Userkare Khendjer was the twenty-first pharaoh of the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period. Khendjer possibly reigned for four to five years. Archaeological attestations show that he was on the throne for at least three or four years, three months and five days. Khendjer had a small pyramid built for himself in Saqqara, so his capital was likely in Memphis.
Name
The name Khendjer is poorly attested in Egyptian. Khendjer “has been interpreted as a foreign name hnzr and equated with the Semitic personal name h(n)zr, [for] “boar”, according to the Danish Egyptologist Kim Ryholt. He notes that this identification is confirmed by the fact that the name h(n)zr is written as hzr in a variant spelling of this king’s name on a seal from this king’s reign. Ryholt states that the word ‘boar’ is:
Attested as huzīru in Akkadian, hinzīr in Arabic, hazīrā in Aramaic, hazīr in Hebrew (the name is attested as hēzīr in I Chron. 24:15, Neh. 10:20) hu-zi-ri in the Nuzi texts, hnzr in Ugarit, and perhaps hi-zi-ri in Amorite.
Khendjer was, therefore, the earliest known Semitic king of a native Egyptian dynasty. Khendjer’s prenomen or throne name, Userkare, translates as “The Soul of Re is Powerful.”
Khendjer may have had a second prenomen at his coronation: ‘Nimaatre,’ which translates as ‘The one who belongs to Maat is Re.’ This name appears together with the name Khendjer at the top of the stela of Amenyseneb (Louvre C11).
Chronological position
The exact chronological position of Khendjer in the Thirteenth Dynasty is not known in particular, owing to uncertainties affecting earlier dynasty kings. Egyptologist Darrell Baker makes him the twenty-first king of the dynasty, Ryholt sees him as the twenty-second king, and Jürgen von Beckerath places him as the seventeenth pharaoh of the dynasty. Furthermore, the identity of his predecessor is still debated: Baker and Ryholt believe it was Wegaf, but that pharaoh is confused with Khaankhre Sobekhotep, so it is not known which one of the two founded the Thirteenth Dynasty and which one was Khendjer’s predecessor.
Reign of Khendjer
The highest attested date for Khendjer’s reign is the fourth month of the season of the Inundation), day 15 in his fifth regnal year. Kim Ryholt notes that two dated control notes on stone blocks from his unfinished pyramid complex give him a minimum reign of 3 or 4 years, three months and five days. The control mentioned above notes are dated to Year 1 I Akhet day ten and Year 5 IV Akhet day 15 of his reign. The names of three officials involved in building the pyramid are also identified in these control notes. They are the chamberlain of the palace, Senebtyfy, the chamberlain Ameny and the chamberlain, Shebenu. Other sources also attest to the latter.
Several absolute dates have been proposed for his reign, depending on the scholar: 1764—1759 BC as suggested by Ryholt and Baker, 1756—1751 BC as reported by Redford, and 1718—1712 BC as per Schneider.
Pyramid of Khendjer
Khendjer is known primarily from his pyramid complex excavated by G. Jequier at Saqqara, which was perhaps completed as a pyramidion was found. A fragment of a canopic jar was found, which offers a partial name for his queen, Seneb … “which may be restored as Sonb[henas].” Other objects with the name of the king are a stela from Abydos recording building projects by the king at the Osiris Temple at Abydos and naming the vizier Ankhu. Another stela in Liverpool (destroyed in World War II) provides the name of the king’s son, “Khedjer”. He might be a son of the king. According to the list provided by Ryholt, other objects with his name include three cylinder seals from Athribis, a tile near el-Lisht, scarab seals and an axe blade.
