The Conquest of Ancient Egypt

In the year 632, the Prophet Muhammad died. Seven years later, when ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab was the second caliph, the Arabs marched on Ancient Egypt. The “cradle of civilization” became a province of the Arab Empire in less than two years (the caliphate). Egypt had been ruled by foreigners for 2,000 years before the Arabs came.

In 639, the Byzantium Empire, which was weak at the time, took control of the Mediterranean. “Amr ibn al-‘As was the one who started and pushed for the conquest to happen.” Arabs had been interested in Ancient Egypt for a long time because its land was fertile and the nearby Arabian desert was dry.

Ancient Egypt was easy for the Arabs to take because Islam had just given them a new sense of purpose. Religious differences and high taxes made it hard for rulers and ruled to get along with each other. The Arabs were determined because they were seen as liberators, while most Egyptians were submissive, passive, and uninterested.

On April 9, 641, the Byzantine soldiers at the fortress of Babylon gave themselves up to the Arab army. In September 642, the Arabs took over Alexandria. Ancient Egypt was finally at peace because of the Arabs. Amr ibn al-As, Egypt’s conqueror, and ending with ‘Anbasa were the two hundred years that Arab governors ruled Egypt.

After this time of Arab rule in Ancient Egypt, a Muslim dynasty would take over, but very few of the rulers would be Arab. During the 210 years that Arabs ruled Egypt, they also rose to power in the Muslim world. This period began with the Prophet’s migration from Mecca to Medina in 622 and the growth of the young community of Allah in Medina.

It continued with the rule of the caliphs, the rise and fall of the Umayyad dynasty, and the rise and fall of the Abbasid dynasty. The empire was a historical and political thing that happened because of Islam. It was based on the Arab idea and fueled by the message that they were adamant about spreading to the rest of the world as instructed.

However, by the middle of the ninth century, the Arabs had lost control of the empire and were subject to the rule of those whom they had conquered and converted to Islam. From Amr ibn al-‘As until 868, when the Turkish leader Ahmad ibn Tulun set up his own dynasty, a total of 98 governors ruled Egypt.

First, they worked for the caliphs of Medina during the Classical Caliphate (632–661), then for the caliphs of Damascus during the Umayyads (661–750), and finally for the caliphs of Baghdad during the Abbasids (750–850). The “Abbasid Caliphate” would hold on to power until about the middle of the 13th century.

The average Umayyad governor was in charge for twice as long as the average Abbasid one. The fact that the latter were changed more often shows how unstable the caliphal capital was. The process of Ancient Egypt becoming more Arab started early on. Thousands of Arab soldiers accompanied the majority of governors.

These troops were well-off and lived in towns, so they often changed the way people lived in Ancient Egypt. Arab men were free to marry Egyptian women, which made them more and more like the Egyptians. Before he was sent back to Medina in 644, ‘Amr set up a system of local government with its center in Fustat, which was also his capital.

He took on members of the overthrown government. As long as taxes were paid on time, the central government did not bother the local governments. Agriculture was the most important thing. For irrigation, a separate department was set up. The caliph chose the governor, who then chose the war secretary, the treasurer, and the qadi, who was in charge of justice. Most governors used this system after this one.

By the middle of the seventh century, ancient Egypt was primarily under Arab rule. The Byzantine threat or any other threat from the outside was ruled out. Under the Umayyads, the Arabs built up their navy. But there were a lot of uprisings, especially when the Abbasids were in charge. It was a time when the Malikite-Shafiite split and the Sunni-Shi’ite split caused a lot of trouble in Islam.

The Copts often got angry about what they thought were too many taxes. Al-Amin and al-Fight Ma’mun’s rivalries for the throne also made it hard for the Ancient Egyptians to decide who they were going to support. Anbasa, the last governor (852–856), was in charge during a time of political turmoil. There was a Roman uprising (Damietta, 853), and the Nubians stopped paying the annual tribute they had been paying since the middle of the seventh century.

After ‘Anbasa was sent back to Turkey in 856, things got worse under the rule of Turkish governors until Ahmad ibn Tulun brought back order and started his dynasty. This time, when the Arabs took over and ruled Egypt, was an important part of both Egypt’s and Islamic history. Egypt has more Arabic and Islamic traits.

Egypt was still the food basket of the Mediterranean, and more and more Arabs moved there. Egypt developed its own Arabo-Islamic culture, which became the basis of the Islamic intellectual and cultural heritage. This made Egypt the stronghold of Islam at a time when other political and cultural centers of Islam were falling.

