Neferirkare (sometimes referred to as Neferirkare II because of

Neferirkare Kakai Neferirkare Kakai (known in Greek as Nefercherês, Νεφερχέρης) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, the third king of the Fifth Dynasty. Neferirkare, the eldest son of Sahure with his consort Meretnebty, was known as Ranefer A before h ...

) was an ancient Egyptian

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 Eighth Dynasty during the early First Intermediate Period (2181–2055 BC). According to the 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 ...

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 ...

and Darrell Baker he was the 17th and final king of the Eighth Dynasty.Kim Ryholt: "The Late Old Kingdom in the Turin King-list and the Identity of Nitocris", Zeitschrift für ägyptische, 127, 2000, p. 99Darrell D. Baker: The Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs: Volume I - Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300–1069 BC, Stacey International, , 2008, p. 260

: ''Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen'', Münchner ägyptologische Studien, Heft 49, Mainz : P. von Zabern, 1999,
available online
see p. 68 Many scholars consider Neferirkare to have been the last pharaoh of the

Old Kingdom In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning c. 2700–2200 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourth ...

, which came to an end with the 8th Dynasty.

Attestations

Neferirkare II's name is clearly attested on the 56th entry of the Abydos King List, a king list which was redacted some 900 years after the First Intermediate Period during the reign of

Seti I Menmaatre Seti I (or Sethos I in Greek) was the second pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt during the New Kingdom period, ruling c.1294 or 1290 BC to 1279 BC. He was the son of Ramesses I and Sitre, and the father of Ramesses II. The ...

. The latest reconstruction 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 ...

, another king list compiled in the Ramesside era, indicates that Neferirkare II is also attested there on column 5, line 13.

Identity

Farouk Gomaà,

William C. Hayes William Christopher Hayes (March 21, 1903 – July 10, 1963) was an American Egyptologist. His main fields of study were history of Egyptian art and translation/interpretation of texts.W. C. Hayes, ''The Scepter of Egypt'', part II, 4th print ...

and Baker identify Neferirkare II with the horus name ''Demedjibtawy'' (''Dmḏ-ib-t3wy'', "He who unifies the heart of the two lands") appearing on a single decree, the Coptos Decree R, now in the

Egyptian 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 ...

, JE 41894. The decree concerns the temple of

Min Min or MIN may refer to: Places * Fujian, also called Mǐn, a province of China ** Min Kingdom (909–945), a state in Fujian * Min County, a county of Dingxi, Gansu province, China * Min River (Fujian) * Min River (Sichuan) * Mineola (Am ...

Coptos Qift ( arz, قفط ; cop, Ⲕⲉϥⲧ, link=no ''Keft'' or ''Kebto''; Egyptian Gebtu; grc, Κόπτος, link=no ''Coptos'' / ''Koptos''; Roman Justinianopolis) is a small town in the Qena Governorate of Egypt about north of Luxor, situated un ...

, exempting it from dues and duties.Farouk Gomaà: ''Ägypten während der Ersten Zwischenzeit'', Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients. Reihe B: Geisteswissenschaften., vol. 27. Reichert, Wiesbaden 1980, , p. 59. This identification is rejected by Jürgen von Beckerath. Another proposed identification concerns the prenomen ''

Wadjkare Wadjkare was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Eighth dynasty who reigned c. 2150 BC during the First Intermediate Period. He is considered to be a very obscure figure in Egyptian history.Thomas Schneider: ''Lexikon der Pharaonen''. Albatros, D ...

'' (''W3ḏ-k3-Rˁ'', "Flourishing is the Ka of Ra"), which also appears on the Coptos Decree R.

Kurt Heinrich Sethe Kurt Heinrich Sethe (30 September 1869 – 6 July 1934) was a noted German Egyptologist and philologist from Berlin. He was a student of Adolf Erman. Sethe collected numerous texts from Egypt during his visits there and edited the '' Urkunde ...

, Gomaà, Hayes and Baker see Wadjkare as distinct from Demedjibtawy, but von Beckerath believes that Wadjkare may have been the prenomen of Neferkare II and the same person as Demedjibtawy. At the opposite, Gomaà and Hayes equate Wadjkare with an obscure ruler named ''Hor-Khabaw''. Alternatively,

Hans Goedicke Hans may refer to: __NOTOC__ People * Hans (name), a masculine given name * Hans Raj Hans, Indian singer and politician ** Navraj Hans, Indian singer, actor, entrepreneur, cricket player and performer, son of Hans Raj Hans ** Yuvraj Hans, Punjabi a ...

proposed that Wadjkare is the predecessor of Demedjibtawy and places both rulers chronologically into the 9th Dynasty. Thomas Schneider leaves the problem open and relates Wadjkare equally to either Neferkare II or Neferirkare II without further reference to Demedjibtawy. Finally, both Demedjibtawy and Wadjkare are not known from any other contemporary attestation than the decree and, unless they are to be identified with Neferirkare II or Neferkare II, they are also absent from both the Abydos king list and the Turin canon. In 2014 Maha Farid Mostafa published an inscription, found in the tomb of

Shemay Shemay (also Shemai) was an ancient Egyptian official and later vizier toward the end of the 8th Dynasty (22nd century BCE) during the First Intermediate Period, mainly known for being the beneficiary of most of the Coptos Decrees. His career ha ...

. The inscription belongs most likely to Idy, a son of Shemay, albeit Idy's name is not preserved. The text is dated under a king with the name Pepy and with a throne name Nefer-ka estroyedRa. Maha Farid Mostafa reconstructed that throne name to Neferirkare. The inscription dates for sure to the 8th Dynasty. If this reconstruction is correct, Neferirkare is most likely identical with ''Demedjibtawy''. Idy is mentioned on one of the Coptos decrees together with ''Demedjibtawy'' .Maha Farid Mostafa: ''The Mastaba of SmAj at Naga' Kom el-Koffar, Qift'', Vol. I, Cairo 2014, , p. 157-161

Reign

The Turin canon credits Neferirkare II with a year and half of reign. Both the Turin canon and the Abydos king list record Neferirkare II as the last ruler of the combined 7th/8th.Jürgen von Beckerath: ''The Date of the End of the Old Kingdom of Egypt'', JNES 21 (1962), p. 143 Neferirkare was possibly overthrown by the first king of the succeeding Herakleopolitan

9th Dynasty The Ninth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty IX) is often combined with the 7th, 8th, 10th and early 11th Dynasties under the group title First Intermediate Period. The dynasty that seems to have supplanted the Eighth Dynasty is extremely obs ...

, Meryibre Khety. Alternatively the Egyptian state may have completely collapsed with the onset of low

Nile flood The flooding of the Nile has been an important natural cycle in Egypt since ancient times. It is celebrated by Egyptians as an annual holiday for two weeks starting August 15, known as ''Wafaa El-Nil''. It is also celebrated in the Coptic Church b ...

s, mass famine and chaos which engulfed Egypt at the start of the First Intermediate Period.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Neferirkare II 22nd-century BC Pharaohs Pharaohs of the Eighth Dynasty of Egypt