And Egypt emerged from the First Intermediate Period.
The collapse of the Old Kingdom around twenty-two hundred BCE
Had fragmented the unified state into rival regional dynasties.
Upper and Lower Egypt had split. Herakleopolis ruled the
North. Thebes—an obscure provincial town at the time—gradually
Rose in the south. For over a century, Egypt was divided, weakened,
And suffering from the climate shifts that had brought down so
Many civilizations simultaneously across the Old World. And then,
Around twenty-sixty BCE, Mentuhotep II, king of Thebes, defeated
The northern dynasties and reunified the country. Egypt was whole
Again. The Middle Kingdom had begun.
The Middle Kingdom
Is generally dated from approximately twenty-fifty-five to seventeen
Hundred BCE—three and a half centuries of restored centralized rule.
It is often called, in Egyptian historiography, the classical
Period of Egyptian civilization—not because it was the wealthiest
Or the most expansive, but because it was the period of greatest
Literary and artistic refinement. The pyramid-building megalomania
Of the Old Kingdom had passed. The empire-building militarism of
The later New Kingdom had not yet arrived. The Middle Kingdom sat
In between—an Egypt that was confident but not aggressive, wealthy
But not extravagant, pious but not monumental. And in this quieter
Mode, it produced some of the finest Egyptian literature ever
Written.
The Eleventh Dynasty, under Mentuhotep II and his
Successors, ruled from Thebes. The Twelfth Dynasty, which
Succeeded them around nineteen ninety BCE, moved the capital north
To Itjtawy (near modern El-Lisht), strategically positioned at
The junction between Upper and Lower Egypt. The Twelfth Dynasty
Included some of the most capable pharaohs of the entire Egyptian
Sequence: Amenemhat I (founder of the dynasty), Senusret I,
Senusret III, and Amenemhat III. These kings consolidated royal
Authority, rebuilt infrastructure, launched ambitious irrigation
Projects (particularly the land-reclamation works in the Faiyum
Oasis), expanded Egyptian control south into Nubia, and
Patronized the arts and sciences on a scale that would make the
Middle Kingdom the reference-point for every subsequent
Egyptian renaissance.
And the literature of the Middle
Kingdom is remarkable. This is the period of the great tales and
Wisdom texts that would be copied and studied in Egyptian schools
For the next fifteen hundred years. The Tale of Sinuhe—a narrative
Of an Egyptian noble who flees the court after a political
Disturbance, lives in exile among the Amorites in Canaan, marries
A Canaanite princess, rises to prominence in the foreign court,
And eventually returns home to Egypt to be buried among his
Ancestors—is one of the first great works of narrative prose
Literature in human history. It combines autobiography, adventure,
Reflection, and homecoming-longing in a form that prefigures the
Novel. Sinuhe's yearning for Egypt during his exile—the famous
Passages in which he describes his desire to be buried in his
Homeland, to have an Egyptian funeral, to rejoin his ancestors
In the proper Egyptian way—is one of the most emotionally direct
Pieces of ancient literature that survives. Three thousand nine
Hundred years later, it still reads as recognizably human.
And The Shipwrecked Sailor—a tale of a sailor stranded on a
Magical island ruled by a giant talking serpent, who tells the
Sailor his own tragic story before sending him home with gifts.
The tale is a frame-narrative, a fantasy, a meditation on fate
And resilience. The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant—a small
Farmer appeals to the royal courts after being cheated by a
Corrupt official, delivering nine increasingly elaborate speeches
On the nature of justice. The king, secretly pleased by the
Eloquence, deliberately delays deciding the case so that more
Speeches will be produced. The tale is a meditation on rhetoric,
On justice, and on the relationship between the weak petitioner
And the powerful authorities. The Instruction of Amenemhat—a
Political-philosophical text in which the ghost of the murdered
Amenemhat I instructs his son on the treacheries of kingship
And the necessity of constant vigilance. The Instruction for
Merikare—a practical handbook for young princes on good
Governance. The Dialogue of a Man with His Ba—a suicidal man
Debates with his own soul about whether life is worth living, one
Of the earliest surviving philosophical texts on the meaning of
Existence. The Satire of the Trades—a humorous poem listing
The miseries of various manual occupations (the barber, the
Washerman, the field laborer, the carpenter) to encourage the
Reader's son to become a scribe instead.
