The Sixteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (notated Dynasty XVI) was a dynasty of pharaohs that ruled the Theban region in Upper Egypt for 70 years.
This Dynasty, together with the 15th and 17th dynasties, are often combined under the group title, Second Intermediate Period (c. 1650–1550 BC), a period that saw the division of Upper and Lower Egypt between the pharaohs at Thebes and the Hyksos kings of the 15th Dynasty based at Avaris.
Identification
Of the two chief versions of Manetho’s Aegyptiaca, the Sixteenth Dynasty is described by the more reliable Africanus (supported by Syncellus) as “shepherd [hyksos] kings” but by Eusebius as Theban.
Ryholt (1997), followed by Bourriau (2003), in reconstructing the Turin canon, interpreted a list of Thebes-based kings to constitute Manetho’s Sixteenth Dynasty. However, this is one of Ryholt’s “most debatable and far-reaching” conclusions. For this reason, other scholars do not follow Ryholt and see only insufficient evidence for interpreting the Sixteenth Dynasty as Theban.
History of the Sixteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt
The continuing war against the 15th Dynasty dominated the short-lived 16th Dynasty. The armies of the 15th Dynasty, winning town after town from their southern enemies, continually encroached on the 16th Dynasty territory, eventually threatening and conquering Thebes itself. In his study of the Second Intermediate Period, Egyptologist Kim Ryholt suggested that Dedumose I sued for a truce in the latter years of the Dynasty. Still, one of his predecessors, Nebiryraw I, may have been more successful and seems to have enjoyed peace in his reign.
Famine, which had plagued Upper Egypt during the late 13th and 14th Dynasties, also blighted the 16th Dynasty, most evidently during and after the reign of Neferhotep III.
Kings
Scholars for this Dynasty have proposed various chronological orderings and lists of kings. These lists fall broadly into two categories: those assuming that the 16th Dynasty comprised vassals of the Hyksos, as advocated by Jürgen von Beckerath and Wolfgang Helck, and those considering that the 16th Dynasty was an independent Theban kingdom, as recently proposed by Kim Ryholt.
Vassals of the Hyksos
The definitive list of rulers of the 16th Dynasty includes kings believed to be vassals of the Hyksos, some of whom have Semitic names such as Semqen and Anat-her. The list of kings differs from scholar to scholar and it is here given as per Jürgen von Beckerath’s Dynasty XV/XVI in his Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen. Wolfgang Helck, who also thinks the 16th Dynasty was a Hyksos vassal state, proposed a slightly different list of kings. Many of the rulers listed here in the 16th Dynasty under the hypothesis that they were vassals of the Hyksos have put in the 14th Dynasty in the theory that the 16th Dynasty was an independent Theban kingdom. The chronological ordering is largely uncertain.
Independent Theban Kingdom
In his 1997 study of the Second Intermediate Period, the Danish Egyptologist Kim Ryholt argues that the 16th Dynasty was an independent Theban kingdom. From Ryholt’s reconstruction of the Turin canon, 15 kings, several of whom are attested by contemporary sources, can be associated with the Dynasty. While most likely rulers based in Thebes, some may have been local rulers from other important Upper Egyptian towns, including Abydos, El Kab and Edfu and by the reign of Nebiriau I, the realm controlled by the 16th Dynasty extended at least as far north as Hu and south to Edfu. Not listed in the Turin canon (after Ryholt) is Wepwawetemsaf, who left a stele at Abydos and was likely a local kinglet of the Abydos Dynasty.
Ryholt gives the list of kings of the 16th Dynasty, as shown in the table below. Others, such as Helck, Vandersleyen, and Bennett, combined some rulers with the Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt. The list of rulers is given here as per Kim Ryholt and is supposedly in chronological order:
