Two legitimate kings of the IXth or Xth Dynasty now stand out prominently; Ab-meri-Ra (Kheti) who may be the Achthoes of Manetho, the first of his recorded IXth Dynasty, and Ka-meri-Ra. But the most interesting historical information of this period is from three tombs of the princes of Assiut; Kheti I, Tefa-ba, and Kheti II. The Thebans had now practically obtained their independence, and certain circumstances indicate that the beginning of the XIth Dynasty was contemporary with the Xth. Such a state of affairs will explain the singular fact that Manetho assigns only forty-three years to the XIth Dynasty. For it is held that he ignored contemporaneous dynasties, and therefore may have rejected about one hundred and twenty years, during which period he does not recognise the XIth Dynasty as legitimate.[a] FOOTNOTES [2] [Here and in subsequent excerpts from Diodorus we use a seventeenth-century translation.] CHAPTER III. THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM Egypt is the monumental land of the earth, as the Egyptians are the monumental people of history.--BARON BUNSEN. The history of civilisation is very largely the history of a few great cities. There has been no great people without its great metropolis. The overthrow of such a city, as in the case of Nineveh, or Babylon, or Tyre, or Sardis, often meant the subjugation or destruction of a nation. And the mere transfer of supremacy from one city to another within the same country meant the beginning of a new era. It was so in Egypt when the centre of authority shifted from Memphis to Thebes. By common consent, historians mark the period in which Thebes became the home of the ruling monarch, and hence the capital of Egypt, as a new era in Egyptian history. This new era is commonly designated the Old Theban Kingdom, or the Middle Kingdom.