TAA i.2.1.19

The Feudal Age          =          The Middle Kingdom

    -------------------

                        The First Theban Kingdom

                                      -----------

The Firs Theban Kingdom or Period belong to the Feudal age. It was

the result of the decline of the northern and the rise of the southern

nomarchs.

North      -        While the Siut nomarchs (latter part of IX-X dyns - 2445-2160

                        B.C.) enjoyed the most intimate relations with the Royal

South      -        house of the Heracleopolitans, among the noble of the south

                        a similar powerful family of nomarchs was slowly rising

                        into notice.

Ha/<e>racleopolis  =  City just south of Fayûm. Had been the seat of

                                    a temple and cult of Horus from the earliest dynastic times, and

                                    the princes of the town now succeeded in placing one of their number

                                    on the throne.

Thebes at this time was an obscure provincial town and the neighbouring

Hermonthis was the seat of a family of nomarchs, the Intefs and

Mentuheteps.

Toward the close of the Heracleopolitan supremacy, Thebes had

gained the leading place in the South, and it{s} nomarchs, Intef,

was "Keeper of the Door of the South". (cf. Breasted, Ancient Records, I, 420)

The South stood together and in time of scarcity we see the nomes

aiding each other with grain and provisions (I.457-9).

Intef was soon able to organize the whole South in rebellion, mustering

his forces from the cataract northward at least as far as Thebes.

He and his successors finally wrenched the southern confederation from

the control of the Heracleopolis, and organized an independent

kingdom, with Thebes at its head. This Intef was even afterwards

recognized as the ancestor of the Theban line, and the nomarchs of

the Middle Kingdom set up his statue in the temple at Thebes among

those of their royal predessors predecessors who were worshipped there

(I.419).

At this juncture, the unshaken fidelity of the Siut princes was the 

salvation of the house of Heracleopolis; for Tefibe of Siut, marched

southward to stem an invasion of the southerners, and meeting them

on the west shore, drove them back, recovering the lost territory as far

south as "the fortress of the Port of the South", probably Abydos. (I. I.396).

Meanwhile the fortunes of Thebes have been constantly rising, Intef,

the nomarch, had been succeeded by another Intef, who was the

first of the Thebans to assume royal honours and titles, thus becoming

Intef I, the first King of the dynasty. He pressed the Heracleopolitans

northward, and captured Abydos and the entire Thinite nome. He made

its northern boundary the "Door of the North", ( that is, the northern frontier of

his kingdom, as Elephantine at the first cataract was the "Door of the

South". His long reign (50 years) ended, he was followed by his son, Intef II,

of whom we know little beyond the fact of his succession. (I.423 g.).