In his domination of Lower Nubia, as in his imposition of royal authority throughout Egypt, Senusret invoked his own personality as an inspiration and a rallying-point. On a stela erected at Semna in the sixteenth year of his reign, he exhorted his descendants to defend Egypt’s southern border – not for the country’s sake, but for his: ‘As for every son of mine who shall maintain this boundary which My Person has made: he is my son, he is born of My Person, the likeness of a son who champions his father, who maintains the boundary of him that begat him. But as for whoever shall abandon it, who will not fight for it, he is no son of mine, and was not born to me.’ Senusret went one step further, ensuring that he had a permanent presence at Semna to encourage the appropriate behaviour: ‘My Person has had a statue of My Person set up on this boundary which My Person has made, so that you might be inspired by it, and fight on behalf of it.’
Indeed, statuary was something of an obsession where Senusret III was concerned. Statues were erected throughout Egypt to symbolize the ubiquity of the king’s power. Moreover, the pieces were not the usual idealized representations, but remarkably distinctive ‘portraits’. Their facial features departed so markedly from previous custom that they must have been ordered by the king himself. Senusret was shown with bulging eyes under heavy eyelids, a furrowed brow, hollow cheeks and a downturned mouth. The significance of this brooding and sullen expression is hotly debated: was it chosen to emphasize the burden of kingship or, rather, the grim determination of a ruthless autocrat? It may be noted that the king’s body was always shown as vigorous and youthful, and his ears were deliberately exaggerated, to denote an all-hearing monarch.
There is no doubt that Senusret was adept at using texts and images to assert his authority. Despite decisive reforms, he none the less saw himself as the inheritor of a mantle of kingship that stretched back to the greatest rulers of the Old Kingdom. Hence, he consciously took the 3rd Dynasty Step Pyramid complex of Djoser as the model for his own funerary monument at Dahshur. He also built a tomb complex at Abydos, a site for which he showed special reverence.
Whichever was his final resting-place, Senusret had assured his immortality by his own actions. The king who had imposed himself on Nubia was later deified in the region. In Egypt, too, memories would live on of the ruler who had raised royal authority to new heights, ending provincial autonomy and promoting kingship in a sustained barrage of propaganda. Through the force of his own personality, Senusret had not merely acted as an ideal Egyptian king: he had cast himself as the new model ruler, the pattern for future generations. The legend of ‘high Sesostris’ was born.
36 | Horwerra
E
XPEDITION LEADER
Middle Kingdom jewelry is among the finest and most sophisticated from the ancient world. The royal workshops of the 12th Dynasty took the art of cloisonné decoration to new heights, inlaying complex designs in gold with a distinctive combination of three semi-precious stones: red carnelian, dark blue lapis lazuli and pale blue turquoise. To keep the jewelry-makers supplied, regular mining expeditions were launched to some of the most remote parts of Egypt. The late 12th Dynasty, in particular, witnessed a frenzy of such activity, and the focus of much of it was the region known as the Turquoise Terraces (modern Serabit el-Khadim), in the southwest of the mountainous Sinai peninsula. The most vivid picture of life on a mining expedition is provided by a remarkable inscription left for us by Horwerra.
Horwerra was the Director of Gangs, and was evidently a frequent visitor to the Turquoise Terraces. His success had brought him promotion within the court, to the office and rank of God’s Seal-Bearer, Overseer of the Chamber, royal acquaintance, and Friend of the Great House. Perhaps because of his experience and trustworthiness, he was engaged in the sixth year of the reign of Amenemhat III to lead yet another expedition to the turquoise mines. However, this was no ordinary undertaking: it had been scheduled to arrive in the Sinai on the threshold of summer, ‘when it was not the proper season for coming to this mining region’.
The expedition set out from Egypt with its full complement of twenty-three members. Besides Horwerra, the group comprised three keepers of the chamber and the keeper of the treasury; an overseer of stonecutters and his team of eleven quarrymen; three cup-bearers, for bringing water to the work-place; a domestic servant attached to the treasury, the appropriately named Ip (‘counter’); a priest to look after the spiritual well-being of the expedition; and, last but not least, a scorpion-doctor. Threats to the men’s safety came as much from venomous bites and stings as from the sun, heat, dust and rock-falls.
