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From dynasties I to IV, governors loyal to the pharaoh directed the administration of the provinces. But in the fifth dynasty two distinctive trends contributed to a weakening of loyalty towards the centre. First, it became commonplace for administrators to take up permanent residence in the areas they managed, leaving them more susceptible to being influenced by the local population, particularly as the nomes often could withhold wealth from the central authorities. Secondly, succession in these delegated positions became hereditary, thereby limiting the power of pharaohs to appoint loyalists. The strong central state of the Old Kingdom thus came tumbling down, undermined by the very regional governments it had empowered.

Recent research also reveals climatic variation that is likely to have had an adverse impact on the well-being of the State. The rise in drought lowered agricultural yields and placed greater pressure on finances as a consequence of lost tax revenue. As Harvey Weiss writes: "Sometime around 2200 B.C. seasonal rains became scarce, and withering storms replaced them. The winds cut through northern wheat fields and blanketed them in dust. They emptied out towns and villages, sending people stumbling south with pastoral nomads, to seek forage along rivers and streams. For more than a hundred years the desertification continued, disrupting societies from southwestern Europe to central Asia. Egypt's Old Kingdom, the towns of Palestine and the great cities of the Indus Valley... were among the casualties."

Although mainstream Egyptologists accept that climate change occurred during the Old Kingdom, the key dispute is over whether climate or economic management is the primary casual factor leading to its collapse. The archaeologist Joseph Tainter has declared it doubtful that 'any large society has ever succumbed to a single-event catastrophe [such as climate change]'. But others, like Weiss, argue that climatic change was the 'first domino' that sent the Old Kingdom toppling.

Certainly, the paternalistic nature of social organisation in Egypt, where the pharaoh was expected to allocate resources according to need, meant that drought leading to famine would have reflected badly upon the ruling class. Furthermore, it is true that the rise and fall of civilisations coincide with climatic variations. For example, there is no pattern of collapse in 2700 BC or in 2500 BC, only in 2200 - the time of reduced rainfall. The rise of Middle

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