with the head of a ram; his name means “Terrible-Face.”  The greater part of the temple dates to the time of the XIXth Dynasty, and nothing of the early period is left.  We know, however, that the Middle Kingdom was the flourishing period of the city of Hershefi.  For a comparatively brief period, between the age of Memphite hegemony and that of Theban dominion, Herakleopolis was the capital city of Egypt.  The kings of the IXth and Xth Dynasties were Herakleopolites, though we know little of them.  One, Kheti, is said to have been a great tyrant.  Another, Nebkaura, is known only as a figure in the “Legend of the Eloquent Peasant,” a classical story much in vogue in later days.  Another, Merikara, is a more real personage, for we have contemporary records of his days in the inscriptions of the tombs at Asyut, from which we see that the princes of Thebes were already wearing down the Northerners, in spite of the resistance of the adherents of Herakleopolis, among whom the most valiant were the chiefs of Asyut.  The civil war eventuated in favour of Thebes, and the Theban XIth Dynasty assumed the double crown.  The sceptre passed from Memphis and the North, and Thebes enters upon the scene of Egyptian history.

With this event the Nile-land also entered upon a new era of development.  The metropolis of the kingdom was once more shifted to the South, and, although the kings of the XIIth Dynasty actually resided in the North, their Theban origin was never forgotten, and Thebes was regarded as the chief city of the country.  The XIth Dynasty kings actually reigned at Thebes, and there the later kings of the XIIIth Dynasty retired after the conquest of the Hyksos.  The fact that with Thebes were associated all the heroic traditions of the struggle against the Hyksos ensured the final stability of the capital there when the hated Semites were finally driven out, and the national kingdom was re-established in its full extent from north to south.  But for occasional intervals, as when Akhunaten held his court at Tell el-Amarna and Ramses II at Tanis, Thebes remained the national capital for six hundred years, till the time of the XXIId Dynasty.

Another great change which differentiates the Middle Kingdom (XIth-XIIIth Dynasties) from the Old Kingdom was caused by Egypt’s coming into contact with other outside nations at this period.  During the whole history of the Old Kingdom, Egyptian relations with the outer world had been nil.  We have some inkling of occasional connection with the Mediterranean peoples, the Ha-nebu or Northerners; we have accounts of wars with the people of Sinai and other Bedawin and negroes; and expeditions were also sent to the land of Punt (Somaliland) by way of the Upper Nile.  But we have not the slightest hint of any connection with, or even knowledge of, the great nations of the Euphrates valley or the peoples of Palestine.  The Babylonian king Naram-Sin invaded the Sinaitic peninsula (the land of Magan) as early as 3750 b. c,