Khamure was a ruler of some part of

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

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 ...

, possibly during the 17th century BC, and likely belonging to the 14th Dynasty. 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>Darrell D. Baker: The Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs: Volume I - Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300–1069 BC, Stacey International, , 2008, p. 175–176 As such he would have ruled from Avaris over the eastern Nile Delta and possibly over the Western Delta as well. His chronological position and identity are unclear.

Attestations

Khamure is one of the few attested kings of the 14th Dynasty with two scarab seals attributable to him, both of unknown provenance. One of the two scarabs is currently housed in the Petrie Museum,The scarab o
Digital Egypt
Petrie Museum. under the catalog number 11819, while the other was sold at an auction at

Lotte New York Palace Hotel Lotte New York Palace Hotel is a luxury hotel in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, at the corner of 50th Street (Manhattan), 50th Street and Madison Avenue. It was originally developed between 1977 and 1980 by Harry Helmsley. ...

in December 1991. The Petrie Museum scarab is peculiar in that it has a unique and elaborate decoration on its back indicating that it was given to an official of the highest rank. The scarab is inscribed with the name of Khamure preceded by the epithet ''Netjer Nefer'', "the good god", showing that ''Khamure'' was this king's

prenomen The ''praenomen'' (; plural: ''praenomina'') was a personal name chosen by the parents of a Roman child. It was first bestowed on the ''dies lustricus'' (day of lustration), the eighth day after the birth of a girl, or the ninth day after the birt ...

. This means that Khamure is not listed in the surviving fragments 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 dating to 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 recording the prenomina of the kings.

Identity

The archaeologists Olga Tufnell and William A. Ward argue that the name written on the scarab seal of the Petrie Museum is actually "'Ammu", possibly to be identified with 'Ammu Aahotepre, a shadowy king of the

.William A. Ward: ''Some Personal Names of the Hyksos Period Rulers and Notes on the Epigraphy of Their Scarabs'', Ugarit- Forschungen 8 (1976), p.353–369, see p. 368, num 42. 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 ...

and Darrell Baker reject this reading, since Gardiner's sign N5 for the sun-disk is present on the seal.

Percy Newberry Percy Edward Newberry (23 April 1869 – 7 August 1949) was a British Egyptologist. Biography Percy Newberry was born in Islington, London on 23 April 1869. His parents were Caroline () and Henry James Newberry, a woollen warehouseman. Newbe ...

agrees that ''Khamure'' is the correct reading of the scarab. Percy E. Newberry: ''Scarabs an introduction to the study of Egyptian seals and signet rings, with forty-four plates and one hundred and sixteen illustrations in the text'', 1906, see plate XXI, num 30, p. 150. Although the chronological position of Khamure remains uncertain, Ryholt has proposed that he ruled in the 14th Dynasty, some time before

Yaqub-Har Meruserre Yaqub-Har (other spelling: Yakubher, also known as Yak-Baal) was a pharaoh of Egypt during the 17th or 16th century BCE. As he reigned during Egypt's fragmented Second Intermediate Period, it is difficult to date his reign precisely, an ...

and Yakareb. This estimation is based on a seriation of the scarabs dating to the Second Intermediate Period.

References

{{authority control 17th-century BC Pharaohs Pharaohs of the Fourteenth Dynasty of Egypt