Sheshi
Maaibre Sheshi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Sheshy, Shesha, Mayebre | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ammu Aahotepre[5] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Successor | uncertain, Nehesy Aasehre,[5] Yaqub-Har[6] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Consort | uncertain, Tati (Ryholt) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Children | uncertain, Nehesy ♂, Ipqu ♂ (Ryholt) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dynasty | 14th or 15th |
Maaibre Sheshi (also Sheshy) was a ruler of areas of Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period. The dynasty, chronological position, duration and extent of his reign are uncertain and subject to ongoing debate. The difficulty of identification is mirrored by problems in determining events from the end of the Middle Kingdom to the arrival of the Hyksos in Egypt. Nonetheless, Sheshi is, in terms of the number of artifacts attributed to him, the best-attested king of the period spanning the end of the Middle Kingdom and the Second Intermediate period; roughly from c. 1800 BC until 1550 BC. Hundreds of scaraboid seals bearing his name have been found throughout the Levant, Egypt, Nubia, and as far away as Carthage, where some were still in use 1,500 years after his death.
Three competing hypotheses have been put forth for the dynasty to which Sheshi belonged. The first hypothesis is supported by
Ryholt proposed that Sheshi allied his kingdom with the
Attestations
Nomen and prenomen on seals
The
Consequently, Maaibre Sheshi is the best attested ruler of the Second Intermediate Period in terms of the number of artefacts attributed to him, with 396 seals and two seal impressions showing his nomen or prenomen.[13] This figure is three times higher than the 123 seals attributed to the next best attested king of the period, Yakbim Sekhaenre.[note 5][14]
In addition to these seals, Manfred Bietak has suggested that a scarab discovered in Avaris and inscribed with the name of a king "Shenshek" should probably be attributed to Sheshi.[15] This conclusion is rejected by Kim Ryholt and Darrell Baker, who believe that Shenshek was a separate king.[16][17]
Location of the finds
Over 80 percent of the seals attributed to Maaibre Sheshi are of unknown provenance,[note 6] but the remaining 20 percent have been found throughout Egypt, Nubia and Canaan, indicating widespread trade and diplomatic contacts during Sheshi's reign.[19]
Important finds include seals from
The seals of Sheshi are now scattered in many different museums, including the
Historical sources
No historical attestation of Sheshi is known for certain. Sheshi is absent from the Turin canon, a list of kings written on papyrus during the Ramesside period and which serves as the primary historical source for the Second Intermediate Period.[34] This is because the section of the papyrus covering the 13th to 17th Dynasties is heavily damaged[35] and the problem of Sheshi's chronological position cannot be resolved from the document.
It is unclear whether Sheshi is mentioned in the
Finally, Aharon Kempinski and
Dynasty
Three competing hypotheses have been proposed regarding the dynasty to which Sheshi belonged.
Hyksos ruler
William C. Hayes, Nicolas Grimal, Redford, and Peter Clayton identify Sheshi with Salitis (also known as Saites).[3][41][42][43][44] According to the Aegyptiaca, Salitis was the founder of the Hyksos 15th Dynasty.[45] Alternatively, Bietak and Janine Bourriau have proposed that Salitis should be identified with Sakir-Har,[46] a poorly known ruler of the Second Intermediate Period who, in contrast to Sheshi,[47] is known to have borne the title of "Hyksos".[48]
If Sheshi is to be equated with Salitis, then the seals of Sheshi discovered in Nubia suggest that the Hyksos allied themselves with the Nubians against the native Egyptian 13th Dynasty as soon as they arrived in the Nile Delta,[42] an event which Grimal places at c. 1720 BC.[42] Grimal envisions Sheshi's kingdom as comprising the entire Nile Delta and the Nile valley north of Gebelein. According to Manetho as reported by Josephus in Against Apion,[49] Salitis reigned from Memphis,[8][50] and fortified the existing town of Avaris,[51] which was to become the Hyksos' seat of power.[43]
Grimal and Hayes further equate Sheshi with
Vassal of the Hyksos
