Pepi III

Seneferankhre Pepi III may have been a pharaoh[2] of the 16th Dynasty during the Second Intermediate Period. According to Wolfgang Helck he was the fifth pharaoh of the dynasty.[3] Alternatively, according to Jürgen von Beckerath, he was the thirteenth pharaoh of the dynasty.[4][5] Because his position in the 16th Dynasty is highly uncertain, it is not clear who were his predecessor and successor.

Seneferankhre Pepi III is only attested by a scarab-shaped seal bearing his name. Egyptologist Kim Ryholt contests the seal as evidence that Pepi was a king of the 16th Dynasty, positing that the seal does not date to the Second Intermediate Period (SIP). According to Ryholt: "the size and design (prenomen + nomen without cartouche or royal titulary/epithets) of this seal is unparalleled during the SIP. Also the style of the signs is quite dissimilar to SIP seals." Instead, Ryholt proposes that the seal of Seneferankhre Pepi III be dated to the First Intermediate Period, noting however that this is a very early date for a scarab seal,[6] since otherwise the earliest scarabs appear only with the reign of Senusret III of the late 12th Dynasty.[7]

  1. ^ Scarabs and cylinders with names (1917), pl. X.
  2. ^ Darrell D. Baker: The Encyclopedia of the Egyptian Pharaohs, Volume I: Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty (3300-1069 BC), Bannerstone Press, London (2008), ISBN 978-1-905299-37-9, p. 291–292, → Pepi.
  3. ^ Helck, Wolfgang; Otto, Eberhard; Westendorf, Wolfhart: Stele - Zypresse: Volume 6 of Lexikon der Ägyptologie, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, (1986), p. 1383.
  4. ^ Jürgen von Beckerath: Untersuchungen zur politischen Geschichte der Zweiten Zwischenzeit in Ägypten, Glückstadt, (1964). JSTOR 43077585.
  5. ^ Jürgen von Beckerath: Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägyptens, Münchner Ägyptologische Studien 46. Mainz am Rhein, (1997).
  6. ^ Ryholt, K.S.B.: The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period c. 1800-1550 B.C., pp. 324 & 335, Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications 20., Copenhagen, 1997, ISBN 8772894210. LCCN 98-198517. OL 474149M.
  7. ^ Siesse, Julien: An unpublished Scarab of Queen Tjan (Thirteenth Dynasty) from the Louvre Museum (AF 6755), in: Gianluca Miniaci, Wolfram Grajetzki (eds.): The World of Middle Kingdom Egypt (2000-1550 BC), Vol. ii, London (2016), ISBN 9781906137489, p. 243.