DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55202#0023
I
THE NOMARCHS OF THEBES BEFORE 2134 b.c.
In the Old Kingdom the settlements which were to become the
great city of Thebes were little villages centering about what the
Arabs call “Luxor” and “Karnak,” and in this Fourth Nome of
Upper Egypt—Waset—there were other little centers of population,
none of which became as gigantic as these two. Up river a bit less
than 30 kilometers and on the east side of the Nile, was Tod; op-
posite it, across the river, was Erment; and downstream, near the
eastern desert and not quite half so far away, was Medamut. When
first we hear of these villages toward the end of the Old Kingdom,
each had a temple of Montu, lord of the nome, and his temple in
each must have been the only one of importance. Now and then one
runs across a mention of Osiris and perhaps of the ithyphallic Min,
but never of Amun until after 2130 b.c., and even then it is rare.1
At the end of the Old Kingdom the principal inhabitants of the
villages which became Thebes chose as their burial place a low,
rocky hill across the river on the western desert called today “the
Khd-kheh.” “The Vice-regent, Governor of the South, Controller of
the Granaries Weni-^ankh” (Pl. 1) and his son chose the spot in the
Sixth Dynasty for a burial place.2 In the same period a tomb was
cut for a certain Ihy and his wife I my, a “Great Chieftain of the
Nome, Controller of the Granaries, Beloved of the King, the First
on his Two Shores, and Supporter of the King’s Head”;3 and “The
Hereditary Prince and Divine Chancellor Seni-oker”4 was buried
close by.
After these few sparse mentions of Old Kingdom Thebes the name
of the town appears more rarely. Its district was one of the twenty-
two nomes of Upper Egypt governed by Shemay’s under King Neter-
bau, but on Shemay’s death the same king gave to his son Idy only
the seven nomes from Elephantine to Diospolis Parva.5 This last
1 Stela of Magegi; see below, p. 19.
2 MMA. 22.3.325; Davies, MM A Bulletin, March, 1918, Part II, p. 23, Fig. 34.
3 Tomb 186; Newberry, Annales du Service des Antiquites, 1903, p. 97, Pls. 1-1II.
4 Gardiner and Weigall, Private Tombs of Tbebes, No. 185.
6 Sethe, Urkunden des Alten Reich, I, p. 299, Moret, Compies rendus de I’Academic des
Inscriptions, 1914, p. 565, based on the stelae Cairo 43053 and MMA 14 7.11.
THE NOMARCHS OF THEBES BEFORE 2134 b.c.
In the Old Kingdom the settlements which were to become the
great city of Thebes were little villages centering about what the
Arabs call “Luxor” and “Karnak,” and in this Fourth Nome of
Upper Egypt—Waset—there were other little centers of population,
none of which became as gigantic as these two. Up river a bit less
than 30 kilometers and on the east side of the Nile, was Tod; op-
posite it, across the river, was Erment; and downstream, near the
eastern desert and not quite half so far away, was Medamut. When
first we hear of these villages toward the end of the Old Kingdom,
each had a temple of Montu, lord of the nome, and his temple in
each must have been the only one of importance. Now and then one
runs across a mention of Osiris and perhaps of the ithyphallic Min,
but never of Amun until after 2130 b.c., and even then it is rare.1
At the end of the Old Kingdom the principal inhabitants of the
villages which became Thebes chose as their burial place a low,
rocky hill across the river on the western desert called today “the
Khd-kheh.” “The Vice-regent, Governor of the South, Controller of
the Granaries Weni-^ankh” (Pl. 1) and his son chose the spot in the
Sixth Dynasty for a burial place.2 In the same period a tomb was
cut for a certain Ihy and his wife I my, a “Great Chieftain of the
Nome, Controller of the Granaries, Beloved of the King, the First
on his Two Shores, and Supporter of the King’s Head”;3 and “The
Hereditary Prince and Divine Chancellor Seni-oker”4 was buried
close by.
After these few sparse mentions of Old Kingdom Thebes the name
of the town appears more rarely. Its district was one of the twenty-
two nomes of Upper Egypt governed by Shemay’s under King Neter-
bau, but on Shemay’s death the same king gave to his son Idy only
the seven nomes from Elephantine to Diospolis Parva.5 This last
1 Stela of Magegi; see below, p. 19.
2 MMA. 22.3.325; Davies, MM A Bulletin, March, 1918, Part II, p. 23, Fig. 34.
3 Tomb 186; Newberry, Annales du Service des Antiquites, 1903, p. 97, Pls. 1-1II.
4 Gardiner and Weigall, Private Tombs of Tbebes, No. 185.
6 Sethe, Urkunden des Alten Reich, I, p. 299, Moret, Compies rendus de I’Academic des
Inscriptions, 1914, p. 565, based on the stelae Cairo 43053 and MMA 14 7.11.