This book is an investigation into the necessary requirements needed to obtain a career as an official in the Old Kingdom. Previous studies have focused on the titulary recorded in tombs to piece together the career pathways for the Old Kingdom officials. The focus on titles was due to the idealistic and formulaic nature of biographies, which in scholarship, devalued these texts in terms of their historical reliability, and paired with an underlying assumption that the titles themselves reliably documented a regular, consistent, and departmentally structured bureaucracy. The theme of meritocracy is the backbone of Old Kingdom tomb biographies, with the King as the bestower of all promotions in keeping with idealisation of King as the ultimate authority. During the 5th and 6th Dynasty, the penetration of Royal authority increased in the provinces, which resulted in officials settling and being interred in the nome that was under their authority. This political reform is directly reflected in the content of tomb biographies, in that provincial officials could now express a degree of independence and personality in their prose, rather than their inscription being constrained to the decorum of the Court. That is not to say that biographies prior to this reform were not without importance. Although they have repetitive phraseology and lack any real individuality, the ethical behaviour expressed by the tomb owners give an insight into the concerns and issues occurring in society at that time.