Semenkare Nebnuni (also Nebnun and Nebnennu) is a poorly attested pharaoh of the early
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 ...
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 ...
. According to Egyptologists Darrell Baker and
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 ...
, Nebnuni was the ninth ruler of the 13th 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. 245] Alternatively, 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 Detlef Franke
Detlef Franke (November 24, 1952 in Lüneburg – September 2, 2007) was a German Egyptologist specialist of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt.
Biography
Detlef Franke received his doctorate at the University of Hamburg in 1983 with his thesis "''Al ...
see him as the eighth king of the dynasty.
Attestation
Nebnuni's name is given in 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 ...
on column 7, line 11 (Gardiner col. 6, line 11). The length of Nebnuni's reign is mostly lost in a lacuna of the papyrus, except for the end "'' ..and 22 days''".faience
Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major a ...
stele showing the king before Ptah
Ptah ( egy, ptḥ, reconstructed ; grc, Φθά; cop, ⲡⲧⲁϩ; Phoenician: 𐤐𐤕𐤇, romanized: ptḥ) is an ancient Egyptian deity, a creator god and patron deity of craftsmen and architects. In the triad of Memphis, he is the hu ...
"''South of his wall''", a memphite epithet of the god, and on the other before Horus, "''Lord of the foreign countries''".
The stele is also inscribed with Nebnuni's nomen and prenomen. The stele was discovered at Gebel el-Zeit on the Red Sea
The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...
coast in the Sinai, where mines of galena were located.[Georges Castel and Georges Soukiassian: ''Dépôt de stèles dans le sanctuaire du Nouvel Empire au Gebel Zeit'', BIFAO 85 (1985), ISSN 0255-0962, p. 290, pl. 62]
Reign
The Egyptologist Kim Ryholt credits Nebnuni with a reign of two years, from 1785 BC until 1783 BC. Alternatively, Egyptologists Rolf Krauss, Detlef Franke and Thomas Schneider give Nebuni only one year of reign in 1739 BC.[Thomas Schneider following ]Detlef Franke
Detlef Franke (November 24, 1952 in Lüneburg – September 2, 2007) was a German Egyptologist specialist of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt.
Biography
Detlef Franke received his doctorate at the University of Hamburg in 1983 with his thesis "''Al ...
: ''Lexikon der Pharaonen'', Albatros, Düsseldorf 2002,
Although little is known of Nebnuni's reign, the existence of his stele shows that during this period, rulers of the 13th Dynasty still wielded sufficient power to organize mining expeditions in the Sinai for the supply of construction materials and the production of luxury items. Finally, Ryholt points to the lack of royal connections between Nebnuni and his predecessor. He thus concludes that Nebnuni may have usurped the throne.
See also
* List of pharaohs
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nebnuni, Semenkare
18th-century BC Pharaohs
Pharaohs of the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt