– also decorated their monuments with the same imagery, to the extent that the Libyan prisoners bear the same names. As a result, it’s impossible to know if the Sahure expedition was the first, true campaign that captured these individuals, or if he too was copying an earlier original. Further Old Kingdom references to Libyan groups are brief, and have already been mentioned: Weni included Tjemehu-Libyans among the mercenaries for his
Levantine campaign, and Harkhuf says that the ruler of Yam had gone to
fight the Tjemehu-Libyans in the desert.
The Oases of the Western Desert
For much of Egyptian history, the Western Desert oases were ignored
both by Egyptians and foreign groups alike. Siwa Oasis, perhaps the most famous of them all, was only used by the Egyptians from the 26th Dynasty; Bahariya Oasis only had a small population before the Middle Kingdom;
and Farafra wasn’t occupied until the Roman Period. Of the more south-
erly oases, Kharga was little used before the arrival of the Persians and Romans (although archaeological remains of a Second Intermediate Period War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 27
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28 War and Trade with the Pharaohs
administrative centre and bakery have recently been unearthed), serving solely as a stopping off point for those wanting to feed animals and restock their water supplies during their journey to Dakhla Oasis – the only oasis of interest to the Old Kingdom Egyptians.
From as early as the 4th Dynasty, Egyptians, or people who had been
‘Egyptianized,’ lived in various settlements across Dakhla Oasis. These were buried according to Egyptian custom, and potters made vessels in Egyptian styles from local clay. Across the oasis, farms, hamlets, and villages were supervised by overseers of fields, who acted as intermediaries between the local people and the administrative centre at the oasis’ major settlement: the fortified town of Ain Asil. In addition to the Egyptians, the Sheikh Muftah people were also active in the region; these made their own distinctive pottery, and seemingly traded goods – such as pottery and lithic tools – with the Egyptians in the west of Dakhla.
From a palace at Ain Asil, the governors of Dakhla Oasis held author-
ity over all the western oases, including Bahariya, from which people were enlisted to work on projects at Dakhla. Controlling their own mini-courts, managed by family members in important positions, the governors kept in contact with the central court at Memphis through messengers, and also
stationed people elsewhere, including Bahariya Oasis and unidentified
locations called Mesqet and Qedeset (which may have been other oases).
Administrative documents were stored in an archive at the governor’s palace; the scribes composing these documents recorded important informa-
tion on papyri, and wrote information of only short-term importance, such as records of goods, on clay tablets.
As well as ruling their own mini-courts, the governors of Dakhla were
buried in monumental tombs, about 1 km away from Ain Asil in Balat. Chapels to their ka-spirits – an aspect of the deceased that required magical or physical food offerings – were built in Ain Asil, however; not only was this handy for residents wishing to pay their respects, but they were also close to an area of pottery production, should anyone wish to buy and leave offerings for them.
The Western Desert Trails
Dakhla’s importance stemmed from its location at the end of an import-
ant trade route, known today as the Abu Ballas Trail; this is named after the route’s mid-point, 200 km south-west of Dakhla. Travellers had walked this trail since Predynastic times, and continued to use it until the Roman Period, although most of the evidence for its use is concentrated in the War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 28
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Building Foreign Relations (and Pyramids) 29
late Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period. Dakhla’s governor was
responsible for accepting goods from traders passing along this route, and for sending these goods onwards to the Nile Valley. He also ensured that Egyptian goods were available to trade, and that supplies, especially water, were dotted along the route at staging posts, easing the movement of people through the inhospitable desert.
We can imagine then, in around 2400 BCE, a group of traders based at
Ain Asil departing the relative comforts of their town to begin their two week, 400 km journey south-west, through the desert to the region of the Gilf Kebir Plateau. From there, the path might have led towards Gebel
Uweinat, 200 km further south-west, at the edge of modern Egypt’s ter-
ritory, or perhaps even as far as Kufra Oasis or Chad’s Ennendi Mountain.
It’s possible that the trail ended at Gebel Uweinat, however, where Libyan traders, acting as middlemen for luxury goods delivered from Yam, could have met the Egyptians.
Whatever the case, leaving Dakhla Oasis, our traders would have first
passed watch posts, built during the 4th and 5th Dynasties on hilltops
to control access to the oasis, observing the roads to the east and south.
Leaving Dakhla behind, as the traders journeyed through the desert, they were well-provisioned: thirty staging posts linked Ain Asil and the Gilf Kebir, each marked by cairns of loose stones. These outposts, many at the foot of prominent hills, were also equipped with huge pottery jars, capable of holding thirty litres of water. Each would have been filled before the arrival of a caravan and sealed. Other jars were filled with grains, used to feed the travellers and their donkeys. Some of these outposts were manned, at least temporarily – perhaps only when a caravan was expected. Cups and bowls were kept there, and vats were used to prepare dough for bread. Some ancient guardians scratched notches into the stone, each perhaps representing days passed in boredom, protecting the supplies. Others carved senet boards – a popular board game in Ancient Egypt – into the rock, providing a source of entertainment. Some men whiled away the hours carving images into other nearby stone surfaces, including one scene that appears to show a man with two dogs chasing a gazelle.
