2030-1640 - Middle Kingdom - Dynasties XI-XIII
With Dynasty XII the Theban line was firmly established over all Egypt. In the circumstances referred to in the "Instructions" of Amenemhat I., its first king, to his son Usurtesen I., provides a glimpse into the unquiet condition of the country when the line arose. Similarly the custom of associating the heir apparent as king with his father, the peculiarity of this dynasty, indicates the dangers that then surrounded the throne.
The grottoes of Benee-Hasan provide much of the knowledge of the manners and arts of Egypt under Dynasty XII, and much of its history is there told in the memoirs of a family of governors under the first five king] of this house. No one can have examined these beautiful tombs without being struck by the advance in architecture which they show, and the evidence of prosperity and cultivation afforded by their paintings. The subjects resemble those of the tombs of the earlier dynasties, but there is a greater variety, partly due to a more luxurious condition of society, partly to a more flexible art. It is sufficiently evident that the preceding dynasty (XI) cannot have been weak, and the country under its rule distracted. A time of prosperity must have preceded this bright period of Egyptian history.
Amenemhat L, probably a successful minister of an earlier king, had an active and prosperous reign, ruling like Pepi beyond Egypt to the south, and occupying himself in the construction ol various monuments. As the bead of a new line he paid special attention to the boundaries of territories, to the regulation of the inundation, and to the confirmation of hereditary governors. A very curious view of the state of Egypt in his time is given by the story of Saneha in a hieratic papyrus of the Berlin Museum. It is the history of an Egyptian who fled from the king and took refuge with a neighboring prince, whose territory unhappily cannot be determined, and after a long sojourn sought his sovereign's pardon and returned home to be taken into tho favor of Amenemhat. The reception of the fugitive abroad, his home-sickness, and the kindness of the Pharaoh, who at the same time is described in terms of the most abject respect, form on interesting picture, and one remarkably illustrating several events in the history of Egypt.
Under Usurtesen I, the co-regent and successor of Amenemhat I, Egypt had reached its highest prosperity after the age of the pyramid-builders of Dynasty IV. The obelisk which still marks the site of Heliopolis, a fragment of a statue at Tanis, inscriptions on the rocks of the Sinaitic peninsula, and a stele from Wádee Halfen, recording foreign conquests in the south, now in the Naples Museum, attest the splendor of this reign. The records of private individuals are, however, its most instructive memorials. Mentnhotep has given a picture of the power and status of an Egyptian prime minister, holding all or nearly all the functions of the members of a modem cabinet, a position singularly parallel to that of Joseph, to the detail that even great men bowed before bim. Of Amenemhat II and Usurtesen II, the next kings, there is little to relate but that Egypt continued to prosper. It was under Usurtesen III that a great step in advance was made by the fixing of the boundaries of the Egyptian dominion beyond the Second Cataract, at Semneh and Kummeh, where this king built sanctuaries and fortresses, and placed great boundary-marks in the form of tablets. These in their inscriptions define the limits of the kingdom, and regulate passage by the river. Here and throughout Nubia, Usurteseu was worshipped in subsequent times. He had introduced a settled government into the country, which long after was virtually a part of Egypt rather than a dependency.
His successor Amenemhat III is chiefly famous for his great engineering works. That care which the first Amenemhat bestowed on the regulation of th» inundation seems to have been the great object of his reign. The rocks of Semneh and Kummeh bear registers of the height of the Nile in several years of his reign. His great enterprise, the most successful of its kind ever carried oat in Egypt, was the construction of a vast artificial reservoir, Lake Meris, in the province now called the Feij-oom, which received the waters of the Nile ?? ? canal, and after the inundation spread them over the country. Its fisheries were also very valuable. Through the neglect of ages the site of Lake Meris was forgotten until M. Linant traced it. Near the lake, Amonemhat III built the famous Labyrinth, of which the remains were discovered by Dr Lepsius during the Prussian Expedition to Egypt, and there raised a pyramid. The use of the Labyrinth is unknown ; the pyramid was no doubt the royal tomb. Its moderate dimensions and the vast size of the lake show a remarkable contrast to the earlier great pyramids, with apparently no corresponding work of public usefulness. At the time which produced the Lake Meris civilization had reached a point far above that of the age of Khufu, perhaps the highest Egypt has ever known. Of the abort reigns of Amenemhat IV and Queen Sebek-nefru-ra we know nothing, but that with the latter the dynasty came to a close.
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