The Middle Kingdom comprises the 11th and 12th Dynasties approximately, as seen, since reunification with the fourth king of the 11th Dynasty would take place. In both the Saqqara List and the Abydos List as the last king of the 11th Dynasty, Mentuhotep III appears for the beginning of the Dynasty. The capital moves to Thebes, in the south, although it will also have another capital.
At this time, the end of Guti rule in Akad and the beginning of the rule of the III Dynasty of Ur (2112-2004) took place. Amarsuen (2046-2038) and Ibbi Sin (2028-2004). The Assyrians are established in Cappadocia (1792), and Hammurabi begins to reign. It is also the time of the Assyrian Old Kingdom and the government of King Shamshi-Adad I (1813-1781) and his predecessors.
Theban Kingdom
The region of the Nome IV of Upper Egypt with a fertile land on the banks of the Nile, lacked importance during the Old Kingdom. Thebes was at this time no more than a village on the right bank of the Nile. Within the same nome were other cities such as Tod, Hermontis and Medamud. They all worshiped Montu, the preferred god of the Thebans for a long time. On the west bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes, in the village of Gurna, some Old Kingdom tombs are known, including those of two nomarchs. In Gebelein a character named Iti is known, who can be placed before the foundation of the Theban kingdom and who is proclaimed pillar in the distinguished Theban nome in the southern district, who cared for Gebelein in the difficult years of the First Intermediate Period, providing the population with livelihoods and did the same for Mo’alla and Hermontis. Very similar things say the inscriptions of Heka-ib, his countryman or Merer’s.
Middle Kingdom Dynasties of Egypt
11th Dynasty
This Dynasty began the Middle Kingdom with the reunification of the north and south. The Dynasty itself began with 3 kings who were in fact little more than nomarchs, who ruled from Thebes. All three bear the name of Inyotef and participated in wars against the kings of Heracleopolis.
Mentuhotep I
after them reigned Mentuhotep I Nebhepetra (2060-2010), which consolidated central power and borders, restoring unity with force and diplomacy because the nobles and priests were still very powerful. All the great officials he appointed were Thebans. He also reestablished diplomatic relations with the foreigner. He achieved expansion to the south (Nubia), the east (Sinai turquoise mines) and the west (Libya).
Egypt returned to being an artistic focus at this time, although more in the southern part, where works such as the temples of Elephantine, Dendera and the royal tombs built in Deirel-Bahari, opposite Thebes, on the western bank of the Nile, can be found. Her great mortuary temple is next to Hatshepsut’s, at Deir-el-Bahari.
It happened to him Mentuhotep II, Sanjkara (2010-1998) who only reigned 12 years. He followed the practice of his predecessors of maintaining a defensive attitude towards his neighbors on the northern borders, keeping an eye on the south for his commercial interest.
Mentuhotep III
Prince Antef divine fatherthe eldest son of Mentuhotep II, died before his father and was buried in the Deir el-Bahari enclosure, so the new pharaoh was Mentuhotep III Nebtanyra.
Mentuhotep III Nebtanyra (1997-1991) came to the throne at an advanced age and reigned for only six years. His reign was peaceful and prosperous. Excellent works of art have been preserved from this reign, in which an ascent towards aesthetic perfection, characteristic of this moment, can be seen.
With Mentuhotep III the country recovered in many aspects. Expeditions were made to Libya and Nubia and foreign trade resumed. The capital remained in Thebes.
12th Dynasty
This dynasty, made up of seven kings from Thebes, was one of the most glorious in Egypt. Its first pharaoh was Amenemhat or Amenemes I. He stood out for the energy of his government and for the change in royal onomastics: the pharaohs adopted a theophoric name: Mentuhotep bears the name of Montu, the local god of the city of Ermant, and Sesostris means the man of the Great Goddess Useret (Theban divinity).
Amenemhat/Amenemes I
Shetepibre (1991 -1962) took power in obscure circumstances, after a period of revolts and invasion of the Delta by Asians.
A text called Neferti’s Prophecy, preserved in papyri and ostraka, refers in prophetic terms to the advent of a king named Ameny (short for Amenemhat). It describes a chaotic state, invasions of Asians in the Delta, the civil war between the Egyptians and alterations of the social order, a chaos that will be remedied by the coming of a kind of Messiah.
Amenemhat He was the son of Sesostris. divine father in Thebes, who will later be considered the true founder of the XII Dynasty. His own name, Amenemhat,Amon is in the lead It already announces a political program that will lead, through a return to the Heliopolyama theology, in the new syncretic form of Amun-Ra, on which the new Dynasty and its successors will base their power. Amun reached its peak with the Twenty-First Dynasty, as we shall see.
Once installed on the throne, the new pharaoh, like some of his predecessors, turned to literature to disseminate evidence of his legitimacy and religious change.
