A text known as The Prophecy of Neferti, written in the Middle Kingdom but surviving from much later copies, describes the bleak state of affairs in Egypt during the First Intermediate Period, including political upheaval, famine, and social unrest. other pessimistic works written about this period but composed in later times are also known. How extensive and intensive such social pathologies actually were cannot be determined - and they may have been greatly exaggerated in the literature. Written from the perspective of a reunified and internally secure state, these texts describe a period when there was no centralized rule. With a known model of Egyptian kingship from a unified state for much of the third millennium Bc, local rulers of the First Intermediate Period competed to maintain and extend their control, which inevitably caused social upheavals. But the country was not unified under the control of a centralized kingship until the rise of a dynasty of rulers at Thebes, known as the 11th Dynasty. With Upper Egypt controlled by Thebes, King Mentuhotep II expanded his control northward, with warfare in Middle Egypt and a final conflict with the Herakleopolitan kingdom. Egyptian military activity also extended into Lower Nubia. Historical memory and the earlier ideology of kingship were important factors in legitimizing the rule of the Theban dynasty over the entire country, but individual agency was also important in this process, through leadership and warfare.
Mentuhotep II’s predecessors at Thebes had left large rock-cut tombs in the Theban hills at el-Tarif, but Mentuhotep II created a much more impressive funerary monument at Deir el-Bahri, next to which Queen Hatshepsut of the 18th Dynasty would later build her renowned mortuary temple - inspired by the design of the earlier temple. Bearing little resemblance to an Old Kingdom pyramid complex, Mentuhotep II’s mortuary complex was built with a central terraced building to the west of which were two courts and a long descending passage cut in the bedrock leading to the burial chamber.
The 12th-Dynasty kings, however, built pyramid complexes for their tombs to the east of the Faiyum region and near the new capital of Itj-tawy-Amenemhat, the remains of which have not been located. The re-established centralized kingship is emphasized in the name of the capital, which means “Amenemhat [I] is the one who seizes/takes the Two Lands.” Constructed primarily of mud-brick, the 12th-Dynasty pyramids were not as substantially built as the 4th Dynasty ones at Giza, but they nonetheless reasserted the symbolism of royal power. A large planned town associated with Senusret II’s pyramid and the pyramid’s pious foundation has been excavated at Kahun, a well-preserved settlement from which administrative papyri have also been obtained.
As in the old Kingdom, the state was supported by taxation, and exemptions existed for pious foundations and temples. Corvee labor was used for state projects. The military was also conscripted; it protected Egypt’s northeastern border in the Delta and its forts in Nubia, and conducted large-scale expeditions outside the Nile Valley (for mining, quarrying, and foreign trade).
The re-established Egyptian kingship created a more centralized government, which was structured on a similar model to that of the old Kingdom, and headed by the vizier.
Map 7.1 Sites in Egypt, Sinai, and the Eastern Desert during the Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period.
Egyptian society remained highly stratified according to socio-political status. The centralized state was thus regenerated, and old identities, especially of Egyptian kingship, were re-created, but under new circumstances. Some local rulers, who had previously been politically autonomous in the First Intermediate Period, were retained in post-conquest times as state officials were established at the provincial level. In the early 12th dynasty state bureaucrats were located in administrative centers throughout the country, each group headed by a mayor. Nomarchs (“great overlords”) were appointed by the king; some of these positions became hereditary, while others were discontinued. nomarchs in Middle Egypt continued to build large tombs, such as at Beni Hasan and Qau el-Kebir, which represent some independence of authority and control of resources. But large provincial tombs of these lords disappeared during the reign of Senusret III, which seems to signify their diminished role in the provinces. Local control of the nomarchs was eventually replaced by that of town mayors with reduced authority as the central government played a larger role.
Political instability of the early 12th Dynasty is suggested by an assassination attempt on Amenemhat I, known from an instructional text (which is fictional) addressed to his son. The subsequent establishment of a co-regency system to stabilize the transition of rule, in which the crown prince ruled for a time with his father, is debated, however. Amenemhat I, who was not of royal blood, may have been the vizier of Mentuhotep IV. As vizier, Amenemhat led an expedition to the Wadi Hammamat greywacke quarries, in the desert to the east of the nile in Middle Egypt. Two miraculous events were recorded on this expedition: a gazelle gave birth on what was to become the stone cover of the king’s sarcophagus, and a large well was revealed in the desert as the result of an unusual rainstorm.
