Aperanat

'Aper-'Anati
Aperanat, Aper-Anat
Scarab seal of 'Aper-'Anati made of glazed steatite. London, Petrie Museum.[1][2][3]
Scarab seal of 'Aper-'Anati made of glazed steatite. London, Petrie Museum.[1][2][3]
Pharaoh
Heka-chasut
Reignunknown duration
PredecessorSemqen (Ryholt) or Anat-her (von Beckerath)
SuccessorSakir-Har (Ryholt) or Semqen (von Beckerath)
Royal titulary
Nomen
Heka-chasut 'Aper-'Anati
Ruler of the foreign lands, dust of Anat[4](in west semitic language)
Ḥq3-ḫ3swt ˁpr-ˁnti
S38q
N25
Z2		 aprra
n		 tii
Dynastyuncertain dynasty, possibly 15th Dynasty, otherwise 16th Dynasty

'Aper-'Anati (also written Aper-Anat and Aperanat) was a ruler of Lower Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period in the mid-17th century BC. According to Jürgen von Beckerath he was the second king of the 16th Dynasty and a vassal of the Hyksos kings of the 15th Dynasty.[5] This opinion was recently rejected by Kim Ryholt. In his 1997 study of the Second Intermediate Period, Ryholt argues that the kings of the 16th Dynasty ruled an independent Theban realm c. 1650–1580 BC.[4] Consequently, Ryholt sees 'Aper-'Anati as an early Hyksos king of the 15th Dynasty, perhaps its second ruler. This analysis has convinced some Egyptologists, such as Darrell Baker and Janine Bourriau,[6][7] but not others including Stephen Quirke.[8]

'Aper-'Anati is only known from a single scarab-seal, now in the Petrie Museum.[1][9] On the scarab he is given the title of Heka-chasut, which translates as "Ruler of the Foreign Lands" and from which the word Hyksos is derived. Significantly, this title was borne by the early Hyksos kings of the 15th Dynasty. Based on this evidence, Ryholt tentatively proposes that 'Aper-'Anati was the second ruler of the 15th Dynasty,[4] but points out that this identification is not certain.

  1. ^ a b Flinders Petrie: Scarabs and cylinders with names (1917), available copyright-free here, pl. XXI, n. 15.1
  2. ^ Scarab of 'Aper-'Anati, catalog of the Petrie Museum
  3. ^ Scarab seal of Aperanat on Digital Egypt
  4. ^ a b c Kim Ryholt: The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, c.1800–1550 BC, Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications, vol. 20. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1997, excerpts available online here.
  5. ^ Jürgen von Beckerath: Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen, Münchner ägyptologische Studien, Heft 49, Mainz : P. von Zabern, 1999, ISBN 3-8053-2591-6
  6. ^ Darrell D. Baker: The Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs: Volume I - Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300–1069 BC, Stacey International, ISBN 978-1-905299-37-9, 2008, p. 60–61
  7. ^ Janine Bourriau, Ian Shaw (editor): The Oxford history of ancient Egypt, chapter The Second Intermediate Period, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003, ISBN 0-19-280458-8, [1]
  8. ^ Stephen Quirke, Marcel Maree (editor): The Second Intermediate Period Thirteenth - Seventeenth Dynasties, Current Research, Future Prospects, Leuven 2011, Paris — Walpole, MA. ISBN 978-9042922280, p. 56, n. 6
  9. ^ Geoffrey Thorndike Martin: Egyptian administrative and private-name seals, principally of the Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period, Griffith Institute 1971, ISBN 978-0900416019, see p. 30, seal No. 318