King Amenemhat I | 12th Dynasty Kings

• 16 / 5 / 2023

King Amenemhat I

Etcetepibra Amenemhat I, also known as Amenemhat, was the pharaoh who established Egypt's XII dynasty. He ruled from roughly 1990 to 1961 B.C. While he only mentions him as the father of Sesoncosis, Sextus Julius Africanus states that Manetho refers to him as Ammanemes or Ammenemes of Eusebius of Caesarea.

A recent discovery makes the hypothesis very likely: an inscription from the XVIII dynasty, coming from the third pillar of the Karnak temple, named after Nebhepetra, and Sankhkara, a "father of the god" Senwosre, which given its title cannot be other than the non-royal parent of Amenemhat I.  

In the Leningrad museum, there is a papyrus whose sole purpose is the glorification of this sovereign and which therefore must have been composed during his reign or not long after.

It is narrated that King Snofru, wanting to have fun, asked his courtiers to find an intelligent man who knew how to offer him the desired entertainment. He was advised by a priest from Bubastis, certainly Nfr-ti, who, at the request of the sovereign to tell him something about the future rather than the past, launched himself into the description of an imminent catastrophe. However, salvation would eventually come.

The descent of Amenemhat I from a non-royal lineage is indicated quite clearly because the expression " someone's son " was in common use to designate a man born from a good family, but not of princely origin.

Ta-Sti was called the first name of Upper Egypt, of which Elephantine was the capital and where the population was certainly partly Nubian. Ameny is a well-established abbreviation of Amenemhe, which Manetone Greekized in Amenemhat. Amenemhe means " Amon is in front ".

It is clear that Amenemhat I considered himself the initiator of a new era; Weham-meswe, " Birth Repeater", metaphor derived from the monthly rebirth of the moon. The first Amenemhat aimed to guarantee himself an absolute power analogous to that of the pharaohs of the Old Kingdom.

However, a serious difference persisted, because of the problem of completely abolishing the power of the monarchs. Probably Amenemhat was already approaching maturity when he ascended the throne. In the twentieth year of his reign, the eldest son Senwosre I joined the government and both reigned together for another ten years. It can be certainly attributed to Amenemhat in the conquest of Lower Nubia. An inscription from his 29th year of reign in Kurusku commemorates his coming "to overthrow Wawae ".

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