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34 Egyptians worshipped the Ptah pantheon, erecting monu- mental temples to him, to his son Ra, and to their divine suc- cessors. The famed inscriptions of the Memphite Pharaohs glorified the gods and promised an Afterlife for the kings. Reigning as the gods’ surrogates, those Pharaohs wore the double crown of Upper (southern) and Lower (northern) Egypt, signifying not just the administrative but also the religious unification of the Two Lands, unification attained when Horus defeated Seth in their struggle for the Ptah/Ra legacy. And then, in 2160 B.c.£., that unity and religious certainty came crashing down. The turmoil saw a breakup of the Union, abandonment of the capital, attacks from the south by Theban princes to gain control, foreign incursions, desecration of temples, a collapse of law and order, and droughts, famines, and food riots. Those conditions are recalled in a papyrus known as the Ad- monitions of Ipu-Wer, a long hieroglyphic text that consists of several sections in which it gives an account of calamities and tribulations, blames an unholy enemy for religious wrong- doing and social evils, and calls on the people to repent and resume the religious rites. A prophetic section describing the coming of a Redeemer, and another that extolls the ideal times that will follow, conclude the papyrus. At its start the text describes the breakdown of law and order and of a functioning society—a situation in which “the doorkeepers go and plunder, the wash-man refuses to carry his load . . . robbery is everywhere . . . a man regards his son as an enemy.” Though the Nile is in flooding and irrigates the land, “no one ploughs... grain has perished... the storehouses are bare ... dust is throughout the land... the desert spreads... women are dried up, no one can con- ceive ... the dead are just thrown into the river . . . the river is blood.” The roads are unsafe, trade has ceased, the prov- inces of Upper Egypt are no longer taxed; “there is civil war... barbarians from elsewhere have come to Egypt . . . all is in ruin.” Some Egyptologists believe that at the core of those events lay a simple rivalry for wealth and power, an attempt (suc- cessful in the end) by Theban princes from the south to con- trol and rule the whole country. Lately, studies have associated THE END OF DAYS