The 12th Egyptian Dynasty
The 12th Egyptian Dynasty
The much greater sophistication of the i2th Dynasty, compared with
the nth, is perhaps the factor that has persuaded so many scholars that
the Middle Kingdom only properly begins with the i2th Dynasty.
Amenemhat I
Sehetepibra Amenemhat I (Manetho's 'Ammenemes', £.1985-1956
BC) was the son of a man called Senusret and a woman called Nefret,
who came from outside the royal family, and the names Amenemhat,
Senusret, and Nefret were later to become popular with the I2th Dynasty kings and their wives. If Amenemhat the vizier really was the
same person as Amenemhat I, then his reporting of the two miracles
would appear to signal that he was the one for whom miracles were
performed. His contemporaries must have understood that this man
had been favoured by the gods.
The Prophecy of Neferty, a text which may have been composed at
about the time of the beginning of the reign of Amenemhat I, starts
with a list of problems in the land, then 'predicts' the emergence of a
strong king:
Then a king will come from the South,
Ameny, the justified, by name,
Son of a woman of Ta-Seti, child of Upper Egypt.
He will take the white crown,
He will wear the red crown;
He will join the Two Mighty Ones [the two crowns]
Asiatics will fall to his sword,
Libyans will fall to his flame,
Rebels to his wrath, traitors to his might,
As the serpent on his brow subdues the rebels for him.
One will build the Walls-of-the-Ruler,
To bar Asiatics from entering Egypt...
Since this early i2th-Dynasty 'prophecy' (the date of which is very
questionable) clearly refers to King Amenemhat, we once again have a
statement of divine intervention, calling attention to the king's supernatural status. There are a number of other texts that refer to the chaos
before the arrival of new kings; however, the references to the Asiatics
in The Prophecy of Neferty are new, as is the reference to the Walls-of the-Ruler, a structure built by Amenemhat across the eastern approach
to Egypt. It was during his reign that the first definitely attested Middle
Kingdom military campaigns against the Near East were undertaken.
One of Amenemhat's most significant moves was to transfer
Egypt's capital from Thebes to the new town of Amenemhat-itj-tawy
('Amenemhat the seizer of the two lands'), sometimes known simply
as Itjtawy, a still-undiscovered site in the Faiyum region, probably near
the Lisht necropolis. The name of the city implies a rather violent beginning to the reign, but the precise date of the transfer to Itjtawy is
not known. Most scholars argue that it occurred at the beginning of
Amenemhat's reign, although Dorothea Arnold advocates a date much
later in his reign (around the twentieth year). While a case can be made
for Amenemhat spending some years at Thebes, the fact that the
building preparations on the platform near Deir el-Bahri identified as a
possible tomb for Amenemhat I probably only took about three to five
years suggests that the move may not have been as late as the twentieth
year of his reign. The negligible number of Theban monuments constructed by Amenemhat I, and the suspicious absence of official
burials after the time of Meketra (a high official buried in the vicinity of
the above-mentioned platform), may suggest that the move took place
in the earlier years of his reign. On the other hand, inscriptions on the
foundation blocks of Amenemhat's mortuary temple at Lisht show
firstly that Amenemhat I had already celebrated his royal jubilee, and,
secondly, that year i of an unnamed king (thought to be Amenemhat's
successor Senusret I) had already elapsed, thus suggesting an
extremely late date for the Lisht pyramid complex. For these reasons,
the date of the move to the Faiyum is still a source of considerable
debate.
The site of Itjtawy may have been chosen because it was closer to the
source of Asiatic incursions than Thebes had been, but it was also
politically wise for Amenemhat to found a new capital, thus signalling
a new beginning. It also meant that the officials who served him at
Itjtawy would have been entirely dependent on the king rather than
having their own power bases. This new beginning was celebrated in
the king's second choice of Horus name, Wehemmesu ('the renaissance', or, more literally, 'the repeating of births', perhaps an allusion
to the first of the 'miracles'). This was no empty phrase: the i2th
Dynasty looked back to the Old Kingdom for its models (for example,
the pyramidal form of the king's tomb and the use of Old Kingdom
styles of artistic decoration) and also promoted the cult of the ruler.
