Djedkheperew (also known as Djedkheperu) was an Egyptian

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

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 ...

reigning for an estimated two-year period, from c. 1772 BC until 1770 BC.K.S.B. Ryholt, ''The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period'', ''Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications'', vol. 20. Copenhagen:

Museum Tusculanum Press Museum Tusculanum Press (Danish: ''Museum Tusculanums Forlag'') is an independent academic press historically associated with the University of Copenhagen, publishing mainly in the humanities, social sciences and theology. It was founded in 1975 as ...

, 1997
excerpts available online
Darrell D. Baker: ''The Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs: Volume I - Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300–1069 BC'', Stacey International, , 2008, p. 86-87 According to Egyptologists

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 ...

and Darrell Baker, Djedkheperew was the 17th king of this dynasty. Djedkheperew is this pharaoh's

Horus name The Horus name is the oldest known and used crest of ancient Egyptian rulers. It belongs to the " great five names" of an Egyptian pharaoh. However, modern Egyptologists and linguists are starting to prefer the more neutral term: the "serekh na ...

; the

prenomen The ''praenomen'' (; plural: ''praenomina'') was a personal name chosen by the parents of a Roman child. It was first bestowed on the ''dies lustricus'' (day of lustration), the eighth day after the birth of a girl, or the ninth day after the birt ...

and nomen of Djedkheperew, which would normally be employed by modern conventions to name a pharaoh, are unknown. __FORCETOC__

Attestations

;Contemporary attestations The reign of Djedkheperew is supported by eleven seal impressions from Egyptian fortresses at the

second cataract The Cataracts of the Nile are shallow lengths (or whitewater rapids) of the Nile river, between Khartoum and Aswan, where the surface of the water is broken by many small boulders and stones jutting out of the river bed, as well as many ro ...

Nubia Nubia () (Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), or ...

. Ten of these seal impressions were found at

Uronarti Uronarti, a Nubian word meaning "Island of the King", is an island in the Nile just south of the Second Cataract in the north of Sudan. The primary importance of the island lies in the massive ancient fortress that still stands on its northern en ...

in close association with seal impressions of

Sekhemrekhutawy Khabaw Sekhemrekhutawy Khabaw was an Ancient Egypt, Egyptian pharaoh of the early Thirteenth dynasty of Egypt, 13th Dynasty during the Second Intermediate Period. Attestations Khabaw is well attested through archaeological finds. Fragments of a red gr ...

and Maaibre Sheshi.

: ''The Date of Kings Sheshi and Yaqubhar and the Rise of the Fourteenth Dynasty'', in ''The Second Intermediate Period (Thirteenth-Seventeenth Dynasties), Current Research, Future Prospects'', Marcel Maree ed., Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 192, Leuven, Peeters, 2010, pp. 109–126 The last one was discovered in

Mirgissa Mirgissa (originally Iken) was a settlement in Northern state, Sudan. Situated at the 2nd cataract in Wadi Halfa, it contained one of the largest fortresses in Nubia. In the time of Thutmose II, 250 to 450 people inhabited the area. The first ...

. Besides the seal impressions, Djedkheperew is authenticated by the ''Bed of Osiris'', a massive sculpture of black

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...

showing Osiris lying on a bier. The ''Bed of Osiris'' was found in the tomb of the 1st Dynasty pharaoh Djer, which the ancient Egyptians had come to identify with the tomb of

Osiris Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wsjr'', cop, ⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲉ , ; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎𐤓, romanized: ʾsr) is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He wa ...

. The sculpture is now in the

Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...

. The sculpture was tentatively attributed to another 13th Dynasty pharaoh,

Khendjer Userkare Khendjer was the twenty-first pharaoh of the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period.Darrell D. Baker: The Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs: Volume I - Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300–1069 BC, Stacey In ...

, by Leahy, but recent examinations of the inscriptions proved that it originally bore the name of Djedkheperew. The nomen of Djedkheperew was erased at some point in antiquity, but carelessly enough that some of it is still readable. ;On the Turin canon Djedkheperew is not mentioned on 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 ...

, which serves as a reference document for the history of the Second Intermediate Period. Ryholt argues that this is because Djedkheperew's reign (as well as that of his predecessor, Sekhemrekhutawy Khabaw and immediate successor(s) Sebkay, all absent from the canon) was already lost in a lacuna of the document from which the canon was copied. That this must be true is indicated by artifacts showing that Khabaw succeeded Hor on the throne and Sebkay as a predecessor(s) of Amenemhat VII, when the canon lists Amenemhat VII directly as Hor's successor (column 7, lines 17 and 18).

Family and reign

According to Ryholt, Djedkheperew was a brother of his predecessor Sekhemrekhutawy Khabaw and a son of pharaoh Hor Awibre. Ryholt based his conclusion on the seals from Uronarti and the ''Bed of Osiris''. The seals show that Khabaw and Djedkheperew reigned closely in time, while what remains of the name of Djedkheperew on the ''Bed of Osiris'' shows that his nomen started with ''hrw''. This suggests that Djedkheperew's nomen indicated his filiation to

Hor Hor Awibre (also known as Hor I) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the Thirteenth dynasty of Egypt, 13th Dynasty reigning from c. 1777 BC until 1775 BCK.S.B. Ryholt, ''The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period'', ''Carsten ...

. Since Khabaw is known to have succeeded Hor, Ryholt deduced that Djedkheperew was Khabaw's brother and successor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Djedkheperew 18th-century BC Pharaohs Pharaohs of the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt

Attestations

Family and reign

See also

References