Amenemhat III
Egypt's population began to exceed food production levels during the reign of Amenemhat III, who then ordered the exploitation of the Faiyum and increased mining operations in the Sinai Peninsula. He also invited settlers from Western Asia to Egypt to labor on Egypt's monuments. Late in his reign, the annual flooding of the Nile began to fail, further straining the resources of the government. The Thirteenth Dynasty and Fourteenth Dynasty witnessed the slow decline of Egypt into the Second Intermediate Period, in which some of the settlers invited by Amenemhat III would seize power as the Hyksos.