The Alchemy Key.pdf - Veritas File System

Moving back in time by two thousand years, to early Bronze Age
Anatolia, we find the Egyptians taking a great interest in the metallurgy
and wealth of the area. In about 1950BCE the twelfth dynasty Pharaoh
Sesôstris I, Senwostre I in Greek, campaigned by land and sea as far as
the outer perimeter of the Black Sea.
Sesôstris I’s father, Amenemhe I, was the first Pharaoh of the
twelfth dynasty. At times father and son ruled as co-regents. Their
predecessor, Montjuhotep II, had reunited Egypt through a series of
Thebian wars just before two thousand BCE. The post-war economic
revival of a united Upper and Lower Egypt led to immense wealth and
power.
Sesôstris I consolidated the economic power of Egypt through a
series of aggressive military campaigns in both Lower Egypt and abroad.
He secured the richly fertile region of Wawat in Nubia, south of
Elephantine. Sesôstris’ military forts controlled all the desert and river
caravan routes up to the second cataract. 169
Together Amenemhe I and his son Sesôstris I reestablished the
old system of Pharaonic divinity in Egypt. They introduced law reforms
and a new and progressive administrative system based on state religion.
The Crata Repoa may describe their system of qualification for office
(see Appendix 7).
The seven liberal arts blossomed in Egypt. It was a time of
unusual literature such as the philosophical journey A Man’s Dispute with
His Own Soul and the popular Story of Sinuhe. 170
Monumental, ashlar architecture flourished. Amenemhe I
established a greenfields royal capital at Itjtawy, 20km south of Sakkara
and Memphis. Adjacent to it he built one of the most beautiful funerary
pyramid complexes in all Pharaonic history.
The wealth and grandeur of the twelfth dynasty came from
mineral resources. Amenemhe I mined amethyst in the Wadi el-Hudi,
which is east of Elephantine. 171 Sesôstris I entered the Wadi Hammamat
in the Coptos region to mine materials such as galena, the mineral of lead,
and dark colored sandstone called greywacke. 172 His expedition was
nineteen thousand men strong. Many other twelfth dynasty expeditions
exploited the turquoise and copper mines at Serabit el-Khadim, Timna
and Wadi Maghara in southern Sinai.
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