Egypt in Middle Kingdom

The Middle Kingdom is the period in the history of ancient Egypt stretching from the establishment of the Eleventh Dynasty to the end of the Fourteenth Dynasty, between 2080 BCE and 1640 BCE.

The period comprises two phases, the 11th Dynasty, which ruled from Thebes and the 12th Dynasty onwards which was centered around el-Lisht. These two dynasties were originally considered to be the full extent of this unified kingdom, but historians now consider the 13th Dynasty to at least partially belong to the Middle Kingdom.

At the end of the Twelfth Dynasty burial customs again changed dramatically. Many previously typical burial goods disappear, while others come into use.

In the Twelfth Dynasty the external faces of coffins were decorated with vertical lines of hieroglyphs in addition to the horizontal text band running along the top. In the middle of the Twelfth Dynasty all sides of the coffin were covered by the palace facade motif; derived from the niched brick facades found in Early Dynastic Egyptian architecture (Tarkhan, Gizeh). The decoration on the inside disappears.