There was a steady but inexorable return to a more centralized government, together with an increase in the bureaucracy. There was also an
exponential growth in the mineral wealth of the king, emphasized by
the jewellery caches found in several 12th-Dynasty royal burials. These
changes resulted in rising living standards for middle-class Egyptians,
whose level of wealth was proportional to their official posts.
Amenemhat's earliest use of the feudal armies was against Asiatics
in the Delta; the scale of these operations is unknown. He then
strengthened the region with the construction of the so-called Walls-of-the-Ruler, which play a dramatic role in the Story of Sinuhe
and are also mentioned in the Prophecy ofNeferty. No fortress of this
date has yet been discovered at the north-eastern frontier of Egypt, but
the remains of a large canal may date from this period. Other fortresses are known to have been constructed elsewhere in Amenemhat's
reign, including one named Rawaty at Mendes, and the outposts of
Semna and Quban in Nubia, the purpose of which was mainly to
protect and service the gold mines in Wadi Allaqi.
Although the king and his conscript army pushed southwards as far
as Elephantine quite early in his reign, they do not appear to have been
active any further south before year 29. By this time, the policy towards
Nubia had been transformed from the loose network of sporadic
trading and quarrying ventures that characterized the the Old Kingdom to a new strategy of conquest and colonization, principally with
the aim of obtaining raw materials, especially gold. An inscription at
the lower Nubian site of Korosko, midway between the first and second
Nile cataracts, states that the people of Wawat (Lower Nubia) were
defeated in the twenty-ninth year of Amenemhat's reign. Only one
military foray against the Libyans is recorded; this is said to have taken
place in year 30, with the army under the command of the king's son
Senusret. By the time the Libyan campaign had ended, Amenemhat
was dead.
Senusret I
According to Fragment 34 of Manetho's history, a conspiracy took place
at the end of Amenemhat's reign. The Teaching of Amenemhat I also
hints at a dispute over the succession, and it was while Senusret
was campaigning in Libya that he was told of his father's death.
Amenemhat was almost surely murdered, and a text from Senusret I's
times presents the account supposedly spoken by his father from
beyond the grave:
It was after supper, when night had fallen, and I had spent an hour of happiness. I
was asleep upon my bed, having become weary, and my heart had begun to follow
sleep. When weapons of my counsel were wielded, I had become like a snake of the
necropolis. As I came to, I awoke to fighting, and I found that it was an attack of the
bodyguard. If I had quickly taken weapons in my hand, I would have made the
wretches retreat with a charge! But there is none mighty in the night, none who can
fight alone; no success will come without a helper. Look, my injury happened while
I was without you, when the entourage had not yet heard that I would hand over to
you when I had not yet sat with you, that I might make counsels for you; for I did not
plan it; I did not foresee it, and my heart had not taken thought of the negligence of
servants.
The manuscript from which this brief extract derives is thought to
be an early 12th-Dynasty composition, possibly created on behalf of
Senusret I to support his claim to the throne. The piece would very well
serve as a 'justification' for any punitive measures Senusret might
have taken after he gained the throne.
The king-lists give Kheperkara Senusret I (£.1956-1911 BC) a reign of
forty-five years, and this situation is backed up by a text at Amada, in
Nubia giving a date of year 44 for him. It has been accepted for some
time that Senusret I's reign consisted of thirty-five years of sole reign
and ten years of a co-regency shared with his father, but this assumption was questioned by Claude Obsomer in 1995. If his claim is
correct, then we can at last make sense of the ending of The Teaching of
Amenemhat I, in which the king requests that Senusret succeed him.
