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Nitokris (Egyptian Neitkrety) was not the builder of the Third Pyramid; this particular monument at Giza was the tomb of Menkaure. However, there is another structure at the same site, which may have some bearing on the problem. It is a mastaba, but of such huge proportions that it is sometimes called the Fourth Pyramid; and it was built by a woman. Unfortunately for Manetho, this woman belongs to the Fourth Dynasty instead of the Sixth, and her name was Khentkaus. It would take a wild leap of the imagination to derive the Greek form Nitokris from this Egyptian name. One of Khentkaus’s titles is unique, not to mention confusing. “The mother of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt.” Did this mean she was the mother of two kings, or that she was a king and the mother of a king? Opinion leans toward the first interpretation, but the size of her mortuary monument indicates her importance.

We must also consider another Fourth Dynasty queen named Hetepheres II, granddaughter of the lady of the same name whose empty sarcophagus was found by Reisner. The second Hetepheres built a tomb for her daughter, in which the color of the original reliefs has been preserved to a remarkable degree; here Hetepheres II is shown with her hair painted yellow and crossed by fine red lines.

Egyptologists, who are just as imaginative as the next man, had a wonderful time with the redheaded queen Hetepheres. Since blondes are fairly uncommon in Egypt, they proposed that Hetepheres or one of her ancestors came from the Libyan people of north Africa, who lived not far from the Delta in the western desert. The legends of Nitokris might represent a composite from a lot of different sources: a real Sixth Dynasty queen of that name, the “pyramid-builder” Khentkaus of the Fourth Dynasty, and the redheaded Hetepheres, whose memory had survived in the “fair complexion” description of Manetho.

Nitokris may be a compound, but the Titian-haired queen is no longer fact. A friend of mine once mentioned the Hetepheres II story to an anthropologist acquaintance and was taken aback when the latter gentleman exploded. There were, he said, no fair-haired Libyans in north Africa. Yes, he knew that Egyptologists had been talking about them for years—everyone he met told him the story of Hetepheres, and he contradicted it every time; but a good story seemed to have better survival value than the truth. (There is some justice in this claim.) Of late, Egyptologists have had to discard the redhead for other reasons. Several Fourth Dynasty queens are depicted wearing headdresses of the same shape as the wig or hair of Hetepheres. The color has, in all the other cases, disappeared, but it seems more probable that what Hetepheres had on her head was a yellow wig or kerchief. The red lines? They are the practice lines of the artist, known from hundreds of other examples, which were never erased. So much for romance.

Three

THE GOOD SHEPHERD

Cartouche of Senusert

DESPAIR AND DELIVERANCE

When we look back over the first six dynasties we look across ten centuries of history. It is hard to avoid the symbol of the pyramid, which towers above the desert as the culture of the Pyramid Age towered above the mud huts of prehistoric Egypt. However much we may frown upon autocracy, we cannot see the collapse of a civilization as impressive as that of Egypt under the Old Kingdom without regret—regret not only for the artistic and intellectual enterprises that came to an end, but for the suffering social chaos always brings to the people who live through it.

The land spins around like a potter’s wheel; poor men have become rich and he who could not afford sandals is wealthy; but he who never slept on so much as a plank now owns a bed; he who never wove for himself possesses fine linen.

To the Egyptian, the breakdown of maat, the divine order, would have been bad enough. But the trouble went beyond that.

I show you the