The end of the Ramesside period was marked for the most part by short reigns as well as internal and external political unrest. In the 29th Year of Ramesses III’s reign, a few years before his death, the workers of Deir el-Medina went on strike. Missing deliveries of supplies led the workers at the royal necropolis to down tools. Along with demonstrations with torches the workers also conducted sitting strikes near the Houses of Millions of Years in Western Thebes, where they hoped to obtain both an advocate and grain from the temple inventory (Vernus 1993: 82-99; Muller 2004). Further strikes occurred in the last years of this king, and in the first years of the next. Under Ramesses IX, in addition to economic and political problems of this sort, there was a phase of plundering the royal graves. A second phase of this occurred again under the final king of the dynasty, Ramesses XI. Under his rule, the Thebaid saw a civil-war situation develop between the viceroy of Kush, Panehsy, and the High Priest of Amun Amen-hotep. Panehsy seems to have appropriated the responsibilities of the High Priest, and, because the priests were unwilling to accept him, he besieged them in the temple fortress of Medinet Habu. Ramesses XI granted a request for help from Amenhotep and sent his general Piankhy to Thebes, who succeeded in driving Panehsy into Nubia. After this the power of the Ramessides over Upper Egypt was broken, since Piankhy and his successor Herihor became the effective rulers ofthe area and even took over the office of High Priest. Their access to military and religious power allowed these new rulers to become the lords of the entire south of the country from which the theocratic state of Amun was formed. In Lower Egypt the power of the Ramessides was also dwindling. Libyan immigrants, who, since the Libyan wars of Ramesses III had often been deported to Egypt and settled in the Nile Delta, increasingly appear in the upper ranks of the Egyptian hierarchy. In the end, they succeeded in obtaining power over northern Egypt. The first ruler of this foreign dynasty was Smendes, who is described in the Story ofWenamun as the most powerful man in Lower Egypt, but, with the unity of Upper and Lower Egypt broken once more, Egypt entered a new phase of its history - the so-called Third Intermediate period.
FURTHER READING
On the Second Intermediate Period Ryholt 1997 is essential reading. The Eighteenth Dynasty continues to be a major focus of research. For Hatshepsut and the Thutmosid succession see Ratie 1979. Thutmose III has been studied by Redford 2003 and Cline and O’Connor 2006. On Ramesses II see Kitchen 1997 and on Ramesses III P. Grandet, Ramses III. Histoire d’un regne, Paris 1993. For Egyptian imperial activities in Asia see Redford 1995 and Morris 2004.
World History