This poetic request is only explicable if there had been no co-regency to
ensure the smooth transmission of the throne.
Senusret sent one expedition to Nubia, in the tenth year of his reign.
Eight years later, he dispatched another army as far south as the second
cataract. His general, Mentuhotep, went even further south, but it was
the site of Buhen that became Egypt's new southern border. Here
Senusret set up a victory stele, and constructed a fort, thus transforming Lower Nubia into a province of Egypt. While Kush (Upper Nubia)
was mainly exploited for its gold, the Egyptians were also procuring
amethyst, turquoise, copper, and gneiss for jewellery and sculpture. In
the north, trading caravans passed between Egypt and Syria, exchanging cedar and ivory for Egyptian goods. These more prolific expeditions into Nubia and Asia show the extent to which foreign policy had
changed between the nth and the i2th Dynasties.
The king's numerous monuments were distributed from lower
Nubia in the south to Heliopolis and Tanis in the north, and it was in
order to obtain the raw materials for building, decorating, and equipping these constructions that officials were sent to exploit the stone
quarries of Wadi Hammamat, Sinai, Hatnub, and Wadi el-Hudi. Just
one of these expeditions extracted sufficient rock to make sixty sphinxes
and 150 statues. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo includes a large collection of statues of Senusret retrieved from his mortuary temple, but
many of his other monuments and statues were remodelled, copied,
and replaced by later kings, so that few of the originals have survived.
At Thebes, he is considered to have founded the temple of Ipet sut
(Karnak) and erected an Egyptian alabaster bark shrine celebrating his
serf-festival in the thirty-first year of his reign. The relief work of his
time was particularly fine, judging from such surviving fragments as a damaged relief figure of the king from Koptos (now in the Petrie
Museum, University College London), but his statues lack vivacity and
movement, and the portraits are impersonal. Nevertheless, the effect
of this flurry of artwork had important results: because of Senusret's
long reign, the 'royal style' reached the regions with sufficient force to
cast its shadow throughout Egypt, and regional styles steadily retreated
before it.
Senusret was the first to introduce a construction programme
whereby monuments were set up in each of the main cult sites
throughout the land. This move, which was an extension of the policy
of later Old Kingdom pharaohs, had the effect of undermining the
power bases of local temples and priests. Today there are only a few
surviving remnants of the major sculptures and thematic works from
these regions, thus reducing our impression of the impact of Senusret's programme. Among his more important measures, Senusret
remodelled the temple of Khenti-amentiu-Osiris at Abydos. Following
this royal impetus, the king's officials also erected numerous memorial stelae and small shrines (or 'cenotaphs') at Abydos, thus inaugurating a practice that was to become standard for devout men of means
in both Middle and New Kingdoms. Because of the attention Senusret
paid to the cult of Osiris, there was a great flowering of Osirian beliefs
and practices in Egypt, as well as a more significant levelling between
the king's belief in the afterlife and the beliefs of his subjects. John
Wilson has described this as the 'democratization of the afterlife'.
The 'Hekanakhtepapers'
By a stroke of good fortune, a collection of Middle Kingdom letters
provide us with many details of agricultural life at about this time. The
letters were written by an old farmer named Hekanakhte to his family,
while he was absent on business for a considerable period of time.
Although this material was, until recently, thought to date to the reign
of Mentuhotep III, the fact that the papyri were found in association
with pottery of the early i2th Dynasty suggests that they were actually
written in the early years of Senusret I.
Hekanakhte's personality emerges from these letters, which are full
of sharp commands to his several sons to do his bidding, to stop
whingeing about the slender rations he has allowed them, and to be
kind to his new wife. The letters provide a most intimate view of family
dynamics in the i2th Dynasty, as well as indicating some of the ways in
which richer farmers juggled their commitments and crops. They suggest that there was famine in Egypt in Hekanahkte's later years, a phenomenon also implied by the inscriptions in the roughly contemporary tomb of the nomarch Amenemhat at Beni Hasan (tomb
BH2).
