ABSTRACT
The Instruction addressed to King Merikare may have been copied in the Eighteenth Dynasty, but the king appears as a member of the House of Akhtoy. As the centralized authority of the Old Kingdom broke down, there ensued a time of disintegration and chaos when weak kings were unable to maintain a strong government, and many local rulers divided the country among themselves. This time, commonly called the First Intermediate period and considered as comprising Manetho’s Seventh to Tenth dynasties, falls mostly within the New Sumerian period in Mesopotamian history. Although Manetho says that there were nineteen kings in the Ninth Dynasty and a like number in the Tenth Dynasty, he gives only one personal name, that of the first king of the Ninth Dynasty, whom he called Achthoes. This corresponds with an Egyptian name that occurs frequently on Ninth and Tenth Dynasty monuments and is transcribed as Khety or Akhtoy.
