Sneferka

Name of Sneferka
Slate fragment with the Horus name of Seneferka
Horus name	S (e) nefer-ka S.nfr-k3 Who perfects his Ka Nefer-se-ka Nfr-s-k3

Sneferka (aka Hor-Snefer-ka ), also Nefersieka , was the Horus name of a scarcely documented ancient Egyptian king ( pharaoh ) in the early dynastic epoch of Egypt , the precise timing of which is disputed.

About the name

Sneferka's name is the subject of various readings and interpretations, as there are divergent spellings of his name in royal serechs . For example, Zahi Hawass reads it as Nefer-Sieka . Toby Wilkinson and Wolfgang Helck, on the other hand, read “Sneferka”. Francesco Raffaele reads “Neferka-es”.

supporting documents

The ruler is only known from a small number of stone vessels. Sneferka's inscriptions are mainly found on slate and alabaster bowls, one of which comes from the tomb of Merka in Saqqara, which in turn dates under Qaa . A second was found in the Djoserkomplex and a third is from the Georges Michailidis collection. Sneferka's name appears on the latter artifact without the Horus Falcon, and experts have questioned whether the artifact is genuine. Sneferka's name is said to appear several times in a mastaba found in Saqqara in 2005 , but the findings have not yet been published.

research

Alabaster vessel fragment with the name of Seneferka

The texts next to Sneferkas Serechs name names of institutions that are also documented for King Qaa , probably the last ruler of the 1st Dynasty, namely "Divine Palace" (Egypt. Ah-netjer ) and "Exaltations of the Gods" (Egypt. qau-netjeru ). From this, for example, Peter Kaplony concludes that a temporal proximity to Qaa can be assumed. He suspects that Sneferka either ruled for a very short time before Qaa or that "Sneferka" could have been a second Horus name of Qaa that Qaa only had for a very short time.

There are also two fragments of vessels with the name of an unspecified "King Vogel " who probably fell into the same reign as Sneferka. According to Wolfgang Helck and Peter Kaplony, Vogel and Sneferka could have had throne disputes that culminated in the royal cemetery of Abydos being closed and even publicly plundered. Corresponding traces and finds were discovered by Walter Bryan Emery . This would also explain why, on the one hand, lists of rulers on stone vessels end abruptly with Qaa and, on the other hand, the royal burial was moved to Saqqara. The founder of the 2nd dynasty and the presumed successor of Sneferka, Hetepsechemui , perhaps used military force against the two rulers, triumphed and at least had the tomb of Qaa restored. This assumption is supported by the Horus name of Hetepsechemui. He had emphatically dedicated his name to both halves of Egypt, according to George Andrew Reisner and Dietrich Wildung , he would have had no reason to if the transition from the first to the second dynasty had actually gone smoothly. Wolfgang Helck adds that Sneferka and "Vogel" were apparently banned from the later records due to their illegimacy , as their power struggles caused the dynasty to perish.

Kim Ryholt is convinced that Sneferka could have ruled between Ninetjer and Chasechemui , and that his name is listed in later king lists (except in Abydos) under the cartouche names Neferkare I and Aaka . He points out that scribes of the Ramessid epoch had the habit of adding the sun disk of Re to royal names in earlier dynasties that were structured similarly to those during their lifetime , although they should have known that this was not at all in such an early period was common, especially since the sun god Re was only raised to an independent deity during the 3rd dynasty .

Aidan Dodson tends in a very similar direction , who ascribes Sneferka a veritable lightning rule of only a few months and believes he is between Ninetjer and Chasechemui. He refers to the fragments of vessels with Sneferka's name, the inscriptions of which are apparently almost all attached to " Shave ". Sneferka is said to have usurped the vessels of the Qaa and replaced its name with his own. According to Dodson, this fact proves that Sneferka's administration was much later than previously assumed. Toby Wilkinson also points out the vascular shaves and Sneferka's absence in the Ramessid king lists, but cannot really decide whether Sneferka was an actual usurper or just the alternative name of Qaa.

Francesco Raffaele, on the other hand, thinks it is possible that Sneferka was actually a queen who for a short time directed the affairs of state for her underage son. He justifies his presentation with the different constellation of the hieroglyphs in the serech to each other, from which a reading as "Neferka-es" is offered.