Under Senusret III, a major reorganization of the government occurred, with two main departments (waret) established to administer southern and northern Egypt, with textual evidence of more in the late Middle Kingdom. Another new department was the “Office of the Provider of People,” which registered people and organized labor for state projects. Other new bureaus were also created, resulting in a hierarchy of new officials and new titles - and an increased number of bureaucrats (or possibly a wider distribution of officials, which provides more information about lower level administration).
A major irrigation project took place in the Faiyum region, probably in the late 12th Dynasty. A dyke was constructed to direct water of the Nile channel now known as the Bahr Yusef, which begins in Middle Egypt and drains into Lake Moeris, into excavated canals south of the lake. This greatly increased the area of land under cultivation in the Faiyum region, thus increasing crop yields - and indirectly, state income. Karl Butzer has discussed phases of very high Nile floods (Cycle D) during the Middle Kingdom, and the Faiyum irrigation project would have benefited from these.
As in the Old Kingdom, the crown controlled foreign trade, for which there is much evidence, both archaeological and textual. Sherds of pots from Cyprus and Minoan Crete have been excavated at several Middle Kingdom sites. Byblos, where a number of Middle Kingdom artifacts have been found, was a major trading partner, and silver, cedar, oil, and other commodities were imported from (or through) Syria-Palestine. In 1894 Jacques de Morgan found the remains of five or six boats of imported cedar planks at Senusret III’s Dahshur pyramid. Originally 9-10 meters in length, the boats may have been used for the royal funeral.
Because of control of the Middle Nile by the Kerma kingdom, some expeditions in the Middle Kingdom were sent to Punt by ship along the Red Sea. Seafaring ships were made at Coptos in upper Egypt. The boats were disassembled and then the parts were carried across the Eastern Desert to the harbor at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis. Such expeditions were major undertakings, perhaps requiring several thousand men, as stated in inscriptions (Box 7-A).
Box 7-A Mersa/Wadi Gawasis, an Egyptian port on the Red Sea
In the Middle Kingdom, seafaring expeditions were sent to obtain the exotic raw materials of Punt, probably located in what is now the Kassala region in eastern Sudan and the southern coastal region of the Red Sea. Fraught with danger, the sea route was taken to circumvent the river/overland route to Punt because of Kerma control of the Middle Nile.
In the 1970s Abdel Monem Sayed (university of Alexandria) identified the remains of a Middle Kingdom harbor, known anciently as Saww, at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis on the red Sea, about 23 kilometers south of the modern port of Safaga. He found 12th-Dynasty inscriptions there from a shrine of an official of Senusret I named Ankhu, and an inscribed stela of the king’s vizier Intef-iker (Antefoker). The latter text describes ships that were built in Coptos for an expedition to “Bia-Punt” with over 3,700 men. The ships must have been disassembled for transport through wadi routes in the Eastern Desert, and then reassembled at the Red Sea harbor.
Re-investigation of the site by Rodolfo Fattovich (University of Naples “l’Orientale”) and Kathryn Bard began in 2001. Unlike in Lower Nubia, where the Egyptians built huge mud-brick forts, there was no planned fort at Saww, and the archaeological evidence there suggests temporary camp sites. In December 2004 after over 3 meters of sand were removed along the slope of the western coral terrace, the entrances to two man-made caves were uncovered.
Outside the larger cave (Cave 2) were small carved niches, some ofwhich still contained limestone stelae. The best preserved stela, which had fallen out of its niche, was found face down in the sand. Carved on this stela was the cartouche of the 12th-Dynasty king Amenemhat III, above an offering scene to the god Min. The hieroglyphic text below this scene is about two expeditions led by officials named Nebsu and Amenhotep, to Punt and Bia-Punt (the “mine of Punt”), the location of which is unknown (Plate 7.1).
Inside the entrance to this cave and on top of a large deposit of windblown sand were two blades of a steering oar, about 2 meters in length. Pottery dating to the early 18th Dynasty was associated with the oar pieces, and they may have been used on a ship of Queen Hatshepsut’s famous expedition to Punt, which is described in reliefs in her temple at Deir el-Bahri (see 8.2).
Further excavation of Cave 2 in 2005-2006 revealed four other long, man-made caves (Caves 3-6) that were cut parallel in the coral terrace. These five cave galleries were used as a kind of ship arsenal, and at the rear of Cave 5 (about 19 meters long) an estimated 26 coils of ship rope - neatly coiled and placed in two layers on the cave floor - were found as the sailors left them almost 4,000 years ago (Plate 7.2). Two more man-made caves have subsequently been located.
