THE GLOBAL AFRICAN COMMUNITY
H I S T O R Y N O T E S
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GREAT AFRICAN LAND OF ANTIQUITY
A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF DYNASTIC KMT
PART 2
Kmt's First Golden Age
After the reign of Khasekhemui, Kmt's Early Dynastic Period gave way to the historical era known as the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 B.C.E.). The Old Kingdom, comprising Dynasties III through VI, was perhaps Kmt's First Golden Age. The Old Kingdom is chiefly appreciated as the famous epoch of Kemetic pyramid building. These monuments, particularly the three built over a seventy year period, that dominate the Giza plateau, are arguably the world's most enduring expressions of architectural prowess and remain a source of awe, wonder and inspiration. The pyramid of Khufu itself (described as "the purest geometric form in human architecture") has the distinction of being the largest single building ever constructed by man.
From the Old Kingdom emerged such luminaries as: Netjerykhet Zoser, the first recognized royal personage to commission the construction of a large monument in hewn stone; Bedjmes, the noted African ship-builder; the phenomenal Imhotep, architect, administrator, astronomer, author, magician, physician and high-priest; Nae-maet Sneferu, the benevolent king during whose reign the classic pyramid form appeared; Khnum-Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid (`Khufu on the Horizon'); Khafre, who built the Second Giza Pyramid (`Great is Khafre') and may have had the face of Hor-m-akhet (the `Great Sphinx') rendered in his own likeness; Menkaure, builder of the Third Giza Pyramid (`Divine is Menkaure'); Hesyre, `Chief of Dentists and Physicians'; Queen Khentkawes, ancestral figure for Dynasty V and `Mother of Two Kings of Upper and Lower Kmt'; Sahure, who launched the first recorded Kemetic mission to Punt (`God's Land') in Inner Africa; Ptah-hotep, author of profound precepts of morality and ethics; Unas, whose tomb chamber was the first to be inscribed with the religious literature now known as the Pyramid Texts; and Pepi II, another Southerner, whose 94 years on the throne is the longest documented reign in human annals.
The First Intermediate Period
By 2180 B.C.E., increasingly arid climatic conditions and accelerating political decentralization had resulted in a drastic decline in Kemetic fortunes. Incursions of Asiatics into the Delta and social revolution hastened the decline. Mer-en-Jehuti (Manetho) wrote that "The Seventh Dynasty consisted of seventy kings of Memphis, who reigned for 70 days." Kmt's mines and quarries grew silent, and great temples were no longer constructed. River transport along the Nile came to a virtual halt and poverty became widespread. This relatively obscure age of prevailing instability and popular discontent, known as Kmt's First Intermediate Period, lasted about 140 years and comprised Dynasties VII through X. It was during the First Intermediate Period that the Kemetic religious literature known as the Coffin Texts appeared.
During Dynasties IX and X (ca. 2160-2040 B.C.E.) domestic order was partially restored to much of Kmt through the authority of an African family based at Henen-nesut (Herakleopolis). Mer-en-Jehuti described the first king of Dynasty IX, who may have been a governor of the Twentieth Nome of Upper Kmt, as "more cruel than all his predecessors, and visited the whole of Egypt with dire disasters." Of the eighteen monarchs of Dynasties IX and X, the best known members include Kheti I, Kheti II, Neferkare, Kheti III and Merikare.
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Revised: November 03, 2000.
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