The Seventh Dynasty of Ancient Egypt marked the beginning of the First Intermediate Period in the early 22nd century BC, but its existence is debated. The only historical account of the Seventh Dynasty was in Manetho’s Aegyptiaca, a history of Egypt written in the 3rd century BC, where the Seventh Dynasty appears essentially as a metaphor for chaos. Since nothing is known about this Dynasty beyond Manetho’s account, Egyptologists such as Jürgen von Beckerath and Toby Wilkinson have usually considered it fictitious. In a 2015 re-appraisal of the fall of the Old Kingdom, the Egyptologist Hracht Papazian proposed that the Seventh Dynasty was real and consisted of kings usually attributed to the Eighth Dynasty.
Historical sources
Based on the now-lost writings of Africanus (c. 160–240) and Eusebius (c. 260–340), themselves based on the now-lost work of the Egyptian priest Manetho (3rd century BC), the Byzantine scholar George Syncellus (died after 810) variously assigns to the period after the Sixth Dynasty – the Seventh Dynasty of Ancient Egypt – 70 kings in 70 days (Africanus) or five kings in 75 days (Eusebius). According to Manetho, these kings would have ruled in Memphis. Rather than historical reality, this rapid succession of kings has long been interpreted as a metaphor for chaos.
The Eighth Dynasty is not relatively as obscure as the Seventh Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, attested by two additional ancient historical sources and archaeological evidence. Consequently, some Egyptologists combine the Seventh and Eighth Dynasties into a single line of kings, reigning immediately after the Sixth Dynasty. Some Egyptologists, such as Papazian (2015), believe this interpretation may give undue weight to Manetho’s writings and distort the general scholarly understanding of the end of the Old Kingdom. According to Papazian (2015), “a re-examination … of the Seventh Dynasty’s existence, remains fully justified,” some kings usually attributed to the mid-Eighth Dynasty should be understood to belong to the Seventh Dynasty.
List of rulers of the Seventh Dynasty of Ancient Egypt
The Seventh Dynasty of Ancient Egypt is usually considered fictitious and is thus either ignored altogether by modern scholars or combined with the Eighth Dynasty. The Egyptologist Hracht Papazian proposed in 2015 that some rulers traditionally seen as belonging to the mid-Eighth Dynasty identified by the Abydos King List should be attributed to a Seventh Dynasty according to the following order:
Djedkare Shemai
Djedkare Shemai may have been an ancient Egyptian pharaoh during the Eighth Dynasty of the First Intermediate Period. His name is only attested on the Abydos King List, as the Abydos King List is the primary source for identifying seventh/eighth dynasties(combined). No contemporary document or building with his name has been found.
Neferkare Khendu
Neferkare Khendu (also Neferkare IV) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Eighth Dynasty during the early First Intermediate Period (2181–2055 BC). According to the Egyptologists Kim Ryholt, Jürgen von Beckerath and Darrell Baker, he was the sixth king of the Eighth Dynasty.
Neferkare Khendu’s name is attested on the Abydos King List (number 45), a king list dating to the Ramesside era, and is absent from the Turin canon as a significant lacuna in this document affects most kings of the 7th/8th Dynasty.
No attestation is firmly attributable to Neferkare Khendu beyond the Abydos king list. However, a cylinder seal inscribed with the cartouche Ḫndy, “Khendy”, was tentatively attributed to him by the Egyptologist Henri Frankfort in 1926. Modern scholarship has shown that the seal is most likely to read “Khamudi”, the name of the last king of the Hyksos and that this cartouche was inserted on the seal as a space-filler rather than as an explicit reference to this king. The seal is now in the Petrie Museum, catalogue number UC 11616.
Merenhor
Merenhor may have been an Eighth Dynasty king of ancient Egypt during the First Intermediate Period. His name is only attested on the Abydos King List (n. 46). Merenhor is found on the Abydos king list number 46, while the Turin papyrus has a notation of a lacuna where the name would have been found.
Neferkamin
Neferkamin may have been an Eighth Dynasty pharaoh of ancient Egypt during the First Intermediate Period.
His throne name “Sneferka”, is attested on the Abydos King List (n. 47), although it is possible that here the name is mistyped, and the O34 hieroglyph (“s”), in fact, is an R22 (“min”), hence “Neferkamin”. The correct reading of this king’s name is provided, along with the name of Nikare, on a gold plaque now in the British Museum; however, it has been suggested that this object could be a forgery.
Nikare
Nikare (also Nikare I) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Eighth Dynasty during the early First Intermediate Period (2181–2055 BC) when Egypt was possibly divided between several polities. According to the Egyptologists Kim Ryholt, Jürgen von Beckerath and Darrell Baker, he was the ninth king of the Eighth Dynasty. As such, Nikare’s seat of power would have been Memphis.
Neferkare Tereru
Neferkare Tereru (also Neferkare V) may have been an Eighth Dynasty king of ancient Egypt during the First Intermediate Period. His name is only attested on the Abydos King List (no. 49).
Neferkahor
Neferkahor was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Eighth Dynasty during the First Intermediate Period. According to Egyptologists Jürgen von Beckerath and Darrell Baker, he was the eleventh king of this Dynasty. His name is on the Abydos King List (number 50), and he has a black steatite cylinder seal of unknown provenance. His name is absent from the Turin King List, a lacuna affecting the 7th/8th Dynasty where his name would have been listed.
Neferkare Pepiseneb
Neferkare VI Pepiseneb was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Eighth Dynasty during the early First Intermediate Period (2181–2055 BC). According to the Egyptologists Kim Ryholt, Jürgen von Beckerath and Darrell Baker, he was the twelfth king of the Eighth Dynasty.
Neferkamin Anu
Neferkamin Anu was a pharaoh of ancient Egypt during the First Intermediate Period, c2181 – 2055 BC. According to the Abydos King List and the latest reconstruction of the Turin canon by Kim Ryholt, he was the 13th king of the Eighth Dynasty. This opinion is shared by the Egyptologists Jürgen von Beckerath, Thomas Schneider and Darrell Baker. Neferkamin Anu would have reigned over the Memphite region as a pharaoh of the Eighth Dynasty.