The Hekanakhte papers include a rare letter from a woman to her
mother a find that raises the question of the extent to which ancient
Egyptian women were able to read and write. Unfortunately, however,
this does not constitute definite proof, given that the woman in
question may have dictated the letter to a male scribe (as indeed many
illiterate male correspondents would have done) and the style of the
handwriting can provide no clues. References elsewhere to two Middle
Kingdom female scribes suggest that a few women may nevertheless
have been literate at this date.
Royal annals and the reign of Amenemhat II
Further information for the historical events of the i2th Dynasty
comes from a set of official records (known as genut or 'day-books') that
have been partly preserved in the temple at Tod. The king's building
dedications also contain elements of these annals; P. Berlin 3029, for
instance, describes the process by which the king founded a new
building. These are some of the most useful surviving texts in terms of
understanding the day-to-day world of the Egyptian palace. In addition, in 1974, the Egyptian Antiquities Organization discovered one of
the most important genut inscriptions at Mit Rahina (ancient Memphis). Although the inscription mentions Senusret I, it clearly belongs
to the reign of his son, Nubkaura Amenemhat II (£.1911-1877 BC).
These annals contain very detailed descriptions of donations made to
various temples, lists of statues and buildings, reports of both military
and trading expeditions, and royal activities such as hunting. It is
undoubtedly the most important text of Amenemhat II, but it also
refers to other 12th-Dynasty kings; most importantly, it reveals that the
superficial 'peace' that was said to exist between Asia and Egypt at this
time was only selective, with a number of treaties existing between
Egypt and various individual Levantine cities. Herodotus' references to
Asiatic wars and to the attitude of contempt held by 'Sesostris' towards
the Asiatics (Histories 2.106) are thus perhaps closer to historical
reality than modern readers have tended to believe.
Wall paintings in the tomb of the nomarch Khnumhotep at Beni
Hasan (BH 3) depict the visit of a Bedouin chieftain named Abisha,
while numerous Egyptian statuettes and scarabs have been found at
Near Eastern sites, reaffirming such Asiatic links. There had long been
steady commerce with the Syrian port of Byblos, where the native rulers wrote short inscriptions in hieroglyphs, held the Egyptian titles
of count and hereditary prince, referred to Egyptian gods, and acquired
Egyptian royal and private statuary. In addition, the above-mentioned
Mit Rahina annals of Amenemhat II identify the north Syrian city of
Tunip as an Egyptian trading partner. Other Asiatic contacts appear to
have been more warlike. The annals refer to a small group of Egyptians
entering bedouin territory (probably a region of Sinai) in order to 'hack
up the land', and two more operations were directed against unknown
walled towns. The victims are described as Aamu (Asiatics), and 1,554
of them are said to have been captured as prisoners. These large
numbers of foreign captives may well explain the extensive lists of
Asiatic slaves working in houses in Thebes in later times. There were
also campaigns in the south at this time; thus the 'biography' in the
tomb of Amenemhat at Beni Hasan mentions that he went on an
expedition to Kush (Upper Nubia) and that the East African kingdom
of Punt was visited by the king's official, Khentykhetaywer, in the
twenty-eighth year of Amenemhat II.
Unlike so many of the 12th-Dynasty rulers, Amenemhat II does not
appear to have had a prolific building record, although this impression
may be partly a result of later plundering. His pyramid complex, the
so-called White Pyramid at Dahshur (poorly preserved and not yet
thoroughly examined), was unique in being set on a platform. His
daughters were buried in the forecourt and a queen called Keminebu
was also buried within the complex. It was long thought that Keminebu was Amenemhat's wife, but it is now recognized, on the basis of
her name and the style of her inscriptions, that she was actually a 13thDynasty queen.
