The Fifth Dynasty (B.C. 3566-3300) is not an important one as far as art is concerned. The Sixth (B.C. 3300-3100) was noted for the erection of its pyramid tombs and for the religious texts that were inscribed on their interior walls. [Illustration: Fig. 89.—The Stepped Pyramid. (P. & C.) Supposed to be the most ancient building in Egypt.] [Illustration: Fig. 90.—The Southern Pyramid of Dashour. (P. & C.)] [Illustration: Fig. 91.—The Great Sphinx. (P. & C.)] [Illustration: Fig. 92.—Colossi of Amenophis III. Statues of Memnon at Thebes. (P. & C.)] [Illustration: Fig. 93.—Amenophis III. Presenting an Offering to Amen. (P. & C.)] From the Seventh to the Eleventh Dynasty (B.C. 3100-2466) is a period whose history is almost lost. It meant to the Egyptians a period of more than six hundred years of tribal jealousies and fighting, at the end of which Egypt was consolidated from north to south, and a powerful Dynasty succeeded these internal struggles. The Twelfth Dynasty was a brilliant one for the arts, and for great works of engineering skill. The names of the Pharaohs of this dynasty, Amenemhāt and Usertsen, are among the most renowned in Egyptian history. Great temples were restored or newly built at Thebes, Heliopolis, Tanis, and Abydos. The great artificial lake, Mauur (Moeris of the Greeks), or “great water,” was constructed to receive the surplus waters of the Nile, and to control its floods. The Arabs call this lake “El-Fayyum,” from another of its Egyptian names “Phiom,” the sea. It was completed in the reign of Amenemhāt III. (B.C. 2300-2266). The same king built the celebrated Labyrinth, the “Erpa-re-hent,” or “Temple at the entrance of the Lake,” in which the king himself was interred. His successor was the last king of the Twelfth Dynasty. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties are dark periods in which the invasion of the Elamites and the Nomad tribes from Syria and Western Asia took place. The Fifteenth and Sixteenth Dynasties are the “Hyksos” dynasties. The Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, were the chief of the above Nomad Asiatic tribes, and consequently usurpers of the native rule. A revolt took place in the reign of one of these kings of the Seventeenth Dynasty, and under Amāsis I., the founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the Shepherd Kings were finally driven out of Egypt.