Also Read: Ancient Egypt: Were the Great Civilization of Ancient Egypt Africans?

Egyptian Mummy

On January 6, 1907, Edward R. Ayrton uncovered Tomb KV55 in the Valley of the Kings. Theodore M. Davis, Ayrton’s sponsor, released a report of the excavation (The Tomb of Queen Tiye) in 1910.

KV55 is a problematic archaeological site from the 18th dynasty since it appears to have been used for three burials: the first is attributed to Queen Tiye, based on the damaged wooden shrine dedicated to her (Tiye was taken here after the abandonment of Amarna and eventually brought to KV35).

The Egyptian mummy discovered here could be that of her son, Pharaoh Akhenaten; however, Smenkhkare (assuming he was a man) was also considered.

During Howard Carter’s excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1923, Harry Burton used it as a darkroom to process his photographs.

KV55 is a modest royal tomb, measuring only 27.61 meters in length. It is next to KV6, Ramses IX’s tomb, above KV7 (Ramses II’s tomb), and next to KV62, Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Its entrance is visible in the rock to the east. It leads to a set of stairs that lead to the burial room and a slightly sloped passageway.

There is a doorway to a small antechamber on the south side of this chamber, and red masonry markings on the east wall show the planning of another room, which, if erected, would have matched the layout of Tutankhamun’s tomb.

The walls of the tomb are plastered, which is rare for a royal burial, although they are not ornamented. A drawing on an ostracon discovered by Lyla Pinch Brock in 1993 has been interpreted as the tomb’s plan, implying that its original entrance had been extended, which is supported by marks found on the tomb’s walls.

The location was shifted throughout antiquity, making interpretation problematic. The evidence from the tomb complicates its identification.

The door seals bore Tutankhamun’s name, evidently from the time its tenant was reburied; the canopic jars discovered in the tomb are similar to those of Akhenaten’s secondary wife, Kiya; and the broken shrine, whose panels are distributed throughout the chamber, bears the name and representations of Akhenaten’s mother, Queen Tiye.

The names of Akhenaten, Amenhotep III, and his daughter and wife appear in a sequence of “magical bricks” discovered in the tomb.

All of these data are suggestive of the key figures of the Amarna period, hence the tomb’s widespread name: the Amarna cache.

It is thought that the tomb was originally intended for the burial of a nobleman or official but was eventually used for a royal burial, as was the case with Tutankhamun’s tomb.

One of four Egyptian alabaster canopic jars discovered in KV55, portraying what is assumed to be Queen Kiya’s image.

The solitary mummy discovered within the tomb when it was uncovered in 1907 was that of a male. Because of the existence of various burial objects (including magical bricks) and the damage to the sarcophagus (Akhenaten was afterwards reviled as a heretic), this mummy was supposed to be Akhenaten.

The cartouches with the Egyptian mummy’s name have been removed, as has the uraeus. Furthermore, the mummy resembles Tutankhamun in various ways.

This identification was not universally accepted since, despite the fact that KV55 makes no reference to Smenkhkare, others insisted on associating the mummy with him. In 2010, DNA tests proved that it was the remains of the renowned Akhenaten.

According to Nicholas Reeves, Akhenaten and his mother, Queen Tiy, were initially buried in Amarna, but their bodies were moved to KV55 during the reign of Akhenaten’s son Tutankhamun and his secondary wife, Kiya.

Tutankhamun’s name was inscribed on the door. The mummies stayed there for almost 200 years, until the tomb was found by workers excavating Ramses IX’s neighboring tomb.

The sarcophagus of Queen Tiye was quickly removed from Akhenaten’s desecrating presence, except for the gilded wooden shrine that covered it, which had to be destroyed in order to remove the tomb.

To doom Akhenaten to eternal obscurity, his portraits were destroyed with a chisel, his coffin’s gilded mask was torn, and the cartouche with his name was removed. As a final insult, a big boulder was thrown at the coffin, destroying the lion-shaped sarcophagus’s supports.

Also Read: Ancient Egypt: Were the Great Civilization of Ancient Egypt Africans?

Ancient Egypt

Egypt is clearly a part of Africa, but for a long time, Western scholars tried to say that ancient Egyptian culture was related to cultures in the Middle East. So, the relationship between Egypt and Africa was seen as a one-way flow, with parts of an “advanced” or “higher” society being brought to an “uncivilized” continent.