Senusret II and the inauguration of the Faiyum irrigation system
The reign of Amenemhat II's successor, Khakheperra Senusret II
(1877-1870 BC), was a time of peace and prosperity, when trade with
the Near East was particularly prolific. There are no records of military
campaigns during his reign; instead, his greatest achievement appears
to have been the inauguration of the Faiyum irrigation scheme. A dyke
was built and canals were dug to connect the Faiyum with the waterway that is now known as the Bahr Yusef. These canals siphoned off
some of the waters that normally would have flowed into Lake Moeris,
resulting in a gradual evaporation of waters around the edges of the
lake, the canals extending the amount of new land; the reclaimed land
was then farmed. This was a far-sighted scheme, and would have been
unique for its time, if it were not for the fact that land was reclaimed with a similar system of dams and drainage canals in the Copaic Basin
of Boeotia, in central Greece, in the Middle Helladic Period (c.iqoo1600 BC).
We do not in fact know how many of these irrigation works are to be
ascribed specifically to the reign of Senusret II, but his connection
with the overall revival of the Faiyum is probably indicated by the fact
that he erected religious monuments at the edge of the region. The
unique statue shrine of Qasr el-Sagha in the desert at the north-eastern
corner of the Faiyum has been dated to around his reign by associated
pottery. Like other buildings of his reign, however, this one was left
undecorated and incomplete, thus contributing to the impression that
he enjoyed only a short reign. The use of various sites in the Faiyum
for royal pyramid complexes from this time onwards perhaps indicates
the importance of the irrigation scheme, since it is usually assumed
that the royal palaces of each ruler would have been built close to their
funerary monuments.
A small group of statues of Senusret II are known, at least two of
which were usurped by Rameses II (1279-1213 BC). The wide, muscular shoulders are reminiscent of the statues of Senusret I, although the
influence of Old Kingdom royal statuary is also apparent. The facial
appearance of Senusret II is more vigorous and plastic, with none of
the blandness that typified the statuary of his i2th-Dynasty predecessors: his broad cheekbones and small mouth are very distinctive, and
probably indicative of actual portraiture, foreshadowing the startling
studies of Senusret III (1870-1831 BC). The customary imitation of a
royal trend by the wealthy members of society subsequently occurred,
including many vivid examples of individuality among the private
statuary of the late i2th Dynasty. The reign of Senusret II perhaps
deserves to be regarded as the first major phase of human portraiture
in the history of Egyptian art.
Even better known than the king's statuary are a pair of highly
polished black granite statues of Queen(?) Nefret now in the Egyptian
Museum, Cairo. Larger than life, they depict a royal woman whose
position at court is still uncertain. Although Nefret did not hold the
title of'royal wife', she possessed other titles held by queens. Was she
perhaps the first wife of Senusret II, who may have died prior to her
husband's fairly late accession, or was she his sister? As with many
Egyptian queens, the records concerning Nefret are ambiguous and
incomplete. In 1995 the remains of his chief wife, Khnumetnefer hedjetweret, were discovered in the pyramid of her son (Senusret III)
at Dahshur, together with a few items of jewellery.
Senusret II built his funerary complex at Lahun, the pyramid being
a massive mud-brick structure with a rocky core; large limestone
cross walls provided support for the brick sectors, which were then
cased in limestone. Trees were planted at the southern end of the
complex, and the entrance to the pyramid was also on the south. The
layout of corridors and rooms within the pyramid is unique, and may
reflect beliefs concerned with Osiris and the afterlife. It is suspected
that another tomb, very well made and situated on the northern side of
the complex (Tomb 621), could be a cenotaph like those in Old Kingdom royal complexes. The female members of the king's family may
be represented by eight solid mastaba-tombs and a satellite pyramid;
all of them were aligned with the northern side of the king's tomb, but
they were apparently symbolic structures rather than actual burial
places. In a shaft tomb at the southern end of the king's pyramid
enclosure, the jewellery and other possessions of Princess Sathathoriunet were found by Petrie and Brunton in 1914; the workmanship
of these pieces is among the best in the entire repertoire of Egyptian
jewellery.
