Benson, Margaret; Gourlay, Janet: The temple of Mut in Asher: an account of the excavation of the temple and of the religious representations and objects found therein, as illustrating the history of Egypt and the main religious ideas of the Egyptians (London, 1899)

136

THE TEMPLE OF MUT.

[part iv.

are of a very high order. Many of them were
usurped by later kings, notably a fine statue at
Tanis, on which Merenptah wrote his arrogant
name. In his old age, by the agency of his son
Usertesen, he brought the wild country of Nubia
into subjection, making it part of the kingdom, and
it was never again wholly lost to Egypt. The
inscription which records the conquest is dated in
the twenty-ninth year of Amenemhat—and he only
reigned thirty years. The inscription is as simple as
his others, and the more convincing that it is without
the florid hyperbole in which the small as well as the
great deeds of kings are recorded. On a wall at
Korosko is cut : "In the twenty-ninth year of
Sehetepabra ever-living, they came to overthrow the
YVawat."

During the last ten years of his reign he associated
his son Usertesen with himself as co-regent, thus
bringing in a custom which became habitual with
I2th-dynasty kings. Amenemhat seems to have
thought this step necessary on account of a con-
spiracy against him, which originated in the palace
itself, with the object of making Usertesen king, and
which nearly succeeded in depriving Amenemhat
of life. He answered the plot by making the crown-
prince co-regent; he resigned the active conduct of
affairs into his hands, and contented himself with
playing the part of deus ex machind. He may have
been worn out by the strain and toil of twenty years
of rule, or so filled with bitter contempt for the