While Mentuhotep I and Intef I, the first two kings of the nth Dynasty, reigned for only fifteen years, the fifty-year reign of Intef I’s brother and successor, Wahankh Intef II, stands out as the most decisive phase in the development of the new monarchy. A large quantity of archaeological, epigraphic, and artistic evidence has survived from his reign, thus facilitating crucial insights into the nature of Theban kingship.
Intef II claimed the traditional dual kingship (the nesu-bit) as well as the title ‘son of Ra’, which referred to the dogma of divine descent. He did not, however, assume the complete royal protocol with its five ‘Great Names’, the so-called royal fivefold titulary (see Chapter i for a discussion of the five royal names). In fact, he added only the ‘Horus name’ Wahankh (‘enduring of life’) to his ‘birth name’, Intef, and had no ‘throne name’ (which would traditionally have incorporated the name of the sun-god Ra). Unfortunately, only a few representations of the king have been preserved, so it remains impossible to decide whether he used the whole array of royal crowns and other insignia, although the present balance of evidence suggests that this is unlikely. The early Theban kings were evidently well aware of the limited character of their rule.
True to his social origins among the provincial magnates, Intef II created a biographical stele that stood in the entrance chapel to his saff-tomb in el-Tarif This monument, which bears a depiction of the king accompanied by his favourite dogs, sums up in retrospect the accomplishments of his reign; and the statements made in the text are amply confirmed by the inscriptions of his followers.
As mentioned above, there is good reason to believe that the last non-royal Theban nomarch already held sway over a large part of southern Upper Egypt. Intef II, however, launched the decisive northward push. He captured the nome of Abydos, which, since the days of the Old Kingdom, had been the most important administrative centre in Upper Egypt, and he carried his attack even further into the territory of the loth nome of Upper Egypt. This constituted a policy of open hostility against the Herakleopolitan kings, and for several decades war was to be waged intermittently in the stretch of land between Abydos and Asyut.
World History
