Second Intermediate Period
Minor Theban kings (concurrent with Hyksos)
16th Dynasty (Theban) · c.1650-1580 BCE
Source: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Background
This entry represents a cluster of short-lived kings, sometimes called the Sixteenth Dynasty, who ruled a shrunken Theban kingdom while the Hyksos controlled the Delta and Kushite Nubia pressed from the south. Their reign lengths in the Turin Canon are frequently just a single year or less, and their own inscriptions make no claim to rule beyond Thebes itself, a striking contrast with the traditional pharaonic title of "ruler of the Two Lands." Research: UCL Digital Egypt; Metropolitan Museum.
Dating: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Full profile
A strangled city
While the 15th Dynasty flourished in Avaris, the 16th Dynasty emerged in the south as a rival line of native Egyptian kings based in Thebes. The exact origins of these kings are heavily debated; they may have been remnants of the old 13th Dynasty or an independent local family. Regardless of their origins, their political position was exceptionally weak.
The kings of Thebes
The 16th Dynasty was completely strangled economically and militarily. The Hyksos controlled Lower Egypt to the north, and the Kingdom of Kush controlled the crucial trade routes and fortresses to the south. The city of Thebes suffered from severe famine, natural disasters, and constant military raids. Inscriptions from early rulers like Neferhotep III and Mentuhotepi boast of defending Thebes, but entirely omit traditional pharaonic claims of ruling Upper and Lower Egypt. Their authority was strictly confined to the immediate vicinity of their struggling city.
Kings who called only Thebes their own
Surviving stelae from two of these kings, Neferhotep III and his likely successor Seankhenre Mentuhotepi, are unusually candid about the scale of their power. Neferhotep III's badly damaged stela repeatedly calls Thebes "my city" and describes himself as "the guide of victorious Thebes," while Mentuhotepi's own stela from Karnak states plainly, "I am the king within Thebes, this is my city." Neither claims dominion over Egypt as a whole, a marked departure from standard royal titulary that reflects, in the kings' own words, just how far Theban authority had contracted during this period.
Sources for this profile
- Baker, D. D. (2008). The Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs: Volume 1. Stacey International.
- Shaw, I. (Ed.). (2000). The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press.
- Ryholt, K. (2004). The Turin King-list. Ägypten und Levante, 14, 135–155.
- Dodson, A., & Hilton, D. (2004). The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson.
- University College London. Digital Egypt for Universities.
The complete, APA-formatted reference list is on the Academic Sources & Bibliography page.