The king reestablished the borders and reorganized the administration of the country. The northern border built the prince’s walls, in the eastern part of the Delta, as a defense against the Asians. There was a fixing of borders that avoided fights over boundary issues. The existing anarchy in the transit of the two Dynasties produced a return to the bad uses of the nomarchs that would return to the indiscipline of the First Intermediate Period.
Amenemhat I, in his 36-year reign, reorganized Egypt:
– Reestablishing the nomes among themselves and changed the capital, moving it from Thebes, in Middle Egypt and established it about 32 km from Memphis, in Itjitauy (Amenemhat conquered the Double Country).
– He tried to restore royal power, although the nomarchs were still very powerful, and he placed royal inspectors alongside them and rewarded those who had helped him, confirming them in their positions, like the Oryx.
– He improved the administration of the country, controlling and organizing taxes. He increased the Royal Treasury as an instrument of power.
– It also created new positions of high officials who resided in the court, independent of the nomarchs.
The insecurity of Amenemhat’s position or the very need for a trusted assistant led him to associate his son Sesostris, named after his grandfather, to the throne in the 20th year of his reign. In the 24th year, the fourth year of the Sesostris regency, he carried out a series of punitive expeditions and guaranteed the exploitation of the turquoise mines of Serabit elKha-dim, in Sinai, also resuming diplomatic relations with the outside world. The penetration in Nubia was consolidated at this time. The great fortress of Buhen, downstream from the second cataract, was built in the year 25. Amenemhat I died in an attack or harem conspiracy that is known from texts that have been preserved, among others in the Sinuhé Papyrus.
Sesostris I Jeperkara (1971-1926) ended the conspiracy of the harem women that ended the life of his predecessor. He continued the Egyptian presence in Nubia and seems to have associated his son Amenemhat II to the throne. He also had trade relations with Crete, Syria, and Cyprus, and with the inhabitants of the western deserts. In his time there was great economic development and he restored the temple of Ra at Heliopolis in an attempt to renew the Old Kingdom tradition.
In internal politics, it does not seem that there were any great novelties and the nomarchs continue to govern their nomes subjected more and more to royal power, which continued to assert itself.
His construction work was notable throughout the country, among which the temple of Heliopolis stands out, built in the year 3.
his successor, Amenemhat/Amenesses II (1929-1895) was co-regent with his father for two or three years and reigned thirty-four. He continued the same policy to make Egypt a secure and, for the time, prosperous state. Expeditions were sent to Sinai, Nubia and Punt and a port was established on the Red Sea coast at Wadi Gasu. He continued the peaceful penetration into Palestine and the treasure from the temple of the god Martu in Tod is an example of the exchange of gifts with the princes of the area.
The same can be said of his son Sesostris II (1897-1878), during whose reign the nome of Beni Hassan was ruled by a character named Khnumhotep. This king began the exploitation of El Fayoum, the great oasis located about fifty miles south of Memphis, channeling the Bahr Yussuf that flowed into the future Lake Karum, building a dyke at Illahum and adding a drainage and canal system to it, although the The work would be finished by his grandson Amenemhat III. These works moved the royal necropolis that was installed in Illahum and to the east of his funerary complex, the king had the workers installed in the city of Kahum, the first known example of a city artificial discovered in Egypt, comparable to the artisans’ village of Deir el-Medineh from the Ramesside period and to the recent, possibly even older, Giza village.
Sesostris III
After Amenemhat II and Sesostris II reigned Sesostris III (1878-1841) the pharaoh with whom the Middle Kingdom reached its apogee. This was the most glorious pharaoh of the XII Dynasty, carrying out a series of acts that can be summarized as follows:
- He consolidated Egyptian rule in the northeastern fringe, reaching Palestine. He ended the power of the nomarchs and suppressed almost all their posts, so that the provinces were governed from the Royal Palace, divided into three departments or ministries, one for the north, another for the south and the third only for the call south head: Elephantine and Lower Nubia, led by a high official and a Council, all under the orders of the Vizier.
- This king forcibly recovered Nubia, which had been lost; he also campaigned against Palestine, took Shechem, and his influence reached as far as Byblos and the islands of the Mediterranean.
- From this reign a curious sample of the political-religious mentality of the Egyptians is preserved. They are terracotta statuettes representing bound prisoners on which are written the names of the king’s internal and external enemies (inhabitants of the countries to which he is called The Nine Arches), whose destruction is promoted by execration with magical formulas. They are improperly called Curse or execration texts and in them appear cited princes of Nubia and Asia. They are therefore an important source for knowledge of these two poles of Egyptian activity.
- The Egyptian monarchy undoubtedly reached high levels of grandeur and splendor in the time of Sesostris III. The nomarchs had ceased to be independent and passed into the service of the court. The pharaoh needed a body of efficient and faithful bureaucrats and this is what the official-inspired literature in Satire of Trades promotes.