Horwerra soon faced dissent in the ranks. His men gave full vent to their doubts about the wisdom of going to the mining region at the wrong time of year. Not only was the weather unbearably hot, but they believed this would affect the quality of the turquoise itself: ‘the mineral comes at this time, but it is the colour which is lacking at this painful time of summer.’ Horwerra had to agree, admitting: ‘Finding the colour seemed difficult to me, while the hill-country was hot in summer, the mountains were scorching and skins were troubled.’ Realizing that he had to show leadership, he rallied his men at dawn. He told them that the power of the king was his inspiration, and that the expedition should press on despite the conditions.
For several weeks, Horwerra’s workmen toiled in hot and uncomfortable conditions to extract seams of turquoise from the surrounding bedrock. The work was dusty and dangerous, and the pace was unrelenting. Finally, on the first day of shemu, the month of summer, he ordered a halt to the work. They had mined enough of the precious turquoise and could return home. No losses had occurred under Horwerra’s command and he could later boast: ‘Very well did I make my expedition. There were no raised voices against my labour, and what I did was successful.’
Before returning home to the green of the Nile Valley, Horwerra decided to leave a permanent record of his work at the Turquoise Terraces, as an inspiration to subsequent expeditions and a permanent memorial to his own accomplishments. He had chosen his spot well: he set up his tall, sandstone stela on the approach to the sanctuary of the goddess Hathor. On the front, reliefs showed the king worshipping the goddess and Horwerra worshipping the king: a perfect reflection of the proper, hierarchical, Egyptian world-view. But on the back, visible by pilgrims as they entered the temple, Horwerra carved his own inscription: a testament to his resolve and determination in the deserts of the Sinai.
37 | Sobekhotep III
C
OMMONER WHO BECAME KING
For a period of two hundred years in the 12th Dynasty, the succession passed smoothly and without interruption from one generation to another, aided by the institution of co-regency. Egypt was secure at home, strong in Nubia, prosperous and confident. Few, therefore, could have foreseen that within a few years of Amenemhat III’s death, Egypt’s stability would be dealt a serious blow by pressures inside and outside the royal court. First, there were dynastic issues. The accession of a female king, Sobekneferu, strongly suggests that the royal line itself had come to an end, causing a crisis in the succession. A further strain was the infiltration of migrants from the Levant into the eastern Delta. This had begun much earlier, but as the Middle Kingdom progressed, the trickle had turned into a flood. Taking advantage of a weakened monarchy, a rival dynasty of Canaanite origin seized power in the region.
The result was a further diminution of royal authority and a rapid succession of rulers, as one prominent family after another sought to put its favoured candidate on the throne. At first, it seems that the kings were still the lineal descendants of the great 12th Dynasty rulers. The accession of Sekhemrasewadjtawy Sobekhotep – Sobekhotep III – changed all that. For he had no royal blood whatsoever. Indeed, he openly flaunted his non-royal origins on a series of scarabs, an altar, a rock inscription and a stela. His father was a commoner, albeit with the rank of a member of the elite and high official. He may have been a military officer. Sobekhotep himself had certainly forged his early career in the army, and was eventually appointed to serve in ‘the ruler’s crew’, the king’s personal bodyguard. This must have given him an intimate knowledge of the court, and of royal security – an ideal springboard from which to launch a coup d’état. The self-confidence with which he publicized his commoner relatives (his father Mentuhotep; his mother Iuhetibu; his two brothers Khakau and Seneb; his sister Reniseneb; and his two daughters Iuhetibu Fendy and Dedetanuq) suggests that his immediate predecessors, despite their royal blood, had become seriously discredited in the eyes of their subordinates. Sobekhotep’s appeal may have been precisely the fact that he offered something different: a natural leader of men untainted by the misdoings of earlier 13th Dynasty kings.
He did not disappoint his backers. He ushered in a new era in Egyptian politics, one that was to restore a measure of stability in the administration and thus one of national prosperity. A papyrus dated to his first and second years on the throne gives an insight into the day-to-day activities of workers in Upper Egypt. It is symptomatic of the changes that were being introduced at all levels. Numbers of key government officials were increased; royal building projects were once again put at the heart of the state’s activities. As a result, Sobekhotep III is one of the best-attested kings of the 13th Dynasty, despite a brief reign of just four years.
