Amenemhat I was attacked by his own guards after supper, and his son raced back from a war in Libya to take the throne

Amenemhat I was not born royal. His parents were named Senusret and Nefret. He may be the vizier Amenemhat who led an expedition for King Mentuhotep IV before taking the throne. He founded the Twelfth Dynasty and ruled at least 30 years. A text written in his voice, the Instructions of Amenemhat, describes his end: "It was after supper, night had come." He was resting on his bed when the weapons meant to protect him were turned against him, and he woke to find his guards fighting. The text asks whether women should command troops, which scholars read as a plot from the royal harem. The Story of Sinuhe dates his death to Year 30, third month of the Inundation, day 7. His son Senusret was on campaign in Libya and hurried back to the palace. Sinuhe, a harem official with the army, heard the news and fled Egypt. In the Instructions the dead king tells his son that he had meant to make him co-ruler and had not done it in time. In 1995 the Egyptologist Nicolas Grimal wrote that almost everyone now accepts that Amenemhat I was murdered. Senusret I took the throne. A civil war followed, and he put it down.