Bebnum (also Babnum) is a poorly known ruler of Lower Egypt during the

Second Intermediate Period The Second Intermediate Period marks a period when ancient Egypt fell into disarray for a second time, between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom. The concept of a "Second Intermediate Period" was coined in 1942 b ...

, reigning in the early or mid 17th century BC.

Chronological position

According to

Jürgen von Beckerath Jürgen von Beckerath (19 February 1920, Hanover – 26 June 2016, Schlehdorf) was a German Egyptologist. He was a prolific writer who published countless articles in journals such as '' Orientalia'', ''Göttinger Miszellen'' (GM), '' Journal of ...

he was the 14th king of the 16th Dynasty and a vassal of the Hyksos kings of the

15th Dynasty The Fifteenth Dynasty was a foreign dynasty of ancient Egypt. It was founded by Salitis, a Hyksos from West Asia whose people had invaded the country and conquered Lower Egypt. The 15th, 16th, and 17th Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combi ...

: ''Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen'', Münchner ägyptologische Studien, Heft 49, Mainz : P. von Zabern, 1999,
available online
, p. 110–111 This opinion was recently rejected by

Kim Ryholt Kim Steven Bardrum Ryholt (born 19 June 1970) is a professor of Egyptology at the University of Copenhagen and a specialist on Egyptian history and literature. He is director of the research centeCanon and Identity Formation in the Earliest Litera ...

. In his 1997 study of the Second Intermediate Period, Ryholt argues that the kings of the 16th Dynasty ruled an independent Theban realm c. 1650–1580 BC. K.S.B. Ryholt: ''The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, c.1800–1550 BC'', Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications, vol. 20. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1997
excerpts available online here.
/ref> Consequently, Ryholt sees Bebnum, who bears a Semitic name, as the 34th king of the 14th Dynasty which regroups kings of

Canaan Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...

ite descent. As such Bebnum would have ruled from Avaris over the eastern Nile Delta concurrently with the

Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Memp ...

-based

13th Dynasty In music or music theory, a thirteenth is the note thirteen scale degrees from the root of a chord and also the interval between the root and the thirteenth. The interval can be also described as a compound sixth, spanning an octave p ...

. This analysis has convinced some Egyptologists, such as Darrell Baker and Janine Bourriau,Darrell D. Baker: The Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs: Volume I - Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300–1069 BC, Stacey International, , 2008, p. 70–71 but not others including Stephen Quirke.Stephen Quirke, Marcel Maree (editor): ''The Second Intermediate Period Thirteenth - Seventeenth Dynasties, Current Research, Future Prospects'', Leuven 2011, Paris — Walpole, MA. , p. 56, n. 6

Attestation

Bebnum is only attested by an isolated fragment of the

Turin canon The Turin King List, also known as the Turin Royal Canon, is an ancient Egyptian hieratic papyrus thought to date from the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II, now in the Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum) in Turin. The papyrus is the most extensive list av ...

, a king list redacted in the

Ramesside period The Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XX, alternatively 20th Dynasty or Dynasty 20) is the third and last dynasty of the Ancient Egyptian New Kingdom period, lasting from 1189 BC to 1077 BC. The 19th and 20th Dynasties furthermore togeth ...

and which serves as the primary historical source for kings of the second intermediate period. The fact that the fragment on which Bebnum figures is not attached to the rest of the document made its chronological position difficult to ascertain. However an analysis of the fibers of the papyrus led Ryholt to place the fragment on the 9th column, row 28 of the canon ( Gardiner entry 9.30).

References

17th-century BC Pharaohs Pharaohs of the Fourteenth Dynasty of Egypt {{ancientEgypt-bio-stub