It was not only Egyptians heading south-west from Dakhla that received
good treatment, but also foreign traders entering the oasis, probably along the Abu Ballas trail. An administrative letter, found at Ain Asil, mentions the failure to arrive of a potter at a place called Rudjet – perhaps to be located on the outskirts of the oasis – who had been meant to ‘prepare the way’ for the chief of Demi-iu – ‘the Village of the Island.’ Another letter mentions the War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 29
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30 War and Trade with the Pharaohs
need to provide grain for this chief along the way. Although Demi-iu cannot be located, it is possibly Gebel Uweinat, with its chief only occupying the site during the desert’s rainy season.
Further evidence for Egyptian activities in the Western Desert can be
found at a place known today as Redjedef ’s Water Mountain or Khufu Hill, a 20 m high rock face about 60 km south-west of Dakhla Oasis. There, in the twenty-seventh year of the reign of King Khufu, an expeditionary force of 400 men rested on a terrace at its foot, surrounded by a stone wall, some of them ready to tuck into a meal of roast locusts. The leaders of this force were the Overseers of Recruits Iymery and Beby, and their aim was to procure mefat – probably a mineral pigment used for paint – from the ‘desert district.’ To mark the event, Iymery and Beby had scratched their names, titles, and mission onto the rock face, close to images of ostriches, giraffes, and antelopes carved by much earlier visitors. This wasn’t Beby’s first trip to the mountain, for he’d led 200 men there two years earlier, again in search of mefat. Another individual, perhaps a member of one of these expeditions, also carved a boat being pulled along, and left a reference to quarry workers.
Getting Around: Travel by Land
When not travelling along the N
ile on boats, the Egyptians made use of
tracks along its banks, often marked by cairns and cleared of gravel. One particular ancient route led from Dahshur to the Faiyum Oasis. Some Egyptian roads were even paved, including one that connected Widan el-Faras and
Qasr es-Sagha in the Faiyum (dubbed the world’s oldest paved road).
Of course, if you were a member of the elite, you could get around Egypt without the need for all that tiresome walking thanks to the invention of carrying chairs. These are first attested in the 1st Dynasty, and archaeologists found a physical example among the burial equipment of Queen Hetepheres, mother of King Khufu of the 4th Dynasty. Most people, however, travelled by foot (probably barefoot if they couldn’t afford sandals), and used donkeys as pack animals (the Egyptians seem to have preferred not to ride donkeys).
From the New Kingdom, wheeled carts were used too, although it’s not
clear to what extent.
The End of the Old Kingdom
Thanks to new discoveries, Egypt’s Old Kingdom interactions with the
wider world are slowly becoming easier to reconstruct. What had previously War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 30
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Building Foreign Relations (and Pyramids) 31
been regarded as a period of limited contact with the outside world is now proving itself to be quite the opposite: the account of Iny reveals extensive relations with the northern Levant; the Abu Ballas trail shows early connections with the south-west, perhaps even leading to Chad; Elephantine was a cultural melting pot; the recently published blocks from Sahure’s pyramid complex have provided more detail about an early voyage to the mysterious land of Punt; and excavations at the fort of Ras Budran and the port of Ayn Soukhna have enhanced our knowledge of the Egyptians’ early exploitation of the Sinai mines. Already, foreigners lived in Egypt in large numbers and Egyptians travelled abroad, for both war and trade. It was a period of political development, bureaucratic expansion, and monuments on an extraor-
dinary scale. Egypt flourished. But all good things must come to an end, and the Old Kingdom was no different. We will explore the reasons for its collapse, and the aftermath, in the next chapter.
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Chapter 3
A Country Divided
(2117–2066 BCE)
There’s still no definite explanation as to why the Old Kingdom came
to an end, leaving Egypt to enter a phase of political disunity known
as the First Intermediate Period. Certainly, King Pepi II of the 6th
Dynasty reigned for an extremely long time, leading to dynastic succession troubles, chaos at court, and numerous short-lived reigns, to the extent that the 7th and 8th Dynasties are hard to reconstruct (indeed, the 7th Dynasty probably never existed). There was also a growth in provincial power at the expense of the central court. Egypt, from the Mediterranean Sea down to Aswan, was divided into a series of provinces, often referred to as ‘nomes,’
each overseen by its own nomarch, appointed by, and responsible to, the king at Memphis. But in the late Old Kingdom, nomarchs started to hand
down their powerful office to members of their immediate family, creating lines of hereditary succession across the country. They were also buried in their own nomes, rather than close to the royal pyramid, as was traditional.
By the end of the Old Kingdom, Egypt’s nomarchs had created their own
mini-courts, and the central power suffered.
To add to the court’s woes, there might also have been a foreign inva-
sion. A Middle Kingdom text, known as ‘The Prophecy of Neferti,’ says
‘foreign birds’ were breeding in the Delta, having entered the region
during the First Intermediate Period because of the people’s laxness.
