| Sanakhte | Sanakhte, also known as Nebka (in Greek known as Mesochris), was the first pharaoh of the Third Dynasty of Ancient Egypt (ruled 2686-2668 BC).
Sanakhte's name means 'strong protection'. He presumably gained his position by marriage to a daughter of Khasekhemwy, his predecessor as pharaoh; the kingship even at this early period being passed down through the female line.
While Sanakhte's existence is attested by a mastaba tomb and a graffito among other objects, his position as the founder of the Third Dynasty of Ancient Egypt as recorded by Manetho and the Turin Canon has been seriously undermined by recent archaeological discoveries at Abydos.
They establish beyond doubt that it was Djoser, instead, who helped bury--and thus--succeed Khasekhemwy from seals found at the entrance to the latter's tomb bearing Djoser's name. (see Toby Wilkinson in Early Dynastic Egypt, (1999), p.83 & 95).
It appears instead that Nebka was a later king of the Third Dynasty instead. In addition, unlike Djoser, few relics survive from Sanakhte's reign which also casts serious doubts on Manetho and the Turin Canon's traditional figure of an 18 year reign for this king.
It must be stressed that the Turin Canon and Manetho were more than one and two thousand years removed from the time of Egypt's early Third Dynasty and would be expected to contain more inaccurate or unreliable data. The Turin Canon, for instance, was transcribed on papyri which dates to the reign of the New Kingdom king Ramesses II who ruled Egypt from 1279-1213 BC.
A large mastaba near Abydos contained fragments bearing the name of Sanakhte, however. It also contained skeletal remains, which may have been that of this king. Manetho credits a king by this name as being particularly tall, which is borne out by the remains that were found within.
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Djoser
| Netjerikhet Djoser (Turin King List "Dsr-it"; Manetho "Tosarthros") is the best-known pharaoh of the Third dynasty of Egypt, for commissioning the official Imhotep to build his Step Pyramid at Saqqara.
The painted limestone statue of Djoser in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo is the oldest known Egyptian life-size statue. Today at the site in Saqqara in which it was found, a plaster copy of the statue stands in place of the original at the museum. The statue was found during the Antiquities Service Excavations of 1924-1925.
In contemporary inscriptions, he is called Netjerikhet, meaning body of the gods. Later sources, which include a New Kingdom reference to his Step Pyramid, help confirm Netjerikhet and Djoser are the same person.
While Manetho names one Necherophes, and the Turin King List names Nebka, as the first ruler of the Third dynasty, many Egyptologists now believe Djoser was first king of this dynasty, pointing out that the order in which some predecessors of Khufu are mentioned in the Papyrus Westcar suggests Nebka should be placed between Djoser and Huni, not before Djoser. More significantly, the English Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson has demonstrated that burial seals found at the entrance to Khasekhemwy's tomb in Abydos name only Djoser, rather than Nebka. This proves Djoser buried and, hence, directly succeeded Khasekhemwy and not Nebka.
Manetho states Djoser ruled Egypt for 29 years, while the Turin King List states it was only 19 years. Because of his many substantial building projects, particularly at Saqqara, some scholars argue Djoser must have enjoyed a reign of nearly three decades. Manetho's figure appears to be more accurate, according to Wilkinson's analysis and reconstruction in 2000 of the Palermo Stone, which mentions the beginning and end of Djoser's reign. Wilkinson states the Annal document gives Djoser "28 complete or partial years" and notes Years 1-5 and 19-28 of his reign are preserved on Palermo Stone register V and Cairo Fragment 1, register V of the document.
Because Queen Nimaethap, the wife of Khasekhemwy, the last king of the Second dynasty of Egypt, appears to have held the title "Mother of the King", some writers argue she was Djoser's mother and Khasekhemwy was his father. Three royal women are known from during his reign: Inetkawes, Hetephernebti and a third, whose name is destroyed. One of them might have been his wife, and the one whose name is lost may have been Nimaethap. The relationship between Djoser and his successor, Sekhemkhet, is not known.
Djoser dispatched several military expeditions to the Sinai Peninsula, during which the local inhabitants were subdued. He also sent expeditions there to mine for valuable minerals such as turquoise and copper. The Sinai was also strategically important as a buffer between Asia and the Nile valley. He also may have fixed the southern boundary of his kingdom at the First Cataract.
Some fragmentary reliefs found at Heliopolis and Gebelein mention Djoser's name and suggest he commissioned construction projects in those cities. An inscription claiming to date to the reign of Djoser, but actually created during the Ptolemaic Dynasty, relates how Djoser rebuilt the temple of Khnum on the island of Elephantine at the First Cataract, thus ending a seven year famine in Egypt. Some consider this ancient inscription as but a legend. Nonetheless, it does show more than two millennia after his reign, Egyptians still remembered Djoser. His most famous monument was his step pyramid which entailed the construction of several mastaba tombs one over another. These form would eventually lead to the standard pyramid tomb under later Old Kingdom pharaohs.
