Neferhotep I: The Strong Revival King of Egypt’s Thirteenth Dynasty
Khasekhemre Neferhotep I was a pharaoh of Egypt during the middle of the Thirteenth Dynasty. He ruled in the second half of the 18th century BC during a time referred to as the late Middle Kingdom or early Second Intermediate Period, depending on the scholar. One of the best attested rulers of the 13th Dynasty, Neferhotep I reigned for 11 years according to the Turin King List.
Neferhotep I.
The grandson of a non-royal townsman from a Theban family with a military background, Neferhotep I’s relation to his predecessor Sobekhotep III is unclear and he may have usurped the throne. Neferhotep I existed probably at the same time as kings Zimri-Lim of Mari and Hammurabi of Babylon. Not much is known about what went on during his ten-year reign and the most substantial piece of evidence that has survived is a stela at Abydos that tells of how an image of Osiris was fashioned and how Neferhotep ascertained that it be made as the gods had commanded at the start of time.
Later in his reign, Neferhotep I was cored while Shihathor was the king in a coregency lasting a few months or a year. It was soon succeeded by the death of Sihathor, and then, likely, another brother Sobekhotep IV, was made coregent by Neferhotep. Anyway, shortly Sobekhotep IV became a successor of Neferhotep I and became a ruler of Egypt for nearly ten years. The reigns of the two brothers mark the apex of the 13th Dynasty.
Neferhotep I Family
Neferhotep I seems to have come from a non-royal family of Thebes with a military background. His grandfather, Nehy, held the title “officer of a town regiment”. Nehy was married to a woman called Senebtysy. Nothing is known about her other than that she held the common title “lady of the house”. Their only known son was called Haankhef.
King Neferhotep
Haankhef always appears in the sources as “God’s father” and “royal sealer” and his wife Kemi as “king’s mother” indicating that neither of them was of royal birth. The parentage of Neferhotep and Haankhef is directly confirmed by many scarab seals from El-Lahun where the latter is said to be the father of the former.
Haankhef is also explicitly recorded as the father of Neferhotep I in the Turin canon, a king list compiled during the early Ramesside era and which serves as the primary historical source for the rulers of this time period. This is an extremely rare occurrence as the Turin canon normally only names the pharaohs, while non-royal people are excluded from the list. Beyond Haankhef, the only other exception to this rule is the father of Sobekhotep II.
Neferhotep I Children
Inscriptions from Aswan indicate that Neferhotep I had at least two children, named Haankhef and Kemi like his parents, with a woman called Senebsen. He also possibly had another son named Wahneferhotep. In spite of this, Neferhotep I named his brother Sihathor as coregent in the last months of his reign and when both Sihathor and Neferhotep I died around the same time, they were succeeded by another brother, Sobekhotep IV.
Similarly, Neferhotep I could well have been born in Thebes; even though the capital of Egypt during the 13th Dynasty was still Itjtawy in the north, near the modern village of el-Lisht.
Thebes
Neferhotep I Reign
Neferhotep I is known from a relatively high number of objects found over a large area, from Byblos to the north to the Egyptian fortresses of Buhen and Mirgissa in Lower Nubia to the south through all parts of Egypt, especially in the southern portion of Upper Egypt. A single attestation is known from Lower Egypt, a scarab from Tell el-Yahudiya. Other attestations include over 60 scarab seals, 2 cylinder-seals, a statue from Elephantine, and 11 rock inscriptions from Wadi el Shatt el-Rigal, Sehel Island, Konosso and Philae.
The inscriptions record the members of Neferhotep’s family as well as two high officials serving him “The royal acquaintance Nebankh” and the “Treasurer Senebi”. Two stelae are known from Abydos one of which, usurped from king Wegaf and dated to his fourth regnal year, forbids the construction of tombs on the sacred processional way of Wepwawet.
Two naoses housing two statues each of Neferhotep, as well as a pedestal bearing Neferhotep’s and Sobekhotep IV’s cartouches, have been found in Karnak. There are also a few attestations from the Faiyum region where the capital of Egypt was located at the time, in particular a statuette of the king dedicated to Sobek and Horus of Shedet, now on display in the Archaeological Museum of Bologna.
Beyond these contemporary attestations, Neferhotep is listed on the 34th entry of the Karnak king list as well as the 7th column, 25th row of the Turin canon. The Turin king list credits Neferhotep with a reign of 11 years and 1 to 4 months, the second or third longest of the dynasty after Merneferre Ay (23 years) and Sobekhotep IV (9–12 years).
Neferhotep I’s relative chronological position is secured thanks to the Turin canon as well as contemporary attestations. He was the successor of Sobekhotep III and predecessor of Sobekhotep IV. His father Haankhef and mother Kemi themselves are also well attested, and were not known to have held any title other than those of god’s father and King, mother, respectively; hence Egyptologists like Kim Ryholt and Darrell Baker reckon that Neferhotep I was not of royal birth and seized the throne. This may have been contributed to by the fact that his family had a military background.
On the other hand, the absolute chronological position of Neferhotep is debated, with Ryholt and Baker seeing him respectively as the 26th and 27th pharaoh of the 13th Dynasty while Detlef Franke and Jürgen von Beckerath contend that he was only the 22nd ruler. Similarly, the absolute dating of Neferhotep’s reign varies by as much as 40 years between the scholars, with Kim Ryholt dating the beginning of his reign c. 1740 BC and Thomas Schneider c. 1700 BC.