Outside of the caves whole ship timbers - planks and decking - of cedar, imported from Lebanon, were excavated by nautical archaeologist Cheryl Ward. Some of the timbers had the original mortise-and-tenon joints, and copper fastenings still in place. The well-preserved remains of more than 40 wooden cargo boxes were also found outside Cave 6. These boxes had been covered with gypsum plaster, and on two boxes
A painted hieroglyphic inscription included the cartouche of a king (Amenemhat IV), Year 8 of his reign, and a description of the contents: “the wonderful things of Punt.”
Investigations by coastal geologists Duncan FitzGerald and christopher Hein (Boston university, department of Earth Sciences) demonstrate that the ancient harbor extended considerably farther inland than where the present-day shoreline is located. Four thousand years ago the eight man-made caves were located just above the northern edge of the ancient harbor, which was sheltered from the Red Sea by a narrow opening to the east and from the prevailing northern winds by the fossil coral terrace.
Thus at Wadi Gawasis there is significant evidence of a major pharaonic harbor, including ship timbers and rigging, stone anchors, and boxes that were used to carry imported materials to Egypt. Texts on stelae left at the harbor describe the royal expeditions, and obsidian, ebony and pottery from the southern Red Sea region identified at the site demonstrate the distant contacts of this trade.
State mining and quarrying expeditions in the Middle Kingdom were also impressive. Amethyst for jewelry was mined at Wadi el-Hudi, about 35 kilometers east of Aswan, where a fort and settlement have been found with inscriptions and rock drawings. Mines for galena (lead ore), used for eye paint, were located at Gebel Zeit near the Gulf of Suez. one mining site at Gebel Zeit was also the location of a miners’ settlement and a sanctuary within a natural cave.
At Wadi Maghara in the Sinai, where copper was mined in the Old Kingdom, inscriptions of Middle Kingdom date have also been recorded. The most extensive operations in the Sinai during the Middle Kingdom, however, were at Serabit el-Khadim, where turquoise was mined, with copper mines located about 6 kilometers to the west at Wadi Nasb. Numerous Middle and New Kingdom inscriptions there indicate that expeditions from Egypt were sent both by ship and overland by donkey.
Because of its access to raw materials from southern regions and the gold mines of the Nubian Eastern Desert, Lower Nubia was the most important region for Egypt to control. The large mud-brick forts in the Second Cataract region represent royal/state projects on a huge scale in the Middle Kingdom. These forts not only had to be built, but also manned by soldiers and administrators, and supplied from Egypt with food that was shipped upriver. Texts known as the Semna Dispatches are informative about the functioning of these forts, which eventually numbered 17. During the reign of Senusret III more forts were built at the southern end of the Second Cataract after military campaigns there, expanding Egypt’s control in the region.
By Middle Kingdom times a large powerful state, the second oldest known state in Africa, had arisen on the Middle Nile, with its capital at Kerma. This polity was a potential threat to Egypt and the 12th-Dynasty forts were built to protect Egyptian trade and communications through the Second Cataract region, and defend - or at least demonstrate - Egypt’s territorial boundary. The forts also controlled the movements of local peoples in Lower Nubia: the C-Group and desert nomads known as the Medjay.
Another potential threat to Egypt in the Middle Kingdom were Asiatic groups to the northeast. Fortifications called the “Walls of the Ruler” (not known archaeologically) were built in the northeastern Delta in the early 12th Dynasty. Although it is no longer thought that the kingdom of Asiatic rulers (the Hyksos), which controlled northern Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, was the result of a large-scale military invasion, peoples from Palestine began to filter into Egypt during the Middle Kingdom. Asiatic names are found in a number of Middle Kingdom texts, suggesting their presence in Egypt in the 12th dynasty, especially in the Faiyum region, which was a major center of development. They probably entered Egypt by various means: as nomadic pastoralists in parts of the eastern Delta, and possibly as workers seeking to escape famines. Asiatic traders came to Egypt in caravans - such as is represented in the well-known scene from Khnumhotep Il’s Beni Hasan tomb - and prisoners of war were taken in Egyptian military campaigns or raids abroad (known from royal and non-royal inscriptions). As long as Egypt’s kings controlled the entire country, however, these Asiatic foreigners were not an internal threat.
But the Egyptians began to lose control of the eastern Delta in the 13th Dynasty, when there is evidence at Tell el-Dab’a and other sites of increasing numbers of Asiatics, and Egyptian mining in the Sinai came to an end. Lower Nubia was still controlled by the Egyptians and Itj-tawy continued to be the capital, but there is no evidence of the impressive building programs of the 12th Dynasty - of large temples and forts. Only a few small pyramids of 13th-Dynasty kings are known. These kings had short reigns - 60 kings in 153 years, according to Manetho - not enough time to build large monuments. Subsequently, Hyksos kings ruled in the eastern Delta, with Egyptian kings in Thebes. The later Greek term “Hyksos” is derived from the Egyptian word for these Asiatics, Heqa-khasut, which means “ruler of foreign/hill countries.”
