CHAPTER IV.
Civil War and Break-up of the Kingdom—Reunion and Recovery.
The last sovereign of the sixth dynasty was a
queen named Nitocris. After her death occurs
a perfect blank in Egyptian history. Not a
line of hieroglyphic writing, not a fragment of
a ruin has survived from this period of darkness
and silence. Of the seventh dynasty the
very names are lost; of the eighth, nothing but
the names has been preserved. The names,
however, are so similar to those of the sixth
dynasty, that we may conclude that these rulers
were of the same royal line and descendants of
Mena.
It may be gathered from the bare fact of the accession of a female sovereign that the direct male line had failed. Nitocris appears to have left no children, and it is easy to imagine how rival claims and dissension would arise; each
