Sebkay (alternatively Sebekay or Sebekāi) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh during the Second Intermediate Period. For a long time his position created problems and he was most often placed into 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 ...

. However, the discovery of the tomb of a king with the name Senebkay make it very likely that Sebkay is identical with the latter and the writing of the name Sebkay is just a misspelling of the name. Very little is known about him, since his name is attested only on a wooden birth Tusk ( wand) found at

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and now in the Cairo Museum (CG 9433 / JE 34988).

Identity

Since the discovery of the wand, several Egyptologists have tried to identify this king with other rulers of the Second Intermediate Period. Stephen Quirke believed that “Sebkay” was a diminutive for “ Sedjefakare”, which is the

throne name A regnal name, or regnant name or reign name, is the name used by monarchs and popes during their reigns and, subsequently, historically. Since ancient times, some monarchs have chosen to use a different name from their original name when they ac ...

of Kay-Amenemhat, while Jürgen von Beckerath considered the name a short form of the '' nomen'' “Sobekhotep” instead.Jürgen von Beckerath, ''Untersuchungen zur politischen Geschichte der Zweiten Zwischenzeit in Ägypten'', Glückstadt, Augustin, 1964, p. 46. Thomas Schneider supports von Beckerath's hypothesis, specifying that the king Sobekhotep likely was Sobekhotep II.Thomas Schneider, in Erik Hornung, Rolf Krauss, and David A. Warburton (eds) ''Ancient Egyptian Chronology'', Brill, Leiden – Boston, 2006, pp. 178-79. A more radical hypothesis came from Kim Ryholt, who suggested the reading “Seb's son Kay”, '' de facto'' splitting the name “Seb-kay” in two different pharaohs and thus filling a gap in the Turin King List before Kay-Amenemhat. Furthermore, in this reconstruction the name of the last mentioned king should be considered a patronymic too, and must be read “Kay's son Amenemhat”, thus setting a dynastic line consisting of three kings: Seb, his son Kay, and the latter's son Amenemhat. Ryholt's interpretation is considered daring and controversial by some egyptologists. In 2014, at Abydos, a team of archaeologists discovered the tomb of a previously unknown king of the Second Intermediate Period, called Senebkay. It has been suggested that this ruler and Sebkay might be the same person.Finding a Lost Pharaoh
, Archaeology and arts. Retrieved 08 May 2014 Wand Sebkay Daressy

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sebkay 17th-century BC Pharaohs Pharaohs of the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt 2nd-millennium BC births 2nd-millennium BC deaths Pharaohs of the Abydos Dynasty