Merenre Nemtyemsaf II was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. He was the sixth and penultimate ruler of the 6th Dynasty. He reigned for one year and one month in the first half of the 22nd century BC. This was at the very end of the Old Kingdom period. Nemtyemsaf II likely ascended the throne as an older man. He succeeded his long-lived father Pepi II Neferkare. This occurred at a time when the pharaoh’s power was crumbling.
Attestations
Merenre Nemtyemsaf II is attested on the 4th line, column 6 of the Turin canon. This is a king list redacted in the early Ramesside Period. Although his name is lost in the canon, the duration of his reign is still readable as one year and one month. It follows the rule of Pepi II Neferkare.
Nemtyemsaf II is also attested on the 39th entry of the Abydos King List. This list dates to the reign of Seti I and constitutes one of the best-preserved historical records for the end of the Old Kingdom. Moreover, it records the beginning of the First Intermediate Period. The Abydos king list is the only document where Nemtyemsaf II bears the throne name Merenre.
A later historical source also records the existence of Nemtyemsaf II. Indeed, he is mentioned in Manetho’s Aegyptiaca, a history of Egypt written in the 3rd century BC. Manetho gives Nemtyemsaf II’s name as Menthesouphis. He credits him with one year of reign.
Only one contemporary artefact is known to belong to Nemtyemsaf II. It is a damaged false door inscribed with Sa-nesu semsu Nemtyemsaf, meaning “The elder king’s son Nemtyemsaf” and discovered near the site of the pyramid of Neith. Neith was Pepi II’s half-sister and queen, and most likely Nemtyemsaf II’s mother. As indicated by the epithet of “elder king’s son”, this inscription was made before Nemtyemsaf acceded to the throne. This was when he was the heir apparent. It also shows that he bore this name before becoming a pharaoh. A second artefact may belong to Nemtyemsaf II: a decree to protect the funerary cults of queens Ankhesenpepi I and Neith. This decree was discovered in the mortuary temple of queen Neith. If Nemtyemsaf II indeed issued this decree, his Horus name would be S…tawy, meaning “He who causes the two lands to…”.
Reign of Merenre Nemtyemsaf II
Nemtyemsaf II succeeded his father Pepi II after his long reign. Pepi II’s reign is believed to have been between 64 and 94 years long. Nothing is known for sure of Nemtyemsaf’s activities. However, he likely had to face the collapse of the royal power and the rise of the provincial nomarchs. Less than three years after his death, the Old Kingdom period ended. Afterwards, the chaos of the First Intermediate Period started. Nemtyemsaf II may have created a pyramid for himself. If so, it would likely have been in Saqqara, close to his father’s.
Herodotus story about Merenre Nemtyemsaf II
In his Histories, the Greek historian Herodotus records a legend in which an Egyptian queen Nitocris took revenge on the murder of her brother and husband by a rioting mob, allegedly Nemtyemsaf II. She did so by drowning all his murderers during a banquet where she had gathered them. It is now recognized that the name “Nitocris” results from conflation and distortion from the name of a natural male pharaoh, Neitiqerty Siptah. He succeeded Nemtyemsaf II.