Itjtawy or It-Towy ("Seizer of the

Two Lands In Egyptian history, the Upper and Lower Egypt period (also known as The Two Lands) was the final stage of prehistoric Egypt and directly preceded the unification of the realm. The conception of Egypt as the Two Lands was an example of the duali ...

"), also known by its full name Amenemhat-itjtawy ("Amenemhat seizes the Two Lands"), was an

ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

ian royal city established by

pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...

Amenemhat I :''See Amenemhat (disambiguation), Amenemhat, for other individuals with this name.'' Amenemhat I (Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian: ''Ỉmn-m-ḥꜣt'' meaning 'Amun is at the forefront'), also known as Amenemhet I, was a pharaoh of ancient ...

. As yet, Itjtawy’s exact location remains unidentified. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the site lies beneath cultivated fields east of the pyramids of Amenemhat I and

Senusret I Senusret I (Egyptian language, Middle Egyptian: wikt:z-n-wsrt, z-n-wsrt; /suʀ nij ˈwas.ɾiʔ/) also anglicized as Sesostris I and Senwosret I, was the second pharaoh of the Twelfth dynasty of Egypt, Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt. He ruled from 1971 ...

Lisht Lisht or el-Lisht () is an Egyptian village located south of Cairo. It is the site of Middle Kingdom royal and elite burials, including two pyramids built by Amenemhat I and Senusret I. The two main pyramids were surrounded by smaller pyramids of ...

.
There is evidence that Amenemhat, the founder of the

12th Dynasty The Twelfth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty XII) is a series of rulers reigning from 1991–1802 BC (190 years), at what is often considered to be the apex of the Middle Kingdom (Dynasties XI–XIV). The dynasty periodically expanded its terr ...

who ruled approximately 1991 to 1962 BC, established Itjtawy during his

regnal year A regnal year is a year of the reign of a sovereign, from the Latin meaning kingdom, rule. Regnal years considered the date as an ordinal, not a cardinal number. For example, a monarch could have a first year of rule, a second year of rule, a t ...

20, replacing Thebes as the

capital of Egypt The current capital of Egypt is Cairo. Over the course of its history, Egypt has had many capitals. Its earliest capital was Tjenu, better known as Thinis, which may have been the capital of the hypothetical Thinite Confederacy prior to Egypt's ...

. However, the earliest known mention of Itjtawy is dated to the pharaoh’s regnal year 30 (ten years later its presumed foundation), and is represented by the double-dated stela CG 20516 now in

Cairo Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, commonly known as the Egyptian Museum (, Egyptian Arabic: ) (also called the Cairo Museum), located in Cairo, Egypt, houses the largest collection of Egyptian antiquities in the world. It houses over 120, ...

. Relocation of the capital may have been a strategic move. The site for Itjtawy – hundreds of miles down the

Nile The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the List of river sy ...

from Thebes – may have been chosen for its proximity to the source of Asiatic incursions into Egypt, in order to help prevent further attacks. Itjtawy

Since the

determinative A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they ...

sign for Itjtawy is that of a fortified enclosure instead of the conventional city hieroglyph, Egyptologist Steven Snape suggested that Itjtawy was a "disembedded capital", a small center comprising administrative buildings and a royal residence, inhabited only by the administrative staff who ran those buildings; the major economic and cultural centers remained pre-existing cities such as Memphis and Thebes. Itjtawy retained its capital status during the 12th and

13th In music or music theory, a thirteenth is the Musical note, note thirteen scale degrees from the root (chord), root of a chord (music), chord and also the interval (music), interval between the root and the thirteenth. The thirteenth is m ...

dynasties at least until the rule of

Merneferre Ay Merneferre Ay (also spelled Aya or Eje, sometimes known as Ay I) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the mid 13th Dynasty. The longest reigning pharaoh of the 13th Dynasty, he ruled a likely fragmented Egypt for over 23 years in the early to mid ...

, the last pharaoh of the period who is attested by objects from outside of

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ', shortened to , , locally: ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the Nile River valley south of the delta and the 30th parallel North. It thus consists of the entire Nile River valley from Cairo south to Lake N ...

. It is believed that at this point the invasion of

Lower Egypt Lower Egypt ( ') is the northernmost region of Egypt, which consists of the fertile Nile Delta between Upper Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, from El Aiyat, south of modern-day Cairo, and Dahshur. Historically, the Nile River split into sev ...

by populations from

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

occurred, which led to the fall of the Middle Kingdom into the

Second Intermediate Period The Second Intermediate Period dates from 1700 to 1550 BC. It marks a period when ancient Egypt was divided into smaller dynasties for a second time, between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom. The concept of a Secon ...

; the pharaohs of the 13th Dynasty thus abandoned Itjtawy and retreated back to Thebes in the south.Daphna Ben Tor: ''Sequences and chronology of Second Intermediate Period royal-name scarabs, based on excavated series from Egypt and the Levant'', in: ''The Second Intermediate Period (Thirteenth-Seventeenth Dynasties), Current Research, Future Prospects'' edited by Marcel Maree, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 192, 2010

References

{{s-end 20th-century BC establishments Populated places established in the 2nd millennium BC Cities in ancient Egypt Former populated places in Egypt Lost ancient cities and towns Former capitals of Egypt Amenemhat I

See also

References