This point of view must be seen within the framework of Western science, and it is hoped that it is a thing of the past. With the exception of Nubia, we still don’t know much about how ancient Egypt and the rest of Africa were connected. In the past, most of the cultural achievements of African people south of the Sahara that were seen as signs of an advanced society, like divine kingship, ironworking, inhumation rites, and the religious cult of the ram, were thought to have come from Egypt.

Most of the time, these theories are based on superficial similarities between things Egyptians did nearly 5,000 years ago and things Africans do today. Over the years, a long list of possible connections has been made. Their scientific or methodological base has to be seen as weak, and few Egyptologists or Africanists accept these diffusionist theories right now. In the last few decades, the discussion about how ancient Egypt and Africa were connected has become more and more controversial and based on different ideologies.

During this change, Afrocentrists brought back many of the above-mentioned ideas. In some cases, they did so without questioning what could be shown to be unscientific dreams. Discussions about the link between ancient Egypt and Africa have mostly been about the ancient Egyptians’ “racial” background. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Egyptologists and anthropologists tried to show that the Egyptians could not have had black skin and could not have been part of the “Negro race.

The African response, under the leadership of Cheikh Anta Diop, had to demonstrate the ancient Egyptians’ race as evidence that the ancient culture originated in Africa.
Even today, politics and prejudice drive most of the talk about the relationship between Egypt and Africa. This seems to have stopped serious research in a lot of areas, and the science is still not very good. The Old Egyptian language is part of the group of languages called “Afroasiatic. This group also includes the Semitic languages of Asia and Africa, the Berber languages of northern Africa, the Cushitic languages of northeast Africa, the Omotic languages of Ethiopia, and the Chadic languages of present-day Chad.

This language group’s home is in northeast Africa, probably in what is now Sudan. People from Africa who immigrated to the Nile Valley eventually settled in Egypt. From the beginning, Egyptians traveled to and lived in areas south of their home country.

Before the dynasties, there was a lot of trade with the south. Ivory, incense, ebony, and animal skins were some of the things that were traded. The popular funeral biography of Harkhuf from the Sixth Dynasty talks about bringing in a pygmy or dwarf, a name that comes from the Cushitic language.

It’s possible that the ancient Egyptians were also interested in the Chad region, which they could reach through ancient Nile valleys and caravan routes that led to the west. But so far, no proof of a journey to the west has been found. The country of Punt was important at different times in the history of ancient Egypt.

Since the fifth dynasty, the Egyptians have talked about this part of Africa, where they got myrrh, electrum, fragrant herbs, ivory, and gold. On the walls of Queen Hatschepsut’s temple at Deir al-Bahri, near Thebes, is the longest story of an expedition to Punt. Here, we can read about the trip and also see pictures of daily life in Punt and the people who live there.

Only Egyptian sources mention the name Punt, and nothing is known about what the Puntites called themselves or where they lived. So, even though the discussion about where Punt is located has been going on for more than a century, it is still going on. Based on a careful look at written and visual sources and archeological data, it seems that most people now agree that Punt can be found inland from the coast of the Red Sea.

It might be linked to the Gash delta cultures in eastern Sudan, which had contact with the Ethiopian highlands and the Upper Nile valley. Early in the 12th century BCE, almost all mentions of Punt in history stopped, and the trade seems to have ended. Even though there is a lot of proof that ancient Egypt and Africa were connected, it has been hard to connect Egyptian references to African goods, places, or people to their modern-day names.
This sad gap in our knowledge might be filled in the future if researchers in linguistics and ethnoarchaeology worked harder and didn’t let their ideas get in the way.

Also Read: Ancient Kemet: Old Kingdom and Its Unknown Contacts to the Southern Part Of Africa

Ancient Kemet

After the Old Kingdom of Ancient Kemet fell, Kemet split into two different governments, one based in Herakleopolis (Ehnasiya el-Medina) and the other in Thebes (Luxor). The kings of the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Dynasties fought with each other from time to time.

This went on until around 2040 BCE, when King Montjuhotpe II of Thebes took over the whole country and started the Middle Kingdom. The king then started to spread his power beyond the city’s borders. He sent police officers to keep order in the fields nearby and went south into Nubia.

The area around Abu Simbel seems to have been the heart of a quasi-Egyptian government in the past, since the names of a number of kings and the people who followed them were found there. Montjuhotpe’s army attacked this southern state. By taking back control of the area below the Second Cataract, Montjuhotpe laid the groundwork for the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty’s battles.

