Page:The Pharaohs and their people; scenes of old Egyptian life and history (IA pharaohstheirpeo00berkiala).pdf/61

 CHAPTER IV.

Civil War and Break-up of the Kingdom—Reunion and Recovery.

The last sovereign of the sixth dynasty was a queen named Nitocris. After her death occurs a perfect blank in Egyptian history. Not a line of hieroglyphic writing, not a fragment of a ruin has survived from this period of darkness and silence. Of the seventh dynasty the very names are lost; of the eighth, nothing but the names has been preserved. The names, however, are so similar to those of the sixth dynasty, that we may conclude that these rulers were of the same royal line and descendants of Mena.

It may be gathered from the bare fact of the accession of a female sovereign that the direct male line had failed. Nitocris appears to have left no children, and it is easy to imagine how rival claims and dissension would arise; each