A profound darkness falls over Egyptian history after the time of Ne-fer-ka-Ra, shrouding even the faintest traces of the existence of kings whose empty names the tablets of Abydos and Saqqarah have preserved to us, names without deeds, sounds without meaning, like the inscriptions on the tombs of unknown, obscure men. Unless we are deceived, we may here picture a state split up into petty kingdoms and scourged by civil war and regicide, from whose _haq_ or princes no saviour arose to strike down the refractory with the strong arm, grasp with a firm hand the loosened rein, and once more establish a central government.[h] In a few words may be added certain more or less inchoate details as to the few monarchs of the VIth to Xth Dynasties upon whose history the most recent research has thrown some rays of light. As for the VIth Dynasty, the most modern attempts at disentanglement place a Mer-en-Ra II and a Neter-ka-Ra after Nefer-ka-Ra; Mer-en-Ra II to correspond with the Menthesuphis of Manetho as distinct from the Methusuphis [Mer-en-Ra I] of the same historian. The Neter-ka-Ra occurs only on the Abydos Tablet, and is followed by Men-ka-Ra, which is also found nowhere else. But there is some reason to believe that the bearer of this name is identical with the Nit-aqert of the Turin papyrus and the Nitocris of Manetho, and in this connection the confusion between Men-kau-Ra and Nitocris is susceptible of another and perhaps better explanation than that offered by Perring; for although the Third Pyramid has been enlarged, the manner of its enlargement shows that it was done in the age of the Pyramid builders and not so late as the end of the VIth Dynasty. Therefore it is better to accept M. Maspero’s theory of the alterations as given in a preceding page; while the similarity of the names Men-kau-Ra and Men-ka-Ra will show how Manetho was led into the error of assigning the building of the Third Gizeh Pyramid to Queen Nitocris. [Illustration: A SOLDIER OF ANCIENT EGYPT] [Sidenote: [_ca._ 3033-2700 B.C.]] The VIIth and VIIIth Dynasties fell through causes of disintegration and decay. The capital was transferred to Heracleopolis, presumably because of the intrusion of an outside people into the Delta. Some authorities assign the dislodgment of the native dynasty to a perplexing line of foreign kings whose position still defies definition; but Professor Petrie writing in 1901 says: “The group of foreign kings, mainly known by scarabs and cylinders, Khyan, Samqan, Anthar, Yaqebar, Shesha, and Uazed, are probably of the XVth-XVIth Dynasties, though some connections place them shortly before the XIIth Dynasty.” All we yet know of the intrusion is concisely stated by Eduard Meyer: “We may with some certainty assume that strange Syrian races attacked Egypt and probably ruled the land or part of it for a while.”