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Ancient Egypt > Egyptian Dynasties > Eleventh Dynasty of Egypt Eleventh Dynasty of Egypt
The 11th Dynasty of ancient Egypt was one group of rulers, whose earlier members are grouped with the four preceding dynasties to form the First Intermediate Period, while the later members are considered part of the Middle Kingdom. They all ruled from Thebes. Manetho's statement that the 11th Dynasty consisted of 16 kings, who reigned for 43 years is contradicted by contemporary inscriptions and the evidence of the Turin King List, whose combined testimony establishes that this kingdom consisted of seven kings who ruled for a total of 143 years. However, his testimony that this dynasty was based at Thebes is verified by the contemporary evidence. It was during this dynasty that all of ancient Egypt was united under the Middle Kingdom. This dynasty traces its origins to a nomarch of Thebes, "Intef the Great, son of Iku", who is mentioned in a number of contemporary inscriptions. However, his immediate successor Mentuhotep I is considered the first king of this dynasty. An inscription carved during the reign of Wahankh Intef II shows that he was the first of this dynasty to claim to rule over the whole of Egypt, a claim which brought the Thebeans into conflict with the rulers of Herakleopolis Magna, the Tenth Dynasty. Intef undertook several campaigns northwards, and captured the important nome of Abydos. Warfare continued intermittently between the Thebean and Heracleapolitan dynasts until the 14th regnal year of Nebhetepra Mentuhotep II, when the Herakleopolitans were defeated, and this dynasty could begin to consolidate their rule. The rulers of the 11th Dynasty reasserted Egypt's influence over her neighbors in Africa and the Near East. Mentuhotep II sent renewed expeditions to Phoenicia to obtain cedar. Sankhkare Mentuhotep III sent an expedition from Coptos south to the land of Punt. The reign of its last king, and thus the end of this dynasty, is something of a mystery. Contemporary records refer to "seven empty years" following the death of Mentuhotep III, which correspond to the reign of Nebtawyre Meoontuhotep IV. Modern scholars identify his vizier Amenemhat with Amenemhat I, the first king of the 12th Dynasty, as part of a theory that Amenemhat became king as part of a palace coup. The only certain details of Mentuhotep's reign was that two remarkable omens were witnessed at the quarry of Wadi Hammamat by the vizier Amenemhat. After the disintegration of the central government at the end of the Old Kingdom, power had shifted to several local rulers who usurped royal power, even though their territory was often very limited. One of these local rulers was Antef I of the provincial city of Thebes in Upper-Egypt. That this Antef I, and his two immediate successors, had the ambition to once re-unite Egypt under Theban rule, is shown by the fact that they all claimed to be "King of Upper and Lower Egypt" and that they added a Horus-name to their titulary. Their ambition was fulfilled by the 4th king of the 11th Dynasty, Mentuhotep II, who, during his more than 50-year long reign finally succeeded in ending the 9/10th Dynasty that ruled over Heracleopolis thus re-uniting the country. Because of this, Mentuhotep II was considered by later tradition as the 'second founder' of the country. His name would be placed prominently in many king-lists. Modern-day history books let the Middle Kingdom begin with the reign of this king. His two successors do not appear to have been as formidable as he was. There even appear to have been some dynastic problems at the end of the dynasty: the name of the last Mentuhotep is missing in several of the important king-lists. The Turin King-list only mentions three Mentuhoteps, including a Mentuhotep who preceded Antef I, and in the summation of the dynasty notes a discrepancy of 7 years for the dynasty. This discrepancy is often interpreted as the duration of the last Mentuhotep's reign. Different history books will often give different numbers to the kings named Mentuhotep. Sometimes the uniter of Egypt will be referred to as Mentuhotep I, other times as Mentuhotep II. The Turin King-list mentions a total of 3 kings with that name, but this includes an unattested Mentuhotep before Antef I and excludes the last king of the 11th Dynasty. In some history books, this Mentuhotep is considered the first of that name, making the king who reunited Egypt the second Mentuhotep. However, because Antef I was the first Theban ruler to have claimed to be a king, other Egyptologists do not consider the older Mentuhotep as a king and thus do not count him as such. In their books, Mentuhotep I is the king who finally defeated the kings of the 9th/10th Dynasty. More recently, the different Mentuhoteps are no longer identified by a number, but by adding their pre-nomen to their name. Thus Mentuhotep Nebhepetre is used to refer to the king who ended the 9th/10th Dynasty. For the sake of easy recognition, however, this site will continue to use sequence numbers for the Mentuhotep's, considering the unattested predecessor of Antef I as the first Mentuhotep. The known Eleventh Dynasty rulers, are as follows:
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