Having only daughters, Sobekhotep did not inaugurate a new dynasty; after his demise, his family lost power just as quickly as it had gained it. Yet succeeding generations showed no ill-will towards the usurper king, the ultimate social climber who had seized a discredited throne and given it a much-needed injection of dynamism. Sobekhotep’s successor was another man of humble parentage, Neferhotep I: Egypt’s ruling class had evidently decided that non-royal blood could be a positive advantage when it came to restoring the country’s tarnished dignity.
PART 4
A Golden Age
Early 18th Dynasty
The collapse of central government at the end of the Middle Kingdom was an even greater blow to Egyptian self-esteem than the same phenomenon had been five centuries before: the difference this time was that it ushered in not just a period of division but of subjugation. The rule of the Hyksos 15th Dynasty, exemplified by its most prominent king, Apepi (no. 38), constituted a gross affront to Egyptian ideology, since the Two Lands were supposed to be the focus and model of creation, intrinsically superior to all other countries. Hence, the motive for expelling the Hyksos was not merely national reunification but the re-establishment of created order. Once again, the impetus for reunification came from Upper Egypt, more specifically from the rulers of Thebes. Leading from the front, the kings of the 17th Dynasty were not afraid to engage the enemy in battle; one of them, Taa II (no. 39), seems to have been killed in action. After several decades of fighting, recounted by two soldiers who were in the thick of the action (nos 41–42), the Hyksos were driven out and Egypt’s autonomy restored.
The character of the New Kingdom was greatly influenced by the events surrounding its birth. The Hyksos and Kushite invasions of the Second Intermediate Period had awoken Egypt to the new realities of international relations. Strong natural borders and a sense of patriotic superiority were no longer sufficiently good defence against well-armed, determined and envious neighbours. If Egypt were to maintain its independence, it would have to do so by force, conquering and annexing adjacent lands to create a militarized buffer zone against future attack. The kings of the early 18th Dynasty took up this challenge with gusto. They established a permanent, professional army, and launched a policy of extending Egypt’s borders to create an empire in the Near East. This culminated in the extraordinary series of campaigns under Thutmose III (no. 46), the greatest of the warrior pharaohs. From now on, military iconography was a key element in the symbolism of kingship, while the army became a powerful bloc within Egyptian society.
To set against this militarism, the prominent role played by successive generations of royal women is another striking feature of the 18th Dynasty. The influence of kings’ wives during the wars of liberation continued long after the expulsion of the Hyksos, in the wider arena of national politics. Women such as Ahmose-Nefertari (no. 40) and Tiye (no. 53) did not meekly stand beside their husbands in the performance of official royal duties, they actively participated in the business of government, maintaining their own households and influencing key decisions. Hatshepsut (no. 43), daughter of one king and wife of another, went a step further and proclaimed herself monarch. Despite the glories of her reign, her gender was contrary to the ideology of kingship and led to the desecration of her monuments and memory after her death – a fate in which her favourite and factotum, Senenmut (no. 44), seems to have shared.
The splendour of Egypt’s Golden Age is best attested at Thebes, cult centre of the chief state god, Amun-Ra, and a religious capital to rival the administrative capital of Memphis. The rulers of the 18th Dynasty lavished attention on Thebes’ temples, built their funerary monuments on its West Bank, and were interred in spectacular tombs cut into the hillside in the remote Valley of the Kings. Alongside the royal sepulchres, the ruling class built their own tombs in the Theban necropolis. As well as being architectural and artistic gems, the tombs also provide a wealth of information about the lives and careers of the men who ran Egypt (nos 45, 47, 48–51, 54–55) – from the vizier at the top of the bureaucratic ladder (no. 47) to a humble scribe on its bottom rung (no. 54). In the cosmopolitan and diverse society of the New Kingdom, it was truly possible for a man of modest means to rise to great prominence through his own abilities. Amenhotep son of Hapu (no. 55) did just that, winning exceptional royal favour during his lifetime and posthumous deification.
His career culminated in the reign of Amenhotep III (no. 52) which marked the zenith of 18th Dynasty grandeur and opulence. The king’s elaborate jubilee celebrations, the first of which was stage-managed by Amenhotep son of Hapu, were designed to raise the institution of kingship to a new level; the king’s building projects in Nubia were even more explicit, the temple at Soleb being dedicated to his deified self. The quasi-divine nature of the Egyptian monarchy had been a fundamental tenet of religion and government since the beginning of the 1st Dynasty, but Amenhotep III’s policies steered a new course, in the direction of full-scale divinity during the king’s own lifetime. It was a bold move, commensurate with the glories of the age; but it would spell disaster for Egypt when embraced, with even greater fervour, by Amenhotep’s son and heir.
