Gently

Names of Sanacht
Northern relief of Sanacht from Wadi Maghara ( Serabit ; Sinai); now in the British Museum , London
Horus name	Gentle (Sa- Nacht ) S3-nḫt Protection (of / by the) strong / victorious

Sanacht (also Hor Sanacht or Night-Sa ) is the Horus name of an ancient Egyptian king ( Pharaoh ) of the 3rd Dynasty , who lived between about 2690 and 2670 BC. Ruled.

supporting documents

Southern relief of Sanacht

Sanacht's Horus name is attested by two rock carvings in Sinai ( Wadi Maghara ) and by seal impressions from the north temple of the complex of the Djoser pyramid and from the mastaba K2 in Beit Khallaf . In addition, documents from Elephantine have recently been added.

The two rock reliefs from Wadi Maghara show King Sanacht, one time with the red crown of the north and the other time with the white crown of the south . On the relief on which Sanacht can be seen with the white crown of the south, he stands in front of a shrine , which probably represents Horus of Hierakonpolis . This illustration is remarkable because so far no other king has been able to cover a relief with a Horus shrine in Wadi Maghara. The conclusion drawn from this that Sanacht built a corresponding sanctuary in Wadi Maghara is doubtful, as it was dedicated to the "Lord of the Mountain Countries". In addition, it is occasionally suspected that Sanacht visited the dynastic shrine of Hierakonpolis in Upper Egypt in order to ask for divine benevolence for the planned expedition to Wadi Maghara.

On the northern Wadi Maghara relief of Sanachts he is shown in the typical pose of " slaying the enemy ". The following excerpt has been preserved from the inscription on the far right of the rock fragment: "Mefkat" ( mf.k3.t ), the ancient Egyptian word for turquoise . The word contained in the inscription is considered to be one of the earliest records of the gemstone . Like Djoser and Sechemchet , Sanacht led at least one expedition to Wadi Maghara, among other things to import the valuable gemstone to Egypt . Gentle is shown on this relief with the red crown of the north.

Reign

The expeditions to expel hostile Bedouins and the acquisition of turquoise are the only reports of contemporary events under gentleness, as evidenced by the already mentioned rock art from Sinai. Otherwise, hardly anything is known from his reign.

Identification with later royal names

Clay seal fragment of Sanachts (Mastaba K2 in Beit Khallaf)

Modern research investigates whether Sanacht can be equated with the name “ Nebka ”, which appears in the Ramessid king lists . Thus, Toby Wilkinson , Stephan Seidlmayer , Kenneth Anderson Kitchen and Rainer Stadelmann convinced that Sanakht named "Nebka" is identical. The background to the assumption is a fragment of a clay seal on which the lowest part of a cartridge is supposed to appear. In this cartouche, Wilkinson, Seidlmayer and Stadelmann believe that they recognize the remains of a Ka symbol, which is why they reconstruct the name to "Nebka". Dietrich Wildung also favors equating Nebka with Sanacht, but doubts the informative value of the clay seal, as it is too badly damaged and the inscription that has been preserved does not allow a cartouche with the name "Nebka" to be read.

John D. Degreef , Nabil Swelim and Wolfgang Helck speak out against equating Nebka with Sanacht. They also refer to the clay seal fragment in question, as well as to the fact that the name "Nebka" does not appear on any monument or document from the time before Djoser. Nabil Swelim identifies Nebka with the Horus name Chaba .

Nabil Swelim identifies Sanacht with the ruler Mesochris mentioned in Manethus' chronicles and regards the name as the throne name of Sanacht. He dates it between the seventh and eighth king of the 3rd dynasty and also connects Sanacht with the brick building and the surrounding wall of El Deir .

Jürgen von Beckerath , Wolfgang Helck, Dietrich Wildung and Peter Kaplony equate the Horus name of Sanacht with the name of King Sa , which has also not been assigned with certainty . They consider the name "Sa" to be a short form of "Sanacht". Based on this equation, Wolfgang Helck suggests equating Sanacht with the Nisut-Biti name Weneg . Weneg ruled during the 2nd dynasty , which is why Helck's proposal has so far met with skepticism.

dig

The grave of Sanacht is thought to be lost. For a time the Mastaba K2 in Beit Khallaf was considered as Sanacht's grave, today it is considered the burial place of a high official, prince or queen. The reason for the earlier assumptions were remains of bones that indicate a very tall man about 1.90 m in length, which is reminiscent of an anecdote by the historian Manetho, who describes a king named Sesôchris as "three cubits high and five spans wide". Wolfgang Helck, however, assigns Sanacht an unfinished facility west of the Djoser pyramid.

literature

Overview works

• Jürgen von Beckerath : Handbook of the Egyptian king names (= Munich Egyptological studies. Vol. 49). 2nd improved and enlarged edition. von Zabern, Mainz 1999, ISBN 3-8053-2591-6 .
• Thomas Schneider : Lexicon of the Pharaohs. Albatros, Düsseldorf 2002, ISBN 3-491-96053-3 , pp. 167 & 243.

