Nebmaatre is the prenomen of a poorly attested ruler of the late

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 ...

of Ancient Egypt. Nebmaatre may have been a member of the early

17th Dynasty The Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XVII, alternatively 17th Dynasty or Dynasty 17) was a dynasty of pharaohs that ruled in Upper Egypt during the late Second Intermediate Period, approximately from 1580 to 1550 BC. Its mainly Theba ...

and as such would have reigned over the Theban region. Alternatively,

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 ...

believes that Nebmaatre was a ruler of the late 16th Dynasty.

Attestations

The prenomen ''Nebmaatre'' is attested on a bronze axe-head discovered in a tomb at Mostagedda in Middle Egypt and now in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

under the catalog number BM EA 63224. The same prenomen is inscribed on a black steatite amulet representing a lion of unknown provenance and now in the Petrie Museum under the catalog number 11587. A degree of uncertainty affects the ownership of these artifacts since Amenhotep III's prenomen was Nebmaatre as well. However, the axe-head can be dated to the late

based on stylistic grounds and provenance while according to

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 Egyp ...

the amulet is of too rough a workmanship to be attributable to Amenhotep III. Instead Petrie suggested that the amulet be attributable to Ibi, an obscure ruler of the late

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 ...

whose prenomen is partially preserved in 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 ...

as ''" ..aatre"''. However,

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 ...

's recent study of the Turin canon precludes this identification as a vertical stroke in the lacuna just prior to "maatre" rules out the hieroglyph for "neb".

Chronological position

The chronological position of Nebmaatre in the Second Intermediate Period is highly uncertain. The Egyptologist

proposes that Nebmaatre was a ruler of a compounded 15th–16th Dynasty, which he sees as an entirely

Hyksos Hyksos (; Egyptian '' ḥqꜣ(w)- ḫꜣswt'', Egyptological pronunciation: ''hekau khasut'', "ruler(s) of foreign lands") is a term which, in modern Egyptology, designates the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt (fl. c. 1650–1550 BC). T ...

line of kings.Jürgen von Beckerath: ''Handbuch der agyptische Konigsnamen'', Muncher. Agyptologische Studien, 49 Mainz, 1999, pp.118-119 Alternatively,

put forth the hypothesis that Nebmaatre was a king of the

, although he left his position in the dynasty unspecified. Kim Ryholt, The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period c.1800-1550 B.C, Museum Tusculanum Press, (1997) Ryholt's datation is based on the observation that the axe-head bearing Nebmaatre's name was found in a tomb belonging to the Pan-grave culture.

Manfred Bietak Manfred Bietak (born in Vienna, 6 October 1940) is an Austrian archaeologist.Pan-grave culture
The Pan-grave people were Nubian mercenaries employed by rulers of the 17th Dynasty in their fight against the Hyksos foe.Darrell D. Baker: ''The Encyclopedia of the Egyptian Pharaohs. Volume I: Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty (3300-1069 BC)'', Bannerstone Press, London 2008, , p. 244 Egyptologist Darrell Baker points out that the Theban rulers of the period might indeed have provided such weapons to their mercenaries.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nebmaatre 16th-century BC Pharaohs Pharaohs of the Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt