Senusret I and the kings that followed him continued a tradition established by Amenemhet: In the latter part of a pharaoh's reign, he would allow his successor (usually his firstborn son) to share power with him. The rulers also carried on Amenemhet's efforts to expand Egyptian influence through trade and warfare.
Senusret sent mining expeditions to Nubia and the eastern desert, which yielded gold and high-grade building stone, respectively. His grandson, Senusret II, had floodgates built along part of the Nile Valley in order to reclaim valuable farmland. Later, Senusret III ordered the First Cataract cleared, which made it possible for boats to pass through. This removed one of Egypt's natural barriers, and for that reason he
Had fortresses built to protect the country from invasion by Nubians or Kushites to the south.
Amenemhet III, who reigned from 1817 to 1772 b. c., would prove one of the greatest of the Middle Kingdom's pharaohs. Under his leadership, the Egyptians reclaimed some 153,600 acres, or 240 square miles (621.6 square kilometers), of fertile farmland from the Nile and developed an irrigation system to keep it watered. He also led a number of building projects, including construction of Egypt's last major pyramids. The pyramid at Hawara, though not nearly as large as its predecessors from the Fourth Dynasty, was an impressive achievement in its own right, containing an intricate set of trapdoors, blind hallways, and other “tricks” designed to keep robbers out.
Soon after Amenemhet III, however, the Middle Kingdom fell into decline. Already at the time of Senusret II, nearly seventy years before, it had seemed that the world was growing old. Thus one of the scribes in Senusret's court complained that everything had already been done: “Would that I had words that are unknown,” he wrote, “utterances and sayings in new language... without that which hath been said repeatedly.” Similar views have been expressed in different words by people in modern life, proving that some things never change. One of those unchangeable facts of human history is that civilizations rise and fall: thus the Middle Kingdom ended, to be followed by a period of unrest.
World History
