Merenre Nemtyemsaf (meaning 'Beloved of Ra, Nemty is his protection') was an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh and the fourth king of the Sixth Dynasty. He ruled Egypt for six to eleven years in the early 23rd century BC, toward the end of the Old Kingdom period. He was the son of Pepi I Meryre and queen Ankhesenpepi I and was in turn succeeded by Pepi II Neferkare, who might have been his son or, less probably, his brother. Pepi I may have shared power with Merenre in a co-regency at the very end of the former's reign.
Merenre's rule saw profound changes in the administration of the southern provinces of Egypt, with a marked increase in the number of provincial administrators and a concurrent steep decline in the size of the central administration in the capital Memphis. As a consequence, the provincial nobility became responsible for tax collection and resource management, gaining in political independence and economic power. This led to the first provincial burials for the highest officials, including viziers, governors of Upper Egypt, and nomarchs.
Several trading and quarrying expeditions took place under Merenre, in particular to Nubia, where caravans of hundreds of donkeys were sent to fetch incense, ebony, animal skins, ivory and exotic animals. Such was the interest in the region that Merenre had a canal dug to facilitate the navigation of the first cataract into Nubia. Trade with the Levantine coast for lapis lazuli, silver, bitumen, and tin took place while quarrying for granite, travertine and alabaster took place in the south and in the Eastern Desert.
A pyramid complex was built for Merenre in Saqqara, known as Khanefermerenre by the Ancient Egyptians meaning 'the appearance of the perfection of Merenre' and likely completed prior to the king's death. The subterranean chambers were inscribed with the Pyramid Texts. In the burial chamber, the black basalt sarcophagus of the king still held a mummy when it was entered in the 19th century. The identification of the mummy as Merenre's is still uncertain. Following his death, Merenre was the object of a funerary cult until at least the end of the Old Kingdom. During the New Kingdom period, he was in a selection of past kings to be honoured.
Family Parents and siblings Merenre was the son of king Pepi I Meryre and queen Ankhesenpepi I, also called Ankhesenmeryre. Pepi I probably begot him in his old age. Ankhesenpepi's motherhood is indicated by her titles. She bore the title of "mother of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt of the pyramid of Merenre" in tomb inscriptions, a style which at the time indicated relation to the king. Ankhesenpepi was a daughter of the nomarch of Abydos, Khui, and his wife Nebet. Pepi I made her into a vizier, 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 Neferkare.
Princess Neith was Merenre's full sister. The archaeologist Gustave Jéquier has proposed that Neith was first married to Merenre then to Pepi II, explaining the absence of her tomb near that of Merenre as would be expected of a royal spouse. The Egyptologist Vivienne Callender observes however that among Neith's titles presented in her tomb, those referring to her relation to Merenre are now illegible. Consequently, Callender states that whether or not she was married to Merenre cannot be ascertained beyond doubt.
Probable children of Pepi I who might thus be at least half-siblings of Merenre include princes Hornetjerkhet and Tetiankh and princess Meritites IV.
Consorts and children Sixth dynasty royal seals and stone blocks found at Saqqara demonstrate that Merenre's aunt Ankhesenpepi II, who married Pepi I, was also married to Merenre. She was the mother of the future pharaoh Pepi II. This is shown by her titles of "royal wife of the pyramid of Meryre", "Royal wife of the pyramid of Merenre" and "royal mother of the pyramid of Neferkare [Pepi II]".
Many Egyptologists favour Pepi I as the father of Pepi II. But the Egyptologist Philippe Collombert observes that since historical sources agree that Merenre's reign intervened between those of Pepi I and Pepi II and lasted for around a decade, and given that one source states that Pepi II acceded to the throne at the age of six, then this indirectly indicates that Merenre I, rather than Pepi I, was Pepi II's father. This opinion is shared by the Egyptologists Naguib Kanawati and Peter Brand.
Merenre had at least one daughter, Ankhesenpepi III, who became the wife of Pepi II. Merenre could also be the father of queen Iput II, another wife of Pepi II.
Reign Attestations Merenre is well attested by archaeology not only through his pyramid complex, but also through inscriptions and small artefacts bearing his name. These include an alabaster vessel (inventory E 23140b) and ivory box (inventory N. 794), both in the Louvre Museum a small sphinx in the National Museum of Scotland (inventory 1984.405) another sphinx in the Pushkin Museum a calcite vessel in shape of a mother monkey and her child in the Metropolitan Museum of Art a vase (inventory EA4493), a box (inventory EA65848) and a fragment of tomb painting (inventory EA65927), all in the British Museum an alabaster vase (inventory no.3252) in the National Archaeological Museum, Florence a similar vessel from Elephantine that was in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (inventory CG 18694) in 1907
Chronology Relative The relative chronological position of Merenre Nemtyemsaf I within the Sixth Dynasty is certain. Historical sources and archaeological evidences agree that he succeeded Pepi I Meryre on the throne and was in turn succeeded by Pepi II Neferkare, evidencing that he was the fourth king of the dynasty.