See also

• List of pharaohs

literature

• Walter Bryan Emery : Excavations at Saqqara: Great Tombs of the First Dynasty. Volume 3. Government Press, Cairo et al. a. 1958.
• Wolfgang Helck : History of Ancient Egypt. Brill, Leiden 1981, ISBN 90-04-06497-4 .
• 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 ).
• Peter Kaplony : Comments on some stone vessels with archaic royal names. In: Communications from the German Archaeological Institute, Cairo Department. (MDAIK) 20, pp. 1-46, de Gruyter, Berlin 1965.
• Peter Kaplony: Stone vessels with inscriptions from the early days and the Old Kingdom. Volume 1. Monumenta Aegyptiacae, Brussels 1968.
• Peter Kaplony: Small contributions to the inscriptions of the early Egyptian period. In: Wolfgang Helck: Lexicon of Egyptology. Volume 3, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1986, ISBN 3-447-02662-6 .
• Peter Kaplony: "He is a favorite of women" - A "new" king and a new theory about the crown prince and the goddesses of the state (crown goddesses) of the 1st / 2nd dynasty. In: Manfred Bietak: Egypt and Levant. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-7001-6668-0 .
• Alan B. Lloyd: A Companion to Ancient Egypt: Two Volume Set. (= Blackwell companions to the ancient world: Ancient history , Volume 52). John Wiley & Sons, Chichester 2010, ISBN 978-1-4443-2006-0 .
• Ann Macy Roth: Egyptian phyles in the Old Kingdom: the evolution of a system of social organization. (= Studies in ancient oriental civilization. Volume 48). Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Chicago 1991, ISBN 0-918986-68-0 .
• Kim Ryholt : King Seneferka in the King-Lists and his Position in the Early Dynastic Period. In: Journal of Egyptian History. Volume 1, 2008, pp. 159-174.
• Nabil Swelim: Horus Sneferka: an essay on the fall of the First Dynasty. Archaeological Society, London 1974.
• Dietrich Wildung : The role of Egyptian kings in the consciousness of their posterity. Chapter I: Posthumous sources on the kings of the first four dynasties. From the book series: Munich Egyptological Studies. (MÄS) Volume 17, Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1969.
• Toby Wilkinson : Early Dynastic Egypt . Routledge, London 1999, ISBN 0-415-18633-1 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Pierre Lacau, Jean-Philippe Lauer: Pyramid Degrees. Volume IV: Inscriptions gravées sur les vases. 2 volumes (= Fouilles à Saqqarah. ). Imprimerie de l'Institut français d'Archéologie Orientale, Le Caire 1959-1961, here Volume 1: Planches. Pp. 15–17, Figure 86.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Wolfgang Helck: Investigations on the Thinite Age (= Ägyptologische Abhandlungen. Vol. 45). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1987, ISBN 3-447-02677-4 , p. 117.
3. ^ Zahi Hawass: New Discovery from Dynasty 1 . On: guardians.net from April 2003; last accessed on August 13, 2016.
4. ^ ^{A b} Toby Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt. London 1999, pp. 82 & 209.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Francesco Raffaele: Horus SNEFERKA - Horus Bird - Horus SEKHET (?) - Horus BA . On: xoomer.virgilio.it ; last accessed on August 13, 2016.
6. ^ WB Emery: Excavations at Saqqara: great tombs of the First Dynasty. Volume 3, Cairo a. a. 1958, p. 38, fig. 1.
7. ↑ P. Lacau, J.-P. Lauer: Pyramid Degrees. Volume IV: Inscriptions gravées sur les vases. Volume 1: Planches. Le Caire 1959-1961, pp. 15-17.
8. ^ ^{A b} Alan B. Lloyd: A Companion to Ancient Egypt. Chichester 2010, p. 50.
9. ↑ Peter Kaplony: Stone vessels with inscriptions from the early days and the Old Kingdom. Brussels 1968, p. 13.
10. ^ Ann Macy Roth: Egyptian phyles in the Old Kingdom. ... Chicago 1991, pp. 155-157 & 170-171.
11. ↑ Wolfgang Helck: History of Ancient Egypt. Leiden 1981, p. 39.
12. ^ Walter Bryan Emery: Great tombs of the First Dynasty - Excavations at Saqqara . Volume 3, London 1958, pp. 28-31.
13. ↑ Peter Kaplony: "He is a favorite of women." ... Vienna 2006, pp. 126–127.
14. ↑ Dietrich Wildung : The role of Egyptian kings in the consciousness of their posterity. Munich 1969, pp. 36-41.
15. ↑ Kim Ryholt: King Sneferka in the King-lists and His Position in the Early Dynastic Period . In: Journal of Egyptian History. No. 1. Brill, Leiden 2008, ISSN  1874-1657 , pp. 159-173.
16. ↑ Aidan Dodson: The Mysterious Second Dynasty. In: KMT - A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt No. 7. Kmt Communications, San Francisco 1996, ISSN  1053-0827 , pp. 19-31.

predecessor	Office	successor
unsure	King of Egypt 1st Dynasty	unsure