| THE WHITE BROTHERHOOD AND THE HOUSE OF DAVID Contact THE 11TH DYNASTY |
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| PROVERBS FROM TEMPLES The kingdom of heaven is within you; and whosoever shall know himself shall find it. |
| In Search of Ancient Man by Mary Sutherland Copyright 2006 Unedited Version |
| The Prophecies of Neferti Now it so happened that when the late King Snefru was potent king in this entire land, one of these days it happened that the Council of the Residence entered into the Great House to give greeting, and when they had given greeting, they went out in accordance with their daily custom. Then said his Majesty to the seal-bearer who was at his side: Go and fetch for me the Council of the Residence which has gone out from here after having given greeting today. They were ushered in to him / immediately, and again they prostrated themselves before His Majesty. And His Majesty said to them: Comrades, see, I have caused you to be summoned in order that you may seek out for me a son of yours who is wise, a brother of yours who is trustworthy, or a friend of yours who has achieved some noble deed, someone who shall say some fine words to me, choice phrases at the hearing of which My Majesty will be entertained. They prostrated themselves again before His Majesty: There is a Great Lector of Bastet, O Sovereign our lord, / whose name is Neferti; he is a commoner valiant with his arm, he is a scribe skilled with his fingers, and he is a wealthy man who has more possessions than any of his equals. Let him be [permitted] to see Your Majesty. His Majesty said: Go and fetch him to me. And he was ushered in to him immediately. He prostrated himself before His Majesty, and His Majesty said: Come, Neferti my friend, say some fine words to me, choice phrases at hearing which My Majesty will be entertained. The Lector Neferti said: Of what has happened or of what shall happen, O Sovereign, [my] lord? / His Majesty said: Of what shall happen; today has come into being and one has passed it by. Thereupon he stretched out his hand to a box of writing material and took out a papyrus-roll and a palette, and he put into writing what the Lector Neferti said; he was a sage of the East who belonged to Bastet when she rises and he was a native of the Heliopolitan nome. he brooded over what should happen in the land and considered the condition of the east, when the Asiatics raid and terrorize those at the harvest, taking away their teams engaged in plowing. / He said: stir yourself, my hear, weep for this land in which you began, for he who is silent is a wrongdoer. See, that (now) exists which was spoken of as something dreadful. See, the great one is overthrown in the land in which you began. Do not become weary; see they are before your eyes; rise up against what is before you. See, there are great men in the governance of the land, yet what has been done is s though it had never been done. Re must begin by refounding the land, which is utterly ruined, and nothing remains; not even did a fingernail profit from what had been ordained. This land is destroyed and there are none who care for it; there are none who speak and there are none who act. Weeper, how fares this land? The sun is veiled, / and will not shine when the people would see; none will live when <the sun> is veiled <by> cloud, and everyone is dulled by the lack of it. I will speak of what is before my eyes, I will never foretell what is not to come. The river of Egypt is dry and men cross the water on foot; men will seek water for ships in order to navigate it, for their course has become the riverbank, and the bank (serves) for water; the place of water has become a riverbank, the south wind will oppose the north wind, and the sky will not be with one single wind. A strange bird will be born in the marshes of the Delta, and a nest shall be made for it on account of the neighbors, / for men have caused it to approach through want. Perished are those erstwhile good things, the fish ponds of those who carry slit fish, teeming with fish and fowl. All good things have passed away, the land being cast away through trouble by means of that food of the Asiatics who pervade the land. Enemies have come into being in the east; Asiatics have come down into Egypt, for a fortress lacks another beside it, and no guard will hear. Men will hold back and look out by night, the fortress will be entered, and sleep will be banished from my eyes, / so that I spend the night wakeful. Wild game will drink from the river of Egypt, taking their ease on their riverbanks through lack of anyone to fear. This land is in commotion, and no one knows what the result may be, for it is hidden from speech, sight, and hearing because of dullness, silence being to the fore. I show you the land in calamity, for what had never happened has now happened. Men will take weapons of war and the land will live in / confusion. Men will make arrows of bronze, men will beg for the bread of blood, men will laugh aloud at pain; none will weep at death, none will lie down hungry at death, and a man's heart will think of himself alone. None will dress hair today; hearts are entirely astray because of it, and a man sits quiet, turning his back, while one man kills another. I show you a son as an enemy, a brother as a foe, a man / killing his father. Every mouth is full of "Love me"; all good things have passed away; a law is decreed for the ruin of the land. Men wreak destruction on what has been made and make a desolation of what has been found; what has been made is as though it had never been made; a man's possessions are taken from him and are given to an outsider. I show you the owner of (but) a little, while the outsider is content. He who did not fill for