Egypt’s Thirteenth dynasty (notated Dynasty XIII) is often combined with Dynasties XI, XII, and XIV under the group title Middle Kingdom.

Other writers separate it from these dynasties and join it to Dynasties XIV through XVII as part of the Second Intermediate Period of Ancient Egypt.

Dynasty XIII is from approximately 1773 BCE to sometime after 1650 BCE.

The later kings of the Thirteenth Dynasty appear to be only ephemeral monarchs under the control of a powerful line of viziers, and indeed, it has been suggested that the kingship in this period might have been elective if not actually appointive.

One monarch late in the dynasty, Wahibre Ibiau, may have even been a former vizier.

The splintering of the land had accelerated following the reign of the Thirteenth Dynasty king Neferhotep I in 1730 and during the reign of his brother and successor, Sobekhotep IV, when the Hyksos, an Asiatic people, had made their first appearance in the eastern Nile Delta.