Sekhemre Sementawy Djehuti (also Djehuty and other variants) was possibly the second king of the Theban 16th Dynasty reigning over parts of

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south. In ancient E ...

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 ...

. Alternatively, he may be a king of the late

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 ...

or the fourth king of the 17th Dynasty.

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 ...

: ''Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen'', Münchner ägyptologische Studien, Heft 49, Mainz : P. von Zabern, 1999, , see p. 126–127. Djehuty is credited with a reign of 3 years in the first entry of the 11th column 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 ...

. 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 succeeded by

Sobekhotep VIII Sekhemre Seusertawy Sobekhotep VIII was possibly the third king of the 16th Dynasty of Egypt reigning over the Theban region in Upper Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period.Kim Ryholt, The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Inte ...

. __FORCETOC__

Chronological position

Djehuti's dynasty remains debated. Indeed, on this point, the Turin Canon is open to interpretations. There are several kings recorded with the name "Sekhemre .. and the damage to the original document does not preserve the complete name. As a result, Djehuti, named Sekhemre Sementawy, may in principle correspond to any "Sekhemre .. preserved on the king list, i.e. may be a ruler of the 13th, 16th and even 17th Dynasty. The Egyptologists Darrell Baker and

believe that he was part of the 16th Dynasty, which controlled the Theban region after 1650 BC. Alternatively, two studies by Claude Vandersleyen and Christina Geisen date Djehuti's reign to the very end of the Memphite

. Geisen's datation relies on stylistic considerations of his queen's coffin, which however, Stephen Quirke argues, uses unproven assumptions. An older theory of

, whose conclusions are shared by Hans Stock, contends that Djehuti was a ruler of the early 17th Dynasty, which arose in

after the collapse of 16th Dynasty following the short-lived

Hyksos Hyksos (; Egyptian '' ḥqꜣ(w)- ḫꜣswt'', Egyptological pronunciation: ''hekau khasut'', "ruler(s) of foreign lands") is a term which, in modern Egyptology, designates the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt (fl. c. 1650–1550 BC). T ...

conquest of Thebes. This theory is supported by the discovery of the tomb of Djehuti's queen, Mentuhotep, which is located in

Dra' Abu el-Naga' The necropolis of Draʻ Abu el-Naga' ( ar, دراع ابو النجا) is located on the West Bank of the Nile at Thebes, Egypt, just by the entrance of the dry bay that leads up to Deir el-Bahari and north of the necropolis of el-Assasif. The nec ...

, a necropolis usually associated with the 17th Dynasty. Scholars such as Chris Bennett however, point out that this does not necessarily mean that Djehuti was buried in Dra' Abu el-Naga' as well.Christina Geisen, Zur zeitlichen Einordnung des Königs Djehuti an das Ende der 13. Dynastie, Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur, Bd. 32, (2004), pp. 149-157 Some Egyptologists proposed that Djehuti was married to a granddaughter of the

vizier A vizier (; ar, وزير, wazīr; fa, وزیر, vazīr), or wazir, is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in the near east. The Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called '' katib'' (secretary), who was ...

Ibiaw who served under the 13th Dynasty king

Wahibre Ibiau Wahibre Ibiau (throne name: Wahibre; birth name: Ibiau, also Ibiaw, Iaib, or Ia-ib) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the 13th Dynasty, who reigned c. 1670 BC for 10 years 8 months and 29 days according to the Turin King List. Attestations ...

c. 1712–1701 BC, and was thus most likely two generations removed from this king. In more recent times, however, it was pointed out that the link between Ibiaw and Djehuti's consort Mentuhotep is still unproven and that the proposed temporal correlation between Wahibre Ibiau and Djehuti remains conjectural.W. Grajetzki, ''Court Officials of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom'', London 2009, p. 40.

Attestations

Djehuti is attested on the Turin Royal Canon and the Karnak king list. All of Djehuti's contemporary attestions come from a long stretch of the

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest riv ...

valley from Deir el-Ballas in the north to

Edfu Edfu ( egy, bḥdt, ar, إدفو , ; also spelt Idfu, or in modern French as Edfou) is an Egyptian city, located on the west bank of the Nile River between Esna and Aswan, with a population of approximately sixty thousand people. Edfu is the sit ...

in the south. This roughly corresponds to the territory in the sphere of influence of the rulers of the 16th dynasty. Djehuti's nomen and prenomen are known from a single block discovered by

Flinders Petrie Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egyp ...

in Deir el-Ballas. A painted block bearing Djehuti's cartouche and showing him wearing the red crown of

Lower Egypt Lower Egypt ( ar, مصر السفلى '; ) is the northernmost region of Egypt, which consists of the fertile Nile Delta between Upper Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, from El Aiyat, south of modern-day Cairo, and Dahshur. Historically, ...

– far beyond his sphere of influence – was uncovered in Edfu and otherwise, Djehuti is only attested by objects from his wife's burial. Queen Mentuhotep's tomb was found intact in 1822 and her (now lost) coffin was inscribed with one of the earliest cases of the texts from the

Book of the Dead The ''Book of the Dead'' ( egy, 𓂋𓏤𓈒𓈒𓈒𓏌𓏤𓉐𓂋𓏏𓂻𓅓𓉔𓂋𓅱𓇳𓏤, ''rw n(y)w prt m hrw(w)'') is an ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom ( ...

. Mentuhotep's cosmetic box bears Djehuti's nomen, prenomen and cartouche together with funerary formulae and an inscription revealing that the box was a gift from the king. It has been suggested that the unattributed

Southern South Saqqara pyramid The Southern South Saqqara PyramidMark Lehner, ''The Complete Pyramids'', Thames and Hudson, London 1997, pp. 187. . (also Unfinished Pyramid at South Saqqara;Dawn McCormack, "The Significance of Royal Funerary Architecture in the Study of 13 ...

may have been built for Djehuti. This hypothesis is based on a fragmentary inscription found within the pyramid and reading "Weserkha...", a possible reference to ''Weserkhau'' i.e. Djehuti's

Golden Horus name The royal titulary or royal protocol is the standard naming convention taken by the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. It symbolised worldly power and holy might, also acting as a sort of mission statement for the duration of a monarch's reign (although s ...

.Christoffer Theis, "Zum Eigentümer der Pyramide Lepsius XLVI / SAK S 6 im Süden von Sakkara", '' Göttinger Miszellen'' 218 (2008), pp. 101–105

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Djehuti, Sekhemresementawy 17th-century BC Pharaohs Pharaohs of the Sixteenth Dynasty of Egypt zh:桀