kings and was taken up by the princes of Herakleopolis (Ahnasyet
el-Medina, near Béni Suêf, south of the Eayyûm) and Thebes. Where the
Herakleopolite kings were buried we do not know; probably somewhere in
the local necropolis of the Gebel es-Sedment, between Ahnasya and the
Fayyûm. The first Thebans (the XIth Dynasty) were certainly buried at
Thebes, but when the Herakleopolites had finally disappeared, and all
Egypt was again united under one strong sceptre, the Theban kings seem
to have been drawn northwards. They removed to the seat of the dominion
of those whom they had supplanted, and they settled in the neighbourhood
of Herakleopolis, near the fertile province of the Fayyûm, and between
it and Memphis. Here, in the royal fortress-palace of Itht-taui,
"Controlling the Two Lands," the kings of the XIIth Dynasty lived,
and they were buried in the nécropoles of Dashûr, Lisht, and Illahun
(Hawara), in pyramids like those of the old Memphite kings. These facts,
of the situation of Itht-taui, of their burial in the southern an ex of
the old necropolis of Memphis, and of the fori of their tombs (the
true Upper Egyptian and Thebian form was a rock-cut gallery and chamber
driven deep into the hill), show how solicitous were the Amenemhats
and Senusrets of the suffrages of Lower Egypt, how anxious they were to
conciliate the ancient royal pride of Memphis.

Where the kings of the XIIIth Dynasty and the Hyksos or "Shepherds" were
buried, we do not know. The kings of the restored Theban empire were
all interred at Thebes. There are, in fact, no known royal sepulchres
between the Fayyûm and Abydos. The great kings were mostly buried in
the neighbourhood of Memphis, Abydos, and Thebes. The sepulchres of the
"Middle Empire"--the XIth to XIIIth Dynasties--in the neighbourhood
of the Fayyûm may fairly be grouped with those of the same period at
Dashûr, which belongs to the necropolis of Memphis, since it is only a
mile or two south of Sakkâra.