Nubian conquest under Senusret III
Although the Turin Canon gives Khakaura Senusret III (0.1870-
1831 BC) a reign of over thirty years, the latest regnal year recorded by
dated sources is 19. On the other hand, discoveries during the 19905
may support the longer date (see chronological discussion at the
beginning of the chapter). There is no real evidence for a co-regency
with Senusret II, but if one could be proven it would help resolve some
difficulties caused by the unusually long reign.
Senusret is perhaps the most Visible' monarch of the Middle Kingdom: his exploits gathered renown over time and substantially contributed to the character of 'Sesostris' (a kind of composite heroic
Middle Kingdom ruler) described by Manetho and Herodotus. The
king campaigned in Nubia in regnal years 6, 8,10, and 16, and these
wars appear to have been very brutal: Nubian men were killed, their
women and children enslaved, their fields burnt, and their wells
poisoned. Soon after this, the Egyptians were again mining and
trading with the inhabitants, but conditions had changed. In the eighth
and sixteenth regnal years, stelae were set up in the fortresses of
Semna and Uronarti, at what appears to have been the southern
border, with their inscriptions reminding everyone of Senusret's conquest and punishments. This frontier region was sealed off by
reinforcing the huge fortresses, and guards were placed on round-the- clock duty, waiting for any movement. The year 8 stele at Semna states
that no Nubians are allowed to take their herds or boats to the north of
the specified border.
These forts emphasize the unsettled nature of the Egyptian control
of Nubia. The so-called Semna dispatches—a set of military letters and
accounts sent from Semna to Thebes in the i3th Dynasty reveal just
how rigorously the Egyptians policed the native people. They also show
how closely these forts kept in contact with each other. Although the
major forts were of comparable size, they fulfilled several different
functions. Some, such as Mirgissa, were more involved with trade than
others (bread and beer were exchanged for the native goods), while
some (such as Askut) appear to have been used as supply depots for
campaigns into Upper Nubia. Reports were sent backwards and
forwards from the forts to the vizier, and in this way the king kept in
touch with the limits of his domain. Senusret's final Nubian campaign, in year 19, was of lengthy duration and it was ultimately not
particularly successful: the king had to retreat when the water level in
the river dropped alarmingly, making journeys dangerous.
He undertook at least one campaign into Palestine, apparently
similar to the expedition sent by Amenemhat II against the Aamu
(Asiatics). There appear to have been large numbers of Asiatics in
Egypt by this date; some of them were prisoners taken earlier, but the
biblical account of Joseph's brothers selling him as a slave to an Egyptian master (Gen. 37: 28-36) may suggest another way in which some
of these immigrants arrived. Egyptian intolerance toward the
'easterners' was already apparent in the reign of Senusret I, who
described himself as 'the throat-slitter of Asia', and this general perception is reinforced by the so-called execration texts. These were lists
of enemies inscribed on pottery objects and figurines, many of which
name individual Asiatics and the people of Asia in general. The intention of the texts seems to have been to ensure the magical destruction
of Egypt's enemies by burying or smashing the pots or figurines in
question.
Senusret also took a different direction in his political reforms.
Although he has often been credited with the dismantling of the
system of nomarchs, there is no real evidence to support this assertion
(see section on political change below). Nevertheless, his attempts to
pull Egypt back into a more centralized form of government resulted
in significant political and social readjustment (especially for the
middle classes), and his reign is quite rightly regarded as a crucial
watershed in Middle Kingdom history.
