Nebkaure Khety was an ancient 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 an ...

of the

9th 9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and ...

10th Dynasty The Tenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty X) is often combined with the 7th, 8th, 9th and early 11th Dynasties under the group title First Intermediate Period. Rulers The 9th Dynasty was founded at Herakleopolis Magna, and the 10th Dynast ...

, during the

First Intermediate Period The First Intermediate Period, described as a 'dark period' in ancient Egyptian history, spanned approximately 125 years, c. 2181–2055 BC, after the end of the Old Kingdom. It comprises the Seventh (although this is mostly considered spurious ...

Reign

Practically nothing is known about the events of Nebkaure's reign; due to the contrasting opinions of scholars, even its datation is still difficult. Many

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...

s assign Nebkaure to the 9th Dynasty, possibly the fourth king (and the second king bearing the name ''Khety''), just after Neferkare.William C. Hayes, in ''The Cambridge Ancient History'', vol 1, part 2, 1971 (2008), Cambridge University Press, , p. 465.Michael Rice, ''Who is who in Ancient Egypt'', 1999 (2004), Routledge, London, , pp. 5-6. On the other hand, other scholars such as

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 t ...

believe instead that Nebkaure reigned during the subsequent 10th Dynasty, possibly before Meryibre Khety.Jürgen von Beckerath, ''Handbuch der Ägyptischen Königsnamen'', 2nd edition, Mainz, 1999, p. 74.

Attestations

Like many of the kings who preceded or succeeded him, attestations of Nebkaure Khety are scant. On the

Turin King List 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 ava ...

he was tentatively placed in the register 4.21. The only contemporary object bearing his

cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the fea ...

is a weight made from red

jasper Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases,Kostov, R. I. 2010. Review on the mineralogical systematics of jasper and related rocks. – Archaeometry Workshop, 7, 3, 209-213PDF/ref> ...

which was unearthed by

Flinders Petrie Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egypt ...

at Tell el-Retabah, a location along the

Wadi Tumilat Wadi Tumilat (Old Egyptian Tjeku/Tscheku/Tju/Tschu) is the dry river valley (wadi) to the east of the Nile Delta. In prehistory, it was a distributary of the Nile. It starts near the modern town of Zagazig and the ancient town of Bubastis and ...

in the eastern

Delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * D ( NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta") * Delta Air Lines, US * Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 Delta may also ...

; this weight is now exhibited at the

Petrie Museum The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London is part of University College London Museums and Collections. The museum contains over 80,000 objects and ranks among some of the world's leading collections of Egyptian and Sudanese material ...

(UC11782).Nebkaure's weight UC11782 in the Petrie Museum
/ref>

Alan Gardiner Sir Alan Henderson Gardiner, (29 March 1879 – 19 December 1963) was an English Egyptologist, linguist, philologist, and independent scholar. He is regarded as one of the premier Egyptologists of the early and mid-20th century. Personal life G ...

, ''Egypt of the Pharaohs. An introduction'', Oxford University Press, 1961, p. 112. The name of a king ''Nebkaure'' also appears on a late Middle Kingdom papyrus ( Berlin 3023) containing part of the well known and popular story

The Eloquent Peasant ''The Eloquent Peasant'' (, "a peasant good of speech") is an Ancient Egyptian story that was composed around 1850 BCE during the time of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt. It is one of the longest Egyptian tales that has survived completed. The tale i ...

; it is very likely that the king Nebkaure who enjoyed the peasant's magniloquence so much was Nebkaure Khety indeed.

References

External links

Royal Titulary of Nebkaure Khety on Eglyphica.net (search in the Tenth Dynasty)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nebkaure 22nd-century BC Pharaohs Pharaohs of the Ninth Dynasty of Egypt Pharaohs of the Tenth Dynasty of Egypt Wadi Tumilat