The 12th dynasty (c. 1939–c. 1760 bce)

In a text probably circulated as propaganda during the reign of Amenemhet I (c. 1939–10 bce), the time preceding his reign is depicted as a period of chaos and despair, from which a savior called Ameny from the extreme south was to emerge. This presentation may well be stereotyped, but there could have been armed struggle before he seized the throne. Nonetheless, his mortuary complex at Al-Lisht contained monuments on which his name was associated with that of his predecessor. In style, his pyramid and mortuary temple looked back to Pepi II of the end of the Old Kingdom, but the pyramid was built of mud brick with a stone casing; consequently, it is now badly ruined.

Amenemhet I moved the capital back to the Memphite area, founding a residence named Itjet-towy, “she who takes possession of the Two Lands,” which was for later times the archetypal royal residence. Itjet-towy was probably situated between Memphis and the pyramids of Amenemhet I and Sesostris I (at modern Al-Lisht), while Memphis remained the center of population. From later in the dynasty there is the earliest evidence for a royal palace (not a capital) in the eastern delta. The return to the Memphite area was accompanied by a revival of Old Kingdom artistic styles, in a resumption of central traditions that contrasted with the local ones of the 11th dynasty. From the reign of Amenemhet major tombs of the first half of the dynasty, which display considerable local independence, are preserved at several sites, notably Beni Hasan, Meir, and Qau. After the second reign of the dynasty, no more important private tombs were constructed at Thebes, but several kings made benefactions to Theban temples.

In his 20th regnal year, Amenemhet I took his son Sesostris I (or Senwosret, reigned c. 1910–c. 1875 bce) as his coregent, presumably in order to ensure a smooth transition to the next reign. This practice was followed in the next two reigns and recurred sporadically in later times. During the following 10 years of joint rule, Sesostris undertook campaigns in Lower Nubia that led to its conquest as far as the central area of the Second Cataract. A series of fortresses were begun in the region, and there was a full occupation, but the local C Group population was not integrated culturally with the conquerors.

Amenemhet I apparently was murdered during Sesostris’s absence on a campaign to Libya, but Sesostris was able to maintain his hold on the throne without major disorder. He consolidated his father’s achievements, but, in one of the earliest preserved inscriptions recounting royal exploits, he spoke of internal unrest. An inscription of the next reign alludes to campaigns to Syria-Palestine in the time of Sesostris; whether these were raiding expeditions and parades of strength, in what was then a seminomadic region, or whether a conquest was intended or achieved is not known. It is clear, however, that the traditional view that the Middle Kingdom hardly intervened in the Middle East is incorrect.

In the early 12th dynasty the written language was regularized in its classical form of Middle Egyptian, a rather artificial idiom that was probably always somewhat removed from the vernacular. The first datable corpus of literary texts was composed in Middle Egyptian. Two of these relate directly to political affairs and offer fictional justifications for the rule of Amenemhet I and Sesostris I, respectively. Several that are ascribed to Old Kingdom authors or that describe events of the First Intermediate period but are composed in Middle Egyptian probably also date from around this time. The most significant of these is the Instruction for Merikare, a discourse on kingship and moral responsibility. It is often used as a source for the history of the First Intermediate period but may preserve no more than a memory of its events. Most of these texts continued to be copied in the New Kingdom.

Little is known of the reigns of Amenemhet II (c. 1878–43 bce) and Sesostris II (c. 1845–37 bce). These kings built their pyramids in the entrance to Al-Fayyūm while also beginning an intensive exploitation of its agricultural potential that reached a peak in the reign of Amenemhet III (c. 1818–c. 1773 bce). The king of the 12th dynasty with the most enduring reputation was Sesostris III (c.1837–19 bce), who extended Egyptian conquests to Semna, at the south end of the Second Cataract, while also mounting at least one campaign to Palestine. Sesostris III completed an extensive chain of fortresses in the Second Cataract; at Semna he was worshiped as a god in the New Kingdom.

Frequent campaigns and military occupation, which lasted another 150 years, required a standing army. A force of this type may have been created early in the 12th dynasty but becomes better attested near the end. It was based on “soldiers”—whose title means literally “citizens”—levied by district and officers of several grades and types. It was separate from New Kingdom military organization and seems not to have enjoyed very high status.

The purpose of the occupation of Lower Nubia is disputed, because the size of the fortresses and the level of manpower needed to occupy them might seem disproportionate to local threats. An inscription of Sesostris III set up in the fortresses emphasizes the weakness of the Nubian enemy, while a boundary marker and fragmentary papyri show that the system channeled trade with the south through the central fortress of Mirgissa. The greatest period of the Karmah state to the south was still to come, but for centuries it had probably controlled a vast stretch of territory. The best explanation of the Egyptian presence is that Lower Nubia was annexed by Egypt for purposes of securing the southern trade route, while Karmah was a rival worth respecting and preempting; in addition, the physical scale of the fortresses may have become something of an end in itself. It is not known whether Egypt wished similarly to annex Palestine, but numerous administrative seals of the period have been found there.

Sesostris III reorganized Egypt into four regions corresponding to the northern and southern halves of the Nile valley and the eastern and western delta. Rich evidence for middle-ranking officials from the religious center of Abydos and for administrative practice in documents from Al-Lāhūn conveys an impression of a pervasive, centralized bureaucracy, which later came to run the country under its own momentum. The prosperity created by peace, conquests, and agricultural development is visible in royal monuments and monuments belonging to the minor elite, but there was no small, powerful, and wealthy group of the sort seen in the Old and New Kingdoms. Sesostris III and his successor, Amenemhet III (c. 1818–c. 1773 bce), left a striking artistic legacy in the form of statuary depicting them as aging, careworn rulers, probably alluding to a conception of the suffering king known from literature of the dynasty. This departure from the bland ideal, which may have sought to bridge the gap between king and subjects in the aftermath of the attack on elite power, was not taken up in later times.

