Hieroglyphic name:
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| Hieroglyphic name of Montuhotep II |
Name of Montuhotep II: Montuhotep II or Nebhepetre Mentuhotep
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Stone statue of Mentuhotep II
while wearing the Deshret
crown |
Mentuhotep II had a successful and impressive reign and later came to be regarded as the pharaoh who had reunited Egypt after the problems and dissension of the
First Intermediate Period. The rulers of Heracleopolis and their sponsors who, by trying to retrieve the city of This, had reopened the difference with the Thebans, fell to Mentuhotep II, the Theban leader, in 2040 BC. A chapel relief from Gebelein records this process of destroying the Heracleopolitan champions and consequently gaining the meekness or support of the local regulators (nomarchs) of Lower and Middle Egypt. It is plain that Mentuhotep II did not finished the recognized nomarchs of Middle Egypt, but probably imposed only limited restrictions on them so that, as at Hermopolis and Assiut, they could continue to prosper. He established his own men to all the key positions of authority and one his power at Thebes, thus gaining a firm control of the country.
This was a time of military activity since it was fatal to consolidate Egypts neglected borders and to re-open the trading routes, mines and quarries. Punitive outings were sent out to quell the interferences got by the *Libyans of the western desert and the *Beduin who cast in Sinai and the eastern desert. The necessary commodities of timber and gold were once over again acquired from *Byblos and *Nubia, and routes across the desert from Koptos to the Red Sea were restored to provide entree to the incense-land of *Punt. Nubia required special tending and the king himself sailed south to deal with the problem. Probably since the late Old Kingdom, when Egypt was itself in agitation, an sovereign dynasty of rulers had established itself in Nubia; in fact, this may have been kicked off by an Egyptian stock. Mentuhotep II wished to regain control of Nubia and to fix the power that the kings of the
Sixth Dynasty had enjoyed, which had enabled them to easily get both commodities and manpower from there. He was successful in restoring Egyptian mastery in the region of Lower Nubia as far as the Second Cataract and in stimulating the tribute levy, but the Egyptians did not as yet have a permanent military mien there.
The famous Chancellor, Achthoes, severe on exploiting Lower Nubia, and plainly *Nubians came to fight as aides in the Egyptian army. A tomb at Deir el Bahri was found to take the bodies of sixty Egyptian soldiers who had been killed while invading a fortress or town which was perhaps in Nubia, but there were also Nubian handmaidens in the Theban royal household. From graves of this dynasty (the Eleventh), there are close funerary modeling of Nubian as well as Egyptian soldiers who were contrived to fight on behalf of their passed Egyptian owner in his afterlife, (e.g. Mesehti, now in the Cairo Museum.) Mentuhotep II built extensively throughout
Upper Egypt, at Elephantine,
El Kab, Gebelein, Tod,
Abydos and
Denderah, but his most telling monument was his unique burial complex at Deir el Bahri, which was later shadowed by Queen Hatshepsuts own funerary temple. Mentuhotep II's building incorporated a pyramid and a temple, which were combined in an new way, and the complex also housed the burials of the royal women, including the kings mother and sister. The complex was gone about by an avenue lined with sandstone statues of the king enduring his jubilee-festival clothes, and both the setting and architectural holds would have made this a most impressive monument to a great king. The replenishment of great building pictures emphasised the strength and trust of this reign, and the selection of Montu, god of war, as the patron deity of this dynasty expressed the attitude of Mentuhotep II as the give of the line.
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