Their empire lasted apparently for more than 300 years in Upper Egypt; but for the latter portion of that period they do not seem to have reigned over the whole country, having been superseded in Lower Egypt by the invasion of the hated Hyksos, or Shepherd kings, about the year 2300 B.C., and by whom they also were finally totally overthrown.
When we turn from the contemplation of the pyramids, and the monuments contemporary with them, to examine those of the 12th dynasty, we become at once aware of the change which has taken place. Instead of the pyramids, all of which are situated on the western side of the Nile, we have obelisks, which, without a single exception, are found on its eastern side towards the rising sun, apparently in contradistinction to the valley of the dead, which was towards the side on which he set. The earliest and one of the finest of these obelisks is that still standing at Heliopolis, inscribed with the name of Osirtasen, one of the first and greatest kings of this dynasty. It is 67 ft. 4 in. in height, without the pyramidion which crowns it, and is a splendid block of granite, weighing 217 tons. It must have required immense skill to quarry it, to transport it from Syene, and finally, after finishing it, to erect it where it now stands and has stood for 4500 years.
We find the sculptures of the same king at Wady Halfah, near the second cataract, in Nubia; and at Sarabout el Kadem, in the Sinaitic Peninsula. He also commenced the great temple of Karnac at Thebes, which in the hands of his successors became the most splendid in Egypt, and perhaps it is not too much to say the greatest architectural monument in the whole world.
As might be expected, from our knowledge of the fact that the Hyksos invasion took place so soon after his reign, none of his structural buildings now remain entire in which we might read the story of his conquests, and learn to which gods of the Pantheon he especially devoted himself. We must therefore fall back on Manetho for an account of his “conquering all Asia in the space of nine years, and Europe as far as Thrace.”[46] While there is nothing to contradict this statement, there is much that renders it extremely probable.