For Manfred Bietak, the large number of attestations of Sheshi suggests that he was an important Hyksos ruler,[8] yet his inclusion in the 15th Dynasty may be doubtful given the total absence of monuments attributable to him.[57] Thus, Bietak concludes that Sheshi should be placed in a group of West Semitic rulers who coexisted with the 15th Dynasty, possibly as vassals or partly independently from it, and some of whom even bore the title of "Hyksos".[58]
The existence of lesser Hyksos kings in Egypt is currently debated.[59] Ryholt has shown that a statement in Eusebius' epitome of the Aegyptiaca indicating that the Hyksos had vassals contains a corruption of Manetho's original text.[59][60] Thus, he rejects the hypothesis that the 16th Dynasty comprised vassals of the Hyksos and maintains instead that it was a native Egyptian dynasty independently reigning over the Theban region between the fall of the 13th Dynasty and the advent of the 17th Dynasty.[61] These conclusions on the 16th Dynasty have been accepted by many scholars, including Ben-Tor, James Peter Allen, Susan Allen,[62] Baker and Redford.[63] Yet, for both Redford[64] and Bietak "without doubt, there were, under the umbrella of the fifteenth dynasty rulers, a series of vassals in southern and coastal Palestine, in Middle Egypt, and in Thebes. ... Such was the political system of the Hyksos, and typical of the Amorite kingdoms in Syria and the city-states in Palestine".[58]
King of the 14th Dynasty
Ryholt and Baker reject the identification of Sheshi as a 15th Dynasty ruler.[66][67] Ryholt observes that early Hyksos kings, such as
Consequently, Ryholt suggests that Sheshi was actually a
Based on a seriation of the scarab seals of the Second Intermediate Period available in 1900 AD,
Dating
Mid-18th century BC
Ryholt dates Sheshi's reign to the mid-18th century BC. His main argument is the presence of seals of Sheshi and of two kings of the mid 13th Dynasty Sekhemrekhutawy Khabaw and Djedkheperew in the Egyptian fort of Uronarti in Nubia. The fort of Uronarti was abandoned at some point in the 13th Dynasty, an event which Ryholt dates to the reign of Djedkheperew given the lack of seals attributable to subsequent kings. Ryholt thus proposes that Sheshi reigned from c. 1745 BC until 1705 BC and was a contemporary of Khabaw and Djedkheperew.[5]
Ryholt's hypothesis regarding Sheshi comes with his dating the start of the 14th Dynasty around 1805 BC,[5] over 90 years earlier than accepted by most Egyptologists.[note 11][82] They propose instead that the 14th Dynasty emerged during the two decades of Merneferre Ay's reign,[83] which is dated to between 1700 BC[5] and 1660 BC, depending on the scholar.[84] Ay is the last 13th Dynasty pharaoh to be attested in Lower Egypt, and most scholars, therefore, contend that he abandoned Itjtawy, the capital of Egypt since the reign of Amenemhat I (c. 1980 BC), in favor of Thebes, as he lost control of the Delta region to the 14th Dynasty.[note 12][83][87]
Mid- to late-17th century BC
If Sheshi is to be identified with Salitis, the founder of the 15th Dynasty, according to Manetho, then he would have lived around 1650 BC, the date agreed upon by most Egyptologists, including Ryholt, for the arrival of the Hyksos in Egypt.[88][89][90][91][92] If Sheshi lived during the second half of the 15th Dynasty between the reigns of Khyan and Apophis as Ben-Tor and Ward favor[53][93] then Sheshi would have reigned c. 1600 BC.[88]
Reign length
The Egyptologists identifying Sheshi with Salitis follow Josephus, Sextus Julius Africanus and Eusebius who report that Manetho credited Salitis with 19 years of reign in his Aegyptiaca.[4][45] Ryholt relies instead on a statistical method and estimates the duration of Sheshi's reign to have been between 20 and 53 years. The method consists in tallying the seals of Yakbim Sekhaenre, Ya'ammu Nubwoserre, Qareh Khawoserre and 'Ammu Ahotepre with those of Sheshi. Then, knowing that the first four of these kings reigned for at least 30 years,[note 13][96] implies that they have left between 7.5 and 20 seals per year while on throne. Consequently, Sheshi's nearly 400 scarabs would correspond to 20 to 53 years,[96] which Ryholt gives as about 40 years.[97]
Family
Ryholt proposes that Sheshi had at least two consorts; Tati with whom he fathered his successor pharaoh Nehesy, and an unknown queen with whom he fathered a prince Ipqu.