The Middle Kingdom was also a time of ideological change - or evolution of beliefs, with the increasing importance in mortuary beliefs of the god osiris as the resurrected king in the realm of the dead. At Osiris’s cult center at Abydos private individuals left their commemorative stelae and memorial chapels. In the coffin Texts, which were inscribed on Middle Kingdom coffins - with some dating to the First Intermediate Period - the god Osiris is mentioned more frequently than in the earlier Pyramid Texts. The beautifully painted outer coffin of Djehuty-nakht from his tomb at Deir el-Bersha, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is a prime example of these texts. Whereas the late Old Kingdom mortuary texts were found in a royal context (with one or two exceptions), the Coffin Texts were for private individuals. New spells appeared in the Coffin Texts, but many were taken from the Pyramid Texts, and scholars now see the Pyramid and coffin Texts as an evolving complex body of texts. The Coffin Texts have been interpreted as a “democratization” of afterlife beliefs, but this is a simplistic explanation of Egyptian mortuary beliefs and practices which evolved through time, and John Baines suggests that the spread of such texts to the nonroyal elite was only a slight dissemination down the social hierarchy.
Abydos became an important pilgrimage site in the early 12th Dynasty, when a number of stelae were left there by officials of Senusret I. This king also began major construction at Karnak, which was to become the most important cult center in Egypt for the god Amen. At Karnak Senusret I built a huge court, as well as a small shrine to commemorate his sed-festival. A large temple was probably also built at Heliopolis, where only the king’s obelisk is now seen. Although little remains of them, other monuments were also erected by Senusret I from Elephantine to the Delta, reasserting the authority of the crown.
Cultural achievements of the Middle Kingdom include works of literature and other narrative texts, written in Middle Egyptian (Box 7-B). In later Egyptian traditions the Middle Kingdom and its texts were seen as classical. A school was founded at the capital in the early 12th Dynasty, and some texts, such as the Instruction of Amenemhat I (with royal advice for his son), may have been copied by schoolboys. Another set of instructions, that of Khety, is about a father who takes his son to study at the capital school. urging his son to apply himself, Khety sings the praises of the educated scribe, who does not have to wear the heavy garments of laborers or work all night long - and can take baths. A more profoundly pessimistic work of “wisdom” literature is a text called The Dispute between a Man Tired of Life and His Soul (Ba). The setting is an argument between a desperate man who feels the hopelessness of life, and his ba, who talks him out of suicide.
Box 7-B Middle Egyptian literature
Narrative works of literature are among the wide-ranging cultural achievements of the Middle Kingdom. The literary corpus also includes instructions, discourses, and laments. Written in Middle Egyptian, these works are available in several English translations. Two notable examples of narrative works are described here, following the translations in William Kelly Simpson’s The Literature of Ancient Egypt.
Perhaps the best known work, the Story of Sinuhe, is about an official of Amenemhat I’s daughter, who overhears news of the king’s death. Sinuhe flees Egypt in fear and spends many years in Palestine - providing an interesting description of the Middle Bronze Age culture there. He becomes a military officer of the chief of Upper Retenu and fights a local strongman, whom he kills with arrows and an ax. In his old age, Sinuhe receives a summons home and is then able to return to Egypt. Meeting the king in the palace, he is received almost like a wild man, who is then cleaned up and given fine clothes. Sinuhe is also given an estate, and a tomb and tomb furnishings so that he can have a proper Egyptian burial.
The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor is a story within a story. It begins with a leader worrying about his unsuccessful expedition to southern regions. He is consoled by another who tells him of a seafaring expedition with 120 sailors in which everyone was killed but one. The survivor ended up on the Island of the Ka, which was the home of a huge snake - 30 cubits long with markings of lapis lazuli. The snake is a sympathetic character who tells of his own losses, of 75 serpent siblings and offspring who were killed by a falling star. Prophesying that the sailor will return to Egypt, the snake gives the sailor all of the exotic products of Punt (including myrrh, giraffe tails, elephant tusks, hound dogs, and baboons) when he is picked up by an Egyptian ship.
Although not a work of literature, the Heka-nakht Letters/Papers provided material for a 20th-century ad work of literature by Agatha Christie, Death Comes as the End - her only murder mystery set in ancient Egypt. Dating probably from the early 12th Dynasty, the letters are those of a farmer and funerary priest written to his sons, who are overseeing an agricultural estate for him in southern Egypt while he is away on business in the capital.
World History
