THE EARLY TEMPLE AND PYRAMID BUILDERS. 103 



du bas Nil, Les forgerons aiiraient perdu pen a pen leurs privileges 

 pour se foudre au reste de la population: a Edfou seulenient et dans 

 les villes oii I'ou pratiquait le culte de PHorus d'Ediou, ils auraient 

 conserve un caractere sacre et se seraient transformes en une sorte de 

 domestieite religieuse, les nuisniou du mytlie d'llorus, compagnous et 

 serviteurs du dieu guerrier.''* 



III.— THE WORK OF THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH DYNASTIES. 



We have next to consider what happened after the great gap in 

 Egyptian history between the sixth and twelfth dynasties, 3500 b. c- 

 2851 B. c. (Mariette), from Nitocris to Amenemhat I. We pass to the 

 Middle Empire. 



Amenemhat 1 built no pyramids, he added no embellishments to 

 Memphis, but he took Heliopolis under his care, and now we first hear 

 of Thebes.t 



Userteseu I built no pyramids, he added no embellishments to Mem- 

 phis, but he also took Heliopolis under his care and added obelisks to 

 the temples, one of which remains to this day. Further, he restored 

 the temple of Osiris at Abydos and added to the temple of Ameu-Ra 

 at Thebes, t 



Surely it is very noteworthy that the first thing the kings of the 

 twelfth dynaiSty did was to look after the only three temples in Egypt 

 of which traces exist, which 1 have shown to have been oriented to 

 the solstice. It is right however to remark that there seems to have 

 been a mild recrudescence of pyramid building toward the end of the 

 twelfth dynasty, and immediately preceding the Hyksos period, whether 

 as a precurser of that period or not. 



Usertesen's views about his last home have come down to us in a 



*The Horus of Edfou was represeuted as the chief and god of a tribe working in 

 metal, more especially in iron. There is no doubt that in certain myths there is a 

 connection between the person of Horus and iron. Florus represented the sky, the 

 firmament; in antiquity the sky was thought to be a roof of irou, so nuich so that 

 the Egjqitians called irou the sky metal. Horus usually cai'ried an irou poiuted 

 pike or javelin, as do the allied gods Anhouri and Shou, while the gods of the north 

 of Egypt, Ra, Phtah, etc., are unarmed. Is uot the legeud of Horhouditi coucjueriug 

 Egypt with the help of the uuisuiou (blacksmiths), an echo of au event which occurred 

 in the prehistoric period of Egypt. Comparable to the arrival of the Spaniards in 

 North America, was the iuvasion into Egypt of tribes knowing and using iron, having 

 among them a special caste of smiths, who brought with them the cult of a warlike 

 god, who they either called Horus or identified with the Plorus of the early Egyptian 

 afterwards named Horhouditi. These tribes were of coarse of African origin, and 

 they brought new African elements to those already contained in the civilizatiou of 

 the lower Nile. The smiths by and by lost their ancient privileges as they were 

 gradually merged in the rest of the population ; only at Edfou and in the towns which 

 practiced the cult of the Horus of Edfou did they preserve a sacred character, being 

 transformed into a kind of domestic religious class, i. e., the mamiiou of the myth of 

 Horus, companions and servants of the warlike god. 



fMasperop O}). cit., p. 112. 



