Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs_ A Popular History of Ancient Egypt - Barbara Mertz [57]
While Sinuhe was swashbuckling around among the Asiatics, his king was carry ing on the traditions established by Amenemhat I. He built his pyramid near that of his father and pushed the borders of Egypt farther south, furthering the process which was to end with Lower Nubia as an Egyptian province. Under him and his successors the country enjoyed peace and prosperity. Another Amenemhat and another Senusert held the throne for fifty years, during which time all was well.
All the kings of this dynasty were competent rulers. But with Senusert number three, the Twelfth Dynasty reached its peak. The first kings of the Twelfth Dynasty had sent troops into Lower Nubia as far as the Second Cataract, but it remained for Senusert III to put the country under organized military occupation. He was, in later times, regarded as the patron saint of the whole region—by the Egyptians. The natives of Nubia may have had another opinion of him.
At this time there lived in the region south of Egypt the aforementioned C peoples. They had entered Lower Nubia during the time of the weakness of Egypt between the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Though primitive by Egyptian standards, they were not barbarians. They made good pottery, raised cattle, and buried their dead in stone tombs circular in shape and with a chapel for offerings on one side.
These were the people whom the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty encountered as they pushed south. The Egyptians were not received with shouts of joy. Before the Aswan dam drowned Lower Nubia travelers heading south along the Nile from Aswan could see the ruins of great buildings located at strategic spots beside the river, all the way to the Third Cataract. They were the remains of the forts built by the Egyptians to hold the river route to the gold lands of the eastern desert. Fourteen of these fortified towns were built during the Middle Kingdom. In the heavy walls and the strategic location of each we see recognition of an enemy of no mean quality; the forts were close enough so that they could reinforce one another in case of an attack.
Fortunately, before the waters of Lake Nasser covered them, the forts were extensively studied by scholars. It does not take too much imagination to reconstruct them, or to imagine the life of an Egyptian outpost garrison two millennia before Christ. The heaviest fortifications were on the land side. The Egyptians held the river, and the forts could be supplied and relieved by water. A low wall and ditch served as the outer ring of defense; then came a forewall with bastions, inside which was a narrow passageway. The innermost wall was very high and thick, built of mud brick strengthened with timber insertions, and supported by towerlike projections at intervals. A narrow street ran around the inside of the wall. Within the defenses was the garrison town itself, with a big house for the commandant and barracks for the soldiers. There were also store houses and a treasury, plus a small temple. Most of the forts up to the Wadi Halfa region of the Second Cataract were built by Senusert III’s predecessors. He built eight more in the fifty miles—as the crow flies—which lie south of Wadi Halfa. Senusert III fixed his boundary by formal decree at the most southerly of these forts, Semna.
After Semna, the Nile runs through a district called the “Belly of the Rocks,” where the difficulties of navigation are immense. Rocks and shoals threaten the boats, and the river runs almost at right angles to the prevailing northwesterly winds. There is