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The First Intermediate Period
Decline of the Old Kingdom
By Dynasty 5 there was a decline in standards of pyramid construction, and in Dynasty 6 the king’s power and wealth were depleted. With the death of the aged King Pepy II at the end of Dynasty 6, the kingdom and centralized government collapsed. Egypt entered a period of disorder and disillusionment (Dynasties 7–10) that only ceased with the emergence of a strong ruler in Dynasty 11. This transitional phase (Dynasties 7–11) is known as the First Intermediate Period. Various causes contributed to this collapse: political, economic, and religious. Throughout the Old Kingdom a number of economic factors ensured a gradual but inevitable equalization of wealth. Royal estates and wealth, through the king’s presentation to the nobles, gradually passed into a widening circle of inheritance. Once given away these lands were also usually exempt from taxation, so eventually the king lost both the “capital” and the “interest.” Kings also incurred great expense in building new pyramid complexes and maintaining the associated endowments and priesthoods, in addition to repairing and provisioning their ancestors’ pyramids. It was probably toward the end of Dynasty 4 that the king’s power and wealth began to decline while the nobles and priests increased their position. In an attempt to win support from these “power groups,” the king took action that ultimately exacerbated the problem. There were further tax exemptions, and the king now sometimes married outside the royal family into the increasingly wealthy nobility. Granting hereditary governorships to nobles and advancing the sun cult and temples at the expense of the king’s own status further undermined royal power. Finally, the aged King Pepy II, who ruled for over ninety years, was incapable of rescuing the situation. Internal weakness and dissolution allowed an external danger to erupt when Bedouin nomads on the northeast frontier infiltrated Egypt. Literary texts (Admonitions of a Prophet and Prophecy of Neferti) provide the main source for knowledge of the ensuing civil war and widespread chaos. The country suffered political upheaval and social disintegration. Royal authority collapsed, and the old order disappeared. This led to major religious changes: The masses questioned the king’s absolute divinity and unique claim to individual immortality, and a democratization of religious and funerary beliefs and customs now emerged. The royal god Re was replaced as supreme deity by Osiris who offered eternity to rich and poor. The Egyptians never forgot this period. It replaced the certainties of the Old Kingdom which came to be regarded as a “golden age.” People now questioned their most fundamental beliefs, and at every level the country underwent profound religious and social change. .
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History of the First
Intermediate Period There are five distinct but overlapping stages in this period. 1. Disintegration of the country at the end of Dynasty 6 and ensuing chaos. Many ephemeral kings ruled from Memphis during Dynasties 7 and 8. 2. The collapse of centralized government at Memphis, which was followed by civil war between provincial governors. This was exacerbated by Bedouin infiltrators. The loss of centralized control resulted in widespread conflict, famine, and disease. 3. Emergence of a new line of rulers, governors of Heracleopolis, who gained control over the area of Middle Egypt between Memphis and Thebes. Led by a man named Akhtoy, this line ruled during Dynasties 9 and 10 and achieved a temporary cessation of warfare and anarchy. 4. A family of rulers, centered at Thebes, now rose to power and came into conflict with the Heracleopolitans. The first three of this line were named Inyotef (Antef). 5. The greatest ruler of this family was Mentuhotep Nebhepetre, who gained rulership over Egypt and made himself the first king of Dynasty 11. Little is known of his campaigns to overcome the Heracleopolitans and terminate the period of civil war and anarchy. He made Thebes the capital of Egypt and was buried there in a unique funerary monument. There was a general revival in monumental building and the arts, and a “Theban” art style brought a new vigor to wall reliefs and statuary and replaced the classic royal Memphite art of the Old Kingdom. .
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Literature
Texts that form part of the so-called Pessimistic Literature are believed to describe the events of the First Intermediate Period. Prophecy of Neferti and Admonitions of a Prophet both take the form of a prophetic speech, although they were actually composed after the events they describe. Prophecy of Neferti (found in Papyrus Leningrad 1116B, written during the reign of Tuthmosis III, c.1460 BC) describes how a wise man (Neferti) is summoned to appear before King Sneferu (who ruled at the beginning of Dynasty 4) and entertain the king. Asked to prophesy about future events, he describes the internal strife and foreign intervention that will afflict Egypt, but claims that the situation will be saved by a great king, Ameny (Amenemhet I, founder of Dynasty 12). In Admonitions of a Prophet (Papyrus Leiden 344), the text probably describes events at the close of Dynasty 6. A wise man, Ipuwer, arrives at the court of an elderly, infirm king (probably Pepy II) who, protected from reality by his courtiers, is unaware of the dangers threatening his country. Ipuwer describes in vivid detail the horrors that already exist and foretells future events, and he begs those who hear him to act urgently to fight the\ king’s enemies and restore the worship of the gods. He tells of conditions that prevail throughout the land: the overthrow of order, reversal of the positions of rich and poor, violence, robbery and murder, famine, disease, and foreign infiltration. The people themselves threaten the administration which soon disintegrates. Internal chaos results in neglect of irrigation and farming, bringing economic hardship and famine, and foreign trade collapses. People now long for death, but even this brings no peace because materials are often no longer available to provide appropriate burials, and tombs and bodies are plundered. Ipuwer’s pleas are ignored, conditions worsen, and the old order is swept away, possibly with the overthrow and removal of the king himself.
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Religious Developments
Osiris began to supplant the Old Kingdom god Re throughout the First Intermediate Period as part of the general democratization of religious and funerary beliefs and customs. Kings of Dynasty 11 elevated their own local Theban war deity, Montu, to be their royal patron and supreme state god. The troubled conditions of Dynasties 7–10 probably limited the ability of the rulers to build great burial monuments, but in Dynasty 11 Mentuhotep Nebhepetre resumed the tradition and constructed a great funerary complex at Thebes. It included a burial area and a mortuary temple where the funerary rituals could be performed and was built to a unique design. Set against the cliffs at Deir el-Bahri on the west bank opposite Thebes, little of the original monument survives today as the stone was used to construct the later adjacent temple of Queen Hatshepsut (Dynasty 18). The complex also included the burials of other members of the king’s family. Democratization and decentralization affected the Old Kingdom custom of locating nobles’ tombs near the king’s burial place. From the end of the Old Kingdom to Dynasty 12, provincial nobles increasingly chose not to be buried near the king but to prepare fine, rock-cut tombs in the cliffs near their own centers of influence along the Nile. Generally, the democratization of funerary beliefs encouraged a massive expansion in the production of various categories of goods for inclusion in the tombs. .
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The First Intermediate Period
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