and Edfu, Elephantine and Ombos! (Inscriptions 1-3, 6-7, 10 and 12; Vandier, 1950, 161-242) Ankhtifi's autobiography highlights the political fragmentation of Egypt during his career as nomarch of Hierakonpolis, because he describes himself "first of all as the chief of his province" or of his three nomes, rather than the governor of a region of Upper Egypt, as Pepi I's confidant Weni had done during the 6th Dynasty. His autobiography also suggests that he only became nomarch of Edfu after seizing it from Khuy, who was an ally of Thebes. While Thebes later defeated his forces, and won control over Edfu, Hierakonpolis and Elephantine under the Theban kings Intef I and Intef II, the completion of his tomb suggests that Ankhtifi was not personally defeated in battle himself. Economic crisis Ankhtify's autobiography implies that the fear of an economic crisis was endemic during the early First Intermediate Period, when local town magnates publicly boasted of their ability to feed their own towns while the rest of Egypt was starving. Other evidence of a famine afflicting the land during this Period comes from a worker of a Koptos 'overseer of priests', who modestly relates that he "stood in the doorway of his excellency the overseer of priests Djefy handing out grain to (the inhabitants of) this entire town to support it in the painful years of famine." It was previously uncertain if a series of low annual Nile floods caused the mass famine, rather than the outbreak of chaos following the collapse of the Old Kingdom, since some archaeological observations from Elephantine had appeared to indicate that Egypt was actually experiencing slightly above average flood levels during the First Intermediate Period. However, since 2000, new archaeological evidence has suggested that Ankhtifi's comments concerning the severity of the famine--at least during the early First Intermediate Period--are indeed based on fact and not propaganda. An Egyptian scientist, Fekri Hassan from University College London, has put forth clear evidence that a sudden global climate change caused the complete drying up of Lake Faiyum—--a major body of water which was fed by the Nile and is 65 metres deep--between 2200 and 2150 BC, around the start of the Old Kingdom's collapse. The evaporation of the lake's water, which occurred over a period of many years, hints at the severity of the drought which affected Egypt during this time. References Further reading Spanel, Donald B., "The