Montjuhotpe II did a lot of building, especially in the area where the old Theban kingdom was. Several places still have pieces of his work, but his most amazing work is the mortuary temple he built at Deir el-Bahari in Western Thebes, where he also built the tombs of his family and officials. After being king for more than 50 years, his son and namesake, Montjuhotpe III, took over.

He carried on the work of his father until a fourth king, Montjuhotpe, took over. Aside from bringing the country back together, this time is important because Thebes went from being a small provincial city to a royal residence. It also marked the beginning of Amun’s rise from a local god to the all-powerful King of the Gods, a process that would take another 400 years to finish.

Amenemhat, a high-ranking official, took over as Montjuhotpe IV’s vizier around 1994 BCE. It is not known if this was planned or if it was the result of a coup d’état. The second choice might be better if a number of books that talk about famine and other problems have been correctly placed in this time period. In this context, it’s also important to note that government propaganda quickly made Amenemhat look like the real person who brought Ancient Kemet back together, fulfilling a number of prophecies that were said to have been made hundreds of years before.

One of the most important things the new king did was move the royal seat from Thebes to the city of Itjtawy in the north. For the next 400 years, this was where the king lived most of the time. Amenemhat I also built a group of forts to keep Palestine from attacking the area north of the Suez River. In the 20th year of the king’s rule, he made his son Senwosret I a co-regent.
Senwosret was finally put in charge of leading military expeditions, especially into Nubia, which Egypt wanted to retake control of.

The Sinai and the Western Desert were also the sites of other warlike actions. Ten years after he became co-regent, Senwosret was coming back from a war against the Libyans when Amenemhat I was killed in his bed while he was asleep.

Senwosret I buried his father in the mound he had built at Lisht, near Itjtawy, where he was later buried himself. During the long rule of Senwosret I, Nubia was held as far south as the Second Cataract and as far north as the Nile. There was a lot of building, including the main part of the temple of Amun at Karnak in Thebes and other work at Heliopolis in the north.
Senwosret I’s co-ruler and successor, Amenemhat II, led an expedition to Nubia when he was still a prince.

More of his voyages are written about in the great annalistic inscription, which was made during his long reign. Amenemhat II was laid to rest at Dahshur, which was the main cemetery for the kingdom. Less is known about the next king, Senwosret II, but he seems to have been responsible for the large-scale development of the oasis area of Fayoum, which is about 43 miles south of modern Cairo.

His tower was also built there. Senwosret III, one of his sons, became one of the most important kings of the time and was worshiped as a god for many years after he died. Several places have things from his time in power, especially in the southern part of Egypt. The images of the king are known for how realistically they show people’s faces.

During the time of Senwosret III, the government became more centralized. This led to the decline of the large courts of the local rulers, which had been a big part of life for the previous 400 years, as their leaders went to work for the king in the national capital. During the Middle Kingdom, there isn’t a lot of proof that the Egyptian military did anything in the direction of Palestine. Senwosret III’s trips into Nubia, on the other hand, were much bigger and marked the end of Nubia’s independence from Egypt.

The goal was to give Ancient Kemet a clear southern border and set rules for how it dealt with the people who lived below it. At Semna, where this border was set, a group of forts were built to house Egyptian officials and soldiers. They had large bastions and other forms of defense, as well as a lot of military and civilian buildings. These included very large grain storage containers, which were probably meant to provide food for soldiers on a temporary mission who were camping in the area and not for the regular staff.

No Nubians could go north of the forts. One of the forts was a market post, and all trade with the south had to go through it. Even though the Egyptians set the border at the Second Cataract, they often went into the land further south. Amenemhat III was Senwosret III’s oldest son. He seems to have been co-ruler for a long time before the death of the older king. Unlike his father, Amenemhat III did not leave many reminders of his war work. Reforms in the national government kept going. At that time, there were three administrative regions in the nation, each of which had a department in the national capital.

Senwosret I and II paid attention to the Fayoum area, but it seems that it wasn’t until Amenemhat III that more extensive work was done there. In particular, a dam was built to control the flow of water into the lake. This restored access to a sizable fertile area, which an earthen wall then encircled. Amenemhat III was in charge of working the Sinai turquoise mines. Egypt also sent out missions to the Wadi Hammamat and the diorite quarries in the Nubian desert to get raw materials.

