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Thamphthis

April 11, 2024

Thamphthis is the hellenized name of an ancient Egyptian ruler (pharaoh) of the 4th Dynasty in the Old Kingdom, who may have ruled around 2500 BC under the name Djedefptah for between two and nine years. His original Egyptian name is lost, but it may have been Djedefptah or Ptahdjedef ("he endures like Ptah") according to William C. Hayes.[2] Thamphthis is one of the shadowy rulers of the Old Kingdom, since he is completely unattested in contemporary sources. For this reason, his historical figure is discussed intensely by historians and Egyptologists.

Thamphthis in hieroglyphs
Length of reign:
Predecessor: Shepseskaf?
Successor: Userkaf?

Saqqara table
[1]
Turin canon
(Column III, line 16)

Background edit

Since Thamphthis' name was found in the historical works of Manetho, the Aegyptiacae,[3] Egyptologists are trying to connect this ruler with contemporary kings to build up a continuous chronology, which resulted in controversies and debates.

As early as 1887, Eduard Meyer viewed Thamphthis as a mere usurper, who was not allowed to be mentioned in royal annals or have his own mortuary cult because he gained the throne illegitimately.[4] Peter Jánosi goes further and says that Thamphthis is a fiction, due to the lack of archaeological support. He claims that Thamphthis should be erased from modern kinglists.[5]

Winfried Seipel and Hermann Alexander Schlögl instead postulate that the historical figure behind Thamphthis could have been queen Khentkaus I.[6] This theory is supported by Khentkaus being depicted in her mortuary temple as a ruling pharaoh with nemes-headdress, king's beard and uraeus-diadem on her forehead. But this theory is problematic since Khentkaus' name never appears inside a serekh or royal cartouche.[7]

Wolfgang Helck points out that Khentkaus I could have been the mother of Thamphthis, so Thamphthis would have been the son of king Shepseskaf. As a possible wife of Thamphthis he proposes a princess named Bunefer, who may have been the daughter of Shepseskaf. She was a priestess of Shepseskaf.[8][9]

Name sources and contradictions edit

In the Manethonian tradition of the historian Sextus Julius Africanus, who translated Manetho, Thamphthis is described as the last ruler of the 4th dynasty with a reign of nine years. In the tradition of the historians Eusebius and Eratosthenes his name is missed. Eusebius gives the reason that Thamphthis was not meant to be named, for he "didn't do something worth to be mentioned".[3][10]

A further source for the chronology of rulers of the Old Kingdom is the Royal Canon of Turin, composed during the 19th dynasty around 1300 BC. It names kings which are omitted in many other kinglists. But the Turin Canon is damaged at several spots, so many royal names are fragmentary or completely lost in lacunae today. For this reason it cannot be excluded that Thamphthis' name was originally present in this document too, since the Aegyptiacae of Manetho are mostly consistent with the Turin Canon. In column III, line 12 king Khafre is mentioned, after him, in line 13, a lacuna appears. After king Shepseskaf, mentioned in line 15, a second lacuna appears. Whilst line 13 may possibly be assigned to a king Baka, the missing line 16 could have originally held Thamphthis' name. These lacunae cover two years during which a king could have reigned.[11]

The Royal kinglist of Saqqara from the tomb of Tjuneroy (19th dynasty) lists nine kings for the 4th dynasty, whilst the Abydos King List gives only six names. Curiously the Saqqara-Table has after Shepseskaf two cartouches before Userkaf, but both are heavily damaged, so the original names are no longer legible. Whilst one of these two cartouches once may have held Thamphthis' name, the other cartouche remains a mystery.[12]

A rock inscription in the Wadi Hammamat made in the Middle Kingdom presents a list of the cartouche-names of Khufu, Djedefre, Baufra and prince Djedefhor (also recorded as Hordjedef). Curiously Djedefhor's name is written in a cartouche, too. This leads to the possibility that he could have been a king for a very short while himself. If this was true, this fact would close the chronological gaps. But contemporary sources don't show Djedefhor and Baufra as kings; they give to these two only the titles of princes and call them both "son of the king".[13]

