King Mentuhotep I – The Theban Hero

He won in the end.

The grandness and majesty of the Old Kingdom, known as "The Age of the Pyramids", turned into the dark and unsettling period of internal battles and civil wars known as The First Intermediate Period - after the death of King Pepi II.

Basically what happened was that King Pepi's reign was so long and full of bribing and appeasing that it decentralized the control and scattered it among the nomarchs.

He was giving away so much of his wealth to the nobles and foreign political connections that together they finally surpassed the power of the once all-mighty "Pharaohship" (I made that word up!).

And then of course, after his death, the nomes started fighting with each other for the control of the country.

The strength of a United Egypt dwindled and the ancient Egyptians were in despair.

This period lasted for about 140 years and shifted into the Middle Kingdom. This was a relatively more stable period, and during the 50 long years of the reign of our second re-unification hero, Egypt was whole once again.

You can imagine how strong a king had to be to reel a whole country back into a state of peace after so many years of total chaos...

He was the 4th King of the 11th Dynasty, and reigned from approx. 2060-2010 BC. He won the throne after going against King Intef III for many years. He also had to subdue a revolt by a nome in Abydos, after which he became the sole ruler of Ancient Egypt.

He became known as "Uniter of the Two Lands". A title, as you might remember, also given to the great King Narmer.

After his unification success and crushing his rivals, he enjoyed a long period of peace and prosperity for himself and his country.

He was buried at Thebes, and was succeeded by his son King Mentuhotep II.

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