Collapse of the Old Kingdom polity occurred following the reign of Pepy II. Essentially what followed in the so-called First Intermediate Period was political fragmentation, with the formation of much smaller polities whose power bases were in provincial Egypt, and much competition and aggression between these polities. The First Intermediate Period, however, was not a time of collapse of ancient Egyptian civilization, which continued in renewed forms for more than two thousand years.
A number of reasons for the collapse of the Old Kingdom state have been offered by scholars. These basically fall into two categories: (1) environmental stress and (2) sociopolitical pathologies.
The major environmental stress cited for the First Intermediate Period is lower Nile floods. The Neolithic wet-phase, in which moister conditions than today prevailed episodically in Egypt, was finished by the beginning of pharaonic times. But a more arid environment than in Predynastic times did not hamper the accumulation of huge agricultural surpluses that supported the Old Kingdom state and its monument building. Texts relating to the First Intermediate Period studied by Barbara Bell, an astronomer at Harvard University, cite low Nile floods (among other problems). Although texts she used are not First Intermediate Period in date and their historical accuracy may be questionable, short-term fluctuation of Nile levels is a real possibility.
According to Karl Butzer’s more recent examination of the evidence of Nile floods, there were relatively low floods after 2900 BC, with a brief minimum ca. 2200 BC, and exceptionally high floods ca. 2150-1900 BC. Low Nile floods would have meant less land under cultivation - and lower crop yields. Butzer has calculated that the population of Egypt almost doubled between 3000 and 2500 BC (from 0.87 to 1.6 million). With such a large population in the later Old Kingdom and problems in agricultural yields, famine for some may have been the result. Possibly the state could have responded to environmental problems of low
Nile floods with technological intervention, such as sponsoring irrigation works, but this did not happen.
An environmentally deterministic explanation for the collapse of the Old Kingdom is not sufficient by itself, however. The period of the lowest nile floods was relatively brief, but socio-political problems were clearly developing in the later Old Kingdom. As more land went out of state ownership to support pious foundations (pyramid cults, temples, and mortuary cults of individuals), direct income of the crown and state ownership of land decreased. Royal decrees which exempted a number of pious foundations from taxation also increased the problem of state income. The political decentralization that developed in upper Egyptian provinces in the 6th Dynasty, with increasing control of local resources, was followed by the political fragmentation of the First Intermediate Period. Lastly, the long(?) reign of Pepy II may have led to a certain amount of political corruption and uncertainty about who would succeed him, which would have contributed to undermining the central authority of the state.
After Pepy II’s death, the 6th dynasty ended with the rule of a queen, nitiqret. Manetho lists “70 kings in 70 days” for the 7th dynasty, and this unreal number probably symbolizes the political confusion of the times. For a period of about 20 years an uncertain number of “kings” (of the 7th and 8th dynasties) may have tried to hang on to the vestiges of kingship at Memphis, but there seems to have been a breakdown of centralized control. One small monument may have been constructed by a king of the 8th dynasty, Ibi, near Pepy Il’s pyramid at Saqqara. Discovered by Gustave Jequier in 1929, Ibi’s pyramid has a base line of only 31.5 meters - about the size of one of the queens’ pyramids in Pepy II’s complex. Its rubble core consists of small stones and mud. A small mud-brick chapel was found on the pyramid’s east side, and the burial chamber contained a huge granite block for the sarcophagus.
Another monument from the First Intermediate Period is a mud-brick pyramid or mastaba at Kom Dara in Middle Egypt, first excavated by Ahmed Kamal in the early 20th century. The base line of this square monument (with rounded corners) is 130 meters - much bigger than Pepy II’s pyramid. An entrance on the north side led to a sloping passage and subterranean tomb, lined with limestone slabs probably robbed from other tombs. A cartouche of a King Khuy was found in a nearby tomb, but this name is not known from other inscriptions. Thus the builder of this monument remains uncertain as does his power base, but not his grandiose aspirations.
