Djedneferre Dedumose II was a native ancient Egyptian pharaoh during the Second Intermediate Period. According to egyptologists

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 ...

and Darrell Baker, he was a ruler of the Theban 16th Dynasty.Ryholt, K. S. B. (1997).
''The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, c. 1800 - 1550 BC
'. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. . Alternatively,

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 o ...

, Thomas Schneider and

Detlef Franke Detlef Franke (November 24, 1952 in Lüneburg – September 2, 2007) was a German Egyptologist specialist of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. Biography Detlef Franke received his doctorate at the University of Hamburg in 1983 with his thesis "''A ...

see him as a king of the 13th Dynasty.

Dating issues

Williams and others place Dedumose as the last king of Egypt's 13th Dynasty. Precise dates for Dedumose are unknown, but according to the commonly accepted Egyptian chronology his reign probably ended around 1690 BC.

Attestations

Djedneferre Dedumose II is known from a stela originally from

Gebelein Gebelein (Egyptian Arabic: , Two Mountains; Egyptian: Inerty or Per-Hathor; Ancient Greek: or ; Latin: ''Pathyris'' or ''Aphroditopolis'') was a town in Egypt. It is located on the Nile, about 40 km south of Thebes, in the New Valley G ...

which is now in the

Cairo Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...

(CG 20533). On the stela Dedumose claims to have been raised for kingship, which may indicate he is a son of Dedumose I, although the statement may also merely be a form of propaganda. The martial tone of the stela probably reflects the constant state of war of the final years of the 16th Dynasty, when the Hyksos invaded its territory: Ludwig Morenz and Lutz Popko: ''A companion to Ancient Egypt, vol 1'', Alan B. Lloyd editor, Wiley-Blackwell, p. 106 Ludwig Morenz believes that the above excerpt of the stele, in particular "''who is acclaimed to the kingship''", may confirm the controversial idea of Eduard Meyer that certain pharaohs were elected to office.

As Josephus' Timaios

Dedumose is usually linked to ''Timaios'' mentioned by the historian Josephus – who was quoting Manetho – as a king during whose reign an army of Asiatic foreigners subdued the country without a fight.
The introductory phrase in Josephus' quotation of Manetho ''του Τιμαιος ονομα'' appears somewhat ungrammatical and following A. von Gutschmid, the Greek words ''του Τιμαιος'' ( enitive definite article''Timaios'' ominative is often combined into the proposed name ''Τουτιμαιος'' (''Tutimaios'') based on the tenuous argument of von Gutschmid that this sounded like ''Tutmes'' i.e. Thutmose. This has influenced the transliteration of the name Dedumose as ''Dudimose'' in order to reinforce the resemblance but this transliteration is not justified by the hieroglyphic spelling of the name. Nevertheless Dedumose did rule either as a Pharaoh of the 13th dynasty which preceded the Hyksos or as part of the 16th dynasty contemporaneous with the early Hyksos and the actual form ''Timaios'' in the manuscript of Josephus still plausibly represents his name. Whiston's translation of Josephus understands the phrase to mean “ here was a kingof ours (''του''), whose name was Timaios (''Τιμαιος ονομα'')." A. Bülow-Jacobsen has suggested however that the phrase in Josephus may have been derived via a series of (unattested) scribal errors from ''του πραγματος'' ("''of the matter''") and that ''ονομα'' ("''this is a name''", typically left out of translations) is a later gloss whence the original text of Josephus did not contain the name of a Pharaoh at all.

Fringe theories

There have been revisionistic attempts by the historian Immanuel Velikovsky and Egyptologist

David Rohl The New Chronology is an alternative chronology of the ancient Near East developed by English Egyptologist David Rohl and other researchers beginning with ''A Test of Time: The Bible - from Myth to History'' in 1995. It contradicts mainstream ...

to identify Dedumose II as the Pharaoh of the Exodus, much earlier than the mainstream candidates. Rohl, in particular, attempted to change views on Egyptian history by shortening the

Third Intermediate Period of Egypt The Third Intermediate Period of ancient Egypt began with the death of Pharaoh Ramesses XI in 1077 BC, which ended the New Kingdom, and was eventually followed by the Late Period. Various points are offered as the beginning for the lat ...

by almost 300 years. As a by-result the synchronisms with the biblical narrative have changed, making Dedumose the pharaoh of the Exodus. Rohl's theory, however, has failed to find support among most scholars in his field.Chris Bennett (1996).
Temporal Fugues
", ''Journal of Ancient and Medieval Studies'' XIII. Between the 18th and 19th century,

Francis Wilford Francis Wilford (1761–1822) was an Indologist, Orientalist, fellow member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and constant collaborator of its journal – ''Asiatic Researches'' – contributing a number of fanciful, sensational, controversial, a ...

claimed that Josephus' account is reportedly mentioned on an Indian text concerning an Egyptian tale, in which the Pharaoh's name appears as ''Tamovatsa''.Francis Wilford, ''On Egypt and the Nile from the ancient books of the Hindus'', Asiatic Researches vol. III p. 437

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dedumose, Djedneferre 17th-century BC Pharaohs 16th-century BC Pharaohs Pharaohs of the Sixteenth Dynasty of Egypt Pharaohs of the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt