The Seventeenth Dynasty (Part 11)

The remnants of the Turin Canon, when combined with the archaeological evidence presented in the previous section, can be used to make a reasonable ordering of the Pharaohs of Dynasty Seventeen possible. The Turin Canon gives the following information (Beckerath, Jurgen von, Untersuchungen zur politischen Geschichte der zweiten Zwischenzeit in Aegypten (Gluckstadt: J. J. Augustin, 1964), p. 195):

King --------------------------------------------------- Length of Reign
[…] ---------------------------------------------------- […]
Sekhemre […] --------------------------------------- 3 years
Sekhemre […] --------------------------------------- 16 years
Sekhemre Se[mentowi] (Thiuty) ------------------ 1 year
Seankhenre (Mentuhotep) ------------------------- 1 year
Ra-Nebereraw (I) ----------------------------------- 19 years
Ra-Nebereraw (II) ---------------------------------- 5 months
Semenenre ------------------------------------------ […]
Sewoserenre ---------------------------------------- 12 years
Sekhemre Shedweset (= Shedtowi) --------------- […]
[…]re ------------------------------------------------- […]
[…]re ------------------------------------------------- […]
[…] --------------------------------------------------- […]
[…] --------------------------------------------------- […]
[…] --------------------------------------------------- […]

[sum]: Kings [1]5 they reigned […]

The gaps in the papyrus (represented above by […]) complicate matters, but by carefully adding the archaeological evidence to this foundation we can produce a reconstruction of the period which fits the available evidence quite well.

First, it is known for certain that the last two Kings of the dynasty were Sekenenre Ta’o and Kamose. The thirteenth king is almost certainly Senakhtenre Ta’o. Senakhtenre is listed on the Karnak King-List between Nebkheperre Intef and Sekenenre and is listed as an ancestor of Ahmose (along with Sekenenre and Kamose) on the offering table of Ken. Hayes suggests that the thirteenth King of the dynasty was Sekenenre I and fourteenth was Sekenenre II (Hayes, William, “Egypt: from the Death of Amenemesses II to Seqenenre II,” in Cambridge Ancient History vol. 2, pt. 1 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1973), p. 819). Hayes got this idea from the Abbott Papyrus which lists pyramids for two separate rulers named Sekenenre Ta’o (Breasted, James, Ancient Records of Egypt, vol. 4, (New York: Russel & Russell, 1962), p. 256). This is wrong however. All modern Egyptologists prefer to emend the papyrus to make the first of these two Kings Senakhtenre Ta’o (Beckerath, p. 195). Even the ancient scribe who wrote the Abbott Papyrus was unsure of the validity of listing two Sekenenres as he added “…the second King Ta’o…” to his mention of the second pyramid. Note that the scribe said that there were two Ta’os, not two Sekenenre Ta’os. It seems far better to make the first King on the Abbot Papyrus Senakhtenre Ta’o rather than an otherwise unknown Sekenenre I. Furthermore, the bottom line of the Turin Canon states that there were []5 kings in Dynasty Seventeen. If there were two Sekenenres this would make the dynasty total sixteen Kings, without the second Sekenenre the gap in the papyrus can be restored as fifteen.