Third Intermediate Period
Amenemnisu
21st Dynasty (Tanite) · 1069-945 BCE
Open full-size illustration →Source: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Background
Amenemnisu is so poorly attested that his very existence as a historical king was in doubt until the twentieth century, when a single inscribed object recovered from another pharaoh's tomb finally confirmed he had reigned. Additional detail: UCL Digital Egypt.
Reign dates: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Full profile
An obscure successor
Amenemnisu succeeded Smendes I and ruled for approximately four years. Almost nothing is known about his life or his exact relationship to his predecessor; he may have been a son, a brother, or another relative. His existence was not even confirmed by archaeologists until 1940.
Confirmed by a gold bow cap
Before 1940, Amenemnisu was known only from a brief, uncertain mention in Manetho's ancient king lists, where later copyists rendered his name as "Nephercheres," and some Egyptologists doubted he had existed at all. That changed when the French archaeologist Pierre Montet excavated the intact royal tomb of his successor, Psusennes I, at Tanis and found a small gold bow cap inscribed with both Amenemnisu's throne name, Neferkare, and that of Psusennes I himself. That single object remains the primary physical evidence that Amenemnisu was a real, reigning king rather than a scribal error or later invention.
Sources for this profile
- Shaw, I. (Ed.). (2000). The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press.
- Dodson, A., & Hilton, D. (2004). The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson.
- Leprohon, R. J. (2013). The Great Name: Ancient Egyptian Royal Titulary. Society of Biblical Literature.
- UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. Chronology. UCLA.
- University College London. Digital Egypt for Universities.
The complete, APA-formatted reference list is on the Academic Sources & Bibliography page.