A Soldier of Ancient Egypt
[ca. 3033-2700 B.C.]
The VIIth and VIIIth Dynasties fell through causes of disintegration and decay. The capital was transferred to Heracleopolis, presumably because of the intrusion of an outside people into the Delta.
Some authorities assign the dislodgment of the native dynasty to a perplexing line of foreign kings whose position still defies definition; but Professor Petrie writing in 1901 says: “The group of foreign kings, mainly known by scarabs and cylinders, Khyan, Samqan, Anthar, Yaqebar, Shesha, and Uazed, are probably of the XVth-XVIth Dynasties, though some connections place them shortly before the XIIth Dynasty.” All we yet know of the intrusion is concisely stated by Eduard Meyer: “We may with some certainty assume that strange Syrian races attacked Egypt and probably ruled the land or part of it for a while.”
Two legitimate kings of the IXth or Xth Dynasty now stand out prominently; Ab-meri-Ra (Kheti) who may be the Achthoes of Manetho, the first of his recorded IXth Dynasty, and Ka-meri-Ra. But the most interesting historical information of this period is from three tombs of the princes of Assiut; Kheti I, Tefa-ba, and Kheti II.
The Thebans had now practically obtained their independence, and certain circumstances indicate that the beginning of the XIth Dynasty was contemporary with the Xth. Such a state of affairs will explain the singular fact that Manetho assigns only forty-three years to the XIth Dynasty. For it is held that he ignored contemporaneous dynasties, and therefore may have rejected about one hundred and twenty years, during which period he does not recognise the XIth Dynasty as legitimate.[a]
FOOTNOTES
[2] [Here and in subsequent excerpts from Diodorus we use a seventeenth-century translation.]
