During this and the preceding period a social conscience was developed in Egypt which found expression in a remarkable literature. Extracts from two examples of this, “The Eloquent Peasant” and “The Admonitions of Ipuwer,” are published in Part II, p. 418, ff., 421, ff. (6) _Second Period of Disintegration._--The thirteenth dynasty, which began in 1788 B. C., had not been long upon the throne, when powerful rebellions again broke up the kingdom. Petty kinglets ruled once more in many parts of the land. These kings comprise Manetho’s thirteenth and fourteenth dynasties. The land, disunited, became an easy prey to an invader. Such an invader came. For more than 3,000 years Egypt, protected by her deserts, had lived her life unmolested. The uncivilized Nubians on the south, the Lybians on the west of the Delta, and the uncivilized tribes of Sinai had been easily held in check. But now a powerful invader came from Asia with a well organized, though barbaric army. They conquered Egypt and imposed upon her two dynasties of kings, who ruled for about a hundred years, until they were driven out about 1580 B. C. These kings were Manetho’s fifteenth and sixteenth dynasties. He calls them Hyksos, which has been held to mean “Shepherd Kings,” but which probably meant “Ruler of Countries.” They have been generally believed to be Semitic, though some scholars now think they may have been of Hittite origin. In any event, large numbers of Semites came to Egypt with them, and left many Semitic names in the Delta. Some of these will be discussed below. This invasion broke up Egypt’s splendid isolation and brought her into the current of world events, from which she was never afterward to free herself. (7) _The Empire Period._--At some time before 1600 B. C. a seventeenth dynasty arose at Thebes and began the struggle to expel the foreign kings. This was not accomplished until the founder of the eighteenth dynasty, Amosis I (1580-1577), achieved it. In order to secure freedom from invasion the kings of this dynasty were compelled to follow the invaders into Asia, and in time Thothmes III (1501-1447) conquered Palestine, Phœnicia, and Syria to the Euphrates, and organized it into a compact empire, which held together until about 1360. The kings of this dynasty also carried the conquest of Nubia to Napata, at the Fourth Cataract. They worked the mines of Sinai, traded with Punt, and inaugurated the “empire period,” which lasted in reality till well into the twentieth dynasty, about 1165, and which, for convenience, we count as extending to the fall of the twenty-first dynasty in 945 B. C.