Sixteenth Dynasty of Egypt
Sixteenth Dynasty of Egypt | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1649 BC–1582 BC | |||||||||||
Capital | Thebes | ||||||||||
Common languages | Egyptian language | ||||||||||
Religion | ancient Egyptian religion | ||||||||||
Government | Absolute monarchy | ||||||||||
Historical era | Bronze Age | ||||||||||
• Established | 1649 BC | ||||||||||
• Disestablished | 1582 BC | ||||||||||
|
Periods and dynasties of ancient Egypt | ||
---|---|---|
All years are BC | ||
XXXIII | 305–30 |
The Sixteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (notated Dynasty XVI)[1] was a dynasty of pharaohs that ruled the Theban region in Upper Egypt[2] for 70 years.[3]
This dynasty, together with the
Identification
Of the two chief versions of
Ryholt (1997), followed by Bourriau (2003), in reconstructing the Turin canon, interpreted a list of Thebes-based kings to constitute Manetho's Sixteenth Dynasty, although this is one of Ryholt's "most debatable and far-reaching" conclusions.[4] For this reason other scholars do not follow Ryholt and see only insufficient evidence for the interpretation of the Sixteenth Dynasty as Theban.[6]
History
The continuing war against 15th Dynasty dominated the short-lived 16th Dynasty. The armies of the 15th Dynasty, winning town after town from their southern enemies, continually encroached on the 16th Dynasty territory, eventually threatening and then conquering Thebes itself. In his study of the Second Intermediate Period, the Egyptologist Kim Ryholt has suggested that Dedumose I sued for a truce in the latter years of the dynasty,[3] but one of his predecessors, Nebiryraw I, may have been more successful and seems to have enjoyed a period of peace in his reign.[3]
Famine, which had plagued Upper Egypt during the late 13th Dynasty and the 14th Dynasty, also blighted the 16th Dynasty, most evidently during and after the reign of Neferhotep III.[3]
Kings
Various chronological orderings and lists of kings have been proposed by scholars for this dynasty. These lists fall broadly in two categories: those assuming that the 16th Dynasty comprised vassals of the Hyksos, as advocated by Jürgen von Beckerath and Wolfgang Helck; and those assuming that the 16th Dynasty was an independent Theban kingdom, as recently proposed by Kim Ryholt.
Vassals of the Hyksos
The traditional list of rulers of the 16th Dynasty regroups kings believed to be vassals of the Hyksos, some of which have semitic names such as Semqen and Anat-her. The list of kings differs from scholar to scholar and it is here given as per Jürgen von Beckerath's Dynasty XV/XVI in his Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen.[7] Wolfgang Helck, who also believes that the 16th Dynasty was an Hyksos vassal state, proposed a slightly different list of kings.[8] Many of the rulers listed here in the 16th Dynasty under the hypothesis that they were vassals of the Hyksos are put in the 14th Dynasty in the hypothesis that the 16th Dynasty was an independent Theban kingdom. The chronological ordering is largely uncertain.
Name of king | Dates | Comments |
---|---|---|
Possibly a prince of the 15th Dynasty or a Canaanite chieftain contemporary with the 12th Dynasty | ||
May belong to the early 15th Dynasty | ||
May belong to the early 15th Dynasty | ||
May belong to the early 15th Dynasty | ||
Apepi |
May be identical with the Hyksos ruler Apepi
| |
May belong to the early 14th Dynasty | ||
May belong to the late 14th Dynasty | ||
May belong to the 17th Dynasty | ||
Aahotepre |
May be the same person as 'Ammu | |
Kingship contested | ||
Kingship contested | ||
[...]kare |
||
[...]kare |
||
[...]kare |
||
May belong to the 15th Dynasty, only attested in later sources | ||
May belong to the 14th Dynasty | ||
Qur |
Possibly Qareh, may belong to the 14th Dynasty | |
Likely to be Sheneh rather than Shenes and may belong to the 14th Dynasty | ||
'A[...] |
||
Hibe |
||
Aped |
Reading is uncertain | |
Hapi |
||
Meni[...] |
||
Independent Theban Kingdom
In his 1997 study of the Second Intermediate Period, the Danish Egyptologist
Ryholt gives the list of kings of the 16th Dynasty as shown in the table below.[10] Others, such as Helck, Vandersleyen, Bennett combine some of these rulers with the Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt.[11] The list of rulers is given here as per Kim Ryholt and is supposedly in chronological order:
Name of king | Image | Dates | Comments |
---|---|---|---|
Unknown
|
1649–1648 BC |
Name lost in a lacuna of the Turin canon | |
Sekhemre-sementawi Djehuti |
1648–1645 BC |
||
1645–1629 BC |
|||
1629–1628 BC |
|||
1628–1627 BC |
|||
1627–1601 BC |
|||
1601 BC |
|||
1601–1600 BC |
|||
Seuserenre Bebiankh |
1600–1588 BC |
||
1588 BC |
|||
Unknown
|
1588–1582 BC |
Five kings lost in a lacuna of the Turin canon |
Additional kings are classified as belonging to this dynasty per Kim Ryholt but their chronological position is uncertain. They may correspond to the last five lost kings on the Turin canon:[13]
Name of king | Image | Dates | Comments |
---|---|---|---|
May have tried to sue the Hyksos for peace | |||
Left a colossal statue of himself in Karnak[14] |
References
- ^ Kuhrt 1995: 118
- ^ a b c d Bourriau 2003: 191
- ^ a b c d e Ryholt 1997: 305
- ^ a b c Bourriau 2003: 179
- ^ Cory 1876
- ISBN 978-9042922280, p. 56, n. 6
- ^ ISBN 3-8053-2591-6
- ^ Wolfgang Helck, Eberhard Otto, Wolfhart Westendorf, Stele - Zypresse: Volume 6 of Lexikon der Ägyptologie, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 1986, Page 1383
- ISBN 978-1-905299-37-9, 2008, pp. 256-257
- ^ Kings of the Second Intermediate Period 16th dynasty (after Ryholt 1997)
- ^ Chris Bennet, A Genealogical Chronology of the Seventeenth Dynasty, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 39 (2002), pp. 123-155
- ISBN 8772894210, 1997.
- ^ Kim Ryholt's 16th dynasty on Digital Egypt for Universities
- ^ Georges Legrain: Statues et statuettes de rois et de particuliers, in Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Le Caire, 1906. I, 171 pp., 79 pls, available copyright-free online, published in 1906, see p. 18 and p. 109
Bibliography
- Bourriau, Janine (2003) [2000], "The Second Intermediate Period", in ISBN 0-19-280458-8
- Cory, Isaac Preston (1876), Cory's Ancient fragments of the Phoenician, Carthaginian, Babylonian, Egyptian and other authors, Reeves & Turner, ISBN 9780598986382
- ISBN 9780415013536
- ISBN 8772894210.