Amenemhat III may have thought about putting his daughter Neferuptah in charge after him. But she died too soon, and he chose Amenemhat IV, a man who didn’t seem to be royal, as his co-regent and heir. Sobkneferu, the daughter of Amenemhat III, became king after him. She is the first woman in Egyptian history for whom there is strong proof that she was in charge. At the end of Sobkneferu’s four-year rule, Amenemhat IV’s son, Sobkhotpe I, took the throne. Around 1780 BCE, the 13th Dynasty began with him.

The change from one dynasty to the next seems to have been smooth, but unlike the long, well-documented reigns of the Twelfth Dynasty, the Thirteenth Dynasty had kings who were only in power for a short time and for whom few records were kept.

Pieces of houses and temples built by dynastic kings have been found in many places, including Thebes and Medamud, just to the north. Only a few royal tombs are known, and most of them are in the Dahshur area. The Thirteenth Dynasty didn’t have a single family line, and a few of the kings were probably born to ordinary people.

This, along with the fact that many of them only held office for a brief period of time, gave rise to the notion that a distinct line of viziers typically held the real power. But more recent research (Ryholt 1997, pp. 282-283) has cast doubt on this explanation. The last fifty years of the Thirteenth Dynasty seem to have shown a slow collapse. Even though they had some of the longest reigns in the dynasty, they also pulled out of Levantine and Nubian agreements and set up independent or almost-independent states in the northeast Delta and a new state in Upper Nubia.

In the end, the Hyksos, an aggressive new line of Palestinian rulers, took over all of northern Ancient Kemet. This ended the Middle Kingdom around 1650 BCE and started the Second Intermediate Period, a time of fighting that didn’t end until Egyptian forces won a military victory over a hundred years later.

Also Read: Ancient Kemet: Old Kingdom and Its Unknown Contacts to the Southern Part Of Africa

Ancient Kemet

The Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Dynasties (around 2700–2200 BCE) are usually included in the Old Kingdom. However, it has been suggested that the Third Dynasty might be better placed with the First and Second Dynasties in the Archaic/Early Dynastic Period. People often call the Old Kingdom the “Pyramid Age,” because it was during this time that the pyramid grew in size, workmanship, and complexity to its highest levels.

During the second half of the Second Dynasty, there seems to have been a civil war that the last king, Khasekhemwy, was the only one who could stop. His son and heir, Djoser, was thought to have started a new dynasty, and his time in power seems to have been a big step forward for the country’s economy and technology.

He seems to have been the first king to use the turquoise mines in the Sinai Peninsula. He also built a church in Heliopolis, but the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, which was his tomb and the first large stone building in the world, is the most impressive thing he did. We don’t know much about the kings who came after Djoser, and none of the kings who came after him were able to finish a pyramid.

At the end of the era, however, King Huni seems to have built a number of small pyramid-shaped monuments for religious purposes around Ancient Kemet, as well as a huge brick pyramid at Abu Rowash that has almost completely disappeared. Seneferu came after him. He started the Fourth Dynasty and built no less than four pyramids, a small temple, and three more pyramids that were all meant to be his tomb.

He seems to have been buried in the Red Pyramid at Dahshur. When Seneferu was in charge, a lot more information about history became accessible. During Seneferu’s time in power, there were campaigns against Libya and Nubia, work in the Sinai turquoise mines, and the import of forty shiploads of cedar in a single year. These look like they came from the port of Byblos in Lebanon, which was Ancient Kemet’s main trade partner in that area for hundreds of years. Future generations appear to have loved Seneferu, but his son Khufu had a bad reputation.

This probably had to do with how big his tomb, the Great Pyramid at Giza, which is the largest free-standing structure ever built, was. On the other hand, the amount of materials and work that went into Seneferu’s four pyramids was a lot more than what went into Giza, but it seems to have had the exact opposite effect on people’s views. We don’t know much about what happened during Khufu’s rule, but we do know that he sent missions to the Sinai and worked in the diorite quarries that are deep in the Nubian desert, northwest of Abu Simbel.

During most of his rule, his nephew Hemiun was in charge of the Vizierate. The huge cemetery of mastabas (tombs with rectangular bases, sloping sides, and flat tops) that was set up around the royal pyramid tells us about many other members of the royal family. Khufu’s two sons, Djedefre and Khaefre, took over after him, and then Khaefre’s son, Menkaure, took over after him. Userkaf, who may have been Djedefre’s grandson, started the Fifth Dynasty after the rule of Shepseskaf, who took over from Djedefre’s son.

