Scope: Here we will see trouble in paradise. After centuries of powerful growth, the rise of nationhood, pyramids, and prosperity, Egypt totally collapses. We will explore the possible causes of this collapse but, more important, we will examine the consequences for religion, art, and politics of this anarchy that descended on Egypt. We will also use the First Intermediate Period to show the methods Egyptologists use to reconstruct history when the historical sources are scant.
Outline
I. Physicist Kurt Mendelssohn’s theory was that Egypt declined because unemployed laborers revolted against the pharaonic order—he was probably wrong. In reconstructing the First Intermediate Period, we use various sources. One of them is Manetho (third century BC), an Egyptian priest who wrote a history of Egypt (Aegyptiaka) in Greek for Ptolemy II.
A. The original text of Manetho is lost, but we have quotations from later ancient sources: “70 kings in 70 Days.” In other words, there was no stability.
B. Another possibility is that there may have been simultaneous kings in the north and south. We do know the capital changed during this period—from Memphis to Herakleopolis.
II. Kings lists are a basic historical resource of ancient Egypt. Carved on temple walls or written on papyrus, they list the chain of pharaohs.
A. The Palermo Stone goes up to Dynasty V. Our oldest record, it gives the years of reigns and some details but ends before the First Intermediate Period.
B. The Karnak List, today in the Louvre, has 61 kings up to Tuthmosis III.
C. The Abydos List, with 76 kings up to Seti I, was used in rituals. Once a year, the pharaoh would read the names of kings in the Hall of the Ancients in order to provision them in the next world.
D. The Turin Papyrus originally listed 300 kings up to Ramses II, with some details of their reigns. The papyrus is badly damaged.
III. The literature of the Middle Kingdom, which looks back to the intermediate period, also yields information. Of special importance are lamentations, a type of literature used as a source of history.
A. One lamentation concerns a man about to commit suicide. His ba (personality) threatens to desert him if he does, which means the man wouldn’t be able to resurrect.
B. The lamentations reveal that Egypt was invaded by foreigners. A major theme of the lamentations is that divine order is upset, contrary to the tradition Egypt so long revered. Who was responsible for maintaining divine order? The pharaoh.
C. This maal (divine order) resembled the Elizabethan Great Chain of Being—the world was structured according to God’s plan.
D. The lamentations are nostalgic about the good old days of Sneferu. The social order was being trampled—this was the period when the great pyramids were robbed.
E. The lamentations reflect the Egyptians’ fear of the desert and the Bedouins who populate it. For Egyptians, their well-watered land was the best place on earth.
F. Finally, the lamentations even question the taxing of people in difficult times. Egypt was the largest bureaucracy in the history of the world, and its government was supported by taxing the peasants according to how high the Nile rose.
IV. We know little about the First Intermediate Period.
A. Dynasties VII and VIII (2181-2160 BC) ruled from Memphis.
B. Excavations at Memphis are difficult because of the high water table and extensive cultivation, and thus it’s a “lost city.” Because the capital is gone, the First Intermediate Period is hard to study. But Egypt, as we shall see, will rise again.
Essential Reading:
Aidan Dodson, Monarchs of the Nile, Chapter V.
Supplementary Reading:
Peter Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, pp. 60-68.
Questions to Consider:
1. What are our sources of information for this obscure period?
2. What was life like for the nobility during this period?