Intef III

The Turin Canon gives a reign of eight years to a Theban pharaoh of this place in the list, and it is the figure usually applied to Intef III, although his name is lost in a gap of the papyrus. The assignment depends on the position of the entry. Because his father had ruled for almost fifty years, Intef III probably came to the throne as a mature man. This is an inference, but the short reign suggests it. His time is too short to leave many monuments, and the sources that survive are mostly the ones that also served his father.

The chief treasurer Tjetji is the link between father and son. His stela, now in the British Museum, records the death of Intef II and the service of Tjetji to Intef II's son, whose Horus name Nakhtnebtepnefer appears in it. The stela shows how a court officer expected to continue under the next pharaoh, so that the Theban state did not break at the change of rulers. Another stela, that of Henenu, names Mentuhotep II under his first Horus name as the "son" of this pharaoh, which gives the father-and-son link in two directions.

A door jamb with the names of Intef III was found in the tomb of an official called Nakhty at Abydos. It is a small thing, but it shows that the pharaoh's name was being carried at the holy city, which means that the Thebans held it and were building or repairing there. This fits the picture of a reign that was mainly defensive, protecting the gains of Intef II against the Herakleopolitan pharaohs in the north. A rival pharaoh of Herakleopolis still ruled the middle of Egypt, and the name of that pharaoh in these years is not known.

Some books credit Intef III with the taking of Asyut, the powerful city of Middle Egypt that had been a loyal ally of Herakleopolis, and say his control may have reached the seventeenth province of Upper Egypt. Other scholars give these gains to his son Mentuhotep II. The evidence does not decide, and the safest statement is that the northern frontier of Thebes moved forward in these decades, in steps that cannot yet be dated one by one. What can be said is that the Thebans after the reign of Intef III were stronger and closer to Herakleopolis than before.

The pharaoh's wife was Iah, who bears the titles pharaoh's mother, pharaoh's daughter and priestess of Hathor. The title "pharaoh's daughter" suggests that she may have been his sister, as was often the case in royal houses. Their son was Mentuhotep II, and their daughter Neferu II, who later became the wife of her brother Mentuhotep II. A rock carving at Gebel el-Silsila, on the Nile south of Thebes, shows Iah and Intef III with Mentuhotep II. The inscription in the tomb of Neferu II confirms the relationship. So the parentage of the unifier is well documented.

Door jambs with the names of Intef III come from Elephantine, one from the sanctuary of Heqaib and one from the temple of Satet. They show that he continued his father's work at the southern border. His tomb is probably the saff tomb at El-Tarif called Saff el-Baqar, next to those of Intef I and Intef II. It carries no inscription and is attributed to him only by its place in the series. Like the others, it now lies under a village and has been only partly examined.

Intef III kept what his father had won and made sure the throne passed to his son. His short reign had no great battles that we can name, but it led directly to the reign of Mentuhotep II, in which Thebes defeated Herakleopolis and Egypt became one country again. The story of that victory and of the whole age is told on the page about the First Intermediate Period.