Diary for my daughter 30.05.2022 - Iytjenu/Meryibre Khety/Wahkare Khety/Nebkaure Khety/Neferkare VII/Setut

 

Hello My little penguin 🐧! Tata here!

Hope you're well and listen to your mummy!

Tata is fine today ! Was a quiet weekend, not so many calls so I rest myself. Surprise , from this week your Sunday special will be in Romanian whit English subtitles, because I want you to learn Romanian. Traffic today is quite good as is half term at school. I've finished a good polish TV show on Netflix, maybe I will do a review 😀. Your stories here will remain in English. So .... let's go to your stories ....

Iytjenu 

Iytjenu (The one who has come distinguished) was an ancient Egyptian king of the First Intermediate Period, about 2100 BC. Very little is known about him as he is only indirectly attested in the name of a woman called Zat-Iytjenu - Daughter of Iytjenu. The element Iytjenu within the woman's name is written with a royal cartouche. In this period the cartouche was only used for writing a king's name. Therefore, her name must refer to a king. The ruler's name is composed of two elements: Iy and Tjenu, both elements are also well attested as independent names. The position of the king within the First Intermediate Period remains highly speculative.

Zat-Iytjenu is only known from her false door (Egyptian Museum Cairo, JE 59158) excavated at Saqqara in about 1920 to 1922 by Cecil Mallaby Firth. Firth never found time to publish the stela. However, a note on the king's name was written shortly after by Henri Gauthier in 1923. The false door was only fully published in 1963 by Henry George Fischer. Very little is known about Zat-Iytjenu. She bore the titles sole ornament of the king and Priestess of Hathor. Her relation to king Iytjenu is unknown. Royal names as part of private names are common in almost all periods of Ancient Egyptian history.

Meryibre Khety 

Meryibre Khety, also known by his Horus name Meryibtawy, was a pharaoh of the 9th or 10th Dynasty of Egypt, during the First Intermediate Period.

Regin 

Some scholars believe that Meryibre Khety was the founder of the 9th Dynasty, a Herakleopolitan nomarch who gathered enough authority to claim himself the legitimate successor of the 6th Dynasty pharaohs. It seems that Meryibre ruled over his neighboring nomarchs with an iron fist, and it is likely for this reason that in later times this ruler became Manetho's infamous Achthoes, a wicked king who went insane and then was killed by a crocodile.

Alternatively, other Egyptologists such as Jürgen von Beckerath believe instead that Meryibre reigned toward the end of the subsequent 10th Dynasty, shortly before king Merikare.

Because of the contrasting opinions of scholars, Meryibre's reign is difficult to account and date with reliability; if he really was the founder of the 9th Dynasty, his reign should have conventionally begun in c. 2160 BCE, while in the second case his reign should have started about a century later.

Attestations

As his name is not mentioned in the Turin King List (probably because the papyrus is very scattered at this point), this ruler is known only for few objects: a sort of copper brazier or basket from a tomb near Abydos (found along with a scribe's palette bearing the name of king Merikare) and now exhibited at the Louvre Museum, an ebony wand from Meir now at the Cairo Museum (JE 42835), an ivory casket fragment from Lisht and some other minor finds. Thanks to those few monuments, however, Meryibre's royal titulary is the most complete amongst the known pharaohs of this period.

Wahkare Khety 

Wahkare Khety was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the 9th or 10th Dynasty during the First Intermediate Period.

Identity 

The identity of Wahkare Khety is controversial. While some scholars believe that he was the founder of the 9th Dynasty, many others place him in the subsequent 10th Dynasty.

9th Dynasty hypothesis

If Wahkare Khety was the founder of the 9th Dynasty, he may be identified with the hellenized king Achthoês, the founder of this dynasty according to Manetho. Manetho reports:

The first of these [kings], Achthoês, behaving more cruel than his predecessors, wrought woes for the people of all of Egypt, but afterwards he was smitten with madness and killed by a crocodile.

If this hypothesis is correct, Wahkare Khety may have been a Herakleopolitan prince who profited from the weakness of the Memphite rulers of the Eighth Dynasty to seize the throne of Middle and Lower Egypt around 2150 BC. This hypothesis is supported by contemporary inscriptions referring to the northern, Herakleopolitan kingdom as the House of Khety, although that only proves that the founder of the 9th Dynasty was a Khety, but not necessarily Wahkare Khety.

10th Dynasty hypothesis

Many scholars believe instead that Wahkare Khety was a king of the 10th Dynasty, identifying him with the Khety, who was the alleged author of the famous Teaching for King Merykare, thus placing him between Neferkare VIII and Merikare. In this reconstruction, Wahkare is the last Herakleopolitan king bearing the name Khety, and the cruel Achthoês founder of the 9th Dynasty is identified with Meryibre Khety, and the House of Khety must refer to him instead.

From the Instructions, it is known that Wahkare Khety, in alliance with the nomarchs of Lower Egypt, managed to repel the nomad "Asiatics" who for generations roamed in the Nile Delta. Those nomarchs, although recognizing Wahkare's authority, ruled de facto more or less independently. The expulsion of the "Asiatics" allowed the establishment of new settlements and defense structures on the northeastern borders, as well as the reprise of trades with the Levantine coast. Wahkare, however, warned Merikare not to neglect guarding these borders, as the "Asiatics" still were considered a danger.