The tomb of Senusret III, a 60-metre-high mud-brick pyramid,
cased with limestone blocks, was located at Dahshur, like that of
Amenemhat II. Mastaba-tombs were built for his immediate family
within the temenos wall, but their real burials lay below ground in
galleries, one level for queens, the other for princesses. Dieter Arnold
has shown that this complex takes some of its ideas from the 3rd Dynasty step-pyramid complex of Djoser at Saqqara. The burial chamber has a vaulted ceiling and is built of granite plastered over with
white gypsum. Neither the king's chamber nor the sarcophagus appears
to have been used. However, at the southern end of Abydos a second
funerary complex was constructed for Senusret, consisting of a subterranean tomb and a mortuary temple, where a cult for the king lasted
for over two centuries. Some scholars suspect that the Abydos complex
may have been his actual burial place, but no remains were found
there either.
Amenemhat III: the cultural climax of the Middle Kingdom
Senusret's only known son was Nimaatra Amenemhat III (£.1831-
1786 BC). It was arguably around the time of his long and peaceful
reign that the Middle Kingdom reached its cultural peak. Consolidation of what had gone before appears to have been the hallmark of
Amenemhat's style of government. He strengthened the Semna border
and enlarged some of the fortresses. Other building works included
numerous shrines and temples, and a huge structure at Biahmu (in
the north-western Faiyum), featuring two colossal quartzite seated
statues of the king facing onto the lake, which was later described by
Herodotus (2. 149). He also constructed a large temple to Sobek at
another Faiyum site, Kiman Faras (Crocodilopolis), and expanded the
Ptah temple at Memphis. The surviving statues of Amenemhat III are
striking, distinguished both by their originality and their workmanship, as in the case of a small head of the king now in the collection of
the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, which is one of the most elegant
and subtle of his many portraits. His so-called Hyksos sphinxes and
parts of shrines were found reused in the Third Intermediate Period
temples at Tanis, as were the twin black granite statues of the king in
the guise of the Nile god, bringing offerings offish, lotus flowers, and
geese a design later imitated by such New Kingdom rulers as
Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BC).
Numerous inscriptions record Amenemhat Ill's mining activities.
In the Sinai region alone, where the king's officials worked the turquoise and copper mines on a quasi-permanent basis, fifty-nine graf fiti have been identified. The quarries at Wadi Hammamat, Tura,
Aswan, and various Nubian sites were also worked. All this building
and industrial activity symbolizes the prosperity that Egypt enjoyed
during the reign, but it may also have exhausted the economy and,
combined with a series of low Nile floods, late in his reign, resulted in
political and economic decline. Ironically, the large intake of Asiatics,
which seems to have occurred partly in order to subsidize the extensive
building work, may have encouraged the so-called Hyksos to settle in
the Delta, thus leading eventually to the collapse of native Egyptian
rule.
Before the construction of the modern dams at Aswan and the
creation of Lake Nasser, the annual Nile inundation was critical for
Egypt's food supply. Amenemhat's records of inundation levels at
Kumma and Semna in Nubia are numerous, revealing extremely high
levels for the Nile during part of his reign, the highest being in year 30,
when it reached 5.1 m. But these levels subsequently tapered away
sharply, so that in year 40 the level was only 0.5 m. Such fluctuations
must have had a destabilizing effect on the economy. Since the Faiyum
is the only oasis in Egypt dependent upon the Nile, the Faiyum irrigation scheme would have needed to draw on some of the annual flood
water, thus perhaps explaining the king's apparent intense interest in
the flood levels. Alternatively, the high Niles may have been closely
watched in order to allow possible flood damage in the north to be
averted. Amenemhat III certainly maintained the Faiyum scheme,
and later peoples worshipped him as Lamares, the god of the Faiyum,
but, as with Senusret II, it is not clear just how much hydraulic work
was undertaken in his particular reign. His deification may have taken
place as early as the reign of his successor, Queen Sobekneferu, for she
had the most to gain from elevating the man who was probably her
own father.