These conclusions are shared by Baker[102] but rejected by Ben-Tor, who argues not only that Nehesy reigned before Sheshi but also that the Nehesy referred to as "king's son" was a later Hyksos prince. In 2005 a stele of Nehesy was discovered in the fortress city of Tjaru, the starting point of the Way of Horus, the major road leading out of Egypt into Canaan. The stele shows a "king's son Nehesy" offering oil to the god Banebdjedet and also bears an inscription mentioning the "king's sister Tany". A woman with this name and title is known from other sources around the time of the Hyksos pharaoh Apophis c. 1570 BC.[103] This suggests that the "king's son Nehesy" of the stela lived c. 1570 BC as well, over 100 years after King Nehesy's estimated lifetime. This could be confirmed by Ben-Tor's observation that the scarabs referring to the "king's son Nehesy" are different in style from those referring to king Nehesy. In this situation, the "king's son Nehesy" would be a Hyksos prince different from the better-known king Nehesy.[104]
Notes, references and sources
Notes
- ^ William C. Hayes gives the reign of Sheshi as three years c. 1675 BC.[2]
- ^ Identifying Sheshi with Salitis/Saites,[3] founder of the 15th Dynasty according to the Aegyptiaca.[4]
- ^ Ryholt dates the reign of Sheshi to 1745–1705 BC.[5]
- ^ The meaning of Sheshi is uncertain, it could be the diminutive of another name.[8]
- ^ The dynasty and chronological position of Yakbim Sekhaenre are highly uncertain.[14]
- ^ On the 396 seals of Sheshi catalogued by Ryholt, 325 are of unknown provenance—having possibly been dug up illegally.[18]
- ^ The Petrie Museum houses over 25 seals with catalog numbers UC 11682, 11683, 11684, 11685, 11986, 11687, 11688, 11689, 11690, 11692, 11693, 11694, 11695, 11696, 11697, 11698, 11699, 11700, 11701, 11702, 11703, 11704, 11705, 11706, 11825 and 16595.[29]
- ^ Sharek's existence is doubted by Ryholt.[52]
- ^ This title is also often rendered as Heka-chasut, from the Egyptian Ḥq3-ḫ3swt.[68]
- ^ Ryholt's theory concerning the meaning of wsf on the Turin canon has been accepted by other scholars including Allen and Ben-Tor.[78]
- ^ The 14th dynasty is traditionally dated to 1710–1650 BC.[81]
- ^ Most Egyptologists consider Nehesy to have been either the founder[85] or the second king of this dynasty.[86]
- ^ This 30 year figure is strongly dependent on Ryholt's controversial reconstruction of the early 14th Dynasty. First, Ryholt uses a seriation of the seals of Yakbim, Ya'ammu, Qareh and 'Ammu to posit that they were Sheshi's predecessors,[94] a conclusion rejected by S. and J. Allen and Ben-Tor.[95] Then, Ryholt observes that the abandonment of the Egyptian fortress at Uronarti suggests that Sheshi and Djedkheperew were contemporaries, something which is also contested by Allen, Allen and Ben-Tor.[95] Finally, Ryholt uses his reconstruction of the 13th Dynasty to date Djedkheperew's reign to c. 1770, leaving around 30 years for Sheshi's four predecessors.[96]
References
- ^ Walters Art Museum 2015, Online catalog Seal 29621.
- ^ Hayes 1978, p. xiv.
- ^ a b Redford 1992, p. 110.
- ^ a b Redford 1992, p. 107.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Ryholt 1997, p. 409.
- ^ Hayes 1978, p. 6.
- ^ a b Leprohon 2013, p. 75.
- ^ a b c d Bietak 1999, p. 453.
- ^ a b Ben-Tor 2010, p. 97.
- ^ Ben-Tor 2007, p. 107.
- ^ Ben-Tor, Allen & Allen 1999, p. 55.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, pp. 367–369.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, pp. 252–254, 366–376.
- ^ a b Ryholt 1997, p. 199, table 38.
- ^ Bietak 1991, p. 52, fig. 18.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, pp. 52, 60.
- ^ Ryholt 2010, p. 121.
- ^ a b Ryholt 1997, p. 369.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, pp. 114–115.