The reigns of Amenemhet III and Amenemhet IV (c. 1772–64 bce) and of Sebeknefru (c. 1763–60 bce), the first certainly attested female monarch, were apparently peaceful, but the accession of a woman marked the end of the dynastic line.

The 13th dynasty (c. 1759–c. 1630 bce) and 14th dynasty (c. 1759–c. 1530 bce)

Despite a continuity of outward forms and of the rhetoric of inscriptions between the 12th and 13th dynasties, there was a complete change in kingship. In little more than a century about 70 kings occupied the throne. Many can have reigned only for months, and there were probably rival claimants to the throne, but in principle the royal residence remained at Itjet-towy and the kings ruled the whole country. Egypt’s hold on Lower Nubia was maintained, as was its position as the leading state in the Middle East. Large numbers of private monuments document the prosperity of the official classes, and a proliferation of titles is evidence of their continued expansion. In government the vizier assumed prime importance, and a single family held the office for much of a century.

Immigration from southwest Asia is known in the late 12th dynasty and became more widespread in the 13th. From the late 18th century bce the northeastern Nile River delta was settled by successive waves of peoples from Palestine, who retained their own material culture. Starting with the Instruction for Merikare, Egyptian texts warn against the dangers of infiltration of this sort, and its occurrence shows a weakening of government. There may also have been a rival dynasty, called the 14th, at Xois in the north-central delta, but this is known only from Manetho’s history and could have had no more than local significance. Toward the end of this period, Egypt lost control of Lower Nubia, where the garrisons—which had been regularly replaced with fresh troops—settled and were partly assimilated. The Karmah state overran and incorporated the region. Some Egyptian officials resident in the Second Cataract area served the new rulers. The site of Karmah has yielded many Egyptian artifacts, including old pieces pillaged from their original contexts. Most were items of trade between the two countries, some probably destined for exchange against goods imported from sub-Saharan Africa. Around the end of the Middle Kingdom and during the Second Intermediate period, Medjay tribesmen from the Eastern Desert settled in the Nile valley from around Memphis to the Third Cataract. Their presence is marked by distinctive shallow graves with black-topped pottery, and they have traditionally been termed the “Pan-grave” culture by archaeologists. They were assimilated culturally in the New Kingdom, but the word Medjay came to mean police or militia; they probably came as mercenaries.

The 15th (c. 1630–c. 1530 bce) through 17th (c. 1630–c. 1540 bce) dynasties

The increasing competition for power in Egypt and Nubia crystallized in the formation of two new dynasties: the 15th, called the Hyksos (c. 1630–c. 1530 bce), with its capital at Avaris (Tell el-Dabʿa) in the delta, and the 17th (c. 1630–c. 1540 bce), ruling from Thebes. The word Hyksos dates to an Egyptian phrase meaning “ruler of foreign lands” and occurs in Manetho’s narrative cited in the works of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (1st century ce), which depicts the new rulers as sacrilegious invaders who despoiled the land. They presented themselves—with the exception of the title Hyksos—as Egyptian kings and appear to have been accepted as such. The main line of Hyksos was acknowledged throughout Egypt and may have been recognized as overlords in Palestine, but they tolerated other lines of kings, both those of the 17th dynasty and the various minor Hyksos who are termed the 16th dynasty. The 15th dynasty consisted of six kings, the best known being the fifth, Apopis, who reigned for up to 40 years. There were many 17th-dynasty kings, probably belonging to several different families. The northern frontier of the Theban domain was at Al-Qūṣiyyah, but there was trade across the border.

Asiatic rule brought many technical innovations to Egypt, as well as cultural innovations such as new musical instruments and foreign loan words. The changes affected techniques from bronze working and pottery to weaving, and new breeds of animals and new crops were introduced. In warfare, composite bows, new types of daggers and scimitars, and above all the horse and chariot transformed previous practice, although the chariot may ultimately have been as important as a prestige vehicle as for tactical military advantages it conferred. The effect of these changes was to bring Egypt, which had been technologically backward, onto the level of southwest Asia. Because of these advances and the perspectives it opened up, Hyksos rule was decisive for Egypt’s later empire in the Middle East.

Whereas the 13th dynasty was fairly prosperous, the Second Intermediate period may have been impoverished. The regional center of the cult of Osiris at Abydos, which has produced the largest quantity of Middle Kingdom monuments, lost importance, but sites such as Thebes, Idfū, and Al-Kawm al-Aḥmar have yielded significant, if sometimes crudely worked, remains. Aside from Avaris itself, virtually no information has come from the north, where the Hyksos ruled, and it is impossible to assess their impact on the economy or on high culture. The Second Intermediate period was the consequence of political fragmentation and immigration and was not associated with economic collapse, as in the early First Intermediate period.

The end of the Second Intermediate Period

Toward the end of the 17th dynasty (c. 1545 bce), the Theban king Seqenenre challenged Apopis, probably dying in battle against him. Seqenenre’s successor, Kamose, renewed the challenge, stating in an inscription that it was intolerable to share his land with an Asiatic and a Nubian (the Karmah ruler). By the end of his third regnal year, he had made raids as far south as the Second Cataract (and possibly much farther) and in the north to the neighborhood of Avaris, also intercepting in the Western Desert a letter sent from Apopis to a new Karmah ruler on his accession. By campaigning to the north and to the south, Kamose acted out his implicit claim to the territory ruled by Egypt in the Middle Kingdom. His exploits formed a vital stage in the long struggle to expel the Hyksos.