Merenre Nemtyemsaf I (meaning “Beloved of Ra, Nemty is his protection”) was an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh, the fourth king of the sixth dynasty. He ruled Egypt for six to 11 years in the 23rd century BC, succeeding his father Pepi I Meryre on the throne.
Family of Merenre Nemtyemsaf I
Merenre was the son of queen Ankhesenpepi I and king Pepi I, who probably begot him in his old age. Ankhesenpepi was a daughter of the nomarch of Abydos Khui and his wife Nebet, whom Pepi I made into a vizier during his reign, the sole woman of the Old Kingdom period known to have held such a title. Khui and Nebet’s son, Merenre’s uncle Djau served in the position of vizier under Merenre and Pepi II. Merenre had a full sister in princess Neith. Gustave Jéquier has proposed that Neith was married to Merenre, a possibility which Vivienne Callender observes is challenging to ascertain as Neith later remarried to Pepi II, explaining the absence of a tomb of her near Merenre’s.
Sixth dynasty royal seals and stone blocks found at Saqqara demonstrate that Merenre’s aunt, queen Ankhesenpepi II who married Pepy I, was also married to Merenre. Since the South Saqqara Stone shows, Merenre’s reign intervened between Pepi I and Pepi II. It lasted for a minimum of slightly over a decade. This indicates that Merenre I might have been Pepi II’s father rather than Pepi I as had been hitherto proposed. Merenre had at least one daughter, Ankhesenpepi III, who became the wife of Pepi II and could also be the father of queen Iput II.
Reign of Merenre Nemtyemsaf I
Chronology
The relative chronological position of Merenre Nemtyemsaf I within the sixth dynasty is secured. Historical sources and archaeological evidence agree that he succeeded Pepi I Meryre on the throne and was, in turn, followed by Pepi II Neferkare.
Merenre’s reign is problematic to date precisely in absolute terms. A complete chronology referring to dates in our modern calendar is estimated by Egyptologists working backwards by adding reign lengths—themselves uncertain and inferred from historical sources and archaeological evidence—and, in a few cases, using ancient astronomical observations and radiocarbon dates. These methodologies do not agree ideally, and some uncertainty remains. As a result, Merenre’s rule is dated to sometime around the early 23rd century BC.
Duration
According to Egyptologists Jaromir Málek and Miroslav Verner, Merenre Nemtyemsaf I ascended the throne early and died young. According to Verner, he may have been appointed co-regent by his father Pepy I Meryre, who might have tried to make the succession of the throne more secure following an earlier conspiracy. Vassil Dobrev and Michel Baud disputed the hypothesis of a coregency, who analysed heavily damaged contemporary royal annals, now known as the South Saqqara Stone. The annals strongly suggest that Merenre directly succeeded his father in power without interruption or coregency. More precisely, the document preserves the record of Pepi I’s final year—his 25th count and proceeds immediately to the first year count of Merenre.
He also began a process of royal consolidation, appointing Weni as the first governor of all of Upper Egypt and expanding the power of several other governors. While he was once assumed to have died early, recent archaeological discoveries discount this theory. Two contemporary objects suggest that Merenre’s reign lasted slightly more than a decade. The South Saqqara Stone Annals preserve his year after the 2nd Count, whereas Merenre’s Year after the 5th Count (Year 10 if the Count was biennial) is attested in a quarry inscription from Hatnub Inscription No.6, according to Anthony Spalinger.
The same South Saqqara Stone – created during Pepi II’s reign – credits Merenre with a minimum power of 11 to 13 years (based on a strictly biennial count), which would increase Merenre’s reign length from the more traditional figure of 5 to 6 years. The British Egyptologists Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson, in a 1995 book, raised Merenre I’s reign from the conventional six-year figure to 9 years. However, they were unaware of the contents of the South Saqqara Stone, which was published in the same year by Baud & Dobrev and showed that Merenre had a minimum reign of 11 years with no coregency with his father, Pepi I. One must note that cattle counts were not always biennial; for example, 18 had been performed by the 30th year of Pepi I’s reign. It is therefore entirely possible that Merenre ruled for fewer than 11 years.
Accession to the throne: coregency
Pepi’s rule seems to have been troubled at times, with at least one conspiracy against him hatched by one of his harem consorts. This may have given him the impetus to ally himself with Khui, the nomarch of Coptos, by marrying his daughters, queens Ankhesenpepi I and II. Egyptologist Naguib Kanawati conjectures that Pepi faced another conspiracy toward the end of his reign, in which his vizier Rawer may have been involved. To support his theory, Kanawati observes that Rawer’s image in his tomb has been defiled, with his name, hands and feet chiselled off, while this same tomb is dated to the second half of Pepi’s reign on stylistic grounds. Kanawati further posits that the conspiracy may have aimed at having someone else make an heir to the throne at the expense of the designated heir Merenre. Because of this failed conspiracy, Pepi I may have taken the drastic step of crowning Merenre during his reign, thereby creating the earliest documented coregency in the history of Egypt. That such a coregency was first proposed by Étienne Drioton, who pointed to a gold pendant bearing the names of both Pepi I and Merenre I as living kings, implying that both ruled concurrently for some time. In support of this hypothesis, Hans Goedicke mentions an inscription dated to Merenre’s tenth year of reign from Hatnub, contradicting Manetho’s figure of seven years for him. This could be evidence that Merenre dated the start of his power before the end of his father’s reign, as a coregency would permit.
