Khendjer

Template:Short description Template:For Template:Infobox pharaoh Userkare Khendjer was a minor king of the early Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt during the Middle Kingdom.<ref name=encyclo>Baker, Darrell D.: The Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs: Volume I - Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300–1069 BC, Stacey International, Template:ISBN, (2008), p. 181.</ref> Khendjer possibly reigned for four to five years, archaeological attestations show that he was on the throne for at least three or four years three months and five days. Khendjer had a small pyramid built for himself in Saqqara and it is therefore likely that his capital was in Memphis.

Reign

The highest attested date for Khendjer's reign is Year 5 IV Akhet day 15 (season of the Inundation). Kim Ryholt notes that two dated control notes on stone blocks from his unfinished pyramid complex give him a minimum reign of 3 or 4 years 3 months and 5 days.<ref>Ryholt, p. 193.</ref> The aforementioned control notes are dated to Year 1 I Akhet day 10 and Year 5 IV Akhet day 15 of his reign.<ref>Ryholt, pp. 193-195.</ref> In these control notes, the names of three officials involved in building the pyramid are also identified. They are the Interior Overseer of the Inner Palace, Senebtyfy {jmj-rꜣ ꜥẖnwtj (n) kꜣp snb.tj⸗fj}, the Interior Overseer Ameny {jmj-rꜣ ꜥẖnwtj jmnjj} and the Interior Overseer, Craftsman, Shebenu {jmj-rꜣ ꜥẖnwtj; ḫrp ḥmww šbnw}.<ref>Arnold, Felix: The Control Notes and Team Marks, The South Cemeteries of Lisht, II, New York (1990), Template:ISBN, pp. 176-183.</ref> The latter is also attested by other sources.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Attestations

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File:Khendjer 2.jpg

The pyramidion from Khendjer's pyramid at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

At Saqqara South, the Pyramid of Khendjer may have been completed as it was found with a pyramidion during excavations by G. Jequier.<ref>G. Jequier: Deux pyramides du Moyen Empire, Cairo 1933, S. 3-35.</ref> There was found a fragment of a canopic jar, which offers a partial name for his queen, Seneb ... "which may be restored as Sonb[henas]."<ref>Ryholt, op. cit., p. 221 The object is Cairo JE 54498.</ref> There are also some notes and marks of people working at the pyramid.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

At Abydos, a stela, belonging to a Controller of the Phyle Amenyseneb, record a building project by the king at the Temple of Osiris.<ref>Paris, Louvre Museum C11.</ref><ref>Template:Citation</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> On this stela the name Khendjer also appear along with the prenomen Nimaatre. Some have speculated that Khendjer had a second prenomen.<ref>Jürgen von Beckerath: Untersuchungen zur politischen Geschichte der zweiten Zwischenzeit in Ägypten, Glückstadt (1964), p. 238.</ref> However, it was also the prenomen of Amenemhat III. Amenyseneb is also associated by another stela with vizier Ankhu.<ref>Paris, Louvre Museum C12</ref> See also a double-sided stela of Amenyseneb.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Another stela once in Liverpool (destroyed in World War II), provides the name of the king's son "Khedjer". He might be a son of the king.<ref>W. Grajetzki: Two Treasurers of the Late Middle Kingdom, Oxford (2001), p. 28, pl. 2.</ref> Other objects with his name, according to the list provided by Ryholt, include three cylinder-seals from Athribis, a tile found near el-Lisht, scarab seals and an axe blade.

Non-contemporary attestations

The Turin King List column 7:20 mentions "Dual King Userkare Khendjer, x years ...".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In this list Khendjer is between Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep (7:19) and Imyremeshaw (7:21).

Theories

The name Khendjer is poorly attested in Egyptian.<ref>The name Khedjer for private individuals appears on only two monuments: Stela Marischal Museum, University of Aberdeen ABDUA 21642 and on stela Liverpool M13635, see Iain Ralston: The Stela of Ibi son of Iiqi in the Marischal Museum, University of Aberdeen, In Discovering Egypt from the Neva, The Egyptologcial Legacy of Oleg D Berlev, edited by S. Quirke, Berlin 2003, pp. 107-110, pl. 6 and W. Grajetzki: Two Treasurers of the Late Middle Kingdom, Oxford 2001, p. 28, pl. 2. Both monuments date to around the time of king Khendjer and the individuals there might have called themselves after the king.</ref> Khendjer "has been interpreted as a foreign name hnzr and equated with the Semitic personal name h(n)zr, [for] "boar" according to the Danish Egyptologist Kim Ryholt.<ref name=ryholt>Ryholt, K.S.B.: The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, c.1800–1550 BC, Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications, 20. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, (1997).</ref> He notes that this identification is confirmed by the fact that the name h(n)zr is written as hzr in a variant spelling of this king's name on a seal from this king's reign.<ref>Ryholt, p.220 and footnote 763.</ref> Ryholt states that the word 'boar' is:

attested as huzīru in Akkadian, hinzīr in Arabic, hazīrā in Aramaic, hazīr in Hebrew (the name is attested as hēzīr in I Chron. 24:15, Neh. 10:20) hu-zi-ri in the Nuzi texts, hnzr in Ugarit, and perhaps hi-zi-ri in Amorite.<ref name=ryholt/>

Khendjer could be, according to this theory, the earliest known Semitic king of a native Egyptian dynasty. Khendjer's prenomen or throne name, Userkare, translates as "The Soul of Re is Powerful."<ref>Clayton, Peter, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2006 paperback, p. 91.</ref>

Chronological position

File:Pyramidion of Khendjer 1999.jpg

Khendjer making offerings on the pyramidion from his pyramid.

The exact chronological position of Khendjer in the Thirteenth Dynasty is not known for certain owing to uncertainties affecting earlier kings of the dynasty.

Egyptologist Darrell Baker makes him the twenty-first king of the dynasty, Ryholt sees him as the twenty-second king and Jürgen von Beckerath places him as the seventeenth pharaoh of the dynasty. Furthermore, the identity of his predecessor is still debated: Baker and Ryholt believe it was Wegaf, but that pharaoh is confused with Khaankhre Sobekhotep, so that it is not known which one of the two founded the Thirteenth Dynasty and which one was Khendjer's predecessor.<ref name=ryholt/><ref name=encyclo/>

Several absolute dates have been proposed for his reign, depending on the scholar: 1764—1759 BC as proposed by Ryholt and Baker,<ref name=ryholt/> 1756—1751 BC as reported by Redford,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and 1718—1712 BC as per Schneider.<ref>Thomas Schneider following Detlef Franke: Lexikon der Pharaonen.</ref>

References

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