Huni (original reading unknown) was an ancient Egyptian king, the last pharaoh of the Third Dynasty of Egypt during the Old Kingdom period. Based on the Turin king list, he is commonly credited with a reign of 24 years, ending c. 2613 BC.
Huni's chronological position as the last king of the third dynasty is fairly certain, but there is uncertainty about the succession order of rulers at the end of the third dynasty. It is also unclear under which Hellenized name the ancient historian Manetho listed him in his Aegyptiacae: mostly likely Aches, as Winfried Barta proposes. Many Egyptologists believe that Huni was the father and direct predecessor of King Sneferu, but this is questioned by other scholars. Huni is seen by scholars as a confusing figure in Egyptian history, because he was long remembered in Egyptian traditions, but very few documents, objects or monuments from his reign have survived.
Attestations
Huni is not a well attested pharaoh; most of the attestations only point indirectly to him. There are only two contemporary objects with his name.
The first one is a conical stele made of red granite, discovered in 1909 on the island of Elephantine by Henri Gauthier. The object is long, thick and broad. Its shape resembles a typical Benben stele, as known from mastaba tombs of the early dynastic kings. At the front, the cone presents a rectangular niche with an encarved inscription inside. The inscription mentions a royal palace named the Palace of the headband of Huni and writes Huni's name above it inside a royal cartouche. The decorated niche is interpreted by scholars as a so-called "apparition window". The lower part of the window frame is flattened and elongated and shows traces of a second inscription, apparently the same as inside the window. It is not fully clarified where exactly the object was once on display. Because it was found very close to a stepped pyramid, Egyptologists such as Rainer Stadelmann propose a position on the very front of the monument, or even visibly embedded in one of the steps. Today Huni's dedication cone is in the possession of the Cairo Museum as object JE 41556.Winfried Barta: Zum altägyptischen Namen des Königs Aches. In: Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo. (MDAIK), vol. 29. von Zabern, Mainz 1973, pages 1–4.
The second finding, discovered in 2007, is a polished stone bowl made of magnesite, found at South-Abusir in the mastaba tomb AS-54, belonging to a high official, whose name is yet unknown to archaeologists. The stone vessel inscription mentions Huni's name without a cartouche, but with the Njswt-Bity title. The orthography of the hieroglyphs that form Huni's name makes a reading as Njswt-Hw or Hw-en-Niswt plausible.M. Barta: An Abusir Mastaba from the Reign of Huni, in: Vivienne Gae Callender (et al., editors): Times, Signs and Pyramids: Studies in Honour of Miroslav Verner on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, Prague: Charles University, Faculty in Art, 2011, , p. 41–51 (inscription depicted as fig. 6 on p. 48)
Huni is also attested in mastaba L6 at Saqqara, attributed to the official Metjen and dating to the end of the third dynasty. There, an inscription was found with the name of a royal domain Hw.t-njswt.-hw ("Hut-nisut-hu") of Huni.Wolfgang Helck: Der Name des letzten Königs der 3. Dynastie und die Stadt Ehnas, in: Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur (SAK), 4, (1976), pp. 125–128.
Huni is further mentioned on the back of the Palermo stone in the section concerning the reign of the 5th-dynasty king Neferirkare Kakai, who apparently had a mortuary temple built for the cult of Huni. The temple, however, has not yet been located.
Finally, Huni is attested in the papyrus Prisse, in the Instructions of Kagemni, probably dating to the 13th dynasty. The papyrus gives an important indication about Huni's succession in column II, line 7:
Most scholars today think that this extract may strengthen the theory that Huni was the last king of the 3rd dynasty and the immediate predecessor of king Sneferu (the first ruler of the 4th dynasty).Nicolas Grimal: A History of Ancient Egypt, pp. 65–67.
Name and identity
Huni's cartouche name Huni's identity is difficult to establish, since his name is passed down mostly as cartouche name and in different variations. The earliest mention of his cartouche name may possibly be on the granite cone from Elephantine, which might be contemporary. Otherwise, the earliest appearances of Huni's cartouche can be found on the Palermo Stone P1, dating to the 5th dynasty, and on the Prisse Papyrus of the 13th dynasty. Huni's cartouche can also be found in the Saqqara kinglist and the Turin Canon, both dating back to the 19th dynasty. The Abydos kinglist, which also dates to the 19th dynasty, mysteriously omits Huni's name and gives instead a Neferkara who is unknown to Egyptologists.Toby A. H. Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt. Routledge, London/ New York 1999, , p. 85–89. One suggestion for this omission is that Neferkara was the nomen for Huni.
The reading and translation of Huni's cartouche name is also disputed. In general, two basic versions of his name exist: an old version, which is closest to the (lost) original, and a younger version, which seems to be based on ramesside interpretations and misreadings.
The older version uses the hieroglyphic signs candle wick (Gardiner sign V28), juncus sprout (Gardiner sign M23), bread loaf (Gardiner sign X1) and water line (Gardiner sign N35). This writing form can be found on Old Kingdom objects such as the Palermo Stone recto (reign of Neferirkare), the tomb inscription of Metjen, the stone vessel found in Abusir and the granite cone from Elephantine. Whilst the stone vessel from Abusir writes Huni's name without a cartouche, but gives the Niswt-Bity-title, all other Old Kingdom writings place the king's name inside an oval cartouche.
