Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/582

 478 APPENDIX IH. Amenemhat II., OsoRTASEN II., whose exploits are recorded in inscriptions in the tombs of Auieni and Knumhotep, at Beni- Hassan. OsoRTASEN III., who invaded Kush or the land of Ethiopia stretching south from Egypt. Monuments recording his victories are found at Semneh, beyond the second cataract of Wady Halfah. B. 2333. Amenemhat III., who constructed extensive canals, dykes, and reservoirs, by which the inundations of the Nile were regulated. Amongst these vast works was the famous Lake Moeris in the Fayum depression, where this king also laid out the no less famous labyrinth. Records of the periodical risings of the Nile during his reign occur at Semneh, where he established a Nilometer, by means of which regular observations were taken and published throughout Egj^pt. B. 2300. All the kings of this dynasty bore the name either of Osortasen or Amenemhat (Amenemheh). They reigned altogether 213 years, and their epoch was one of great prosperity, internal peace, and foreign conquest. They recovered Arabia Petreea, which had been lost during the civil wars, and permanently reduced the whole of Nubia as well as a part of Ethiopia. Their glory was perpetuated by monuments as prodigious and in some respects far more useful than those of the fourth dynasty. Such espe- cially was the vast Lake Moeris, constructed by Amenemhat III. for the purjwse of regulating the periodical inundations of the Nile. When the rise was insufficient the waters stored in this enormous reservoir served to irrigate the whole country along the left bank of the river as far as the sea. When the rise was excessive, the overflow from the lake was dis- charged through a system of sluices into the Birket-Karun. From the tombs of Beni-Hassan, dating from this epoch, a long inscrip- tion has been recovered relating the career and beneficent deeds of Ameni, a high official, who resumes his administration of the land in these words: " All the provinces were cultivated and sown from the north to the south. Nothing was pilfered from my workshops. No little child was ever hurt, no widow oppressed by me. I gave to widow and wedded wife alike, and in all the judgments pronounced by me no preference was shown to the great over the humblest subject of the king." XIII. Dynasty: Theban. M. 2851, B. 2233. Sebekhotep (Sevekhotep), Neferhotep. Names borne by nearly all the sixty Theban kings of this dynasty. The rise of the Nile in the third year of Sebekhotep III. is inscribed on the rocks at Semneh. Monuments of this epoch occur at San, Abydos, Siut, Thebes, the first cataract, Semneh, the island of Argo near Dongol^ and elsewhere throughout Egypt and Nubia. The empire thus appears to have been still held together. Nevertheless, almost immediately after the close of the twelfth dynasty the land was again distracted by internal dissensions.