During the Predynastic Period (before 3100 BC), the area encompassing modern day Minya and its surrounding lands formed the 16th nome (district). It remained an autonomous city-state until the ruler Menes unified Egypt around 3100 BC. At the time of its unification, Egypt was divided into 42 nomes. The 16th nome was also called the Oryx nome, probably due to the prevalence of the Oryx, one of the antelope species that inhabited the area.

After the unification of Egypt, the provincial capital of the 16th nome emerged as an important center of trade. It was opposite a trade route to the Red Sea along which the Levantine traders carrying their goods from Sinai and Canaan travelled.^[5]

Following the collapse of the Old Kingdom, and during the First Intermediate Period, rulers of Oryx became wealthy and powerful and enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy in relation to the central power of Pharaohs. The princes of the nome initially remained neutral during the long struggle that dominated the First Intermediate Period between the Herakleopolitan and Theban kingdoms, but eventually during the reign of Baqet III they formed an alliance with the Thebans in the time of Mentuhotep II. This pro-Theban policy worked to their advantage in that power over the Oryx nome continued to be wielded by the same family after the Theban conquest. The power of the rulers of the Oryx nome reached its height during the 11th Dynasty.^[6]

A group of Asiatic people (perhaps the future Hyksos) depicted entering Egypt c. 1900 BC from the tomb of a 12th dynasty official Khnumhotep under pharaoh Senusret II at Beni Hasan.

Like Pharaohs, rulers of the Oryx nome were deeply concerned with their lives after death. Because the pyramid building age was over or maybe because they could not afford to construct their own pyramids, they chose the limestone cliffs of the eastern desert overlooking a gentle curve in the Nile as an ideal spot on which to carve their tombs. These chapel-tombs at Beni Hasan are the only remnant of the era. Today these thirty nine rock-cut tombs can be visited in the limestone cliffs above the modern day village of Beni Hasan. Though not as great and magnificent as other monuments of ancient Egypt, the Beni Hasan tombs are extremely important as their walls reveal more information about life in Egypt 4,000 years ago more than any other monument in Egypt. In fact these tombs provide more insight about daily life in Egypt than about the rulers who constructed them.