In the south, Wahkare and the faithful nomarch of Asyut Tefibi retook the city of Thinis, previously captured by the Thebans led by Intef II; however, the troops of Herakleopolis sacked the sacred necropolis of Thinis, a serious crime which was reported by Wahkare himself. This crime caused the immediate reaction of the Thebans, who later finally captured the Thinite nomos. After those events Wahkare Khety decided to abandon this bellicose policy and begin a phase of peaceful coexistence with the southern kingdom, which endured until part of the reign of his successor Merikare, who succeeded the long reign – five decades – of Wahkare.

Attestations

There is no contemporary evidence bearing his name. His cartouches appears on a 12th Dynasty wooden coffin inscribed with Coffin Texts and originally made for a steward named Nefri, was found in Deir el-Bersha and now is in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (CG 28088). On it, Wahkare Khety's name was found once in place of Nefri's, but it is unknown if the texts were originally inscribed for the king, or if they were simply copied later from an earlier source. His name is maybe also attested in the Royal canon of Turin.

Nebkaure Khety 

Nebkaure Khety was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the 9th or 10th Dynasty, during the First Intermediate Period.

Reign

Practically nothing is known about the events of Nebkaure's reign; due to the contrasting opinions of scholars, even its datation is still difficult. Many Egyptologists assign Nebkaure to the 9th Dynasty, possibly the fourth king (and the second king bearing the name Khety), just after Neferkare. On the other hand, other scholars such as Jürgen von Beckerath believe instead that Nebkaure reigned during the subsequent 10th Dynasty, possibly before Meryibre Khety.

Attestations

Like many of the kings who preceded or succeeded him, attestations of Nebkaure Khety are scant. On the Turin King List he was tentatively placed in the register 4.21. The only contemporary object bearing his cartouche is a weight made from red jasper which was unearthed by Flinders Petrie at Tell el-Retabah, a location along the Wadi Tumilat in the eastern Delta; this weight is now exhibited at the Petrie Museum (UC11782).

The name of a king Nebkaure also appears on a late Middle Kingdom papyrus (Berlin 3023) containing part of the well known and popular story The Eloquent Peasant; it is very likely that the king Nebkaure who enjoyed the peasant's magniloquence so much was Nebkaure Khety indeed.

Neferkare VII

Neferkare VII was the third pharaoh of the Ninth Dynasty of Egypt of ancient Egypt, ca. 2140 BCE (during the First Intermediate Period), according to the Turin King List where his name, Neferkare, is inscribed in the register 4.20.

Neferkare is not included on the Abydos King List or the Saqqara King List, nor can the existence of his reign be positively confirmed through archaeological finds.

The prenomen "Neferkare" suggests he considered himself a legitimate successor of Pepi II Neferkare of the Sixth Dynasty, much like the many namesake Memphite kings of the Eighth Dynasty. In some literature he is called "Neferkare VII" because he likely was the seventh king to bear this name, although many of his predecessors are now called by a combination of their prenomen and nomen (for example, Neferkare Neby, or Neferkare Pepiseneb).

This otherwise unattested ruler of Herakleopolis Magna has been controversially identified by various scholars with a king named Ka-nefer-re, who is mentioned in an obscure and isolated tomb inscription of Ankhtifi, the pro-Herakleopolite nomarch of Hieraconpolis and prince of El-Mo'alla, about 30 km (19 mi) south of Thebes.

If Neferkare and Kaneferre were the same pharaoh, his authority is sometimes presumed from Ankhtifi's inscription to have extended at least over Elephantine, Edfu and Hieraconpolis, the capitals of the first three nomoi of Upper Egypt. However, the inscription in question simply states "Horus brings/brought (or may Horus bring) a (good) inundation for his son Ka-nefer-Re." Uncertainty about the verb tense in the inscription has led to disagreement among various scholars as to whether this named pharaoh would have ruled in Ankhtifi's youth, or at the time of the events he describes, or indeed if it were not a king before Ankhtifi's time, who had ruled toward the end of the Old Kingdom from Memphis.

Setut 

Setut or Senen... was a pharaoh of the 9th Dynasty of ancient Egypt (between 2160 and 2130 BCE, during the First Intermediate Period).

There is no contemporary archaeological find attesting the existence of this ruler since he is definitely known only by the Turin King List, where his incomplete name Senen[...] appears in position 4.22. He should have reigned from Herakleopolis after Nebkaure Khety or Wahkare Khety, being one of the ephemeral rulers of the late 9th Dynasty. He was succeeded by an unknown king of the same dynasty.

And that's your stories for today! Tomorrow we will learn about Intef , Intef II , Intef III , Mentuhotep , Mentuhotep II , Mentuhotep III , Mentuhotep IV and  Seankhibtawy Seankhibra .

Until tomorrow....

Be nice and listen to your mummy!

I'm so sorry because another day was passed and I didn't hug you! Please forgive me!

I miss you so much my little penguin 🐧!

I love you infinite ♾️!