The ramesside versions use the hieroglyphic signs candle wick (Gardiner sign V28), beating man (Gardiner sign A25), water line (Gardiner sign N35) and arm with a stick (Gardiner sign D40). The cartouche No. 15 in the Kinglist of Saqqara writes two vertical strokes between the water line and the beating arm. The Prisse Papyrus omits the candle wick and the beating arm. Egyptologist Ludwig Borchardt had already proposed by the beginning of the 20th century that the old and ramesside cartouche versions were referring to one and the same king. He proposed that ramesside scribes erroneously took away the juncus sign of the Niswt-Bity title and placed it before the royal cartouche, not realizing that this sign was part of the original birth- or throne-name of Huni. He also proposed that the candle wick was misinterpreted as the sign for "smiting", tempting the ramesside scribes to place the hieroglyph of a beating man behind it. These conclusions are still shared by scholars today.
Following his hypothesis, Borchardt reads Huni's cartouche name as Niswt Hw ("king Hu"), though it could also be read as "Hu belongs to the Sedge".Ludwig Borchardt: König Hu. In: Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde (ZÄS); 46th edition, Berlin/Cairo 1909, p. 12. However, Hans Gödicke instead reads Ny Swteh or Nyswteh ("He who belongs to the smiters") and is convinced that Huni's name was theophoric. In particular, he compares Huni's name construction with those of the kings Nynetjer ("He who belongs to the deified Horus") and Nyuserre ("He who belongs to those with the power of Ra").Hans Gödicke: Der Name des Huni. In: Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde (ZÄS); 81st edition, Berlin/Cairo 1956, p. 18. An alternative reading proposed for Nyswteh is "He who belongs to Seth", given that "Swteh" could not be referring to smiters but instead could be another form of "Sutekh", another name for Seth.
Rainer Stadelmann and Wolfgang Helck strongly refute Gödicke's reading, pointing out that no single Egyptian document mentions a deity, person, place or even a single colloquial term named "Swteh", and that it's impossible to know if "Swteh" is another name of Seth. Thus there is no grammatical source that could have been used to make a royal name "Nyswteh". Helck instead suggests a reading as Hwj-nj-niswt and translates it as "The utterance belongs to the king".Rainer Stadelmann: King Huni: His Monuments and His Place in the History of the Old Kingdom. In: Zahi A. Hawass, Janet Richards (Hrsg.): The Archaeology and Art of Ancient Egypt. Essays in Honor of David B. O’Connor. Band II, Conceil Suprême des Antiquités de l’Égypte, Kairo 2007, p. 425–431.
Huni's possible Horus name The Horus name of Huni is unknown. There are several theories to connect the cartouche name "Huni" with contemporary Horus names.
In the late 1960s, the Louvre Museum bought a stele showing a king whose Horus name is Horus-Qahedjet ("the crown of Horus is raised"). For stylistical reasons the stele may be dated to the late Third Dynasty and it seems possible that it refers to Huni, whose Horus-name it provides.Toby Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt, Routledge, London/New York 1999, , page 104-105. However, its dating and authenticity have been put into question several times, and today the stela is believed to be either fake, or dedicated to king Thutmose III (18th dynasty) while imitating the artistic style of Dynasty III.Jean-Pierre Pätznik, Jacques Vandier: L’Horus Qahedjet: Souverain de la IIIe dynastie?. page 1455–1472
Peter Kaplony promotes an ominous name found in the burial shaft of an unfinished pyramid at Zawyet el'Aryan. The monument is connected with a possible pharaoh named Bikheris. The name in question reads Neb-hedjetnwb ("lord of the golden crown") and is thought by Kaplony to be Huni's possible Horus name. However, Egyptologists such as Aidan Dodson contradict this theory and argue that Neb-hedjetnwb, with its gold hieroglyph, should rather be the Golden Horus name of Bikheris.Aidan Dodson: On the date of the unfinished pyramid of Zawyet el-Aryan. In: Discussion in Egyptology. University Press, Oxford (UK) 1985, p. 22.Peter Kaplony: Die Rollsiegel des Alten Reichs: Katalog der Rollsiegel (= Monumenta aegyptiaca, vol. 3). Fondation Egypt. Reine Elisabeth, Cairo 1981, p. 146–155.
Other Egyptologists, such as Toby Wilkinson and Rainer Stadelmann, identify Huni with the contemporarily well-attested king Horus-Khaba ("the soul of Horus appears"). Their identification is based on the circumstance that both kings' Horus names appear on incised stone vessels without any further guiding notes. It was a fashion that began with the death of king Khasekhemwy (end of the 2nd dynasty) and ended with king Sneferu (beginning of the 4th dynasty). Thus, it was a very typical practice of the 3rd dynasty. Additionally, Stadelmann points to the Layer Pyramid at Zawyet el'Aryan. This monument was possibly built by Khaba, since a nearby mastaba contained several stone vessels with his Horus name. Since the Turin Canon credits a reign of 24 years to Huni, Stadelmann argues that this time span would perfectly fit to finish the Layer Pyramid. Furthermore, Stadelmann points to the large amount of discovered mud seal impressions, stone bowls and widespread find spots throughout Egypt. In his opinion, the archaeological context also speaks for a longer-lasting reign. Thus, he identifies Khaba with Huni.
Family