The princely line from which the commanding figure of King Mentuhotep III stood forth to the healing of the reunited kingdom was of Theban origin. The feeble ancestors of his race bore alternately the names of Antef and Mentuhotep. They had set up their regal dwelling in that city of Thebes which afterward became of such world-wide importance, and their tombs (simple, homely tiled pyramids) lay at the foot of the “Western Mountain” of the Theban necropolis. Here a few ruins of ancient date indicate the names of the rulers. It was here too that, more than twenty years ago, two quite modest sarcophagi belonging to these Pharaohs were brought to light by some Arabs in search of gold, and unconscious of what a treasure they had found.
In that part of the city of the dead which nowadays goes among the inhabitants by the name of Assassif, those sarcophagi were found, only lightly covered with sand and rubble and one of them containing the embalmed body of a king, his head adorned with a royal circlet. The cover of the casket was richly gilded, and the sacred symbols which decked the central strip soon revealed the name of Pharaoh Antef in the royal cartouche.
In the year 1854, when Brugsch for the first time stayed on the banks of the Nile, he had the unhoped-for good fortune to stumble, in a lumber room in the house of the Greek consul, across the coffin of a second Antef, which was notably distinguished from the first by his cognomen of “the Great.” The coffin is now preserved in the Louvre, a precious and valuable relic of the ancient kingdom of the Pharaohs.
The black rocks of the island of Konosso, near Osiris’s favoured island of Philæ above the First Cataract, preserve the memory of the Mentuhotep (II) who bore the royal name of Neb-taui-Ra, “Sun of the Lord of the Country.” A sculpture chiselled in the hard stone shows the Pharaoh as the conqueror of thirteen peoples, and as the devout servant of his original progenitor Khem or Amsu, the famous god of Coptos. The place of this name (Qobt it was actually called among the Egyptians) had at that time a great reputation.
This Mentuhotep also appears perpetuated on the wall in the rocky valley, together with his mother, Ama. He had, so his inscription distinctly says, caused a deep well, ten cubits in diameter, to be sunk in the waterless, desolate waste, in order to provide reviving draughts of fresh water for all pilgrims with their beasts of burden and all men whom the king had commissioned to quarry stone in the hot valley.
Another inscription, dated the 15th of Paophi in the second year of the reign of our Mentuhotep, next commemorates the god Khem, “the Lord of the Peoples of this Wilderness,” then renders homage to other heavenly beings, and informs us how it was marvellously contrived to convey the gigantic blocks of stone Nileward to serve for the future housing of the royal corpse. A high dignitary, Amenemhat by name, and appointed to superintend all works of the kind for Pharaoh, received an express order to forward the heavy load of the sarcophagus and its cover from the mountains to the ruler’s eternal resting-place.
Long was the way and hard the labour of the task, for the mighty mass of hewn stone measured eight cubits in length, whilst the proportion of this to the breadth and height was as four to two. When rich offerings had been made to the gods, three thousand strong men succeeded in moving the gigantic weight of stone from its place, and in rolling it down the valley to the river.
We have less information respecting the other Mentuhotep, whose pyramid bears the name of Khu-asu, “the most shining place.” A tombstone found in the carefully explored valley of Abydos commemorates the priest who presented the offerings of the dead to the departed king at the pyramid.
The list of kings closes with Sankh-ka-Ra, the fifty-eighth of the long series of Abydos. The rock valley of Hammamat commemorates him in an inscription of the highest value. From Coptos the way led through waterless deserts toward the coast of the Red Sea, and was much frequented by merchants, who, for the sake of profit, ventured life and limb, and after painful wanderings on desert paths trusted themselves in the harbour to frail vessels, that they might steer for the southern regions of the farther coasts and bring valuable goods, principally costly spices full of sweet savours, back from the land of Punt to their native country and the temples of the gods.