Possible further evidence for a coregency is given by two copper statues uncovered in an underground store beneath the floor of a Ka-chapel of Pepi in Hierakonpolis. The Egyptologist James Quibell unveiled a statue of King Khasekhemwy of the Second Dynasty, a terracotta lion cub made during the Thinite era, a golden mask representing Horus and two copper statues. Fashioned initially by hammering plates of copper over a wooden base, these statues had been disassembled, placed inside one another and then sealed with a thin layer of engraved copper bearing the titles and names of Pepi I “on the first day of the Heb Sed feast. The two statues symbolised “trampling underfoot the Nine bows”—the enemies of Egypt—a stylised representation of Egypt’s conquered foreign subjects. While the identity of the giant adult figure as Pepi I is revealed by the inscription, the identity of the smaller statue showing a younger person remains unresolved. The most common hypothesis among Egyptologists is that the young man shown is Merenre. As Alessandro Bongioanni and Maria Croce write: “Merenre was publicly associated as his father’s successor on the occasion of the Jubilee, the Heb Sed feast. The placement of his copper effigy inside that of his father would therefore reflect the continuity of the royal succession. The passage of the royal sceptre from father to son before the pharaoh’s death could cause a dynastic split.” Alternatively, Bongioanni and Croce have also proposed that the smaller statue may represent “a more youthful Pepy I, reinvigorated by the celebration of the Jubilee ceremonies”.
The existence of the coregency remains uncertain. The sixth dynasty royal annals bear no trace either for or against it, but the shape and size of the stone on which the annals are inscribed make it more probable that Merenre did not start to count his years of reign until soon after the death of his father. Furthermore, William J. Murnane writes that the gold pendant’s context is unknown, making its significance regarding the coregency challenging to appraise. The copper statues are similarly inconclusive as the identity of the smaller ones, and whether they originally formed a group remains uncertain.
Foreign relations
Merenre sent mining expeditions to Wadi Hammamat to collect greywacke and siltstone. Alabaster was extracted from Hatnub in the Eastern Desert. In this location, an expedition under the leadership of Weni was also tasked with quarrying a huge travertine altar stone for the pyramid of Merenre. In parallel, Egypt maintained diplomatic and trade relations with Byblos.
Egyptian activities in Lower Nubia were sufficiently crucial during the later sixth dynasty. Works were undertaken during Merenre’s rule excavating a canal near modern-day Shellal to facilitate the navigation of the first cataract of the Nile. At the time, Nubian mercenaries were frequently employed in the police force and military campaigns.
Toward the end of the Old Kingdom period, Nubia saw the arrival of the C-Group people from the south. Centred at Kerma, they struggled intermittently with Egypt and its allies over the region, which was the source of incense, ebony, animal skins, ivory and exotic animals brought back by caravans. Merenre sent three Egyptian expeditions to procure luxury goods from Lower Nubia, where tribes had united to form a state, into the land of Yam, possibly modern-day Dongola. These expeditions took place under the direction of the monarch of Elephantine Harkhuf. The first lasted for seven months, while the second took eight months. On the third expedition, Harkhuf encountered the king of Yam. He was then warring against the Tjemehu people, possibly Libyans, and joined his forces with those of Yam to defeat their adversaries, gaining riches. After these events, in his fifth year of reign, Merenre travelled south to Elephantine from his capital, probably to receive the submission of Nubian chieftains. On the same occasion, he might also have visited the temple of Satet on Elephantine Island to renew a granite shrine erected by king Pepy I.
Pyramid
The pyramid of Merenre, which the Ancient Egyptians named Khanefermerenre, variously translated as “Merenre appears in glory and his beautiful”, “The perfection of Merenre rises”, was built at South Saqqara. The pyramid is located some 450 metres (1,480 ft) to the southwest of the pyramid of Pepi I and at a similar distance to the pyramid of Djedkare.
The inner passages of the pyramid were inscribed with the pyramid texts. A mummy was uncovered in the burial chamber. Forensic analyses indicated that it belonged to a young man, with possible traces of his sidelock of youth still visible. The mummy’s identity remains uncertain as Elliott Smith, who performed the analyses, observed that the technique employed for the wrapping was typical of the eighteenth dynasty (fl. c. 1550–1292 BC) rather than the sixth. Re-wrapping of older mummies is known to have occurred, so this observation does not necessarily preclude that the mummy is that of Merenre.
For the remainder of the Old Kingdom period, the funerary cult of Merenre I had active priests outside his Saqqara mortuary temple. For example, inscriptions in Elkab attest to the presence of priests of his cult officiating in or near the local temple of Nekhbet.
