
those of the VIth were the first to incorporate them regularly into the
royal preamble.

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There was some hesitation at first as to the position the surname ought
to occupy, and it was sometimes placed after the birth-name, as in "Papi
Nofirkerî," sometimes before it, as in [--] "Nofirkerî Papî." It was
finally decided to place it at the beginning, preceded by the group [--]
"King of Upper and Lower Egypt," which expresses in its fullest extent
the power granted by the gods to the Pharaoh alone; the other, or
birth-name, came after it, accompanied by the words [--]. "Son of the
Sun." There were inscribed, either before or above these two solar names
--which are exclusively applied to the visible and living body of the
master--the two names of the sparrow-hawk, which belonged especially to
the soul; first, that of the double in the tomb, and then that of the
double while still incarnate. Four terms seemed thus necessary to the
Egyptians in order to define accurately the Pharaoh, both in time and in
eternity.

Long centuries were needed before this subtle analysis of the royal
person, and the learned graduation of the formulas which corresponded to
it, could transform the Nome chief, become by conquest suzerain over all
other chiefs and king of all Egypt, into a living god here below, the
all-powerful son and successor of the gods; but the divine concept of
royalty, once implanted in the mind, quickly produced its inevitable
consequences. From the moment that the Pharaoh became god upon earth,
the gods of heaven, his fathers or his brothers, and the goddesses