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of Akhenaten, the army installed íts own leaders around the throne with the firm support of the priesthood. These two parties of society gained strong positions in the leadership of the country and filled the civil administration with their own. The king might have needed his own men as a counterbalance to these state officials who were technically loyal to him, however, they could have represented a potential threat to his authority. Thus it seemed to be an obvious solution to choose these trusted persons from the closest circle of his entourage, especially from the newly arrived foreigners who did not yet have solid roots in society and who primarily depended on the benevolence of the ruler himself. Nevertheless, Schulman also notes that this explanation cannot be completely correct considering that in the trial of the harem conspiracy against Ramesses III there were three officials of foreign origin (Warna, Paluka and Inini) among the accused individuals. Looking at the presence of the officials of foreign ethnicity under the rulers, it is conspicuous that several of them were attested under Ramesses II and Ramesses III, while from the reign of Ramesses IV on their number decreased. However, Schulman’s theory may have been correct: the system might have worked as it should have for a while but the harem conspiracy was a breaking point in the confidence of the ruler towards his ‘royal wb3s’ of foreign origin as one might see a correlation between the affair and the lower number of these officials after the reign of Ramesses IV. At the same time, it should be kept in mind that the distribution of the officials through the period was gained from the information derived from the available sources and not from an analysis of a complete corpus. Date Name Relative Cognomen/Epithet Sety I : ; Ramessesashahebused ety basilophoric — Ramesses II father Neferrenpet (II) Ramesses II . Penlevi Ramessesmen Ramesses II basilophoric 2 Atumemtaneb Ramesses II royal wb3 of (the land of) Ari Ramessesuserpehti Ramesses II — Merneptah basilophoric Benazan of Ziri-Bashan, Ramessesemperre Ramesses II — Ramesses III | basilophoric | father Yupa he of Ramesses Meriamun mother Pentawer Merneptah Aurati, sister Ragasha Ramessesheru Merneptah basilophoric Penhazuri Merneptahemperptah Merneptah basilophoric Ramessessamiiunu Ramesses III basilophoric Ramessesankherneheh Ramesses III basilophoric
