Egypt’s Middle Kingdom

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter offers a critical overview of scholarly opinion on Middle Kingdom Egypt. Departing from a longue durée perspective, it problematizes the concept of what constitutes a historical period. It goes on to argue that the Middle Kingdom in fact covers two eras that were very different in social and cultural terms and that rather than marking a new era, the early Middle Kingdom continued the clientelist structures that went hand in hand with the creation of regional polities in the late Old Kingdom. Concerning the long-standing debate whether or not contemporary Egyptian literary sources reflect political sensitivities and may even be considered “propagandistic,” the chapter highlights that the sources indicate, from an inside perspective, which developments the contemporaries considered central. Key topics otherwise covered are the politics underlying the advent of the Twelfth Dynasty; the issue of co-regency; the role of royal patronage; and how Egypt’s role in international politics led to demographic and social changes that in turn contributed to the emergence of a society based less on patronage and more on individual agency in the context of dynamic social networks—a phenomenon that may also explain the complex system of royal succession in the Thirteenth Dynasty.