Hudjefa I.

Name of Hudjefa I.
Cartouche of Hudjefa in the list of kings of Saqqara
Royal Papyrus Turin (No. III./2)	Hudjefa (Hu djefa) Ḥ (w) ḏf3 eliminated
List of Kings of Saqqara (No.10)	Hudjefa (Hu-djefa) Ḥ (w) -ḏf3 destroyed
Greek Manetho variants:	Africanus : Sesochris Eusebius : missing Eusebius, AV : missing

Hudjefa I. was an ancient Egyptian pseudonym for a king ( pharaoh ) of the 2nd Dynasty ( early dynasty ), who possibly lived from around 2711 to around 2709 BC. Ruled.

Hudjefa I is difficult to classify chronologically , because on the one hand he only appears in the royal list of Saqqara and in the Turin royal papyrus and on the other hand his real name is unknown.

Name and identity

Damaged cartridge of the Hudjefa in the Turin papyrus

When various king lists were drawn up in the New Kingdom during the 19th dynasty , the contemporary scribes came across a destroyed name entry between the kings Neferkasokar and Chasechemui . Since the original king's name was no longer legible, the scribes commented on this with the word “Hudjefa”, which means “ destroyed ” in German . However, they entered the word in a cartouche because it concerned a king's name. Subsequent scribes and officials considered "Hudjefa" to be a real royal name due to the cartridge surround and included the entry in their listings.

The Egyptologists T. Dautzenberg and Wolfgang Helck suggested that Hudjefa might be identical to King (Pharaoh) Peribsen . Their conjecture is based on the one hand on the fact that Peribsen's name was omitted from many Ramessid king lists during his lifetime due to his religious reforms, on the other hand the 11 years specified in the Turin royal papyrus contradict a king whose name apparently did not even survive.

The Turin Royal Papyrus certifies Hudjefa I a reign of 11 years. Egyptologists such as Thomas Schneider and Jürgen von Beckerath consider these dates to be exaggerated and assume a rule of only 2 years.

The ancient historian Manetho mentions a ruler named "Sesochris" between the kings Neferkasokar ("Nephercheres") and Chasechemui ("Cheneres"), to whom he attributes a reign of 48 years and describes him as "5 cubits high and 3 spans wide".

Reign

Since no archaeological finds can be reliably assigned to Hudjefa's time, nothing concrete is known about political , cultic or economic events. However, it is generally assumed that Hudjefa I only ruled in Lower Egypt, as his name appears in the Saqqara list, but is absent from the list of kings at Abydos and the Saqqara list reflects Memphite , i.e. Lower Egyptian, traditions.

Hudjefa I is also seen as a counter-regent to the rulers Peribsen and Sechemib . The background to this view is a presumed division of the empire at the time of King Ninetjer's death . After a drought of several years , Ninetjer is said to have split Egypt into two independent halves and divided it among its heirs in order to counteract economic and internal political conflicts caused by the drought. In Hudjefa's time, Egypt would have consisted of two halves of the country, of which the southern part was dominated by kings like Peribsen, while in the north next to Hudjefa I, kings like Sened and Neferkasokar ruled. The division of the empire was ended under King Chasechemui .

literature

General

• Jürgen von Beckerath : Chronology of the pharaonic Egypt. von Zabern, Mainz 1997, ISBN 3-8053-2310-7 , pp. 26, 39, 167, 171, 173-174, 177-178, 187.
• Alan Gardiner : History of Ancient Egypt. Weltbild, Augsburg 1994, ISBN 3-89350-723-X , p. 463.
• Jochem Kahl : Inscriptional Evidence for the Relative Chronology of Dyn. 0-2. In: Erik Hornung, Rolf Krauss, David A. Warburton (eds.): Ancient Egyptian Chronology (= Handbook of Oriental studies. Section One. The Near and Middle East. Volume 83). Brill, Leiden / Boston 2006, ISBN 978-90-04-11385-5 , pp. 94-115 ( online ).
• Thomas Schneider : Lexicon of the Pharaohs. Albatros, Düsseldorf 2002, ISBN 3-491-96053-3 , p. 174.

Remarks

1. ↑ The presentation of the entry in the Turin papyrus, which differs from the usual syntax for hieroboxes, is based on the fact that open cartridges were used in the hieratic . The alternating time-missing-time presence of certain name elements is due to material damage in the papyrus.
2. ↑ with the name ideogram for a king who represents the Horus falcon
3. ↑ term of office 48 years.

Individual evidence

1. ^ To: Eduard Meyer : Aegyptische Chronologie (= philosophical and historical treatises of the Royal Academy of Sciences. 1904, 1, ZDB -ID 955708-8 ). Publishing house of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Berlin 1904, plate I, cartouche no.10.
2. ^ Alan H. Gardiner: The royal canon of Turin. Griffith Institute, Oxford 1997, ISBN 978-0-900416-48-4 , illustration II.
3. ^ Alan H. Gardiner: The royal canon of Turin. P. 15.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Jürgen von Beckerath: Handbook of the Egyptian king names. Pp. 48 & 283.
5. ^ ^{A b c} I. ES Edwards : The early dynastic period in Egypt (= Cambridge ancient history. ) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1964, p. 35.
6. ^ Hermann Alexander Schlögl: The Ancient Egypt: History and Culture from the Early Period to Cleopatra. Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-54988-8 , p. 78.
7. ↑ Wolfgang Helck: Investigations on the Thinite Age (= Ägyptologische Abhandlungen. Vol. 45). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1987, ISBN 3-447-02677-4 , p. 125.
8. ^ Alan H. Gardiner: The royal canon of Turin . P. 15 & illustration II.
9. ↑ William Gillian Waddel (Manéthon, historien): Manetho (= Loeb classical library. Vol. 350). W. Heinemann, London 1964 / Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass 1964, p. 71.
10. ↑ Walter Bryan Emery: Egypt, History and Culture of the Early Period, 3200-2800 BC. Chr. P. 19.
11. ↑ Barbara Bell: Oldest Records of the Nile Floods. In: Geographical Journal 136 . 1970, pp. 569-573; see Hans Goedicke in: Journal of Egypt Archeology 42 . 1998, p. 50.
12. ^ Hermann Alexander Schlögl: The Ancient Egypt: History and Culture from the Early Period to Cleopatra. Munich 2006, pp. 77-78.

predecessor	Office	successor
Neferkasokar	King of Egypt 2nd Dynasty	Bebtj