With the pharaoh Sesostri’s ascent to the throne (who reigned the country from forty-five years), Egypt returned definitely to the ancient splendor and became an actual empire. The people didn’t fell threatned by the attacks by foreign peoples because the borders were safe by the king’s military expeditions. The arts began to flourish again, from sculpture to architecture, from poetry to literature. The economy prospered and an important land reclamation work that rendered fertile and prosperous the Fayyum, the area were the cult fro the crocodile – god Sobek was popular. This territory was a vast area that was about forty meters below the sea level. The waters of the Bahr-Yussuf canal, during the floods, poured in the depression and formed a marshy lake where the crocodiles lived. Fayyum means “the country of the lake” and its capital, later called by the Greek Crocodopolis, was eighty km distant from Menf. To stop the floods, embankments and small dams were built, that didn’t have great results. The Egyptians had to await Sesostri’s II work to see the marshes disappear. Sesostri I gave a remarkable impulse to journeys and military expeditions in foreign lands, especially in the Punt country.
The pharaoh sent his men even in Sinai and in the desert areas. He was the first pharaoh who left the capital to go up to the Kush borders, in Nubia but without ever being able to conquer it. Sesostri’s I journeys, the expedition and the military and peaceful undertakings have a legendary halo, as the sovereign himself. A great litica stele found in Mit-Rahina in Middle Egypt in 1974 of which the translation isn’t yet finished, would prove that Sesostri I reached Asia, confirming this way, what some historians, as Erodoto, had stated, that is that Sesostri I conquered some asian territories. According to this important find, Sesostri I and his son Amenhemat II could have gone in the Near Orient, up to Anatolia, and probably to the Black Sea. Sesostri I had a great experience of journeys and expeditions. Before becoming a king he had been appointed by his father.Amenamhat I, general of the army, in fact, in the moment of his father’s killing he was in the Lybian border, fighting against the Tjemehu and Tjehenu Tribes.
It’s believed eved that when he returned to his homeland, he avenged his father’s death, establishing again peace and stability in the reign. With this pharaoh Egypt could count on a strong king, determinate, with a powerful build and marked features. We have an idea of his aspect thanks to the numerous portraits that have reached us. The best kept sculpture of the Middle Reign are exactly Sesostri’s I ones, that with Sesostri’s III ones, form the largest nucleus of sculptural works that have reached us from this historic epoch. We can so even know about the changes in Sesostri’s I appearance during the years: there are statues that represent him in young age, with an energetic physuque; then as an adult with a powerful and authoritative presence, and finally old, with heavier features, but in which a great energy is still perceived.
 

Sesostri I Statue	Sesostri I with the god Ptah.
The White Chapel of Sesotri I to Karnan, in this building was made to stop the statue of the god during the processions.	Magnificent the pillars to the inside on which bas-reliefs of the pharaoh were engraved while it was completing sacrifices to the gods.
Dead boat. Models some boat with which he believed that the dead king performed the ritual pilgrimage to Abydos.