Merkheperre was an

Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...

pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the ...

of the late 13th Dynasty of 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 some time between 1663 BC and 1649 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> As such, Merkheperre would have reigned either over

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 ...

from Thebes or over Middle and

from

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 ...

. At the time, the Eastern Nile Delta was under the domination of the 14th Dynasty.

Attestations

Merkheperre appears on 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 compiled in the early

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 ...

. According to the egyptologist

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 ...

, the canon gives his prenomen on the 8th column, line 17 (Gardiner entry 7.22 ). The Turin papyrus is damaged on the section covering the late 13th Dynasty and Merkheperre's reign length is lost in a lacuna. Merkheperre is also attested by two artefacts dating to his reign: a glazed weight of grey

schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes ...

bearing his cartouche, now in the Petrie Museum UC 16372 and a scarab inscribed with his name. Although the scarab is accepted as evidence of Merkheperre by Darrell Baker,

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 ...

Stephen Quirke Stephen Quirke is an Egyptologist. He is the current Edwards Professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology at University College London. He has worked at the British Museum (1989–1998) and since 1999 at the Petrie Museum in London. He has publi ...

and others, Kim Ryholt rejects this attribution.Darrell D. Baker: ''The Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs: Volume I - Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300–1069 BC'', Stacey International, , 2008, p. 214 Ryholt points to its lack of royal attributes and insignia as well as its stylistic features which depart from other royal seals of the 13th Dynasty. Rather, Ryholt proposes that the scarab simply represents Khepri pushing the sun.

Chronological position

The exact chronological position of Merkheperre is not known for certain as the damaged state of the Turin canon only allows for conjectural reconstructions of the late 13th dynasty. According to Ryholt he was the forty-seventh ruler of the dynasty, while Baker sees him as the forty-sixth and von Beckerath as the fifty-seventh.Jürgen von Beckerath: ''Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägyptens'', Münchner Ägyptologische Studien 46. Mainz am Rhein, 1997 All agree that he was succeeded by Merkare, however von Beckerath proposed that his predecessor was Mershepsesre Ini II, when a new reconstruction of the Turin canon led Ryholt and Baker to propose that his predecessor was ''Mer ..e''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Merkheperre 17th-century BC Pharaohs Pharaohs of the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt