What tied the kingdom together was an interplay of belief and the Nile itself. Hand dug canals and the annual flooding of the Nile provided for the extensive empire. The population of the Old Kingdom was probably between 1,000,000 and 1,500,000 people. Thoth and words were spoken and written with magical power. It is now becoming clearer that the elite of the Old Kingdom were devoted to excessive self-indulgence.
Murals depict royal banquets, where guests sat on beautifully woven mats and servants attended.
Great amounts of food and drink were consumed. It is possible to construct a picture of life where Egyptians were pre-occupied with the pharaohs' immortality. It was a belief that through the king there was an expression of the divine nature of society itself. People really believed in building pyramids as a matter of faith. The pyramid itself was an enormous machine that helped the king go through the wall of the dead, achieve resurrection, and live forever in the world of the gods.