When was the first intermediate period in egypt

Stability was when a king reigned for more than ten years. Learn more about the expulsion of the Hyksos by a heroic prince of Thebes.

Another possibility was that there might have been simultaneous kings. For example, the capital was Memphis in the north, and there were people in the north claiming to be kings, as well as rulers in the south saying they were kings. So they would have simultaneous kings. During the First Intermediate Period, the capital was changed. Herakleopolis was the name that the Greeks had given the capital city. It would have been a big deal to move the capital as the records and the scribes were in Memphis.

The pharaohs were very proud of their continued lineage and loved to trace their heritage. This is a transcript from the video series History of Ancient Egypt. Watch it now, on Wondrium. Abydos was the sacred city where Osiris was buried, and where the early kings had their burials. A later pharaoh, Seti I, built his temple at Abydos. It was his genealogy table listing the kings from Narmer to Seti I, used in a ritual. There were various theories for the collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt.

Most prominent among them was Kurt Mendelssohn, First Intermediate Period, and Manetho but no real records as such were available. The First Intermediate Period , a period about which hardly anything was known, lasted for nearly years but reconstructing history was difficult with no records.

It is believed that political chaos during this time resulted in temples being pillaged, artwork vandalized, and statues of kings destroyed. These two kingdoms eventually came into military conflict. The Theban kings conquered the north, which resulted in the reunification of Egypt under a single ruler during the second part of the Eleventh dynasty. The Old Kingdom, which preceded this period, fell for numerous reasons. One was the extremely long reign of Pepi II the last major king of the Sixth Dynasty , and the resulting succession issues.

Another major problem was the rise in power of the provincial nomarchs. Toward the end of the Old Kingdom, the positions of the nomarchs had become hereditary, creating family legacies independent from the king.

They erected tombs in their own domains and often raised armies, and engaged in local rivalries. A third reason for the dissolution of centralized kingship was the low level of the Nile inundation, which may have resulted in a drier climate, lower crop yields, and famine. The Seventh and Eighth dynasties are often overlooked because very little is known about the rulers of these two periods.

The Seventh Dynasty was most likely an oligarchy based in Memphis that attempted to retain control of the country. The Eighth Dynasty rulers, claiming to be the descendants of the Sixth Dynasty kings, also ruled from Memphis.

After the obscure reign of the Seventh and Eighth dynasty kings, a group of rulers rose out of Heracleopolis in Lower Egypt, and ruled for approximately 94 years. These kings comprise the Ninth and Tenth Dynasties, each with 19 rulers. Local rulers became paternal figures who took care of their people, boasting about how they fed the hungry and gave water to the thirsty. The notion of the ruler as benefactor would have deep repercussions on the conception of kingship in the following period.

This is when the Coffin Texts first appeared. As their name suggests, these were usually written on the insides of coffins. Their purpose, to ensure that the deceased successfully reached the afterlife, is the same as the Pyramid Texts, from which they evolved.

Unlike them, however, the Coffin Texts were not exclusive to royalty.