Mesochris

Name of Mesochris
Greek Manetho - Variants: in Eratosthenes :	Africanus : Mesochris Eusebius : missing A.V.-Eusebius : missing Momcheírii

Mesochris is in  Manetho  (Africanus) the Greek form of the name of the fourth ancient Egyptian king ( Pharaoh ) of the 3rd dynasty . Manetho lists him as the successor to Djosertesi with a reign of 17 years and as the predecessor of " Soyphis ". The assignment of the name is controversial in Egyptology and is therefore controversial.

Jürgen von Beckerath and Rainer Hannig equate the Greek name Mesochris with the maiden name of the king Neferkare or Nebkare and, like Thomas Schneider, see it as the successor of Hudjefa II and Sedjes and the predecessor of Huni . Thomas Schneider dates the reign of Mesochris to about 2690 BC. BC Nabil Swelim regards the name form Mesochris as the throne name of Sanacht and dates it between the seventh and eighth king of the 3rd dynasty.

Finally, Christoffer Theis was able to show that Mesochris is another Greek form of the name of Mykerinos, since the third dynasty in the tradition of Flavius ​​Josephus is mixed with the names of the fourth dynasty. Accordingly, no ruler named Mesochris would have existed in antiquity, just as the Egyptian king lists do not pass on a name form suitable for this.

There is no contemporary evidence for a king named Neferkare. In the list of kings of Abydos , Neferkare is listed as the successor to Sedjes. In the royal papyrus Turin , however, the name of Nebkare is not included.

literature

• Jürgen von Beckerath : Handbook of the ancient Egyptian king names . von Zabern, Mainz 1999, ISBN 3-8053-2591-6 , pp. 51-52.
• Rainer Hannig : Large Concise Dictionary Egyptian-German: (2800 - 950 BC) . von Zabern, Mainz 2006, ISBN 3-8053-1771-9 , p. 1284.
• Stephan J. Seidlmayer : The Relative Chronology of Dynasty 3. 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. 116-123 ( online ).
• Thomas Schneider : Lexicon of the Pharaohs . Albatros, Düsseldorf 2002, ISBN 3-491-96053-3 , pp. 163 and 315.
• Nabil Swelim: Some Problems on the History of the Third Dynasty . Archeology Society, Alexandria 1983, pp. 217-220 and 224.
• Christoffer Theis, Remarks on Manetho and the Manethonian Tradition 1: The Third Dynasty, in: Welt des Orients 44 (2014), pp. 109–125.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Behind the dating 2690 BC However, Thomas Schneider used a "?"
2. ↑ Christoffer Theis, Remarks on Manetho and the Manethonian Tradition 1: The Third Dynasty, in: Welt des Orients 44 (2014), pp. 109–125, here p. 121.

predecessor	Office	successor
Hudjefa II.	King of Egypt 3rd Dynasty	Huni