The tomb inscriptions of several high officials, princes and priests do not preserve any evidence that some kind of internal political conflict had arisen or that a usurper had seized the throne of Egypt. Prince Sekhemkare reports about his career under the kings Khafre, Menkaura, Shepseskaf, Userkaf and even Sahure, but makes no mention of Thamphthis. The same goes for the high official Netjer-pu-nesut, who was honoured under the kings Djedefre, Khafre, Menkaura, Shepseskaf, Userkaf and Sahure. Again no Thamphthis is mentioned. The 5th dynasty high priest and official Ptahshepses who served under king Niuserre and took care of the mortuary cults of king Menkaura and Shepseskaf also made no reference to Thamphthis.[14] The late Patrick F. O'Mara in a GM 158 paper notes that "no royal monument private tomb in the cemeteries of Gizeh and Saqqara record names of any other [except the aforementioned] kings for the [fourth] dynasty. No names of estates of the period compounded with royal names make mention of any other [fourth dynasty] kings than these, nor do the names of the royal grandchildren, who often bore the name of a royal ancestor as a component of their own" names.[15]

The lack of contemporary attestations for Thamphthis does not by itself prove that he was a "faux king" or "phantom king" since he may well have been a short-lived ruler of the 4th Dynasty. The stela of the 5th Dynasty official Khau-Ptah is informative: while this official lists his career in an uninterrupted sequence of Sahure, Neferirkare, Raneferef and Niuserre, he completely omits Shepseskare.[16] Shepseskare or Sisires likely did not rule Egypt for the seven years assigned to him by both Manetho and the Turin Canon judging by the paucity of contemporary records for his rule, but he certainly ruled Egypt for a brief period of time.[17] This is established by the existence of two cylinder seals identifying him[18] and four or five fragments of clay sealings bearing his name.[19] In more recent years, "several new sealings [of Shepseskare]" which were found in Abusir also show that Shepseskare did exist.[20] Verner argues that the archaeological context of the sealings show that Shepseskare succeeded Raneferef (rather than the reverse as Manetho and the Turin Canon states) and that a dynastic struggle ensued in which Shepseskare was soon overthrown by Niuserre, Raneferef's brother, after a very brief reign. This would explain the surprising omission of Shepseskare by Khau-ptah since the former was a usurper who briefly seized the throne after Raneferef's death. But there is no evidence for any dynastic difficulties in the late 4th Dynasty and the complete lack of contemporary attestations for Thamphthis is strong evidence for regarding him as a phantom king. In this situation, the two year figure assigned to him by later Egyptian records could possibly be added to Shepseskaf's existing 4-year reign.

Literature edit

  • Jürgen von Beckerath: Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen, von Zabern, Mainz 1999, ISBN 3-422-00832-2
  • Jürgen von Beckerath: Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägypten, von Zabern, Mainz 1997 ISBN 3-8053-2310-7
  • Iowerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards: The Cambridge ancient history, Band 3. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000, ISBN 978-0-521-07791-0
  • William C. Hayes: The Scepter of Egypt, Band 1: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Middle Kingdom. Yale University Press, New York 1990 (Neuauflage), ISBN 978-0-300-09159-5
  • Wolfgang Helck: Geschichte des Alten Ägypten. BRILL, Leiden 1981, ISBN 90-04-06497-4
  • Peter Jánosi: Giza in der 4. Dynastie. Die Baugeschichte und Belegung einer Nekropole des Alten Reiches. Band I: Die Mastabas der Kernfriedhöfe und die Felsgräber. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien 2005, ISBN 3-7001-3244-1
  • Alan B. Lloyd: Herodotus, book II: commentary 99-182. BRILL, Leiden 1988, ISBN 978-90-04-04179-0
  • Eduard Meyer, Johannes Duemichen: Geschichte des alten Aegyptens. Band 1 von: Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen. Grote, Hamburg 1887
  • Kim Ryholt, Adam Bülow-Jacobsen: The political situation in Egypt during the second Intermediate Period. Museum Tusculanum Press, 1997, ISBN 978-87-7289-421-8
  • Wilfried Seipel: Untersuchungen zu den ägyptischen Königinnen der Frühzeit und des Alten Reiches. University of California, 1980
  • Ian Shaw: The Oxford history of ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press, Oxford (UK) 2002, ISBN 978-0-19-280293-4
  • William Gillian Waddell: Manetho - The Loeb classical library; 350 -. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 2004 (Reprint), ISBN 0-674-99385-3

