Åsså had rewarded his chancellor, Ba-ur-tet, who also had brought a pygmy from the South to Memphis. The king said that he desired "to see the pygmy more than all the products of Sinai and Punt." We may assume that Herkhuf obeyed his lord and received his reward. The roads to the South being thus opened, the Egyptians proceeded first to extend their influence and later to manifest their power in the Northern Sûdân. And there is no doubt that the expeditions that they sent into the Northern Sûdân under the VIth dynasty prepared the way for the conquest and later occupation of that country under the XIIth dynasty. Details of the reign of Pepi II are wanting, but it seems that the king and his officials devoted themselves chiefly to the development of foreign trade and of the industries that were associated with the cult of the dead. It also appears that much of the power possessed by the Pharaohs of the Vth dynasty slipped from the hands of Pepi II, for when he died the kingdom broke up and every great noble throughout the country became a law to himself. Pepi II was buried in his pyramid at Sakkârah, which much resembles that of his half-brother Merenrā I. It was opened at the expense of Mr. John Cook in 1881 by Maspero, who was buried by a fall of masonry in one of the chambers, and was only dug out with the greatest difficulty by E. Brugsch Bey (later Pâshâ) and the workmen.

Of Merenră II Meḥtiemsaf, the Menthesuphis of Manetho, who says that he reigned one year, and Netaqerti, the last two kings of the dynasty, nothing is known. The latter is called Nitôcris by Manetho, who speaks of him as "the most handsome woman of her time, of a fair complexion." He goes on to say that she built the third pyramid; but Netaqerti was a king and not a queen. His prenomen was Menkarā, and this Manetho confused with Menkaurā, the name of the actual builder of the third pyramid.

The reign of Pepi II was followed by a period of anarchy and destruction, and it is possible that the Libyans and Syrians and nomads from the East invaded the country. Although the Turin Papyrus and the native King-Lists supply the names of over twenty 'kings" who were supposed to have ruled over Egypt and to have formed the VIIth and VIIIth dynasties of Manetho, none of them was a Pharaoh in the old sense of the word. According to Manetho the Seventh Dynasty, from Memphis, consisted of 70 kings who reigned 70 days, and the Eighth Dynasty, also from Memphis, of 27 kings,1 the total of whose reigns was 146 years. Such power as these Memphite kinglets (whether native or foreign) possessed was snatched from their hands by the feudal lords of Hensu, or Ḥennsu,

***** (Palermo Stele), the of

D

1 Their names will be found in the list of royal names at the end of this section.

Isaiah and the Herakleopolis of the Greeks.1 Of these lords Manetho makes two dynasties, the Ninth and the Tenth. To each he attributes 19 kings, and says that the total of the lengths of their reigns was 594 years. The first king of the IXth dynasty was one Khati I, whom Manetho calls Achthoês and describes as worse than any of his predecessors. "He did much harm to all the inhabitants of Egypt, was seized with madness, and killed by a crocodile " (Cory, op. cit., p. 116). Some think that this Khati was the king whose prenomen, Nebkaurā, is mentioned in the story of the "Eloquent Peasant." Other kings of this dynasty known from the monuments are Khati II, with the prenomen of Abmerira, the author of the famous "Teaching" which is extant in papyri in St. Petersburg, and Khati III and Khati IV, with the prenomens Uaḥkarā and Kamerira. The kings of Herakleopolis were acceptable neither to the Egyptians of the Delta nor to those of Upper Egypt proper. They received much support from the princes of Siût (Asyût or Cynopolis), and three of these princes, Khati I, Tefabȧ and Khati II, rendered them assistance of a military character on various occasions. It is probable that the first great prince of Siût was established in his chieftainship by a king of Herakleopolis, but whether he was or not, his successors gave loyal assistance to the Herakleopolitans. Khati II was a contemporary of Kamerirā, and his fleet and his bowmen made him a valuable ally by land and by river. On one occasion Kamerira was obliged to flee from his capital and seek asylum with Khati II at Siût. Khati II collected his fleet and his army and sailed down to Herakleopolis and re-established Kamerirā in his kingdom. But meanwhile the power of the princes of Thebes was becoming great, and there came a day when they marched to the north and overthrew the forces of the princes of Siût and the king of Herakleopolis, and so became masters of Upper Egypt, with Thebes as their capital. With the downfall of the princes of the North the Old Kingdom came to an end.

The Eleventh Dynasty. From Thebes.