himself now goes empty; men give (something) unwillingly, so as to silence a talking mouth. A sentence is answered and a hand goes out with a stick; [men say]: "Do not kill him," but the discourse of speech is like fire to the heart, / and none can endure utterance. The land is diminished, though its controllers are many; he who was rich in servants is despoiled and corn is trifling, even though the corn measure is great and it is measured to overflowing. Re separates himself from men; he shines, that the hour may be told, but no one knows when noon occurs, for no one can discern his shadow, no one is dazzled when [he] is seen; there are none whose eyes stream with water, for he is like the moon in the sky, (though) his accustomed time do [not] go astray, and his rays are in (men's) sight as on former occasions. I show you the land in calamity; the weak-armed now possesses an arm, and men / salute one who used to do the saluting. I show you [the lowermost] uppermost, men pursuing him who flees away; men are living in the necropolis. The poor man will achieve wealth, while the great lady will [beg] to exist; it is the poor who will eat bread, while servants are....; there will be no Heliopolitan nome to be the birth-land of every god. A king of the South will come, Ameny by name, the son of a woman of Zety-land, a child of Khenkhen. He will assume the White Crown, he will wear the Red Crown, / he will join together the Double Crown, he will propitiate the Two Lords with what they desire; the land will be enclosed in <his> grasp, the oars swinging, the people of his reign will rejoice, the well-born man will make his name forever and ever. Those who have fallen into evil and have planned rebellion have stultified their utterances through fear of him; the Asiatics will fall at the dread of him; the Libyans will fall at his flaming, the rebels at his wrath, the disaffected at / the awe of him, while the uraeus which is on his forehead will pacify the disaffected. Men will build "Walls of the Ruler," and there will be no letting the Asiatics go down into Egypt that they may beg water after their accustomed fashion to let their herds drink. Right will come to its place (again) and Wrong will be thrust outside; joyful will be [he] who will see (it) and he who will serve the king. The learned man shall pour [a libation to me when he sees that what I have said] has come to pass. It has come happily to an end. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Eleventh Dynasty began with a series of four kings (in fact hardly more than nomarchs), who ruled from Thebes. This was considered to be The Middle Kingdom Pharaoh Mentuhotep II Nebhotepre Mentuhotep II was a Pharaoh of the 11th dynasty, the son of Intef III of Egypt and a minor queen called Iah. His throne name was Nebhepetra, and he was the first ruler of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. He is known to have ruled at least 39 years.... He defeated the last king of the Tenth Dynasty around the 14th Year of his reign to reunite Egypt thus bringing an end to the First Intermediate Period. Some authorities however point to cultural differences between the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties, and date the Middle Kingdom to the beginning of that dynasty. Mentuhotep IV was the last king of the 11th Dynasty. He was the son of a woman named Imi, who was a secondary wife of either Mentuhotep II or Mentuhotep III - maybe even both. Mentuhotep IV was this king's birth name, meaning "The God Montu is Content". His Throne name, Nebtawyre, means "Lord of the Two Lands is Re". Unfortunately, no images of this king are known to us from reliefs or statuary. Like his father, Mentuhotep IV carried on with mining and quarrying in Wadi Hammamat and he is mainly known for the expedition there, although inscriptions from the Hatnub travertine quarry suggest that some of the nomarchs (provinces) in Middle Egypt might have been troublesome at about this time. . Mentuhotep IV is credited with founding the city of Kuser on the shore of the Red Sea as a harbor for shipbuilding -- all in preparation for his journeys to Punt. Most of the building was overseen by his vizier , Amenemhet. . . From the reign of Amenemhet I, we find a fragment of a slate bowl discovered at Lisht in the first nome with both the name of Nebtawyre Mentuhotep and Amenemhet I. However, we do know that a vizier under Mentuhotep IV was one Amenemhet, who is well attested from a long inscription that he left in the Wadi Hammamat, He acted as Governor of the South under Mentuhotep IV, and most Egyptologists seem to believe that he is one and the same as King Amenemhet (Moses) This Amentuhotep is missing in most king-lists. The Turin-king-list merely notes 7 missing years at the end of this dynasty, just after the reign of Mentuhotep III. This probably refers to a gap in the documentation of about 7 years, which may have been filled by the reign of this king. An offering table found in Karnak mentions the "Father of the God" Sesostris, the father of Amenemhat I, the founder of the next dynasty, in his place. Either Mentuhotep IV was considered as an usurper, or the kings of the 12th Dynasty decided to re-write history to justify their claims to the throne. That he was not recognised as the legitimate king of the country may perhaps be supported by the many opponents to his reign: Antef, who may have been a member of the royal family, Iy-ib-khent-re and Segerseni all assumed royal titulary, thereby stating that they claimed to have rights to the throne. During the second year of his reign, he organised an expedition to the quarries of the Wadi Hammamat, located to the north-east of Thebes, between Koptos and the Red Sea. The 19 inscriptions left behind