References edit

  1. ^ Alan H. Gardiner: The royal canon of Turin. Griffith Institute, Oxford (UK) 1997, ISBN 0-900416-48-3, p. 16; table II.
  2. ^ William C. Hayes: The Scepter of Egypt, Band 1. p. 66; cifer: Jürgen von Beckerath: Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen, pp. 53–54, 180.
  3. ^ a b William Gillian Waddell: Manetho (The Loeb classical library 350). pp. 47–49
  4. ^ Eduard Meyer, Johannes Dümichen: Geschichte des alten Aegyptens. page 114.
  5. ^ Peter Jánosi: Die Gräberwelt der Pyramidenzeit. p. 151.
  6. ^ Wilfried Seipel: Untersuchungen zu den ägyptischen Königinnen der Frühzeit und des Alten Reiches. pp. 189–190.
  7. ^ Hermann Alexander Schlögl: Das Alte Ägypten. pp. 99–100.
  8. ^ Wolfgang Helck: Geschichte des Alten Ägypten. pp. 57 & 61.
  9. ^ Jánosi, Peter. "G 4712 - Ein Datierungsproblem." Göttinger Miszellen 133 (1993), pp. 56, 60–62.
  10. ^ Alan B. Lloyd: Herodotus, book II.. pp. 77ff.
  11. ^ Kim Ryholt, Adam Bülow-Jacobsen: Inclusion of Fictitious Kings. In: The political situation in Egypt during the second Intermediate Period. p. 17.
  12. ^ Jürgen von Beckerath: Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägypten. page 24 & 216.
  13. ^ Peter Jánosi: Giza in der 4. Dynastie. pp. 64 & 65.
  14. ^ I. E. S. Edwards: The Cambridge ancient history, Band 3. page 176.
  15. ^ Patrick F. O'Mara, Manetho and the Turin Canon: A Comparison of Regnal Years, GM 158, 1997, p .51 O'Mara notes that his records are based on an examination of Ld. II, Urk I, and A. Mariette, Mastabas de l'ancien empire.
  16. ^ A. Mariette, Mastabas de l'ancien empire, 295
  17. ^ Miroslav Verner, Archaeological Remarks on the 4th and 5th Dynasty Chronology, Archiv Orientální, Volume 69: 2001, pp.395-400
  18. ^ G. Daressy, ASAE 15, 1915, 94f
  19. ^ P. Kaplony, Die Rollsiegel des Altes Reiches. Katalog der Rollsiegel, Bruxelles 1981, A. Text, 289–294 and B. Talfen, 81f
  20. ^ Miroslav Verner, Who was Shepseskare and when did he reign?, in Abusir and Saqqara in the Year 2000 (ArOr Suppl.9, 2000,) pp. 581–602