The earliest historical source on the matter is the South Saqqara Stone, a royal annal inscribed during the reign of either Merenre or Pepi II. An estimated 92% of the text inscribed on the stone was lost when it was roughly polished to be reused as a sarcophagus lid, possibly in the late First Intermediate () to early Middle Kingdom period (). Nonetheless the few legible text fragments of the annal support the succession "Teti → Userkare → Pepi I → Merenre I" possibly followed by Pepi II, making Merenre the fourth king of the Sixth Dynasty.
Three more historical sources agree with this chronology, three of which date to the New Kingdom period. The Abydos King List, written under Seti I ( ) places Merenre I's cartouche as the 37th entry between those of Pepi I and Pepi II. The Turin Canon, a list of kings on papyrus dating to the reign of Ramses II ( ) probably records Merenre I in the fifth column, fourth row, and may have supported his relative position within the dynasty although his name as well as those of his predecessor and successor is illegible. If the attribution of the entry is correct, then Merenre is credited with a reign length ending with the number four, perhaps some years and four months, or four or 14 years. Also dating to the reign of Ramses II is the Saqqara Tablet, explicitly relating the succession "Pepi I → Merenre I → Pepi II", with Merenre located on the 24th entry.
The latest historical source recording a similar information is the (), a history of Egypt written in the third century BC during the reign of Ptolemy II (283–246 BC) by the priest-historian Manetho. No copies of the Aegyptiaca have survived and it is now known only through later writings by Sextus Julius Africanus and Eusebius. According to the Byzantine scholar George Syncellus, Africanus wrote that the mentioned the succession "Othoês → Phius → Methusuphis → Phiops" at the beginning of the Sixth Dynasty. Othoês, Phius, Methusuphis (in Greek, ) and Phiops are believed to be the Hellenised forms for Teti, Pepi I, Merenre and Pepi II, respectively. The Aegyptiaca credits Methusuphis with seven years of reign.
Absolute Merenre's reign is difficult to date precisely in absolute terms. An absolute 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 dating. These methodologies do not agree perfectly and some uncertainty remains. As a result, Merenre's rule is generally dated to the early 23rd century BC. Various hypotheses have been proposed by scholars though it is impossible to determine which one is right.
Duration During the Old Kingdom period, Ancient Egyptians dated their documents and inscriptions by counting the years since the accession of the current king to the throne. These years were often referred to by the number of cattle counts which had taken place since the reign's start. The cattle count, which involved counting cattle, oxen and small livestock, was an important event aimed at evaluating the amount of taxes to be levied on the population. During the early Sixth Dynasty this count was perhaps biennial, occurring every two years. The latest surviving inscription written during Merenre's rule is located in a quarry at Hatnub mentioning the year after the 5th cattle count. If the cattle count was regular and purely biennial, this might correspond to Merenre's tenth year on the throne. Similarly, for Baud and Dobrev a regular biennial count implies that the South Saqqara Stone recorded at least 11 to 13 years of reign for Merenre, almost twice the figure of seven years attributed to him in the Aegyptiaca. For Baud such a reign length is consistent with the finished state of Merenre's pyramid complex.
In 1959, the Egyptologist and philologist Alan Gardiner proposed reading a now discounted 44 years figure on the Turin canon for Merenre, which the Egyptologist and art historian William Stevenson Smith later took to be 14 years instead, of which he attributes nine to a co-regency between Merenre and Pepi I. The Egyptologist Elmar Edel thought such lengths of reign would explain the time necessary for the peaceful relations that Egypt entertained with Lower Nubian chiefs under Merenre to switch to more adversarial ones under Pepi II. In contrast, because of doubts on the regularity of the cattle count and of the general paucity of monuments and documents datable to his reign, Merenre is often credited with less than a decade on the throne by most modern Egyptologists: some give him nine to eleven years; while others propose six or seven years of reign.
Accession to the throne: co-regency Merenre's father 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. The 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 desecrated, 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 made 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 own reign, possibly "in an attempt to secure stability and continuity within the family" as Miroslav Bárta writes; thereby creating the earliest documented co-regency in the history of Egypt. The Egyptologists Jaromir Málek and Miroslav Verner agree with this analysis; Verner adds that Merenre acceded to the throne at an early age and died young.