- ^ Bryce 2009.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, p. 367.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, pp. 367–368.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, p. 368.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, pp. 368–369.
- ^ Redissi 1999, pp. 7, 61–62, pl. 3.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, p. 366.
- ^ Ryholt 2010, p. 122.
- ^ Israel Museum 2015, Scarab of Sheshi, reading "the son of Ra, Sheshi, living for ever".
- ^ Digital Egypt for Universities 2015, King Sheshi Maaibre.
- ^ Petrie Museum 2015, Online catalog.
- ^ Walters Art Museum 2015, Seals of Seshi, online catalog.
- ^ Met. Museum of Art 2015, Seal impression of Sheshi, the central column reading "the good god, Maaibre, given life".
- ^ Ryholt 1997, pp. 366–376.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, pp. 9–18.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, pp. 94–97.
- ^ Ryholt 2010, pp. 109–110.
- ^ Kempinski 1983, pp. 69–74.
- ^ Redford 1992, p. 257.
- ^ Rohl 2007, p. 77.
- ^ Walters Art Museum 2015, Online catalog Seal 14091.
- ^ Hayes 1978, pp. 5, 8.
- ^ a b c d Grimal 1992, p. 185.
- ^ a b Clayton 1994, p. 94.
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica 2015, Salitis.
- ^ a b Waddell 1971, pp. 90–91.
- ^ Bourriau 2003, p. 179.
- ^ a b c d Ryholt 2010, p. 120.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, p. 123.
- ^ Waddell 1971, pp. 79–82.
- ^ Grimal 1992, p. 187.
- ^ Redford 1992, p. 98.
- ^ a b Ryholt 1997, p. 402.
- ^ a b Ward 1984, p. 168.
- ^ Ben-Tor 2007, p. 106.
- ^ von Beckerath 1999, pp. 116–117, king f..
- ^ von Beckerath 1999, p. 116, footnote 1.
- ^ Bietak 2001, p. 138.
- ^ a b Bietak 2001, p. 139.
- ^ a b Ryholt 2010, p. 110.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, pp. 323, 325.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, pp. 151–159.
- ^ Ben-Tor, Allen & Allen 1999, pp. 48, 65–66.
- ^ Redford 1997, pp. 8, 27–28.
- ^ Redford 1992, p. 111.
- ^ Walters Art Museum 2015, Online catalog Seal 9619.
- ^ Willoughby Fraser 1900, p. 21.
- ^ Baker 2008, pp. 428–429.
- ^ Hannig 2006, pp. 606, 628–629.
- ^ von Beckerath 1999, pp. 114–115.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, p. 103.
- ^ a b Bourriau 2003, p. 178.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, p. 97.
- ^ Redford 1992, pp. 106–107, also footnote 46.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, pp. 57, 59.
- ^ Ryholt 2010, p. 124.
- ^ Krauss 1998, p. 41.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, p. 12, See the comment on entry 8/29 of the Turin canon.
- ^ Ben-Tor, Allen & Allen 1999, p. 50.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, pp. 10–11.
- ^ Hall 1913, p. 26.
- ^ Bietak 1997, p. 90, fig. 4.3.
- ^ Ben-Tor, Allen & Allen 1999, pp. 55–58.
- ^ a b Ben-Tor 2010, p. 92.
- ^ Hornung 2012, p. 492.
- ^ Quirke 2001, p. 261.
- ^ von Beckerath 1999, pp. 108–109.
- ^ Bourriau 2003, pp. 186–187.
- ^ a b Bourriau 2003, p. 484.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, p. 410.
- ^ von Beckerath 1999, p. 285.
- ^ Bietak 2001, p. 136.
- ^ Rice 1999, p. 174.
- ^ Ben-Tor 2010, pp. 103, 106.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, p. 50.
- ^ a b Ben-Tor, Allen & Allen 1999, p. 52.
- ^ a b c Ryholt 1997, p. 199.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, p. 200.
- ^ a b Ryholt 1997, p. 253.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, pp. 51, 53, 57.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, p. 115.
- ^ Ryholt 1997, p. 288.
- ^ Baker 2008, p. 277.
- ^ 'Abd El-Maksoud & Valbelle 2005.
- ^ Ben-Tor 2007, p. 110.
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External links
- Egyptology at Curlie
- Ancient Egypt at Curlie