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Ancient Egypt > Egyptian Dynasties > First Intermediate Period of Egypt

First Intermediate Period of Egypt

The nomes of Ancient Egypt. The realm of Intef II included the first to the twelfth nome of Upper Egypt.

The 1st Intermediate Period is the name conventionally given by Egyptologists to that period in Ancient Egyptian history between the end of the Old Kingdom and the advent of the Middle Kingdom. As such, depending on when individual historians place the 'downfall' of the Old Kingdom - with the end of either the 6th or the 8th Dynasties - the 1st Intermediate Period (sometimes abbreviated as "FIP") can be considered to embrace the Seventh, Eighth, 9th, 10th, and most of the 11th Dynasties.

The Old Kingdom was weakened by famine and weak leadership. One theory holds that a sudden, unanticipated, catastrophic reduction in the Nile floods over two or three decades, caused by a global climatic cooling, reduced the amount of rainfall in Egypt, Ethiopia, and East Africa, contributing to the great famine and subsequent downfall of the Old Kingdom.

The last pharaoh of the 6th Dynasty was Pepi II (or possibly Nitocris). He was 6 when he ascended the throne and believed to have been 100 years old when he died, for a reign of 94 years, longer than any monarch in history. The latter years of his reign were marked by inefficiency because of Pepi's advanced age. A dark time marked by unrest followed.

The Union of the Two Kingdoms fell apart and regional leaders had to cope with the famine. Around 2160 BC a new line of pharaohs (the 9th and 10th Dynasties) consolidated Lower Egypt from their capital in Herakleopolis Magna, descended from a pharaoh named Akhtoy.

In the meantime, however, a rival line (the 11th Dynasty) based at Thebes reunited Upper Egypt and a clash between the two rival dynasties was inevitable. Around 2055 BC a descendant of Inyotef defeated the Heracleopolitan Pharaohs, reunited the Two Lands, and ruled as Mentuhotep II thereby ending the First Intermediate Period.

There are various accounts of what happened in Egypt after Pepi II died. People sought stability, but things continued in turmoil. Pepi ll's long reign had weakened central government, as the nomarchs (local governors) increasingly began to assert their independence from Pharaoh. Any nominal authority exerted by central government disappeared, as the nomarchs jostled for position, attempting to found their own dynasties.

There was a downside to the technological progress made during the Old Kingdom. Feats of engineering like the Sphinx and the pyramids at Giza had made the Egyptians complacent. This feeling of invincibility was exacerbated by the position of their country, hidden as it was in the fertile Nile Valley.

A word encapsulated how Egyptians felt about their civilization - 'Ma'at' meaning 'Stability' or 'Balance'.

Papyri dating from the Middle Kingdom show this breakdown very clearly. Due to the unstable nature of this period, no firm historical records survive from the First Intermediate Period.

There are some sources that mention a 7th Dynasty which had 70 kings and which reigned for a total of 70 days. These are apocryphal, but nevertheless show how much the system had broken down. We can place an eighth dynasty, which was possibly descended in some way from Pepi II and which ruled from Memphis, but we must assume that any influence they exerted was confined to the area immediately around Memphis, as the Nile Delta has been invaded by "asiatics" (the name given by Egyptians to people from what we now call the Middle East).

The kings of the eighth dynasty are somewhat ephemeral, but we know of 2 possible ones - Wajdkare and Qakare Iby. After perhaps between 20 and 30 years, the 8th Dynasty fell and the nomarchs once again jostled for supreme power. We now see the emergence of a 9th Dynasty, ruling from Herakleopolis, perhaps founded by one Meryibre Khety.

Both this dynasty and its Herakleopolitain successor, the 10th Dynasty, seem to have been highly unstable, with frequent changes of ruler.

Running concurrent to the 10th Dynasty, another dynasty was being established in Thebes (the eleventh dynasty). Founded by Intef I in c. 2134 BC, the first 3 kings of DXI (all called Intef and buried in an area called Dra Abu el-Naga, near to what would later become the Valley of the Kings) fought an ongoing conflict with the Herakleopolitain DX monarchs, with requent clashes in the area around Abydos, where their two spheres of influence met.