Variants of his name include Zoser, Dzoser, Zozer (or Zozzer), Dsr, Djeser, Zosar, Djéser, Djésèr, Horus-Netjerikhet, Horus-Netjerichet.
| | Sekhemkhet | Sekhemkhet was Pharaoh in Egypt during the Third dynasty. According to the Manethonian tradition, a king known as "Djoserty" reigned for a relatively brief period of seven years, and modern scholars believe Djoserty and Sekhemkhet are the same person. While the Turin Canon gives Sekhemkhet a reign of 6 years. Toby Wilkinson's reconstruction of the Dynasty 5 Palermo Stone Annal document assigns a reign of 7 years to this king based on the number of year register preserved for him in Cairo Fragment One, register V. Wilkinson states that "this figure is fairly certain, since the [king's] titulary begins immediately after the dividing line marking the change of reign." Hence, the Manethonian tradition appears to be correct. His reign is thought to have been from about 2649 BC until 2643 BC or 2642 BC.
While there was a known successor to Djoser, Sekhemkhet's name was unknown until 1951, when the leveled foundation and vestiges of an unfinished Step Pyramid were discovered at Saqqara by Zakaria Goneim. Only the lowest step of the pyramid had been constructed at the time of his death. Jar seals found on the site were inscribed with this king's name. From its design and an inscription from his pyramid at Saqqara, it is thought that Djoser's famous architect Imhotep had a hand in the design of this pyramid. Archaeologists believe that Sekhemket's pyramid would have been larger than Djoser's had it been completed. Today, the site, which lies southwest of Djoser's complex, is mostly concealed beneath sand dunes and is known as the Buried Pyramid.
| Khaba
| Khaba was a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom. He is generally considered to have reigned near the end of the Third Dynasty, and is thought to be the successor to Sekhemkhet. He is believed to have reigned a relatively brief four years between 2603 BC to 2599 BC, although these dates are highly conjectural, based on what scant evidence exists of this early king.
He is commonly associated with the Layer Pyramid, located at Zawyet el'Aryan, about 4 km south of Giza. It is an unfinished pyramid whose construction is typical of Third Dynasty masonry and would have originally risen about 42-45m in height (it is now about 20m). While there were no inscriptions directly relating the pyramid to this king, a number of alabaster vessels inscribed with this king’s name were discovered nearby in Mastaba Z-500 located just north of the pyramid.
This king is mentioned in the Turin King List as "erased", which may imply that there were dynastic problems during his reign, or that the scribe working on this list was unable to fully decipher the name from the more ancient records being copied from. It has also been suggested that Khaba may be the Horus name of the last king of the Third Dynasty, Huni, and that the two kings are the same person.
Khaba's name, typically displayed within a serekh rather than the more typical cartouche form established by the end of this dynasty, was written using the sign of a rising sun that had the sound value of kha, and a Saddle-billed Stork that had the sound value of ba.
| Huni
| Huni was the last Pharaoh of Egypt of the Third dynasty. He established a fortress on the island of Elephantine, securing the southern border of Egypt at the First Cataract. Huni was probably the father of Hetepheres, queen of the next king, Sneferu. A certain Huni is mentioned amongst the names of high officials from the court of Djoser, and if this was indeed the same man as this pharaoh, it is possible that Huni came to the throne at a very venerable age. He is credited with a 24-year reign in the Turin King List.
Huni is sometimes credited with building a great stepped pyramid at Meidum (larger than that of Djoser), which was supposedly left unfinished at the time of his death, thus his successor Snofru, it is said, completed it near the beginning of his reign. However, this theory comes out of a simple desire to have a significant monument attributed to Huni; there is no evidence whatsoever that the Meidum pyramid was his burial place. The name of Snofru, however, has been found at Meidum, and many of Snofru's children, particularly princes Nefermaat and Rahotep, have been buried in mastabas at the Meidum necropolis. Thus it seems more likely that it was Snofru who had the pyramid built and, later on during his reign, transformed it from the stepped pyramid into a true pyramid by having its sides smoothed. The pyramid has since collapsed, leaving only its core.
Another pyramid exists which was very likely built by Huni, but this is a small ceremonial pyramid the ruins of which have been found at Elephantine island. This pyramid was not a tomb, nor did it have a surrounding necropolis or temple complex: its real function and religious significance remain unknown. However, many of such small, ceremonial, pyramids have been found, built by Old Kingdom pharaohs throughout the kingdom of Egypt.
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