Asiatics were wandering the land, the text adds, and they’d seized Egypt’s fortresses. Although this text as a whole is filled with hyperbole, there’s further evidence for a foreign presence: a text known as the ‘Teaching for King Merikare’ also mentions Asiatics in the Delta. As king, Merikare’s father had attacked these Asiatics, until they loathed Egypt, the text says.
These enemies moved from place to place in search of food, and were
always fighting, attacking without announcing the day of combat (which
was apparently very rude).
Such accounts could be entirely fictional, but with the collapse of central power and the start of the First Intermediate Period, the royal court did move from Memphis to Herakleopolis, south of the Faiyum Oasis. Was
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A Country Divided 33
this move prompted by instability in the north? Furthermore, at the end of the 6th Dynasty, the town of Mendes in the north-east Delta was violently destroyed and its inhabitants killed. It’s not possible to reconstruct who attacked the town, and it’s highly likely that the damage was caused by Egyptians fighting one another, but an Asiatic invasion cannot be dis-counted. The governor’s palace at Ain Asil and part of the town in Dakhla Oasis were also burned down at this time, but it’s extremely unlikely that these were attacked by people from the Levant.
If Asiatics did contribute to the political problems of the First
Intermediate Period, why did they enter Egypt in the first place? The
answer could be rapid climatic change. From 2250–2050 BCE, the Near
East suffered through a period of drought, brought on by an unusually dry climate. People were forced to move in search of food. Violence erupted.
Cities and states collapsed. Among its casualties, many settlements in
Syria, and others further south, were abandoned, and people from Anatolia spread west, causing the destruction of settlements in the Aegean islands.
It may also have contributed to the collapse of the Akkadian Empire.
Egypt appears to have been largely unaffected by these climatic changes, although some scholars argue that the country experienced a period of low Nile floods.
Whatever the cause of the Old Kingdom’s demise, with the political
fragmentation at the start of the First Intermediate Period, Egypt found itself divided between northern nomes loyal to the royal family based at Herakleopolis, and the nomes of the south, independent of the northern
royals and each competing for territory and power. Further fractures
existed within individual nomes: rulers of towns acted independently of the nomarch, and even pledged their allegiance to nomarchs from other
areas.
To complicate matters further, our evidence for a reconstruction is heavily weighted to the south, creating a one-sided view of events. Little can be said about the northern rulers during the first half of the First Intermediate Period. Comprising both the 9th and 10th Dynasties – though no family
break is apparent – this line was founded by a man named Kheti, whose
influence stretched as far south as Abydos. Manetho, who in the third century BCE compiled a list of Egypt’s kings, including major events from their lives, describes Kheti as ‘behaving more cruelly than his predecessors,’1
indicating that the king probably came to power by force. So, given the lack of sources for the north, we shall first head south, and focus our attention on a local warlord named Ankhtifi.
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34 War and Trade with the Pharaohs
Ankhtifi: A Man Without Equal
When his artists arrived at Moalla, just south of Thebes, to decorate his tomb chapel, Ankhtifi surely already had a good, clear idea of what he
wanted them to paint: based on his tomb inscriptions, he wasn’t a man who lacked vision, and he certainly thought highly of himself. A nomarch and warlord, Ankhtifi wanted everyone entering his tomb chapel to immediately recognize h
is power. This is perhaps why he instructed his artists to include only one example of the northern king’s name on his walls: in an extremely tiny cartouche (an elongated ring, containing a royal name) painted directly beneath Ankhtifi’s feet. To further stress his importance, Ankhtifi even had his tomb chapel excavated within a pyramid-shaped hill. No one can accuse him of lacking self-confidence. His inscriptions are full of bombastic statements, presenting him as ‘Ankhtifi the strong,’ as a ‘man without equal,’ and as the ‘beginning of people and the end of people.’2
Ankhtifi began his career as nomarch of Hierakonpolis – the third nome
of Upper Egypt – whilst the 9th Dynasty were ruling in the north from
Herakleopolis. But he also held the titles: general, commander of mercenaries, and commander of foreign lands. During these early years, he led a campaign south into the neighbouring nome of Edfu to overthrow ‘rebels’
and restore order. He justified his invasion by stressing that the nome was a mess, ‘neglected by the one in charge.’3 He also said that the god Horus had requested him to enter the nome. Basically, Ankhtifi argues, his actions weren’t selfish or a simple power grab: the people of Edfu needed him and the god Horus wanted him to take action. To heal the region’s wounds, he made men embrace those who had killed their fathers and brothers. But
taking Edfu wasn’t enough. Ankhtifi went on to lead his army beyond Edfu into the nome of Elephantine, uniting Egypt’s three southernmost nomes
under his rule.
Ankhtifi’s later attempts to expand north of Hierakonpolis were less successful. The nomarchs of Thebes and Coptos had formed an alliance against him, and were uninterested in battling the boastful southern warlord. On one occasion, Ankhtifi says, his troops challenged the Thebans to a fight. His men searched for battle throughout the Theban nome, but nobody dared to fight them. Most seem to have just shut themselves behind their city walls until Ankhtifi went away. Ankhtifi accuses them of being afraid, but they were probably just trying to ignore him.
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