Relief of Neferhotep I Khaskhemre on Sehel Island
Extent of the rule of Neferhotep I
Whether Neferhotep I usurped the throne at the expense of Sobekhotep III or inherited it, it’s possible he acceded to power over a fragmented Egypt. The Egyptologist Kim Ryholt believes that the Canaanite 14th Dynasty was already in existence at the time, forming an independent realm controlling at least the Eastern Nile Delta. This could explain why Neferhotep’s only attestation in Lower Egypt is a single scarab seal.
While this analysis is accepted by some scholars, among whom are Gae Callender, Janine Bourriau and Darrell Baker, it is rejected by others, including Manfred Bietak, Daphna Ben-Tor and James and Susan Allen, who contend that Neferhotep I reigned over the whole of Egypt. Examples of evidence for this point of view are the several attestations of Neferhotep found northeast of Egypt, in the Levant, in particular the stela of the Governor of Byblos Yantinu and four scarab seals from Canaan, indicating that he retained enough power to maintain trade relations with this region.
Alternatively, recent excavations have yielded seals of Neferhotep’s brother Sobekhotep IV in proximity with seals of the powerful Hyksos king Khyan of the 15th Dynasty (c.1650–1550 BC) in a closed archaeological context, possibly indicating that the two were contemporary. If this is so, Neferhotep I would have been contemporary with either Khyan or one of his predecessors, such as Sakir-Har, and would not have reigned over the Nile Delta. This conclusion is strongly debated at the moment since Sobekhotep IV and Khyan are separated by c. 100 years in the conventional Egyptian chronology.
Activities During the Rule
In spite of the numerous attestations known for Neferhotep I, relatively little is known of the activities he undertook during his decade-long reign. The pedestal of Neferhotep I and Sobekhotep IV as well as the naos of Neferhotep discovered by Georges Legrain in Karnak indicate that he undertook some building works there. This is further confirmed by the 2005 discovery in Karnak of a second naos housing a 1.80 m (5.9 ft) tall double statue of Neferhotep holding hands with himself. The naos was located beneath the foundations of the northern obelisk of Hatshepsut.
statue of neferhotep I
The most important monument of the king surviving to this day is a large, heavily eroded stela dating to his second regnal year and found in Abydos. The inscription on the stela is one of the few ancient Egyptian royal texts to record how a king might conceive of and order the making of a sculpture.
More generally, Neferhotep’s time on the throne was likely prosperous as there are many private monuments datable to his reign and that of his brother, and especially in sculpture some remarkably high-quality artworks were produced.
Death and Burial
Neferhotep I was also buried and he passed away after a successful reign and was probably buried within the Memphite area, though his tomb has not been fully identified.
Regardless of this uncertainty, his name is still commemorated which points to the fact that his cult of mortuities was still active at least to some degree.
Neferhotep I Tomb
The tomb of Neferhotep I was not as of 2017 officially recognized, though a considerable case now exists that it is located in Abydos. A group of archaeologists led by the University of Pennsylvania led by Josef W. Wegener, has been digging since 2013 a royal necropolis in Abydos at the base of a natural hill called by the ancient Egyptians as the Mountain of Anubis.
The necropolis is located just next to the massive funerary complex of Senusret III of the 12th Dynasty and comprises two further large tombs, likely to have been pyramids built during the mid-13th Dynasty, as well as no less than eight royal tombs, possibly dating to the Abydos Dynasty. One of the large tombs, which was extensively plundered of goods and stones during the Second Intermediate Period, known today as tomb S10, is now believed to belong to King Sobekhotep IV, Neferhotep’s brother, based on several finds showing Sobekhotep’s name from the nearby royal tombs, such as that of Woseribre Senebkay.
Senusret III TOMB AND CEMETERY OF Senusret III
As a corollary, Wegener has suggested that the anonymous, large, neighbouring tomb S9 could have belonged to Neferhotep I. Egyptologists have also noted that both kings were very active in the Abydos region during their reigns.
Older hypotheses concerning the location of Neferhotep’s tomb included that proposed by Nicolas Grimal, that Neferhotep was buried in a pyramid at el-Lisht, close to that of Senusret I, an opinion shared by Michael Rice. This remains conjectural, as no artefact permitting the identification of Neferhotep as the owner of such a pyramid has been found. Grimal’s hypothesis relies only on indirect evidence: the presence of scarabs of Neferhotep in Lisht as well as the discovery of a shawabti of a prince Wahneferhotep “(King).
Neferhotep lived immediately before the northern entry of the mortuary temple of the pyramid complex of Senusret I. The shawabti was enwrapped in linen and put in a small sarcophagus that is stylistically dated to the 13th Dynasty. This and the name Wahneferhotep and his designation as the son of the King, show that Wahneferhotep, probably, was a son of Neferhotep I, who might have been buried near the pyramid of his father.
Alternatively, Dawn Landua-McCormack suggested that the Southern South Saqqara pyramid could have been a candidate for Neferhotep’s burial site. This pyramid, datable to the middle 13th Dynasty, was provided with two elaborate sarcophagus chambers which might have been destined for two wealthy brother kings of the dynasty such as Neferhotep I and Sobekhotep IV
Conclusion
Neferhotep I was one of the most capable rulers of Egypt’s Thirteenth Dynasty. With his stability, religious support and continuity of administration, he revived faith in kingship at a time when kingship was undergoing a difficult time. His reign is one of the brightest examples that not only the lineage, but also leadership made the success in ancient Egypt.