there by the members of the expedition are the only testimony to this Mentuhotep's reign. The expedition was led by a vizier named Amenemhat, who is assumed by most Egyptologists to have been the later king Amenemhat I of the 12th dynasty. . A stone plate found at Lisht, bearing both the names of Mentuhotep IV and of king Amenemhat I may perhaps indicate that Amenemhat I was a co-regent during the later years of Mentuhotep's reign. This in turn could perhaps indicate that Mentuhotep IV had intended Amenemhat to be his successor. As vizier to Mentuhotep IV, Amenemhat (Moses) records that he went with an army of 10,000 (some sources say 1,000) men into the Wadi to seek and retrieve a fine flock of stone suitable for the lid of the king's sarcophagus. The text says that they were led to the block by a pregnant gazelle which, having dropped its young on to the stone to mark it, was immediately sacrificed on the block. A second miraculous event was also recorded when, after a ferocious rainstorm at Wadi Hammamat, a well 10 cubits square was revealed that was full of water to the brim. In such barren terrain, this would certainly have been a spectacular discovery or as one may see as a miracle of sorts or a message from God. Apparently, the block was successfully detached from the surrounding rock and safely taken to Thebes. However, during their expedition, they were also charged with finding a more favorable port on the Red Sea. Apparently, the port they found was Mersa Gawasis (Kuser), which was not established until the reign of Amenemhet II as the embarkation point for expeditions to Punt. Regrettably, one of the reasons this king remains so obscure is that his tomb, and the sarcophagus made from the block as well as his mummy, has never been found. Perhaps Mentuhotep IV was never able to use the stone since it appears that Amenemhet, with the backing of his 10,000 (or 1,000) men, overthrew his master and proclaimed himself king, founding the 12th Dynasty. An inscription at Thebes tells that Amenemhet (Amon is at the Head) probably was the son of a woman named Nofret from Elephantine, and a priest called Senwosret,who he took as his son gave him the position of co-regent as pharaoh giving him practice in military matters and other duties. He took up the broken diplomatic contacts with Byblos in Lebanon, reintroduced conscription to the armed forces and reorganized the administration of the country to a centralised government. A remarkable event was that he abandoned his capital Thebes in the south and built a new one at the edge of the Fayum in the north to get better control of the upper part of the country. It was named "Itj-tawy", which means, "Seizer of the Two lands", meaning the king himself. Its exact location has not yet been discovered but it was near the Fayum and probably in the area around modern Lisht. It has been suggested by Richard Tidyman that the name of the new capital, Lisht, was a direct reference to this event, and that the literary texts known as the Prophecy of Neferti and the Instruction of Amenemhat I should be considered in the light of evidence for a civil war accompanying the takeover. The circumstances into which the 12th Dynasty came to power is vague. What is known is that Amenemhat I(Moses) was not related to his predecessors. His father was a priest in Thebes named Senuseret. His mother was named Nefret and, according to the Prophecy of Neferti, came from Elephantine in the South of Egypt. The dynasty came to an end when Amenemhat IV and was succeeded by his sister/wife Nefrusobek. Queen Nefrusobek ( Queen Sobekneferu) was the last ruler of 11th Dynasty and daughter of Amenemhat III. Sobekneferu apparently ruled for only some four years, but is known from a number of monuments and artifacts, including five statues, fragments relating to the mortuary temple of Amenemhat III at Hawara, scarabs, seals and beads, as well as from a Nile inundation record. This latter document from the Nubian fortress of Kumma relates a poor flood of some 1.83 meters, and dates to Sobekneferu's last year. Usually, the queen uses feminine titles, but several masculine ones were also used. Three headless statues of the queen, discovered in the Fayoum, and a few other items contain her name. In one damaged statue of the queen of unknown origin, the costume she wears is unique in its combination of elements from male and female dress, echoing her occasional use of male titles in her records. In another intriguing statuette of the queen now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the queen wears a sed-festival cloak and a most unusual crown, which may have resulted from an attempt to combine unfamiliar iconographic elements of male and female rulers. She contributed to Amenemhat III's Labyrinth, and also built at Herakleopolis Magna. Generally, Sobekneferu is known as the last Egyptian king of the Middle Kingdom, prior to the confusion of the Second Intermediate Period. She is the last ruler prior to the New Kingdom to appear in the offering lists found at Abydos and Saqqara, which suggests some kind of posthumous verdict that separates her from the kings who followed her with equally short reigns. The name 'Sobekneferu' means, "The beauties of Sobek", the crocodile god. The rulers of the 12th Dynasty also established a religious and economic center in the Fayoum where the crocodiles were nurtured and worshipped.She built monuments throughout Egypt and her rule was recognized as far south as Lower Nubia. She also seems to have carried on as queen or co-regent in the 12 Dynasty and is possibly the mother or adoptive mother of Moses and /or wife of Moses who became the first king or pharaoh of the 12th Dynasty. |
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