The First Intermediate Period

However, when it came to the First Intermediate Period, there was a noticeable lack of books offering a general overview of the period. This was quite surprising. After all, there are books dedicated to covering the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, the Second Intermediate Period, The New Kingdom, the Third Intermediate Period, and Saite, Achaemenid, Ptolemaic, and Roman Egypt. So, I thought I would bring to your attention two books that, although they cover the Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom, together, provide a comprehensive history of the First Intermediate Period, its origins, and its influence on later Egypt. The first is Miroslav Bárta’s Analyzing Collapse: The Rise and Fall of the Old Kingdom (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2019).

As the title suggests, Analyzing Collapse is concerned with understanding why the Old Kingdom of Egypt descended into the political turmoil of the First Intermediate Period. To do so, Bárta studies the full breadth of the Old Kingdom’s history, from Narmer through to the onset of the First Intermediate Period, examining how the Egyptian state — largely focused on the monarchy — developed in this time and what these developments can tell us about the Old Kingdom’s decline, with some discussion of the role of climate change. In Bárta’s own words, “This book is concerned mainly with the search for and description, evaluation, and interpretation of the processes leading to the birth, rise, and finally fall of the Egyptian Old Kingdom” (p. 20).

That said, while, at first glance, the book appears to offer a broad overview of the history of the Egyptian Old Kingdom, it, instead, focuses on “major turning points that shaped and changed [Egyptian] society” (p. 47). As such, much of the Old Kingdom’s history is briefly summarized as Bárta jumps between these turning points. For example, Sneferu is the primary focus of Chapter Four, since his reign marks a significant point in the expansion of the effectiveness of the Egyptian state administration, with the organization of vast resources, both material and labour, necessary to construct several monumental pyramids; Khufu, however, goes largely unmentioned, despite his pyramid being the largest Egyptian pyramid ever constructed, since his reign “was largely a continuation of the policies initiated by his father” (p. 101), Sneferu. Consequently, this book is meant for readers with at least some familiarity with the wider course of early Egyptian history. Although, I do not have the strongest grasp of Egyptian dynastic history and I was able to keep up with Bárta’s discussion.

Unfortunately, Bárta only briefly discusses the developments of the First Intermediate Period. He notes the emergence of regional dynasties and artistic styles, the appearance of weapons in grave iconography, and the evidence for famines in Egypt, but does not offer a political narrative of the period — this is, admittedly, beyond the scope of Analyzing Collapse. For a narrative treatment of the First Intermediate Period, we must turn to the second book we are discussing in this blog: Wolfram Grajetzki’s The Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt: History, Archaeology and Society, recently published in its second edition (London: Bloomsbury, 2024).

As is obvious from its title, this book is not concerned with the First Intermediate Period, but “provides an introduction to the history of the Middle Kingdom” (p. viii), the period immediately following on from the First Intermediate Period. Yet the First Intermediate Period did have an impact on Egyptian culture during the Middle Kingdom. As Grajetzki writes, “it is hard to judge what real impact the First Intermediate Period had on the Middle Kingdom” (p. 2), which suggested, to me, that Grajetzki would offer some discussion concerning what elements of Middle Kingdom Egyptian culture may or may not have their origins in the First Intermediate Period. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Grajetzki does offer a narrative history of the First Intermediate Period as part of his overview of the history of Middle Kingdom Egypt. However, since, as Grajetzki notes, “There are not many extant sources relating to these events” (p. 8), and that his focus is Middle Egyptian history, this is relatively brief. Similarly, as part of his discussions of the archaeology of Egypt during the Middle Kingdom, Grajetzki references developments in the First Intermediate Period, such as the regional styles of coffins in Edfu, Gebelein, and Beni Hasan during Amenemhat I’s reign (p. 36), but tends not to explore whether such developments had an impact on later Egyptian culture. This is quite disappointing, especially since Grajetzki acknowledges that “In terms of material culture, the Middle Kingdom started under Senusret I. Before his reign, pottery and funerary culture ... are still much influenced by, or in the tradition of, the First Intermediate Period” (p. 45).

What’s more, Grajetzki appears to underestimate the importance of Nubia to developments in Egypt. For example, he notes how the rise of what he calls the Kerma Empire “blocked the direct trade route via land and therefore the route by sea became more important” (p. 131); however, as noted by Moreno-Garcia, a contributor to AH 59, this was a process that was well underway by the end of the Old Kingdom and may be connected to the emergence of Kerma as a regional power. In a similar vein, there is no mention of the possibility that Mentuhotep II and his wife Kemsit were of Nubian origin, which has significant implications for the political situation at the start of the Middle Kingdom, even if Grajetzki were to dismiss such notions.

Nevertheless, this book is full of information for the Middle Kingdom, even if it is not so informative for the First Intermediate Period, although Grajetzki’s writing style, especially when discussing the archaeology of the various nomes of Egypt, can be particularly dry and matter-of-fact.