Merkare 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 for a short while, 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>

Reign

As a pharaoh of the 13th Dynasty, Merkare would have reigned either over Upper Egypt from Thebes or over Middle and Upper Egypt 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. 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 ...

, no less than 17 kings of the 13th Dynasty reigned in the short time period from 1663 BC until 1649 BC. Scholars, such as

Manfred Bietak Manfred Bietak (born in Vienna, 6 October 1940) is an Austrian archaeologist.famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompani ...

and perhaps a

plague Plague or The Plague may refer to: Agriculture, fauna, and medicine *Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis'' * An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural) * A pandemic caused by such a disease * A swarm of pe ...

which struck at least the Delta region and lasted until the end of the 13th and 14th Dynasty states c. 1650 BC. The weakened state of both kingdoms may explain, in part, why they fell rapidly to the emerging

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 ...

power c. 1650 BC.

Attestation

Merkare's only attestation is 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

, the canon gives his prenomen on the 8th column, 18th line (Gardiner entry 7.23 ). The Turin papyrus is damaged on the section covering the late 13th dynasty and Merkare's reign length is lost in a lacuna and also his successor's nomen and prenomen is lost into history. The exact chronological position of Merkare 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-eighth ruler of the dynasty, while Baker and von Beckerath see him as the forty-seventh.Darrell D. Baker: ''The Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs: Volume I - Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300–1069 BC'', Stacey International, , 2008, p. 215Jürgen von Beckerath: ''Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen'', (Münchner ägyptologische Studien), 1984,

References

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