The founder of this dynasty was one Antef-a, i.e., Antef "the Great," who on his stele in the Cairo Museum calls himself Erpā and Ḥa, and great chief of the nome of Thebes, and says that he did the will of the king as Keeper of the Gate of the South, and that he was the support (or pillar or prop) of him that gave life to the Two Lands (i.e., Egypt). He was also the "president of the

2 The inscriptions are published by Griffith, Inscriptions of Siût and Dêr Rifeh, London, 1889, and translated by him in Bab. and Or. Record, Vol. III, and Maspero, Revue Critique, 1889, p. 410 ff.

priests." The name of his king is not given, but he was, of course, a Herakleopolitan. The fact that Antef is called "the Great " shows that his predecessors in his office bore the name of Antef. At some time in his life unknown to us this Antef-ā, prince of Thebes,

adopted the Horus name of Uaḥ-ankh, †, and called himself W, king of the South and North, and extended his dominion as far north as Siût. The southern boundary was Edfû. The stele on which he describes his conquests and his establishment of a Gate of the North is dated in year 50, but it is doubtful if he was king of Egypt for 50 years. Of his successor Antef-a II, who adopted Nekhtnebtepnefer, , as his Horus name, nothing

is known. He was succeeded by a series of kings, each of whom bore the son-of-Ra name of Menthuḥetep, but the order in which they reigned is doubtful. The first of them, Menthuḥetep I Ḥer Sānkhåbtaui, finally overthrew the power of the Herakleopolitan kings and their allies the princes of Siût, and thus became king of Egypt. Menthuḥetep II Nebkherurā, whom some identify with Menthuḥetep Nebḥaprā,1 made himself the overlord of Åntef-a III, who seems to have been a rival claimant for the throne, and his rule extended northwards to Memphis and beyond. He also brought the Nubian tribes into subjection. He is famous as the builder of the remarkable funerary temple and pyramid at Dêr al-Baharî which were excavated by Naville and Hall in 1903-7. Of his successor Menthuḥetep III Sankhkarā very little is known. During his reign a high official called Ḥenu organized an expedition to Punt to fetch myrrh and other products of the South. He, with an armed escort of 3,000 men, made his way to the Red Sea by way of the Wâdî Hammâmât, and they dug twelve wells and three tanks in the desert which supplied the force with water in abundance. He built a ship and despatched it to Punt, and on his way back to the Nile he dug out a number of blocks of stone in the quarries of the Valley and took them to the Nile to be hewn into statues of the king for the temple. According to some the XIth dynasty ended with Menthuḥetep III. But the monuments mention other Menthuḥeteps, namely Menthuḥetep Nebtauira and Menthuḥetep Sekha・・・ t-rā; the first is known from inscriptions in the Wâdî Hammâmât, and the second from a fragment found at Dêr al-Baharî by Naville. The modern historians of Egypt disagree as to the position of the former in the dynasty,

1 Petrie makes them two distinct kings. In some cartouches we have the sign which can be read Kheru or hap, and in others we have hap, which can only be read hap. The question is complicated by the two different Horus names.

and the latter they do not take into consideration at all. Breasted calls the former Menthuḥetep IV, and places him at the end of the dynasty; Hall wishes to "telescope telescope" him into Menthuḥetep I Sankhȧbtaui; and Petrie follows Breasted in calling him Menthuhetep IV, but makes him No. 7 in the dynasty, and places him before Menthuḥetep III Sānkhkarā, whom he makes No. 9 in the dynasty and calls Menthuḥetep V. Menthuḥetep Nebtauirā sent his Wazir Amenemḥat to the Wâdî Ḥammâmât to quarry blocks of stone for a sarcophagus and cover, and the inscriptions of both king and official record the successful performance of the mission. Amenemḥat says that he took ten thousand men with him, and if this statement be a fact, it is impossible to believe that such an army was necessary for the carrying out of what must after all have been a comparatively small quarrying operation. The god Menu apparently approved of the mission, for he made himself manifest, and the birth of a kid, and heavy rain, falling when it was urgently needed, were regarded as lucky portents. Manetho says that the XIth dynasty consisted of 16 Theban Kings, among whom was Ammenemes. He, it seems certain, was no other than the Amenemhat mentioned above, and was probably Amenemḥat I, the first king of the XIIth dynasty. If this be so Nebtauira would appear to have been the last king of the XIth dynasty.

THE MIDDLE KINGDOM

The Twelfth Dynasty. From Thebes.

The monuments show that this dynasty consisted of eight kings: four bore the name of Amenemhat, three the name of Usertsen, or Senusrit, and the eighth was called Sebekneferurā. Amenemḥat I, whose name suggests that he was a follower of Åmen, the chief local god of Thebes, in whose honour he founded a temple, supported by his armed followers, removed the dependants of the Menthuḥetep kings from his path and seized the throne. The priests of Amen, a very ancient god, whose cult is known to have existed under the IInd dynasty, were more powerful than those of Menthu at Hermonthis, and therefore an Amenemḥat and not a Menthuḥetep became king. Amenemhat was an able and vigorous king, and as a result of his firm rule and wise foresight the material prosperity of the country increased greatly. The quarries in the Wâdî Ḥammâmât and Turah were worked diligently, and the greatest temples in Upper and Lower Egypt were repaired, and in some cases rebuilt. He reduced the great tribes of Nubia and the

1 The inscriptions were published by Lepsius, Denkmäler, Bd. II, Bl. 149, but more fully by Golénischeff in his Epigraphical Results of an Excursion to Wâdî Ḥammâmât, pp. 65–79 and pll. I-XVIII, St. Petersburg, 1887.