bureaucracy, a phenomenon which had started in the early Fifth Dynasty in particular under Neferirkare Kakai. Changes in the Egyptian administration during this period are manifested by a multiplication in the number of titles, reflecting the creation of new administrative offices. These in turn, reflect a movement to better organise the administration of the state with the new titles corresponding to charges attached to very specific duties. The king's power slowly weakened as the bureaucracy expanded, although he remained a living god in the eyes of his subjects.This situation went unchecked until the reign of Nyuserre's second successor Djedkare Isesi, who implemented the first comprehensive reforms of the system of ranking titles and thus of the administration. There are two pieces of direct evidence of administrative activities during Nyuserre's reign. The first is that the Old Kingdom royal annals, of which only fragments survive, are believed to have been composed during his reign. The annals, which give details on the reigns of kings from the First Dynasty onwards on a year-by-year basis, are damaged and break off following the reign of Neferirkare Kakai. The second piece of evidence for administrative activity relates to the provincial administration. During the Old Kingdom, the Egyptian state was divided administratively into provinces, called nomes. These provinces were recognised as such since the time of Djoser, founder of the Third Dynasty, and probably harked back to the predynastic kingdoms of the Nile valley. The earliest topographical lists of the nomes of Upper and Lower Egypt date back to the reign of Nyuserre, a procession of personified nomes being depicted on reliefs from Nyuserre's sun temple. It is also around this time that the nomarchs started to reside in their province rather than at the royal residence. Activities outside Egypt Trade and mining expeditions To the north of Egypt, trade contacts with Byblos on the Levantine coast, which existed during much of the Fifth Dynasty, were seemingly active during Nyuserre's reign, as suggested by a fragment of cylindrical alabaster vase bearing his name uncovered in the city. East of Egypt, Nyuserre commissioned at least one expedition to the Wadi Maghareh in Sinai, where mines of copper and turquoise were exploited during much of the Old Kingdom. This expedition left a large rock relief, now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The relief shows Nyuserre "smiting the Bedouins of all foreign lands, the great god, lord of