Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/139

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HE great culminating period of the old kingdom of Egypt is that belonging to the 4th and 5th dynasties. Nine-tenths of the monuments of the pyramid builders which have come down to our time belong to the five centuries during which these two dynasties ruled over Egypt (B.C. 3500–3000).

The 6th dynasty was of a southern and more purely African origin. On the tablets of Apap (Apophis), its most famous monarch, we find the worship of Khem and other deities of the Theban period wholly unknown to the pyramid kings. The next four dynasties are fainéant kings, of whom we know little, not "Carent quia vate sacro," but because they were not builders, and their memory is lost. The 11th and 12th usher in a new state of affairs. The old Memphite pyramid-building kingdom had passed, with its peaceful contentment, and had given place to a warlike, idolatrous race of Theban kings, far more purely African, the prototypes of the great monarchy of the 18th and 19th dynasties, and having no affinity with anything we know of as existing in Asia in those times.

Their empire lasted apparently for more than 300 years in Upper Egypt; but for the latter portion of that period they do not seem to have reigned over the whole country, having been superseded in Lower Egypt by the invasion of the hated Hyksos, or Shepherd kings, about the year 2300, and by whom they also were finally totally overthrown.

When we turn from the contemplation of the pyramids, and the monuments contemporary with them, to examine those of the 12th dynasty, we become at once aware of the change which has taken place. Instead of the pyramids, all of which are situated on the western side of the Nile, we have obelisks, which, without a single exception, are found on its eastern side, towards the rising sun,