The tomb of Meketre, chancellor to Eleventh Dynasty king Mentuhotep II, held a secret missed by the looters who otherwise stripped it. In a sealed chamber, Meketre had placed 25 exquisitely detailed models of daily life and activities that his spirit could magically activate to brew his afterlife beer, catch fish for him, clean his house, serve his meals, bake his bread, haul water, care for his animals, fight off invaders, weave linen, build him a Nile yacht—any task that would need doing in the afterlife.
A model of the cattle census is complete with animals, herdsmen, village officials, and royal tax collectors. There are models of granaries (buildings for storing grain), boats of different sizes, and Meketre's house and garden.
There are miniature workshops for bakers, butchers, brewers, weavers, and woodworkers Meketre added model serving girls to carry water, and battalions of tiny archers and soldiers, ready to fight if the need arose. Some of the models from Meketre's tomb can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (the rest are in the Cairo Museum).
The tradition of placing such models, and other servant figures, such as ushabtis ("answerers"), in tombs was a typical Egyptian response to a practical problem. With fewer resources available to build and stock huge, lavish tombs, even the king relied on magical servant figures, and paintings, figurines, and menus that could be magically activated as needed.
Wanted. Seeing their kingship seized by foreigners finally opened their eyes. The Hyksos takeover profoundly changed the Egyptians’ view of the world. They realized they needed to do more than just go shopping in the world’s mines and bazaars. They needed a strong, even aggressive, foreign policy to prevent the many up-and-coming nations around the Mediterranean from coming in and taking whatever they wanted-including the throne. For the first time, Egypt established a standing army and a professional military. Because of the Hyksos, Egypt was no longer isolated from the world.
As the Hyksos consolidated control over the Delta, a family of Theban princes formed a ruling faction (the Seventeenth Dynasty) at Thebes. They preserved Middle Kingdom culture, and controlled Upper Egypt from Elephantine to Abydos, north of Thebes. The Hyksos and the Nubians, who had formed an alliance, hemmed in the Thebans for almost 100 years. Finally, simmering tensions exploded into open conflict.
The Thebans were determined to drive the hated foreigners off the throne and out of Egypt. King Seqenenre Tao and his son Kamose mounted fierce campaigns against the Hyksos. Seqenenre Tao was soon killed. His mummy shows terrible wounds, probably inflicted in battle. Kamose resumed the fight, retaking the Nubian border forts and leading a raid to the outskirts of Avaris. But he reigned only three years.
His son, Ahmose was also determined to drive the invaders out, but waited for the right moment. About halfway through his 26-year reign, he led attacks against the Hyksos at their strongholds in Avaris and Memphis. After a hard-fought campaign, Ahmose prevailed. Not content with driving the Hyksos out of Egypt, he chased them all the way back to Palestine and laid siege to their home city, which was in northern Palestine (what the Bible describes as Caanan).
The Theban ruling family became the Eighteenth Dynasty, and Ah-mose I the first king of the New Kingdom. Egypt’s glorious imperial age was about to begin.
World History