April 11, 2024
thamphthis, hellenized, name, ancient, egyptian, ruler, pharaoh, dynasty, kingdom, have, ruled, around, 2500, under, name, djedefptah, between, nine, years, original, egyptian, name, lost, have, been, djedefptah, ptahdjedef, endures, like, ptah, according, wil. Thamphthis is the hellenized name of an ancient Egyptian ruler pharaoh of the 4th Dynasty in the Old Kingdom who may have ruled around 2500 BC under the name Djedefptah for between two and nine years His original Egyptian name is lost but it may have been Djedefptah or Ptahdjedef he endures like Ptah according to William C Hayes 2 Thamphthis is one of the shadowy rulers of the Old Kingdom since he is completely unattested in contemporary sources For this reason his historical figure is discussed intensely by historians and Egyptologists Thamphthis in hieroglyphsLength of reign Predecessor Shepseskaf Successor Userkaf Saqqara table 1 Turin canon Column III line 16 Contents 1 Background 2 Name sources and contradictions 3 Literature 4 ReferencesBackground editSince Thamphthis name was found in the historical works of Manetho the Aegyptiacae 3 Egyptologists are trying to connect this ruler with contemporary kings to build up a continuous chronology which resulted in controversies and debates As early as 1887 Eduard Meyer viewed Thamphthis as a mere usurper who was not allowed to be mentioned in royal annals or have his own mortuary cult because he gained the throne illegitimately 4 Peter Janosi goes further and says that Thamphthis is a fiction due to the lack of archaeological support He claims that Thamphthis should be erased from modern kinglists 5 Winfried Seipel and Hermann Alexander Schlogl instead postulate that the historical figure behind Thamphthis could have been queen Khentkaus I 6 This theory is supported by Khentkaus being depicted in her mortuary temple as a ruling pharaoh with nemes headdress king s beard and uraeus diadem on her forehead But this theory is problematic since Khentkaus name never appears inside a serekh or royal cartouche 7 Wolfgang Helck points out that Khentkaus I could have been the mother of Thamphthis so Thamphthis would have been the son of king Shepseskaf As a possible wife of Thamphthis he proposes a princess named Bunefer who may have been the daughter of Shepseskaf She was a priestess of Shepseskaf 8 9 Name sources and contradictions editIn the Manethonian tradition of the historian Sextus Julius Africanus who translated Manetho Thamphthis is described as the last ruler of the 4th dynasty with a reign of nine years In the tradition of the historians Eusebius and Eratosthenes his name is missed Eusebius gives the reason that Thamphthis was not meant to be named for he didn t do something worth to be mentioned 3 10 A further source for the chronology of rulers of the Old Kingdom is the Royal Canon of Turin composed during the 19th dynasty around 1300 BC It names kings which are omitted in many other kinglists But the Turin Canon is damaged at several spots so many royal names are fragmentary or completely lost in lacunae today For this reason it cannot be excluded that Thamphthis name was originally present in this document too since the Aegyptiacae of Manetho are mostly consistent with the Turin Canon In column III line 12 king Khafre is mentioned after him in line 13 a lacuna appears After king Shepseskaf mentioned in line 15 a second lacuna appears Whilst line 13 may possibly be assigned to a king Baka the missing line 16 could have originally held Thamphthis name These lacunae cover two years during which a king could have reigned 11 The Royal kinglist of Saqqara from the tomb of Tjuneroy 19th dynasty lists nine kings for the 4th dynasty whilst the Abydos King List gives only six names Curiously the Saqqara Table has after Shepseskaf two cartouches before Userkaf but both are heavily damaged so the original names are no longer legible Whilst one of these two cartouches once may have held Thamphthis name the other cartouche remains a mystery 12 A rock inscription in the Wadi Hammamat made in the Middle Kingdom presents a list of the cartouche names of Khufu Djedefre Baufra and prince Djedefhor also recorded as Hordjedef Curiously Djedefhor s name is written in a cartouche too This leads to the possibility that he could have been a king for a very short while himself If this was true this fact would close the chronological gaps But contemporary sources don t show Djedefhor and Baufra as kings they give to these two only the titles of princes and call them both son of the king 13 The tomb inscriptions of several high officials princes and priests do not preserve any evidence that some kind of internal political conflict had arisen or that a usurper had seized the throne of Egypt Prince Sekhemkare reports about his career under the kings Khafre Menkaura Shepseskaf Userkaf and even Sahure but makes no mention of Thamphthis The same goes for the high official Netjer pu nesut who was honoured under the kings Djedefre Khafre Menkaura Shepseskaf Userkaf and Sahure Again no Thamphthis is mentioned The 5th dynasty high priest and official Ptahshepses who served under king Niuserre and took care of the mortuary cults of king Menkaura and Shepseskaf also made no reference to Thamphthis 14 The late Patrick F O Mara in a GM 158 paper notes that no royal monument private tomb in the cemeteries of Gizeh and Saqqara record names of any other except the aforementioned kings for the fourth dynasty No names