Rahotep

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Sekhemrewahkhau Rahotep
Rehotep, Rahotpe, Rehotpe, Sekhem-uah-kha-ra, Sekhemre Wa-ka'u[2]

Drawing by Wallis Budge of a limestone stele depicting Rahotep making an offering to Osiris for two deceased, an officer and a priest.[3]
Pharaoh of Egypt
Reign 1580 BC - 1576 BC[4], 17th Dynasty
Predecessor unknown
Successor Sobekemsaf I
Rahotep was also the name of an Egyptian prince during the fourth dynasty, see Prince Rahotep

Sekhemrewahkhau Rahotep was an Egyptian pharaoh who reigned during the Second Intermediate Period, when Egypt was ruled by multiple kings. The egyptologists Kim Ryholt and Darell Baker believe that Rahotep was the first king of the 17th Dynasty.[2][4]

Attestations

Rahotep is well known from a stele found at Koptos reporting the restoration of the temple of Min.[6] The stele, now in the Petrie Museum (UC 14327), reads[7][8]

“ (year ... under) the Majesty of Horus Wahankh, Two Ladies Weserrenput, Horus of Gold, Wad ... (... Son of) Re Rahotep, given life. His Majesty (said?) to his nobles and the courtiers who were in his following ... the temple ... My Majesty found (concerning) my father (Min), who is at the head of all gods, that his gates and doors had fallen into ruin, (They did obeisance ? before) his Majesty and said: What your ka (commands) shall come to pass, O king, our lord. It is Hu, indeed, who is in your mouth, and Sia (who is in your heart). Ptah-Sokar ... the gods fashioned you ... that you might act for them to found their temples ...

You have united Upper and Lower Egypt. May your heart be joyful upon the Horus-throne of the living ... You are ruling what the sun (encircles) ... the god (...) of the people, the refuge of all...night ... in sleeping ... the gods in seeking what is beneficial to this land. Re has placed you as his image ... what is removed (?)... as it was in the time of your fathers, the kings who followed Horus. Never was ... lost in my time ... which existed formerly. I made monuments for the gods ... wonders, which were brought ...

 ”

Rahotep is also attested on a stele, now in the British Museum (BM EA 833),[9] which shows him offering to Osiris. Finally Rahotep is mentioned on a bow of a king's son dedicated to "the service of Min in all his feasts".[4][10]

Reign

Two scarabs of Rahotep, picture by Flinders Petrie.[1]

While Ryholt and Baker propose that Rahotep was the first king of the 17th dynasty, Jürgen von Beckerath sees him as the second king of that dynasty.[11][12] Alternatively Claude Vandersleyen has tentatively dated Rahotep to the 13th Dynasty on the grounds that he believes Rahotep to be related to Sobekemsaf I, which Vandersleyen also date to the 13th dynasty because of the quality and number of statues attributable to him.[13] Baker deems these arguments "slim and rejected by most scholars".[2]

If he was indeed a ruler of the early 17th Dynasty, Rahotep would have controlled Upper Egypt as far north as Abydos.[2] His reign would have taken place shortly after the collapse of the 16th Dynasty with the conquest of Thebes by the Hyksos and their subsequent withdrawal from the region. In the wake of the conflict the Hyksos looted and destroyed temples and palaces.[2] Rahotep consequently "boasts of restorations [he performed] in temples at Abydos and Koptos".[14] In Abydos he had the enclosure walls of the temple of Osiris renewed and in Coptos he restored the temple of Min of which "gates and doors [have] fallen into ruins".[2]

References

  1. ↑ Flinders Petrie: Scarabs and cylinders with names (1917), available copyright-free here, pl. XXIII
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Darrell D. Baker: The Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs: Volume I - Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300–1069 BC, Stacey International, ISBN 978-1-905299-37-9, 2008, p. 341-342
  3. ↑ Wallis Budge: Hieroglyphic texts from Egyptian stelae, &c., in the British Museum, Part IV, London: Printed by order of the Trustees [by] Harrison and Sons, 1913, available not-in-copyright here, pl. 24.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 K.S.B. Ryholt: The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, c.1800–1550 BC, Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications, vol. 20. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1997, excerpts available online here.
  5. ↑ Number 54 on the Karnak king list
  6. ↑ H.M. Stewart: Egyptian Stelae, Reliefs and Paintings from the Petrie Collection. Part Two: Archaic to Second Intermediate Period, Warminster 1979, 17-18, no. 78
  7. ↑ Image of the stele with translation
  8. ↑ Stele on the Petrie Museum catalogue
  9. ↑ Stele on the British Museum catalogue
  10. ↑ O. D. Berlev: Un don du roi Rahotep, OLP 6-7 (1975/1976), p. 31-41 pl II.
  11. ↑ Jürgen von Beckerath: Untersuchungen zur politischen Geschichte der Zweiten Zwischenzeit in Ägypten, Glückstadt, 1964
  12. ↑ Jürgen von Beckerath: Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägyptens, Münchner Ägyptologische Studien 46. Mainz am Rhein, 1997
  13. ↑ Claude Vandersleyen: Rahotep, Sébekemsaf Ier et Djéhouty, rois de la 13e Dynastie, Revue d'Égyptologie
  14. ↑ Janine Bourriau, Ian Shaw (edit), The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt Oxford University Press, 2000. p.205 ISBN 978-0-19-280458-7
Preceded by
Unknown		 Pharaoh of Egypt
Seventeenth Dynasty 		Succeeded by
Sobekemsaf I
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