Middle Kingdom

The Middle Kingdom is the period in the history of ancient Egypt stretching from the establishment of the Eleventh Dynasty to the end of the Fourteenth Dynasty, roughly between 2030 BC and 1640 BC.

The once proud land of Egypt splintered into dozens of independent states. It seemed as if the Two Lands and the king of the Two Lands would never appear again; but two kings, Intef and Mentuhotep, in the region of Luxor re-established order and reinstituted the institution of the Egyptian king.
The dynasty they began, the Eleventh Dynasty, marks the beginning of the Middle Kingdom. Under these kings, trade with foreign countries began again, irrigation projects were repaired, and the writing of texts started up from scratch.
The period comprises two phases, the 11th Dynasty, which ruled from Thebes and the 12th Dynasty onwards which was centered on el-Lisht. These two dynasties were originally considered to be the full extent of this unified kingdom, but historians now consider the 13th Dynasty to at least partially belong to the Middle Kingdom.
Mentuhotep II's mortuary monument was at Deir-el-Bahri in western Thebes. It was not the saff-tomb type of previous Theban rulers or the reversion to Old Kingdom types of 12th Dynasty rulers. It had terraces and verandahs with groves of trees. It may have had a square mastaba tomb. His wives' tombs were in the complex. Amenemhat II built a pyramid on a platform -- the White Pyramid at Dahshur. Senusret III's was a 60-m high mud-brick pyramid at Dahshur.
Mentuhotep II made military campaigns in Nubia, which Egypt had lost by the 1st Intermediate Period. So did Senusret I under whom Buhen became Egypt's southern border. Mentuhotep III was the first Middle Kingdom ruler to send an expedition to Punt for incense. He also built fortifications at Egypt's northeastern border. Senusret instituted the practice of building of monuments at every cult site and paid attention to the cult of Osiris.
Mentuhotep IV was the final pharaoh of this dynasty, and despite being absent from various lists of pharaohs, his reign is attested from a few inscriptions in Wadi Hammamat that record expeditions to the Red Sea coast and to quarry stone for the royal monuments. The leader of this expedition was his vizier Amenemhat, who is widely assumed to be the future pharaoh Amenemhet I, the first king of the 12th Dynasty. Amenemhet is widely assumed by some Egyptologists to have either usurped the throne or assumed power after Mentuhotep IV died childless.


The pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom restored the country's prosperity and stability, thereby stimulating a resurgence of art, literature, and monumental building projects. Mentuhotep II and his 11th Dynasty successors ruled from Thebes, but the vizier Amenemhat I, upon assuming kingship at the beginning of the 12th Dynasty around 1985 BC, shifted the nation's capital to the city of Itjtawy located in Faiyum. From Itjtawy, the pharaohs of the 12th Dynasty undertook a far-sighted land reclamation and irrigation scheme to increase agricultural output in the region. Moreover, the military reconquered territory in Nubia rich in quarries and gold mines, while laborers built a defensive structure in the Eastern Delta, called the "Walls-of-the-Ruler", to defend against foreign attack. Having secured military and political security and vast agricultural and mineral wealth, the nation's population, arts, and religion flourished. In contrast to elitist Old Kingdom attitudes towards the gods, the Middle Kingdom experienced an increase in expressions of personal piety and what could be called a democratization of the afterlife, in which all people possessed a soul and could be welcomed into the company of the gods after death. Middle Kingdom literature featured sophisticated themes and characters written in a confident, eloquent style, and the relief and portrait sculpture of the period captured subtle, individual details that reached new heights of technical perfection. The last great ruler of the Middle Kingdom, Amenemhat III, allowed Asiatic settlers into the delta region to provide a sufficient labor force for his especially active mining and building campaigns. These ambitious building and mining activities, however, combined with inadequate Nile floods later in his reign, strained the economy and precipitated the slow decline into the Second Intermediate Period during the later 13th and 14th dynasties. During this decline, the foreign Asiatic settlers began to seize control of the delta region, eventually coming to power in Egypt as the Hyksos.

Middle Kingdom

Middle Kingdom

Middle Kingdom

Middle Kingdom

Middle Kingdom

Middle Kingdom

Middle Kingdom

Middle Kingdom

Middle Kingdom

Middle Kingdom

Middle Kingdom

Middle Kingdom

Second Intermediate Period

Around 1650 BC, as the power of the Middle Kingdom pharaohs weakened, Asiatic immigrants living in the Eastern Delta town of Avaris seized control of the region and forced the central government to retreat to Thebes, where the pharaoh was treated as a vassal and expected to pay tribute.The Hyksos (foreign rulers) imitated Egyptian models of government and portrayed themselves as pharaohs, thus integrating Egyptian elements into their Middle Bronze Age culture.
After their retreat, the Theban kings found themselves trapped between the Hyksos to the north and the Hyksos' Nubian allies, the Kushites, to the south. Nearly 100 years of tenuous inaction followed, and it was not until 1555 BC that the Theban forces gathered enough strength to challenge the Hyksos in a conflict that would last more than 30 years. The pharaohs Seqenenre Tao II and Kamose were ultimately able to defeat the Nubians, but it was Kamose's successor, Ahmose I, who successfully waged a series of campaigns that permanently eradicated the Hyksos' presence in Egypt. In the New Kingdom that followed, the military became a central priority for the pharaohs seeking to expand Egypt's borders and secure her complete dominance of the Near East.

Second Intermediate Period

Second Intermediate Period

Second Intermediate Period