Modem Egyptologists still largely present a negative image of the First Intermediate Period. It is characterized as a period of chaos, decline, misery, and social and political dissolution; a ‘dark age’ separating two epochs of glory and power. This picture, however, is based only partly on an evaluation of sources contemporary with the period. It largely reproduces—sometimes with surprising naivety—the literary theme developed in a group of Middle Kingdom literary texts. The so-called Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage and the Prophecy of Neferti form the core of this genre, but several other ‘pessimistic’ texts, such as the
Complaints ofKhakheperraseneb and the Dialogue between a Man Tired of Life and his ‘ba’, might also be added to this list. In this class of texts, a state of disorder is lamented and contrasted with the way in which things ought to be. Social order is turned upside down; the rich are poor, and the poor are rich; political unrest and insecurity prevails throughout the country; the administrative documents are torn to pieces; there are numerous different rulers in power at the same time; the country is invaded by foreigners; the moral basis of social life is destroyed; people neglect and hate each other; and the sacred scriptures are profaned. This state of general disturbance is not confined to the social world; it attains truly cosmic dimensions in that the river is sometimes said to be no longer flowing as it ought to do, and even the sun is found not to have retained its former brightness.
It should be noted that these texts do not actually claim to be set in the First Intermediate Period; nor do they mention any historical particulars. In the Prophecy of Neferti, the advent of Amenemhat I (19851956 BC) is foretold as bringing relief from a state of chaos which must be situated, chronologically, in the late nth Dynasty and not in the First Intermediate Period. Careful scrutiny is, therefore, required if we are to determine whether these texts bear any relation to the history of the First Intermediate Period, and, even if they do, we need to investigate precisely how they relate to the actual historical events.
Texts deriving from the First Intermediate Period itself are entirely lacking in that very note of despair that is the hallmark of Middle Kingdom ‘pessimistic’ literature. They do talk about crisis, but crisis brilliantly overcome; vigour, self-confidence, and pride in one’s own achievement characterize the mood of the time. Certainly there are a number of striking thematic similarities between First Intermediate Period biographies and the Middle Kingdom pessimistic texts (such as Nile failure, famine, social unrest, war, and a crisis affecting the foundations of the state), but these similarities prove, in the first place, literary connections between the two.
Another aspect of the textual evidence seems to be even more important. In First Intermediate Period inscriptions, tales of crisis served to legitimize the power of local rulers. In the same way, the greatly elaborated picture of a period of utter chaos in the later pessimistic literature provides the black background against which the tight politics of law and order implemented by Middle Kingdom kings can be justified and even made to appear beneficent. The foundations of the ruling ideology of Middle Kingdom monarchy, therefore, rest firmly on what we know of First Intermediate Period political thought.
These comparisons between Middle Kingdom ‘pessimistic’ literature and First Intermediate Period contemporary texts reveal just how deeply the experience of the First Intermediate Period affected the Middle Kingdom Egyptians’ collective consciousness and their views on social and political relations. On the other hand, it would be extremely misguided to attempt to use Middle Kingdom literary texts as authentic sources for First Intermediate Period history. The view of the First Intermediate Period presented in this chapter has been entirely based on contemporary sources; this attempt to evaluate the surviving documentation in all its aspects makes it much more difficult to subscribe to the traditional negative view of the period. In contrast, one can only be struck by the dynamism and creativity of the period.
When Senusret I donated a statue of the ‘count’ Intef, the ancestor of the nth Dynasty, to Kamak temple, he was acknowledging the origins of Middle Kingdom kingship in the struggles that local rulers fought for power and ascendancy during the First Intermediate Period. Apart from its political importance, the impact that the First Intermediate Period had on Egypt’s cultural history cannot be denied. A whole range of new morphological types was developed in nearly every sphere of material culture, including such singularly successful new inventions as the scarab-shaped seal.
Above all, however, popular culture was given the opportunity to flourish at a time when the overpowering influence of court culture had faded, and when there was a great weakening of central government, which had previously (in the Old Kingdom) imposed heavy demands on provincial communities. In the First Intermediate Period, the local populations throughout the country enjoyed conspicuous, if modest, wealth. They also acquired various new means of cultural expression and communication, and were able to arrange their lives within the small-scale horizon of their immediate concerns.
World History
