478 APPENDIX III. 



Amenemhat II., OsoRTASEN II., whosG exploits are recorded in inscriptions in the tombs 

 of Ameni and Knumhotep, at Beni-Hassan. 



OsoRTASEN III., who invadod Kush or the land of Ethiopia stretching south from Egypt. 

 Monuments recording his victories are found at Semneh, beyond the 

 second cataract of Wady Halfah. B. 2333. 



Amenemhat III., who constructed extensive canals, dykes, and reservoirs, by which the 

 inundations of the Nile were regulated. Amongst these vast works was 

 the famous Lake Moeris in the Eayum depression, where this king also 

 laid out the no less famous labyrinth. Records of the periodical risings of 

 the Nile during his reign occur at Semneh, where he established a 

 Nilometer, by means of which regular observations were taken and 

 published throughout Egypt. B. 2300. 



All the kings of this dynasty bore the name either of Osortasen or 

 Amenemhat (Amenemheh). They reigned altogether 213 years, and their 

 epoch was one of great prosperity, internal peace, and foreign conquest. 

 They recovered Arabia Petrsea, which had been lost during the civil wars, 

 and permanently reduced the whole of Nubia as well as a part of Etliiopia. 

 Their glory was perpetuated by monuments as prodigious and in some 

 respects far more useful than those of the fourth dynasty. Such espe- 

 cially was the vast Lake Moeris, constructed by Amenemhat III. for the 

 purpose of regulating the periodical inundations of the Nile-. When the 

 rise was insufficient the waters stored in this enormous reservoir served 

 to irrigate the whole country along the left bank of the river as far as the 

 sea. When the rise was excessive, the overflow from the lake was dis- 

 charged through a system of sluices into the Birket-Karun. 



From the tombs of Beni-Hassan, dating from this epoch, a long inscrip- 

 tion has been recovered relating the career and beneficent deeds of Ameni, 

 a high official, who resumes his administration of the land in these words : 

 " All the provinces were cultivated and sown from the north to the south. 

 Nothing was pilfered from my workshops. No little child was ever hurt, 

 no widow oppressed by me. I gave to widow and wedded wife alike, and 

 in aU the judgments pronounced by me no preference was shown to the 

 great over the humblest subject of the king." 



XIII. Dynasty : Theban. 



M. 2851, B. 2233. 



Sebekhotep (Sevekhotep), Neferhotep. Names borne by nearly all the sixty Theban 

 kings of this dynasty. 



The rise of the Nile in the third year of Sebekhotep III. is inscribed on the 

 rocks at Semneh. Monuments of this epoch occur at San, Abydos, Siut, 

 Thebes, the first cataract, Semneh, the island of Argo near Dongola, and 

 elsewhere throughout Egypt and Nubia. 



The empire thus appears to have been still held together. Nevertheless, 

 almost immediately after the close of the twelfth dynasty the land was again 

 distracted by internal dissensions. 