The pyramids constructed by the new royal family did not come close to matching those of Seneferu and his immediate successors in quality. They were smaller and not as well made, but they were connected to much bigger and better decorated temples. During the second half of the Old Kingdom, the government seems to have been involved in a lot of foreign activities, both peaceful and not. Under Userkaf’s replacement, Sahure, there are pictures of ships coming back from a trip to Byblos.

There is also the first known trip to the land of Punt, which was on the coast of the Red Sea and seemed to include parts of modern Sudan, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. During the Fourth Dynasty, the ruling princes had a lot of power over the Vizierate. This was not the case during the Fifth Dynasty. Officials kept their ties to the royal family by marrying the king’s daughters, but the king’s sons no longer wanted to be in charge of the government. This change did not occur until well into the New Kingdom.

The kings of the Fifth Dynasty built both a pyramid and a temple to the sun. Most of these structures are in the Abusir area, which is near Memphis, the capital. Neferirkare, Sahure’s brother, took over after him. Then came Neferefre, his son, and then Niuserre. Shepseskare may have been Neferefre’s successor, but we don’t know for sure. He probably started a pyramid at Abusir that was barely started. Their heirs, Menkauhor, Isesi, and Unas, moved back to Saqqara, and Unas added religious writings to the walls of the royal tomb.

The materials of the Sinai were still mined, and the kings did other things, but from the time of Isesi on, there were small changes. The end of building sun temples is the most noticeable change, but there were also changes to how nobles were given their titles. The fact that there was more than one vizier, one of whom was based in the south, was probably the most important thing. It showed that the provinces were important.

During the last part of the Old Kingdom, the Sixth Dynasty, the number and quality of tombs made by local dignitaries, especially provincial governors, at provincial centers grew. Teti was the first king of the new kingdom. When he died, his son, Pepy I, took over the throne. During his long time on the throne, he sent missions to the south and east. The eastern ones went to the mines in Sinai and even farther away, to southern Palestine. Several places show that the king built things.

The remains of a church can still be seen at Bubastis, and other pieces can be found in Aswan (Elephantine) and Abydos. Nemtyemsaf I, Pepy I’s oldest son, took over after him. He may have been a co-ruler with his father for a few years. During his short rule, Harkhuf, the governor of Aswan, went on the first of several trips to Africa. Nemtyemsaf went to Aswan in his ninth year as king to meet with a group of southern chieftains.

This shows that the pharaohs are now interested in the lands to the south. Nemtyemsaf died suddenly when he was still a young man, putting his young brother Pepy II on the throne. Power seemed to lie with his mother and his uncle, Djar, who was the Southern Vizier. Harkhuf and other important people from Aswan continued to look for trade goods all over the world while they were in charge of them. They went as far as the African continent. Harkhuf had been to the land of Yam three times before.

Yam was likely in the area south of modern Khartoum. Not long after Pepy II became king, he went on his fourth trip, during which he bought a dancing deneg, who was either a midget or a dwarf. This fact was in the report that was sent ahead to the royal court while he was traveling back to Egypt from the north. The idea of the deneg seemed to please the boy king, who told Harkhuf to come back as soon as possible with his charge.

Later, Harkhuf wrote the letter from the king on the front of his tomb. Sabni, who lived in Aswan, was another desert traveler. He went to Nubia to find the body of his father, Mekhu, who had died while looking for strange goods in the south. Tjetjy, Khui, and Pepynakhte, also known as Heqaib, were also among these early travelers. Pepynakhte was one of the most important of these people.

Heqaib went on two military trips to Nubia before he was sent to the eastern desert to find the body of a friend who had been killed while making a boat on the Red Sea coast to take to Punt. He did this job well, and he also found and punished the people who killed them. Heqaib became a god after he died, and people worshipped him in a chapel on the island of Elephantine. For many generations, the royal family supported this church. Pepy II took the throne when he was young and ruled for either 64 or 94 years.

If the latter is true, it will have been the longest reign in human history. Like his father and brother, Pepy was buried at Saqqara. His son, Nemtyemsaf II, took over after him. Nemtyemsaf II only ruled for a short time, but after him came a number of kings whose names and order are not clear. It seems that after Pepy II died, there was a big drop in royal power and a rise in local power, which led to the end of the state.

From the 7th to the 10th Dynasties, which came after Pepy II’s death, there was a lot of fighting, which didn’t end until the civil war that led to the founding of the Middle Kingdom around 2040 BCE, about 150 years after Pepy II’s death.

Also Read: How Ancient Egypt Ended: The Decline Of A Great Empire