First Intermediate Period (Part I): Collapse?
We jump head slightly in time. By 2100 BCE Pepy II is gone, and with him the last securely-documented reign of the Old Kingdom. A succession of short-reigning kings (and a ruling queen?) see out the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Dynasties. Egypt becomes disunited, ruled by provincial governors. A nominally “royal” family, the House of Khety, dominates the North. But the South is in the hand of independent families.
What went wrong?
Bibliography
- Nicolas Grimal, A History of Egypt, 1994.
- Ian Shaw (editor), The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, 2004.
- William Kelly Simpson (editor), The Literature of Ancient Egypt, 2003.
- The University of Chicago – Tell Edfu Project.
- EgyptSites – Edfu.
- Reshafim – Lamentations of Ipuwer.
Hi Dominic,
on this page is the link to the audio podcast for episode 25 rather than 24. That means I’m missing one of your great episodes! Can you please have a look at it?
Best Wishes
Helge
Hi Helge,
Thank you for alerting me! I have updated the URL for the episode to the correct one.
Please let me know if there are any more errors are you go forward (with so many episodes I have difficulty keeping on top of these oversights).
Best regards!
Dominic
I’m glad you avoided the pitfall that accompanies a lot of collapses (the Roman Empire jumps to mind) of characterising it as necessitating a calamity for everyone.
Centralised governance certainly benefits an elite but for many people I imagine, climatic problems aside they could expect a lighter touch in their lives without it.
As for the cost towards elites this certainly seems true for court officials in the centre, but I wonder if it was in fact a boon for those in the provincial administration given they would no longer have to pass surplus along to a higher authority and could keep what they levied locally.
I’m glad you have avoided the old school approach of seeing every empire collapse as necessarily a disaster for all members of society. Too often I see this for 5th century Europe from the people who like ‘clash of civilisations’ framings. This gives me greater confidence in how you’ll handle the 2nd and 3rd intermediate period when I eventually reach them in your narrative.
I’m excited to hear your discussion of the hyksos given the wealth of articles in the last 10 years revising the previous ‘barbarian horde’ analysis.
Regarding the entry into the first intermediate period though, could it not be said that (excluding climatic problems) it was also beneficial to much of the elite? They no longer had to send surplus’ to the centre and could keep any resources they levied in their city or region.
It seems the injury was very much concentrated at the imperial elite in the centre from what you’ve described.