Egypt's Middle Kingdom and Its Southern Neighbor
1Historians divide ancient Egypt's long history into periods. During the Middle Kingdom, from about 2050 to 1650 BCE, Egypt was united under strong kings after a time of division. These kings built temples and forts, sent expeditions to bring back stone and gold, and had new farmland cleared and watered. Writers of the period produced stories and teachings that later Egyptians treated as classics.
2Most Egyptians were farmers who worked the land along the Nile. Many others were craftspeople, such as potters, metalworkers, weavers and builders. A much smaller group were scribes, people trained to read and write. Historians estimate that only a small share of Egyptians could read. Scribes kept tax records, wrote letters and copied religious texts, and many held well-paid posts working for temples or the king. Egyptians believed that the god Thoth had given writing to people, and scribes honored him as their protector.
3South of Egypt, past rocky rapids in the Nile called cataracts, lay the land the Egyptians came to call Kush. Its early kingdom had its capital at Kerma, near the Third Cataract. Kerma's rulers controlled trade in gold, ivory and ebony, and their builders raised a huge mud-brick temple whose remains still stand.
4Middle Kingdom kings wanted Kush's gold and other goods, and they also feared its power. Around the Second Cataract they built a chain of large mud-brick forts, such as Buhen and Semna, many of them on cliffs and islands where the rapids forced boats to slow down or be dragged past. Near one fort, at a place called Iken, archaeologists have found signs of a trading post where goods changed hands.