First Intermediate Period of Egypt

First Intermediate Period of Egypt
c. 2181 BCc. 2055 BC
Capital
Common languagesAncient Egyptian
Religion
Ancient Egyptian religion
GovernmentMonarchy
Pharaoh 
• c. 2181 BC
Menkare (first)
• c. 2069 BC – c. 2061 BC
Intef III (last; Theban)
Merykare (last; Herakleopolitan)
History 
• Began
c. 2181 BC
• Ended
c. 2055 BC
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Old Kingdom of Egypt
Middle Kingdom of Egypt
Today part ofEgypt

The First Intermediate Period, described as a 'dark period' in ancient Egyptian history,[1] spanned approximately 125 years, c. 2181–2055 BC, after the end of the Old Kingdom.[2] It comprises the Seventh (although this is mostly considered spurious by Egyptologists), Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and part of the Eleventh Dynasties. The concept of a "First Intermediate Period" was coined in 1926 by Egyptologists Georg Steindorff and Henri Frankfort.[3]

Very little monumental evidence survives from this period, especially from the beginning of the era. The First Intermediate Period was a dynamic time in which rule of Egypt was roughly equally divided between two competing power bases. One of the bases was at Heracleopolis in Lower Egypt, a city just south of the Faiyum region, and the other was at Thebes, in Upper Egypt.[4] It is believed that during that time, temples were pillaged and violated, artwork was vandalized, and the statues of kings were broken or destroyed as a result of the postulated political chaos.[5] The two kingdoms would eventually come into conflict, which would lead to the conquest of the north by the Theban kings and to the reunification of Egypt under a single ruler, Mentuhotep II, during the second part of the Eleventh Dynasty. This event marked the beginning of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt.

  1. ^ Redford, Donald B. (2001). The Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Egypt. Vol. 1. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press. p. 526.
  2. ^ Kathryn A. Bard, An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), 41.
  3. ^ Schneider, Thomas (27 August 2008). "Periodizing Egyptian History: Manetho, Convention, and Beyond". In Klaus-Peter Adam (ed.). Historiographie in der Antike. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 181–197. ISBN 978-3-11-020672-2.
  4. ^ Gardiner, Alan (1961) Egypt of the Pharaohs (Oxford University Press), 107–109.
  5. ^ Breasted, James Henry (1923). A History of the Ancient Egyptians. Charles Scribner's Sons, 133.

Developed by StudentB