These are not the
Religious funerary texts of the Old Kingdom (the Pyramid Texts)
Or the extended spell-books of the New Kingdom (the Book of the
Dead). These are literary works—short, focused, narratively or
Philosophically interesting, designed to be enjoyed as well as
Studied. They are Egypt's classical literature. They were copied
Over and over by later scribes as school texts, which is why they
Survive in multiple manuscript traditions. And they reveal a
Civilization that, having settled into a more modest political
Scale after the grandiosity of the pyramid age, turned its energies
Toward the cultivation of mind and letter. The Middle Kingdom
Scribe was the intellectual ideal of subsequent Egyptian
Civilization. Every later period looked back at the Twelfth
Dynasty the way Renaissance Europe looked back at classical
Rome—as the golden age that later generations tried to imitate.
And religiously, the Middle Kingdom saw important developments.
Osiris—the god of the underworld, the mummified god whose story
Of death and resurrection had been the exclusive preserve of the
Royal afterlife in the Old Kingdom—was democratized. The
Possibility of eternal life through identification with Osiris
Was extended, in the Middle Kingdom, from the pharaoh alone to
The broader noble class, and eventually, in principle, to any
Egyptian who could afford the funerary rites. Every Egyptian
Could now become an Osiris at death. The Coffin Texts—spells
Inscribed on the sides of wooden coffins to guide the deceased
Through the underworld—were the Middle Kingdom's expanded
Version of the Old Kingdom's royal Pyramid Texts. The afterlife
Was being opened up. The cosmic judgment, in which the deceased's
Heart was weighed against the feather of Ma'at (truth/justice),
Applied to all Egyptians, not just the king. A moral-religious
Democratization that was, for the ancient world, striking.
And Middle Kingdom Egypt opened itself to its neighbors to a
Degree that the Old Kingdom had not. Trade flourished with the
Levant, with Nubia, with Punt (on the Somali or Yemeni
Coast of the Red Sea—the frankincense-and-myrrh source). Diplomatic
Relations were established with the Cretan Minoans, whose frescoes
Would later appear at Middle Kingdom-influenced sites across the
Aegean, and whose ceramics began arriving in Egyptian ports. The
Relationship with the Semitic peoples to the northeast intensified—
Canaanite populations began migrating into the Nile Delta in
Increasing numbers, settling in the eastern delta as pastoralists,
Farmers, and merchants. These were the Asiatics, as the Egyptians
Called them—the J-haplogroup Semitic speakers whose presence
Would gradually transform the demographic balance of Lower Egypt.
By the end of the Middle Kingdom, the eastern Nile Delta had a
Substantial Canaanite population coexisting with the native
Egyptian population. And this coexistence would, in a later
Generation, produce the Hyksos—the foreign dynasty that would
Eventually rule Lower Egypt. But the Middle Kingdom phase of
This process was peaceful. Canaanites were welcomed as useful
Subjects. Egyptian culture and Canaanite culture began the long
Process of mutual influence that would shape the ancient Near
Eastern world. And this is where the biblical Joseph story, the
Gaiad will argue in the following chapters, is historically situated—
During the later Middle Kingdom or the transition to the Second
Intermediate Period, when Canaanite families entering Egypt
Could rise to positions of prominence and influence.
The Middle Kingdom did not last. By the Thirteenth Dynasty,
The central state began to weaken. Rapid succession of short-reigned
Pharaohs, climate pressures from the occasional low Nile flood,
And the gradual political autonomization of the Canaanite population
In the eastern delta led, around seventeen-forty to seventeen-thirty
BCE, to the fragmentation of Egyptian political authority. The
Hyksos—the "rulers of foreign lands," as the Egyptians called
Them—took control of the eastern delta and established their own
Dynasty there, with its capital at Avaris. The Second Intermediate
Period began. A second Egyptian collapse, three centuries after
The first. This second collapse would be the context of the biblical
Jacob and Joseph narratives, which the Gaiad will unpack in
The next chapter.
But the Middle Kingdom itself—as a phase, as
An achievement, as a cultural legacy—was Egypt's classical age.
It produced the literature, the religious democratization, the
Foreign relations, and the domestic consolidation that subsequent
Egyptian civilization would look back at as its reference-point.
It is less famous, outside of Egyptological circles, than the
Old Kingdom with its pyramids or the New Kingdom with its
Tutankhamun and Ramesses II. But it was arguably the most
Culturally accomplished phase of Egyptian history. The pharaohs
Were less grandiose. The art was more refined. The literature was
More sophisticated. The religion was more democratic. And the
Egyptian sense of itself as a coherent civilization, after the
Near-death experience of the First Intermediate Period, was
Consolidated and strengthened. The civilization had survived its
First collapse and come back stronger in certain important ways.
Middle Kingdom. Mentuhotep II. The Twelfth Dynasty. Itjtawy.
The Tale of Sinuhe. The democratization of Osiris. The opening
To the Levant. The Canaanite presence in the delta. The classical
Age of Egyptian civilization.
Middle Kingdom. Egypt restored. Stand.