DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14564#0065
THEBES.
49
their capital. At first they were merely nobles; then
one became a local king, and his successors won the
whole dominion of Egypt. These were the sovereigns
of the Eleventh Dynasty. Their date must be before
Abraham, probably some centuries earlier; but. it is not
yet certain, so obscure is the early chronology of Egypt.
Thus it was not by deliberate selection, as in the wise
choice of the site of Memphis by Menes, but by the
accident of success, that a small provincial town became
the capital of Egypt. The position was fit for a great
city, but too far south for the centre of government,
and nearer to the safe border of Ethiopia than to the
assailable frontiers on the north-east and north-west.
More than four hundred miles, by the river, south of
Cairo and Memphis, the Nile valley widens on the east,
forming a great amphitheatre, bounded by the distant
mountains; while on the west the same rocky barrier,
after almost touching the river, retires, leaving a narrower
semicircle. Unlike the level desert-wall of the rest of
Egypt, the western mountain rises in a peak-like form to
the unusual height of twelve hundred feet, and in one
place falls to the plain in a sheer scarped cliff. The
view from either side of the river is marked by features
E
49
their capital. At first they were merely nobles; then
one became a local king, and his successors won the
whole dominion of Egypt. These were the sovereigns
of the Eleventh Dynasty. Their date must be before
Abraham, probably some centuries earlier; but. it is not
yet certain, so obscure is the early chronology of Egypt.
Thus it was not by deliberate selection, as in the wise
choice of the site of Memphis by Menes, but by the
accident of success, that a small provincial town became
the capital of Egypt. The position was fit for a great
city, but too far south for the centre of government,
and nearer to the safe border of Ethiopia than to the
assailable frontiers on the north-east and north-west.
More than four hundred miles, by the river, south of
Cairo and Memphis, the Nile valley widens on the east,
forming a great amphitheatre, bounded by the distant
mountains; while on the west the same rocky barrier,
after almost touching the river, retires, leaving a narrower
semicircle. Unlike the level desert-wall of the rest of
Egypt, the western mountain rises in a peak-like form to
the unusual height of twelve hundred feet, and in one
place falls to the plain in a sheer scarped cliff. The
view from either side of the river is marked by features
E