Menwadjre Sihathor was an ephemeral ruler of the

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 late Middle Kingdom. Sihathor may never have enjoyed an independent reign, possibly only ruling for a few months as a coregent with his brother

Neferhotep I Khasekhemre Neferhotep I was an Egyptian pharaoh of the mid Thirteenth Dynasty ruling in the second half of the 18th century BC K.S.B. Ryholt: ''The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, c.1800–1550 BC'', Carst ...

. According to 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 ...

, Sihathor died in 1733 BC while

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 ...

dates his short reign to 1694 BC. His tomb is likely to be the unfinished one located between the tombs of his brothers S9 and S10, in Abydos. __TOC__

Attestations

According to the latest reading 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 ...

by Ryholt, Sihathor is recorded there on column 7, line 26 (Gardiner col. 6, line 26).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> Sihathor is attested on two statues from the Hekaib sanctuary in Elephantine as a "king's son", which is here an honorary title referring to his brother Neferhotep I being king. Two rock inscriptions from

Philae ; ar, فيلة; cop, ⲡⲓⲗⲁⲕ , alternate_name = , image = File:File, Asuán, Egipto, 2022-04-01, DD 93.jpg , alt = , caption = The temple of Isis from Philae at its current location on Agilkia Island in Lake Nasse ...

and Sehel Island further mention Sihathor as a brother to Neferhotep I. According to Ryholt and

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 ...

, Sihathor is also attested as a king on a

steatite Soapstone (also known as steatite or soaprock) is a talc-schist, which is a type of metamorphic rock. It is composed largely of the magnesium rich mineral talc. It is produced by dynamothermal metamorphism and metasomatism, which occur in the ...

cylinder seal A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in length, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally ...

, now in the Petrie Museum (UC1157), and a bead of unknown provenance, now in the Brooklyn Museum. A few further seals mentioning a king's son Sihathor are known, but Ryholt concludes that they may correspond to another Sihathor. Finally, Vivian Davies points to the existence of a statue of Sihathor made after his death and where he is only given the title of "king's son".

Family

The family of Sihathor is known thanks to the rock inscriptions of Philae and Sehel made by his brother Neferhotep I. Sihathor's father is thus known to be Haankhef, his mother was Kemi and his brothers were Neferhotep I and Sobekhotep IV, the later of whom eventually succeeded him on the throne.

Tomb

The Egyptologist and archaeologist Josef W. Wegner of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

has led excavations of the tomb and funerary complex of Senusret III in Abydos as well as of the surrounding necropolis. This necropolis was found to comprise royal tombs dating to 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 ...

as well as from the earlier late Middle Kingdom. Two large tombs in particular, S9 and S10 are now believed to belong to Sihathor's pharaoh brothers,

and

Sobekhotep IV Khaneferre Sobekhotep IV was one of the more powerful Egyptian kings of the 13th Dynasty (c. 1803 BC to c. 1649 BC), who reigned at least eight years. His brothers, Neferhotep I and Sihathor, were his predecessors on the throne, the latter having ...

. Indeed, evidences gathered from the neighbouring tombs reveal that a king Sobekhotep was buried in S10, who must be Sobekhotep IV given the size of the tomb, its general datation and location in Abydos. By extension, S9 is likely to belong to Neferhotep I. These attributions are crucial for locating Sihathor's tomb, as indeed Wegner has found an unfinished royal burial at the immediate north-east of S10, east of S9. According to him, its position suggest very strongly that it was intended for Neferhotep's chosen heir Sihathor. The burial seems to have been abandoned at the death of its intended owner, its massive granite sarcophagus reused at a later time, during the chaotic Second Intermediate Period.Josef W. Wegner, lecture at the

University of Chicago Oriental Institute The Oriental Institute (OI), established in 1919, is the University of Chicago's interdisciplinary research center for ancient Near Eastern ("Orient") studies and archaeology museum. It was founded for the university by professor James Henry Bre ...

. On Youtub
''The Pharaohs of Anubis-Mountain'', 28 October 2015

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sihathor, Menwadjre 18th-century BC deaths 18th-century BC Pharaohs Pharaohs of the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt