• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Let us admit that there is no evidence that Amenemhat shoved the old king over the threshold of eternity. He was not of royal birth, but he was qualified for kingship by talent if not by blood. He was regarded as the founder of the Twelfth Dynasty, and he sired a long line of Amenemhats and Senuserts, who restored the glory of Egypt under the later Middle Kingdom.

One of the first acts of the new ruler was to move his capital northward. Menes had done the same thing, perhaps for the same reason: it was easier to control the princes of the Delta and northern Egypt from there. The Twelfth Dynasty capital was not at Memphis, although this city continued to be important; it was near the road into the Fayum, and was called Ittawi, “Binder of the Two Lands.”

Amenemhat’s first job was restoring proper order in Egypt. The independent princelings needed more than the years of the Eleventh Dynasty to teach them their places. It did not take Amenemhat long to regulate internal affairs to his satisfaction, and then he could turn his mind to other things. One project he began was the official conquest of Nubia. Another was the construction of the “Walls of the Ruler,” a fortress designed to protect the northeast frontier from incursions by Asiatics. He also started a new series of pyramids, which are poor objects indeed compared to the splendors of Giza. They cluster around the capital of Ittawi, at three cemeteries now known as Lisht, Hawara, and Lahun, and at the site of Dahshur, near Snefru’s big pyramids. Amenemhat I’s pyramid was of limestone. His quarries were not in the hills of Cairo, but in the older monuments of Giza and Sakkara. The pyramid is badly ruined, so we can see that the internal blocks include sculptured stones from the valley temples of Khufu and Khafre, among other sources. Some archaeologists have suggested that this pyramid be dismantled; as it stands it is not much to look at, and if we could get at the core blocks, all from Old Kingdom temples and tombs, we might learn a great deal.

Amenemhat had time to finish his pyramid and temples, but he had no time to spare. Perhaps he had a premonition of what was to come, for during his last years of rule he apparently made his son, Senusert I, coregent. This joint kingship was a practical procedure, but it has confused chronology considerably. Each king dated events by his own years of reign, and only rarely, when we have an inscription that gives simultaneous year dates for both kings, can we be sure how long the coregency lasted, or even whether a coregency existed at all. You will not be surprised to hear that “the coregency question” is a popular subject for debate among Egyptologists, not only in the Middle Kingdom but later. Some scholars don’t believe in any coregencies; others see them all over the place.

Thirty years after he had seized power, Amenemhat sent his son off on a campaign to “chastise” (a favorite Egyptian word) the Libyans of the western desert. While the younger king was gone, disaster struck. Possibly it was planned to take advantage of the absence of the younger, more virile ruler; Amenemhat was getting old. It is unlikely that a conspiracy aimed at his life could have been formed without his knowledge during his palmier days. Entering the royal bedchamber in the dead of night, the conspirators fell upon the king as he lay helpless and half-asleep. Although he fought for his life, hand to hand against the grim shadows in the night, he succumbed at last to the daggers of his foes. But treachery had not infested the entire court. Certain loyalists sent swift messengers to Senusert, now sole king of Egypt. He had already accomplished the purpose of the campaign and was on his way home. The news reached him in the evening as he made camp somewhere in the desert. Swearing the messenger to silence, the young king waited until dark had fallen and then set out with all speed for Ittawi. He reached the royal residence so soon and so unexpectedly that he was able to nip the conspiracy in the bud and ascend his throne without further