Semenkare Nebnuni (also Nebnun and Nebnennu) is a poorly attested pharaoh of the early 13th Dynasty during the Second Intermediate Period. He is mainly known for his position in the Turin King List.
Family Based on his lack of filiative nomen, Ryholt has suggested that he was of non-royal birth.Ryholt, Kim (1997) A Bead of King Ranisonb and a note on King Qemaw. GM 156, p. 97.
Attestation The Sinai The only contemporary attestation of Nebnuni is a faience stele showing the king before Ptah "South of his wall", a memphite epithet of the god, and on the other before Horus, "Lord of the foreign countries". The stele is also inscribed with Nebnuni's nomen and prenomen. The stele was discovered at Gebel el-Zeit on the Red Sea coast in the Sinai, where mines of galena were located.Georges Castel and Georges Soukiassian: Dépôt de stèles dans le sanctuaire du Nouvel Empire au Gebel Zeit, BIFAO 85 (1985), ISSN 0255-0962, p. 290, pl. 62
Non-contemporary attestation The Turin canon 7:11 (Gardiner 6:11) mentions: "The Dual King Semenkara ... 22 days ...". He is preceded by 7:10 Sankhibra (Amenemhat) and succeeded by 7:12 Sehotepibra.
Theories According to Egyptologists Darrell Baker and Kim Ryholt, Nebnuni was the ninth ruler of the 13th Dynasty.K.S.B. Ryholt, The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, c.1800–1550 BC, Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications, vol. 20. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1997, excerpts available online here.Darrell D. Baker: The Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs: Volume I - Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300–1069 BC, Stacey International, , 2008, p. 245 Alternatively, Jürgen von Beckerath and Detlef Franke see him as the eighth king of the dynasty.Jürgen von Beckerath: Untersuchungen zur politischen Geschichte der Zweiten Zwischenzeit in Ägypten, Glückstadt, 1964Jürgen von Beckerath: Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägyptens, Münchner Ägyptologische Studien 46, Mainz am Rhein, 1997Thomas Schneider: Ancient Egyptian Chronology - Edited by Erik Hornung, Rolf Krauss, And David a. Warburton, available online, see p. 176
The Egyptologist Kim Ryholt credits Nebnuni with a reign of two years, from 1785 BC until 1783 BC. Alternatively, Egyptologists Rolf Krauss, Detlef Franke and Thomas Schneider give Nebuni only one year of reign in 1739 BC.Thomas Schneider following Detlef Franke: Lexikon der Pharaonen, Albatros, Düsseldorf 2002, Although little is known of Nebnuni's reign, the existence of his stele shows that during this period, rulers of the 13th Dynasty still wielded sufficient power to organize mining expeditions in the Sinai for the supply of construction materials and the production of luxury items. Finally, Ryholt points to the lack of royal connections between Nebnuni and his predecessor. He thus concludes that Nebnuni may have usurped the throne.
See also List of pharaohs
References