SUDAN CONQUERED BY AMENEMHAT I.

made no attempt to restore Memphis, the ancient capital of the country, to its former position of greatness, but he built a fortress called Thet-taui, a little to the south of that city, which he used as a residence and for administrative purposes. Probably with the view of strengthening his hold on the Delta, he built, or rather rebuilt, the temples of Bubastis and Tanis. These works done, Amenemhat I. was able to consider seriously the state of affairs in the country to the south of the First Cataract, for he was master, as he himself says, of all Egypt, "from Abu (Elephantine) to the reed-swamps of the Delta." For his buildings he needed the labour of slaves, and for their decoration and for temple ceremonials he needed gold. Both slaves and gold had been brought from the Sudan from time immemorial, and it seems certain that his determination to conquer that country was rather the result of his need for these objects than his love of conquest, or than the mere desire to " enlarge the borders of his country." His love of the chase and of the slaughter of lions and crocodiles took him into the Sudan, and he probably learned there, at first hand, concerning the sources whence the natives obtained their supply of gold. At all events, he decided to conquer the country, and to take possession of the mines.

In the papyrus which contains his account of the conspiracy against him and the attack upon his life, he tells us that he conquered the Matchaiu,- the Uauaiu,"* the Satiu, and the Heriu-sha. With all these peoples Her-khuf, the feudal lord of Elephantine, under the Vlth Dynasty, had come in contact. The Matchaiu were probably the most warlike of them all, and we hear of their being employed as guards and policemen under later dynasties. The 1 See Birch, Select Papyri Sallier ii., plate lo ff. ; the Ostrakon in the British Museum, No. 5,623 ; Birch, Egyptian Texts, p. 16 ; Diimichen, Aeg. Zeit., 1874, p. 30; Ma.spero, Pecuei/, torn, ii., p. 70; Maspero, Records of the Past, vol. ii., p. 9 ff.

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