Thebes

The ancient name for the city the Greeks called Thebai was Waset, the Scepter nome, and it was the main city of the fourth Upper Egyptian nome. It was close to Nubia and the eastern desert, with their valuable mineral resources and trade routes. The site of Thebes includes areas on both the eastern bank of the Nile, where the temples of Karnak and Luxor stand, and the western bank, where are the large private and royal cemeteries and funerary complexes.
Waset was little more than a provincial town in the Old Kingdom. Though two brick-built mastaba tombs dating from the 3rd or 4th dynasty have been found in the Theban area, and a small group of tombs have been found dating from the 5th and 6th Dynasties in the area of the necropolis known as el-Khokha, it is not clear if there was an actual Old Kingdom settlement here. The royal residence and tombs, as well as most of the tombs of the court and government nobles at this time, were primarily built at Saqqara near Memphis, closer to the Delta.
No buildings survive in Thebes older than the portions of the Karnak temple complex, which may date from the Middle Kingdom, but the lower part of a statue of King Niuserre of the 5th Dynasty has been found in Karnak. Another statue which was dedicated by King Senwosret of the 12 dynasty may have been usurped and re-used by him, since the statue bears a cartouche of Niuserre on its belt. Since seven rulers of the 4th to 6th Dynasties appear on the Karnak king list, perhaps at the least there was a temple in the Theban area which dated to the Old Kingdom.
The Theban rulers were apparently of the family Inyotef, who before long began to write their names in cartouches. The second of this name even called himself the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, though his power didn’t extend much further than the general Theban region.
Finally, one ruler named Mentuhotep, meaning Montu is satisfied, took the prenomen of Nebhepetre, and it is he who is credited with once again reuniting all Egypt under one ruler, and beginning the 11th Dynasty, what Egyptologists call the Middle Kingdom. Nebhepetre ruled for 51 years, and built the temple at Deir el-Bahri that most likely served as the inspiration for the later and larger temple built next to it by Hatshepsut in the 18th Dynasty.