Special literature

• Wolfgang Helck : Investigations into Manetho and the Egyptian king lists (= investigations into the history and antiquity of Egypt , vol. 18). Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1956.
• Wolfgang Helck: Investigations on the thinite period (= Egyptological treatises. Vol. 45). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1987, ISBN 3-447-02677-4 .
• Ilaria Incordino: Reign of Horus Sanakht: possible founder of the Third Dynasty. In: Francesco Raffaele, Massimiliano Nuzzolo and Ilaria Incordino (editors): Recent Discoveries and Latest Researches in Egyptology. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-447-06251-0 , pp. 145-155.
• Francesco M. Galassi, Maciej Henneberg, Wouter de Herder, Frank Rühli, Michael E. Habicht , Oldest case of gigantism? Assessment of the alleged remains of Sa-Nakht, king of ancient Egypt. Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. 2017 Vol 5 (8) pp. 580-581. doi : 10.1016 / S2213-8587 (17) 30171-7
• Kenneth Anderson Kitchen : Ramesside Inscriptions, Translated and Annotated Notes and Comments. Vol. 2. Blackwell, Oxford 1999, ISBN 063118435X .
• Jean-Pierre Pätznik: The seal unrolling and cylinder seals of the city of Elephantine in the 3rd millennium BC. Securing evidence of an archaeological artifact (= BAR, International Series. Bd. 1339). Archaeopress, Oxford 2005, ISBN 1-84171-685-5 (also: Heidelberg, Univ., Diss., 1999). Pp. 69-72 & 78-80.
• 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 ).
• Dietrich Wildung : The role of Egyptian kings in the consciousness of their posterity. Volume 1: Posthumous sources on the kings of the first four dynasties (= Munich Egyptological studies. Vol. 17, ZDB -ID 500317-9 ). Hessling, Berlin 1969 (also: Diss., Univ. Munich).
• Toby AH Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt. Strategies, Society and Security. Routledge, London et al. 1999, ISBN 0-415-18633-1 .

Web links

Commons : Sanacht  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• The Ancient Egypt Site

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Rainer Hannig: Large Concise Dictionary Egyptian-German: (2800 - 950 BC) . P. 1284.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Dietrich Wildung: The role of Egyptian kings ... . Pp. 54-58.
3. ^ Thomas Schneider: Lexicon of the Pharaohs . P. 315 (the year is marked with "?").
4. ↑ ^{a b c} I. Incordino: The third dynasty: A historical hypothesis . In: Jean Claude Goyon, Christine Cardin: Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Egyptologists. P. 966
5. ^ ^{A b} Kenneth Anderson Kitchen: Ramesside Inscriptions . Pp. 534-538.
6. ^ Toby Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt . P. 167
7. ^ AJ Spencer: Early Egypt . P. 101, Fig. 77.
8. ^ Mursi Saad El Din, Ayman Taher, Luciano Romano: Sinai: the Site & the History . P. 30.
9. ^ ^{A b} Nicolas-Christophe Grimal: A History of Ancient Egypt . P. 64.
10. ^ Toby Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt . P. 166.
11. ↑ ^{a b} James Garstang: Mahasna and Beit Khallaf . P. 19.
12. ^ Toby AH Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt . Pp. 101-104.
13. ↑ ^{a b c} Nabil Swelim : Some Problems on the History of the Third Dynasty. In: Archaeological and Historical Studies. Volume 7. The Archaeological Society of Alexandria, Alexandria 1983, pp. 95, 217-220 and 224.
14. ↑ Jürgen von Beckerath: Handbook of the Egyptian king names . Pp. 49, 283 & 293.
15. ↑ ^{a b} Wolfgang Helck: Investigations on the thinite age . Pp. 20 & 21.
16. ↑ On the other hand, Incordino sees recently: Reign of Horus Sanakht. Pp. 148–151 this mastaba again as his burial place

predecessor	Office	successor
Djoser ?	King of Egypt 3rd Dynasty	Djoser ? Chaba ?