by
Why is pharaoh Userkare important?
Well he is, according to my reconstructions, none
other than Moses himself:
Sixth and Twelfth Egyptian Dynasty links to
Artapanus’ legend of Moses
(DOC) Sixth and Twelfth Egyptian Dynasty links
to Artapanus' legend of Moses
We are in what is called the Sixth Dynasty of
Egypt.
Moses, after a short reign as pharaoh, has abdicated.
He, at home as a man of letters and philosophy, had
settled into a life of serving Egypt as a high official, as Vizier and Chief
Judge.
These positions brought with them huge
responsibilities, including leading armies.
In a Sixth Dynasty context, Moses was (apart
from Userkare, above) both the highly literate Weni, Vizier and Chief
Judge, and the sage Kagemni, Vizier and Chief Justice – who will later in
Egyptian history be deified:
Moses later deified as Kagemni?
(9) Moses later deified as Kagemni?
Moses had succeeded the dynastic founding Pharaoh, the
“new king” of Exodus 1:8, Teti (var. Khufu; Sahure; Amenemes) who would be
assassinated.
After a brief reign from which he would abdicate,
Moses served Pepi Neferkare, the pharaoh who had married Ankhesenmerire
(Meresankh or Meritites).
In this pair we find Artapanus’s “Chenephres” (Neferkare/Khaneferre)
and his wife “Merris (meres-ankh), the Egyptian foster-mother of Moses.
“Chenephres” grew jealous of Moses, and – like King
Saul with David – sought ways to get rid of him, for instance, giving him
inferior troops to lead. Moses, a military genius, as it turned out, still
managed (like David) to win his battles and to prosper, making “Chenephres” all
the more angry.
When Moses killed the Egyptian overseer, “Chenephres” seized
his opportunity. He sought the life of Moses and hounded him out of the country
(Exodus 2:11-15).
This situation has real historical resonance in Pepi Neferkare’s
damnatio memoriæ of Userkare (Moses) and his relegating of his
kingship to the “desert”:
“Although Userkare is attested in some historical
sources, that is they bear witness to his existence, he is not mentioned in the
tomb inscriptions of Egyptian officials who lived during his reign and who
usually report the names of the kings whom they served. The representations of
some high officials of the period have been deliberately chiselled out in their
tombs and their titles altered, for instance the word "king" being
replaced by that of "desert". Egyptologists thus suspect that Pepi
might have tried to erase all memory of Userkare from official records,
monuments, tombs and artefacts”.
While I don’t think that Pepi entirely succeeded in
this, it nevertheless accounts for why pharaoh Userkare is now such an utter
mystery for historians.
Back in 2009, archaeologist Dr. Vassil (Vasko) Dobrev
embarked upon a concerted search for the lost tomb of Userkare, as we read here
(we can safely ignore the highly inflated BC dates for the Sixth Dynasty
of Egypt):
ArchaeoVideo: Dr Vassil
Dobrev on the Hunt for the Lost Pharaoh Userkare
October 13, 2009 -
Userkare is a mysterious figure in Egyptian history. He
was the second pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty placed between Teti (who reigned
from circa 2345-2333 BC) and [Teti’s] son Pepi I (who reigned from circa
2332-2283 BC) and a usurper [sic] to the throne, who took power after Teti was
murdered, perhaps in a conspiracy engineered by Userkare himself. His reign
lasted just two to four years at most before he was ousted; afterwards he all
but disappeared from history.
Archaeologists are on the hunt for his missing tomb,
to see what secrets it might reveal.
We must find Userkare, states the Egyptologist heading
up the search, Dr Vassil (or Vasko) Dobrev of the French Institute of Archaeology in Cairo,
in an exclusive video interview with Heritage Key by Nico Piazza. Otherwise we
cannot continue to explain the history of the sixth dynasty.
Dobrev has whittled the hunt for [Userkare’s] tomb
down to a plateau in the south of the ancient necropolis of Saqqara the royal graveyard of the Egyptian capital Memphis where he has located numerous graves of priests
and other high-ranking officials from the Sixth Dynasty.
He reasons that, since kings were never buried alone, [Userkare’s]
tomb may be nearby.
[Dobrev’s] team have 15 hectares in all to search a
tall order indeed. They’ve excavated just one fifth of a hectare so far,
finding 15 Sixth Dynasty tombs in that small area alone.
You never know archaeology, says Dobrev, sounding
philosophical, you search for somebody you find somebody else.
He points to the discoverer of the tomb of King
Tut as being a highly rare
example of an archaeologist achieving what he set out to achieve.
Its only Howard Carter who
found something clear, he says. He looked for something, he found something. It
happens once per century.