38 | Apepi
A
N
A
SIATIC ON THE THRONE OF
E
GYPT
Of all the dynasties to rule Egypt, perhaps the most enigmatic is the 15th: a line of six kings of Asiatic origin, known to posterity as the Hyksos (a Greek corruption of the Egyptian phrase hekau-khasut, ‘the rulers of foreign lands’). Their precise geographical origin is uncertain, but was probably the Lebanese coastal plain around Byblos. What is clear is that they and their kin brought to Egypt a wholly alien culture; yet, within three generations, these foreign rulers had become sufficiently acculturated to adopt full Egyptian royal titles. The best known of these ‘Asiatic kings’ is the fifth Hyksos ruler, Apepi, who has come to exemplify this extraordinary chapter in the history of ancient Egypt. His long reign of forty years witnessed many of the key events leading to the foundation of the New Kingdom.
Apepi came to power as a young man, as the result of a coup, his predecessor, Khyan, having appointed his own son, Yanassi, as heir apparent. The usurper was clearly of non-royal birth, but little else is known about his family, save the names of his two sisters, Tani and Ziway, and his daughter Harit. Apepi may also have had a son, another Apepi, but he is scarcely attested. Although the Hyksos capital and stronghold was at Avaris (ancient Hut-waret, modern Tell el-Dab‘a) in the northeastern Delta, Apepi commissioned construction projects and carried out other royal activities throughout Egypt, from Thebes in the south to the Memphite region and southern Palestine in the north and east. He seems to have shown a particular interest in the area around Gebelein (ancient Inerty) in Upper Egypt, dedicating an adze to the nearby cult of Sobek Lord of Semnu, and building a shrine at Gebelein itself, of which only the limestone architrave survives, inscribed with Apepi’s royal names and titles.
However, it seems that relatively early in Apepi’s reign, the Hyksos hold on Upper Egypt – always a stronghold of Egyptian nationalism – began to weaken. Perhaps sensing that territory was slipping from his grasp, Apepi may have ordered a scorched-earth policy, looting and destroying many of Thebes’ temples and royal tombs. Certainly, he plundered a large number of royal statues, bringing them back to Avaris to be re-inscribed with his own name. Erected in his own palaces and temples, they would have served to proclaim his authority as king, even if his tactical retreat northwards told a different story. None the less, Apepi made the best of his situation by concluding a formal treaty with his opponents to set the official border at Cusae (ancient Qus). The next two decades of his reign seem to have been calm, with the two states sharing the Nile Valley and trading with each other in relative peace.
All that changed with the accession in Thebes of a young, dynamic and determined ruler, Taa II (no. 39). Taa moved swiftly to launch an attack on Hyksos-controlled territory. Although he was killed in battle before he had been able to make major gains, it was a pyrrhic victory for Apepi. The next Theban king, Kamose, continued the relentless advance, within three years pushing Apepi’s forces back to Atfih, just north of the entrance to the Fayum. In the face of these disastrous setbacks, Apepi tried to maintain his royal dignity by adopting new titles and epithets: ‘he whose power brings about victorious frontiers: there is no country free from paying him tribute’ and ‘stout-hearted on the day of battle, he who is more famous than any other king; how miserable are the foreign lands that do not recognize him’. His throne-name, Auserra, proclaimed ‘great is the strength of Ra (i.e. the king)’. It was all wishful thinking.
While the machinery of government continued to function – for example, in the thirty-third year of Apepi’s reign, scribes were commissioned to copy out a long and important mathematical papyrus – the Hyksos state was on a permanent war footing. Society was heavily militarized, as shown by a dagger belonging to one of Apepi’s soldiers, Abed, which is decorated with an image of his follower Nehemen armed with a lance, short bow and dagger. Fighting dominated the last decade of Apepi’s reign. When he died, probably in his late sixties, he must have known that the end of Hyksos rule in Egypt was near. His successor, another usurper, lasted barely a year before the Asiatics were finally driven out of the Delta by the forces of the Theban Ahmose, who thus inaugurated the 18th Dynasty.
