Nehesy
Nehesy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nehesi, Nehsy, Nehasi | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Khakherewre | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Father | uncertain, Sheshi (Ryholt) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mother | uncertain, Tati (Ryholt) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dynasty | 14th dynasty |
Nehesy Aasehre (Nehesi) was a ruler of
Family
In his review of the Second Intermediate Period, egyptologist Kim Ryholt proposed that Nehesy was the son and direct successor of the pharaoh Sheshi with a Nubian Queen named Tati.[1] Egyptologist Darrell Baker, who also shares this opinion, posits that Tati must have been Nubian or of Nubian descent, hence Nehesy's name meaning The Nubian.[2][3] The 14th dynasty being of Canaanite origin, Nehesy is also believed to be of Canaanite descent.[2]
Four scarabs found, including one from Semna in Nubia and three of unknown provenance, point to a temporary coregency with his father. Furthermore, one scarab mentions Nehesy as King's son and a further 22 as Eldest king son. Ryholt and Baker thus hold the view that Nehesy became the heir to the throne after the death of his elder brother, Prince Ipqu.[1][2]
Manfred Bietak and Jürgen von Beckerath believe that Nehesy was the second ruler of the 14th dynasty. Bietak further posits that his father was an Egyptian military officer or administrator, who funded an independent kingdom centered on Avaris. The kingdom controlled the northeastern Nile Delta, at the expense of the concurrent 13th dynasty.
Attestation
In spite of a very short reign of around a year, Nehesy is the best attested ruler of the 14th dynasty. According to Ryholt's latest reading of the Turin canon, Nehesy is attested there on the 1st entry of the 9th column (Gardiner, entry 8.1) and is the first king of the 14th dynasty whose name is preserved on this king list.
Nehesy is also attested by numerous contemporary artefacts, foremost among which are
Nehesy is also attested by two relief fragments inscribed with the names of the king, which were unearthed in Tell el-Dab'a in the mid 1980s.[4] Finally, two further stelae are known from Tell-Habuwa (ancient Tjaru): one bearing Nehesy's birth name, the other one the throne of the king Aahsere.[5] Thanks to these stelae it was possible to connect the name Nehesy with the throne name Aahsere ˁ3-sḥ-Rˁ. Before this discovery, Aasehre was regarded as a Hyksos king.
In 2005, a further stele of Nehesy was discovered in the fortress city of Tjaru, once the starting point of the Way of Horus, the major road leading out of Egypt into
Reign
According to the Austrian Egyptologist
Nehesy's authority may have "encompassed the eastern Delta from Tell el-Muqdam to Tel Habuwa (where his name occurs), but the universal practise of usurpation and quarrying of earlier monuments complicates the picture. Given that the only examples that were certainly found at the sites where they once stood are those from Tell el-Habua and Tell el-Daba, his kingdom may actually have been much smaller."[10]
After Nehesy's death, the 14th dynasty continued to rule in the Delta region of Lower Egypt with a number of ephemeral or short-lived rulers until 1650 BC when the Hyksos 15th Dynasty conquered the Delta.[11] Nehesy seems to have been remembered long after his death as several locations in the eastern Delta bore names such as "The mansion of Pinehsy" and "The Place of the Asiatic Pinehsy", Pinehsy being a late Egyptian rendering of Nehesy.
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e K.S.B. Ryholt: The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, c.1800–1550 BC, Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications, vol. 20. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1997, excerpts available online here.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-905299-37-9, 2008, p. 277
- ISBN 0-203-75152-3. p. 136
- ^ Manfred Bietak: Zum Königreich des ˁ3-sḥ-Rˁ, in: Studien zur altägyptischen Kultur 11 (1984), pp. 59-75
- ^ M. Abd el-Maqsoud: Un monument du roi ˁ3-sḥ-Rˁ Nehsy à Tell-Habua (Sinaï Nord), ASAE 69 (1983), 3-5
- ^ News of the discovery together with a photograph of the stele here Archived 2010-07-31 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Mohamed 'Abd El-Maksoud, Dominique Valbelle: Tell Héboua-Tjarou. L'apport de l'épigraphie, in: Revue d'Égyptologie, 56 (2005), 2005, p. 1-44
- ISBN 978-3-7278-1593-5, p. 110
- ^ Janine Bourriau, "The Second Intermediate Period (c.1650-1550 BC)" in Ian Shaw (ed.) The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press, 2000. pp.190, 192 & 194
- ^ Bourriau in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, p.191
- ^ Bourriau in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, p.194