[That’s] not to say Dobrev [doesn’t] believe he [won’t]
get as lucky.
Now were in the 21th century, the Frenchman adds, we
can make it again. Who knows?
[End of quote]
Might Kaires, whose tomb
has been discovered,
have been the elusive Userkare?
In Papyrus
Chester Beatty IV, considered to be a Nineteenth Dynasty document, we
are introduced to eight names of past fame and wisdom:
Is
there any here like Hordedef? Is there another like Imhotep?
There
have been none among our family like Neferti and Khety, their
leader.
Let
me remind you the names of Ptahemdjedhuty and Khakheperreseneb.
Is
there another like Ptahhotep or Kaires?
Now I, in my article:
Are
Joseph and Moses amongst sages named in Papyrus Chester Beatty IV?
(9) Are Joseph and
Moses amongst sages named in Papyrus Chester Beatty IV? by
identified
one of these names, Imhotep, as the biblical Joseph of Egypt, and two of
these names, Hordedef and Ptahhotep, as belonging to Moses.
In other
words, I do not believe that there are fully eight different persons being referred
to here. There is at least one duplication.
And I think
that there may be more. The Nineteenth Dynasty compiler - if such he was
- may not have had a perfectly precise knowledge about those past ages and sages.
Now I am
inclined to think that Kaires, obviously a character of notable greatness:
Is
there another like Ptahhotep or Kaires?
was our
sought for Userkare (= Moses briefly as pharaoh) – Kaires perhaps being an
Egyptian abbreviation (they loved these) of Userkare.
He
apparently officiated during the reigns of Sahure and Neferirkare,
respectively, my founding dynastic king (Exodus 1:8), and his successor, “Chenephres”
(Neferkare).
Kaires was,
like Moses, a Vizier, and obviously an official of quasi-royal importance:
The discovery of the tomb
of priest Kaires | Český egyptologický ústav
The discovery of the tomb of priest Kaires
2.10.2018 News News from Abusir
After two weeks of work at its archaeological
concession on the Abusir pyramid field, the current expedition of the Czech
Institute of Egyptology of the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University
discovered a unique burial complex of the royal confidant and priest Kaires.
The tomb is located in the heart of the pyramid field
of the 25th and 24th centuries BC, i.e. the
reign of the 5th Dynasty of the Egyptian Old Kingdom in an
area, where only members of the royal family and the highest state dignitaries
of the time were buried.
The complex of Kaires extends over an area of over 500
m2, and besides the tomb itself contains several other rooms which
served for the funerary cult and the ritual purification of the priests before
they could enter the tomb. The cult chapel represents a completely unique
architectural feat of the entire 3rd millennium BC, as it was
paved with basalt blocks. The use of basalt was an exclusive privilege of the
kings and its presence here is one of several pieces of evidence of the
exceptional status of the tomb owner. Unfortunately, only a few pieces of the
cultic stela with the owner’s titles, the so-called false door, have been
preserved to present times.
The burial chamber of Kaires has been looted already
in antiquity, but in front of the limestone sarcophagus, his granite statue
with remnants of colors and further titles has been somewhat miraculously
preserved in its original location. It is these titles that indicate Kaires’
exceptional career.
Kaires was the sole friend (of the king), overseer of
all king’s works, keeper of the secret of the Morning House, steward of the
royal palace, foremost of the House of Life, inspector of the priests serving
in the pyramid complexes of kings Sahure and Neferirkare, priest of the goddess
Hathor, mistress of the sycamore, in Cusae (a city in southern Egypt),
custodian of the two thrones (i.e. of southern and northern Egypt), as well as
a holder of several other titles. The Morning House was a specific location,
where the king would come in the morning to eat breakfast and get dressed,
whereas the House of Life was an institution, where Egyptians stored texts
recorded on papyrus scrolls containing their knowledge and
religious-philosophical treatises. [Emphasis
added]
The discovery of this statue presents the answer to
the years-lasting question, whether the ancient Egyptians placed statues into
burial chambers. It proves they indeed did.
Another unique trait of the tomb is the construction
of the burial chamber, which was built in an open pit. After the sarcophagus
had been lowered and the side walls lined with limestone blocks, the chamber
was closed by several giant ceiling blocks of limestone, each of which weighs
at least 8–9 tons.
Even though the expedition is still running and the
final analysis of all data and information collected will take a much longer
time, it can be said even at this stage of works that this is a unique
discovery of a tomb of an exceptional figure of the history of Egypt of the 3rd millennium
BC. Kaires’ titles place him at the level of the viziers (prime ministers) of
the time, whereas the architecture of his tomb completely exceeds the
contemporary customs, and the full appraisal of this fact will only be possible
after further investigation.
….