Amenemhat built his first pyramid at Dahshur, but, as in the case of
the 4th-Dynasty Bent Pyramid of Sneferu, cracks appear to have developed in the structure during building. The finished pyramid had a
mud-brick core and was originally encased in limestone (now robbed);
its stone pyramidion is in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. The remains
of Queen Aat and another royal woman were found in two recently
discovered corridors inside the south-western section of the pyramid.
Their crypts were provided with separate entrances outside the pyramid, a feature that would have enabled access after the main entrance
to the pyramid had been sealed. Queen Aat's sarcophagus is identical
to that of the king.
The two queens' burial chambers at Dahshur each included a separate 'ka chamber' where the canopic chests were placed. This was a
type of funerary room that had once been the privilege of kings, thus
presumably representing a rather specialized aspect of the so-called
democratization of the afterlife (see section on religion below); it is
likely that these chambers expressed new beliefs concerning the afterlife of royal women. Their corridors were linked with the king's, and
they would have shared the tomb with him if it had not been for the
structural faults that developed.
Amenemhat's final resting place, however, was at Hawara in the
south-eastern Faiyum. His most famous monument was the mortuary
temple attached to this pyramid, which may have been reminiscent of
Djoser's sed-festival court, attached to his pyramid at Saqqara. The
Hawara temple became known as the Labyrinth because of its maze of
rooms and corridors. Although described by six classical writers, including Herodotus (2. 148-9), Strabo (17. I. 3, 37, 42) and Pliny (Natural
History 36. 13), no details of its plan were coherent even when Petrie
made his survey in 1888; therefore efforts at reconstructing its original
appearance have been unsuccessful. Amenemhat's burial chamber at
Hawara was originally intended to be shared with Princess Neferuptah,
who was probably his sister, but she was later transferred to a small,
separate pyramid (now almost totally destroyed by stone-robbers and
water damage) a few kilometres away. The prominence of Neferuptah
both during his reign and after her death, together with the mortuary
privileges provided for her and for the two queens at Dahshur, suggests
the increased status of royal women in the late i2th Dynasty.
Amenemhat IV and Sobekneferu
Given the long reign of Amenemhat III, there is a possibility that
Maakherura Amenemhat IV (1786-1777 BC) might have been his
grandson, but it is also possible that this last male ruler of Dynasty XII
was an aged son whose life was nearing its end when he came to the
throne, for he ruled for only nine years. He is likely to have been
married to Queen Sobekkara Sobekneferu (1777-1773 BC), whom
Manetho says was his sister. Few of his monuments have been preserved and little is known of events during his reign, which may have
been primarily occupied in completing several temples begun by his
predecessor, such as the limestone sanctuary of the harvest goddess,
Renenutet, at Medinet Maadi in the south-western Faiyum. There
were also continued expeditions to the turquoise mines in Sinai and
further trade with the Levant.
There are only a handful of records relating to the last ruler of the
12th Dynasty, Queen Sobekneferu, but some of them offer very interesting clues relating to her reign. She is listed in the Turin Canon;
there is a Nile graffito at the Nubian fortress of Kumma giving the
height of inundation at 1.83 m. in the third year of her reign; and there
is a fine cylinder seal bearing her name and titulary, which is now in
the British Museum. Usually, the queen uses feminine titles, but
several masculine ones were also used. Three headless statues of the
queen were found in the Faiyum, and a few other items contain her
name. She contributed to Amenemhat Ill's 'Labyrinth', and also built
at Herakleopolis Magna.
There is an interesting, but damaged statue of the queen of unknown
origin; the costume on this figure is unique in its combination of
elements from male and female dress, echoing her occasional use of
male titles in her records. This ambiguity might have been a deliberate
attempt to mollify the critics of a female ruler. An intriguing statuette
of Sobekneferu in the Metropolitan Museum, New York shows the
queen wearing a sed-festival cloak and a most unusual crown, which
may have resulted from the attempt to combine unfamiliar iconographic elements of male and female rulers. The queen's reign lasted
for less than four years, and her tomb like Amenemhat IV's has
not yet been identified.