of estates of the period compounded with royal names make mention of any other fourth dynasty kings than these nor do the names of the royal grandchildren who often bore the name of a royal ancestor as a component of their own names 15 The lack of contemporary attestations for Thamphthis does not by itself prove that he was a faux king or phantom king since he may well have been a short lived ruler of the 4th Dynasty The stela of the 5th Dynasty official Khau Ptah is informative while this official lists his career in an uninterrupted sequence of Sahure Neferirkare Raneferef and Niuserre he completely omits Shepseskare 16 Shepseskare or Sisires likely did not rule Egypt for the seven years assigned to him by both Manetho and the Turin Canon judging by the paucity of contemporary records for his rule but he certainly ruled Egypt for a brief period of time 17 This is established by the existence of two cylinder seals identifying him 18 and four or five fragments of clay sealings bearing his name 19 In more recent years several new sealings of Shepseskare which were found in Abusir also show that Shepseskare did exist 20 Verner argues that the archaeological context of the sealings show that Shepseskare succeeded Raneferef rather than the reverse as Manetho and the Turin Canon states and that a dynastic struggle ensued in which Shepseskare was soon overthrown by Niuserre Raneferef s brother after a very brief reign This would explain the surprising omission of Shepseskare by Khau ptah since the former was a usurper who briefly seized the throne after Raneferef s death But there is no evidence for any dynastic difficulties in the late 4th Dynasty and the complete lack of contemporary attestations for Thamphthis is strong evidence for regarding him as a phantom king In this situation the two year figure assigned to him by later Egyptian records could possibly be added to Shepseskaf s existing 4 year reign Literature editJurgen von Beckerath Handbuch der agyptischen Konigsnamen von Zabern Mainz 1999 ISBN 3 422 00832 2 Jurgen von Beckerath Chronologie des pharaonischen Agypten von Zabern Mainz 1997 ISBN 3 8053 2310 7 Iowerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards The Cambridge ancient history Band 3 Cambridge University Press Cambridge 2000 ISBN 978 0 521 07791 0 William C Hayes The Scepter of Egypt Band 1 From the Earliest Times to the End of the Middle Kingdom Yale University Press New York 1990 Neuauflage ISBN 978 0 300 09159 5 Wolfgang Helck Geschichte des Alten Agypten BRILL Leiden 1981 ISBN 90 04 06497 4 Peter Janosi Giza in der 4 Dynastie Die Baugeschichte und Belegung einer Nekropole des Alten Reiches Band I Die Mastabas der Kernfriedhofe und die Felsgraber Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Wien 2005 ISBN 3 7001 3244 1 Alan B Lloyd Herodotus book II commentary 99 182 BRILL Leiden 1988 ISBN 978 90 04 04179 0 Eduard Meyer Johannes Duemichen Geschichte des alten Aegyptens Band 1 von Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen Grote Hamburg 1887 Kim Ryholt Adam Bulow Jacobsen The political situation in Egypt during the second Intermediate Period Museum Tusculanum Press 1997 ISBN 978 87 7289 421 8 Wilfried Seipel Untersuchungen zu den agyptischen Koniginnen der Fruhzeit und des Alten Reiches University of California 1980 Ian Shaw The Oxford history of ancient Egypt Oxford University Press Oxford UK 2002 ISBN 978 0 19 280293 4 William Gillian Waddell Manetho The Loeb classical library 350 Harvard University Press Cambridge Mass 2004 Reprint ISBN 0 674 99385 3References edit Alan H Gardiner The royal canon of Turin Griffith Institute Oxford UK 1997 ISBN 0 900416 48 3 p 16 table II William C Hayes The Scepter of Egypt Band 1 p 66 cifer Jurgen von Beckerath Handbuch der agyptischen Konigsnamen pp 53 54 180 a b William Gillian Waddell Manetho The Loeb classical library 350 pp 47 49 Eduard Meyer Johannes Dumichen Geschichte des alten Aegyptens page 114 Peter Janosi Die Graberwelt der Pyramidenzeit p 151 Wilfried Seipel Untersuchungen zu den agyptischen Koniginnen der Fruhzeit und des Alten Reiches pp 189 190 Hermann Alexander Schlogl Das Alte Agypten pp 99 100 Wolfgang Helck Geschichte des Alten Agypten pp 57 amp 61 Janosi Peter G 4712 Ein Datierungsproblem Gottinger Miszellen 133 1993 pp 56 60 62 Alan B Lloyd Herodotus book II pp 77ff Kim Ryholt Adam Bulow Jacobsen Inclusion of Fictitious Kings In The political situation in Egypt during the second Intermediate Period p 17 Jurgen von Beckerath Chronologie des pharaonischen Agypten page 24 amp 216 Peter Janosi Giza in der 4 Dynastie pp 64 amp 65 I E S Edwards The Cambridge ancient history Band 3 page 176 Patrick F O Mara Manetho and the Turin Canon A Comparison of Regnal Years GM 158 1997 p 51 O Mara notes that his records are based on an examination of Ld II Urk I and A Mariette Mastabas de l ancien empire A Mariette Mastabas de l ancien empire 295 Miroslav Verner Archaeological Remarks on the 4th and 5th Dynasty Chronology Archiv Orientalni Volume 69 2001 pp 395 400 G Daressy ASAE 15 1915 94f P Kaplony Die Rollsiegel des Altes Reiches Katalog der Rollsiegel Bruxelles 1981 A Text 289 294 and B Talfen 81f Miroslav Verner Who was Shepseskare and when did he reign in Abusir and Saqqara in the Year 2000 ArOr Suppl 9 2000 pp 581 602 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Thamphthis amp oldid 1124549019, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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