Rulers of the 9th and 10th Dynasties eventually emerged at Herakleopolis (to the south of the Faiyum region). They controlled parts of northern and Middle Egypt, but in the Theban area and farther south there was the growing power base of local rulers (the 11th Dynasty), whose descendant Mentuhotep II eventually reunified Egypt. Herakleopolis may have been located at Ihnasya el-Medina. Although this site has mainly been investigated for monumental remains of the New Kingdom and later, the Spanish expedition there (National Archaeological Museuem, Madrid) has excavated tomb complexes of the First Intermediate Period and early Middle Kingdom, some with paintings and reliefs on the walls of stone chambers, as well as architectural remains from a temple of this period.
The First Intermediate Period was a time of intense rivalry and alliance-making of various local rulers in the Upper Egyptian provinces, including Ankhtifi at Mo’alla, who
Controlled Nomes 2 and 3 (Edfu and Hierakonpolis). The biographical inscription in Ankhtifi’s tomb provides information about this period of conflict. After gaining control of the Edfu nome, Ankhtifi took his small army northward where he threatened the Theban nome, but for unknown reasons he did not add Thebes to his sphere of control. Ankhtifi boasts of giving food to the hungry and clothing to the poor - claims that are also found in inscriptions of other local rulers of the period (as well as the late Old Kingdom). Such claims may in part have been standard rhetoric for rulers’ tomb biographies or stelae, but they may also reflect real economic crises - of food shortages from low crop yields, looting, and/or disruption of farming activities.
Rulers such as Ankhtifi had some form of local political legitimacy, raised their own small armies (which in some cases included Nubian mercenaries), and controlled the economic resources of their districts. As a result, the local population owed their allegiance to him, and his political position was legitimized by his priestly position (overseer of priests) in the local cult of the god Hemen. What is missing is the concept of kingship that had developed since late Predynastic times - demonstrating a major change in ideology, at least in the southern provinces of Upper Egypt.
A large number of funerary stelae, of men of middle and even lower status, are also known from the First Intermediate Period. These stelae were carved with the offering formula, figure of the tomb owner and often family members, and sometimes a short biography. The style of these funerary stelae - often with crude, elongated figures carved in sunken relief - is indicative of their provincial origins, and they lack the refinement attained by sculptors in Old Kingdom Memphis (Figure 6.18).
A great number of First Intermediate Period burials, of what might be termed middle and lower status, have been excavated in the many provincial cemeteries in Upper Egypt. Valuable artifacts in many of these burials, such as carved stone cosmetic containers and jewelry made from imported stone beads, seem to contradict the concept that this was an impoverished period throughout all of Egypt. Such artifacts probably reached a wider number of people than during the highly stratified Old Kingdom, when the rewards of royal expeditions were dispensed by the crown, and the highest-quality craftsmanship was found in Memphis.
German archaeologist Stephan Seidlmayer has shown that during the First Intermediate Period new types of non-functional artifacts were made for burials. In particular, crude wooden models of offering-bearers and workshops, and painted cartonnage mummy masks (made of linen covered with gypsum plaster), became popular in lower-status burials. In a different medium, these creations emulated the scenes depicted in earlier Memphite tombs. Thus, there was increasing demand for craftsmen’s work in the provinces, as well as people there who could produce such goods.
Literature about the First Intermediate Period, written later, paints a bleak picture, in part to justify the re-imposition of centralized control by kings of the Middle Kingdom. Undoubtedly there were political conflicts and disruption - and possibly impoverished times for many. But during the First Intermediate Period provincial rulers and an increasing number of other members of society seem to have benefited from a lack of centralization, as evidenced in their burials. At Tell Edfu there is even evidence that the town almost doubled in size in the First Intermediate Period, as demonstrated by Nadine Moeller’s (University of Chicago) excavation of town walls.
Figure 6.18 Funerary stela of a priestess of Hathor, Setnet-Inheret, dating to the First Intermediate Period, from Naga el-Deir. Source: copyright © Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology and the Regents of the university of california. catalogue No. 6-19881.
A lack of royal monuments points to a lack of royal control of resources. But whereas petty polities like those of the First Intermediate Period were the norm in most of the near East throughout the Bronze Age, a different concept of political power had developed in Egypt for almost one thousand years. As in the late Predynastic Period, a power base eventually emerged in the south, this time at Thebes, which would unify the country under a centralized kingship, initiating the Middle Kingdom.
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