Merneferre Ay - Wikipedia Merneferre Ay From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Merneferre Ay Aya, Eje, Aye, Iy, Mernoferre, Ay I An inscribed section of the pyramidion of king Merneferre Ay's tomb. Pharaoh Reign 23 years, 8 months and 18 days, 1701–1677 BC,[1] 1695–1685 BC,[2] 1684–1661 BC[3] (13th Dynasty) Predecessor Wahibre Ibiau Successor Merhotepre Ini Royal titulary Prenomen  (Praenomen) Merneferre mr-nfr-Rˁ He who loves the perfection of Ra Nomen Ay Iii Turin King List: Merneferre mr-nfr-Rˁ Consort Ineni? Merneferre Ay (also spelled Aya or Eje, sometimes known as Ay I) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the mid 13th Dynasty. The longest reigning pharaoh of the 13th Dynasty, he ruled a likely fragmented Egypt for over 23 years in the early to mid 17th century BC. A pyramidion bearing his name shows that he possibly completed a pyramid, probably located in the necropolis of Memphis. Merneferre Ay is the last pharaoh of the 13th Dynasty to be attested outside Upper Egypt. In spite of his long reign, the number of artefacts attributable to him is comparatively small. This may point to problems in Egypt at the time and indeed, by the end of his reign, "the administration [of the Egyptian state] seems to have completely collapsed".[1][3] It is possible that the capital of Egypt since the early Middle Kingdom, Itjtawy was abandoned during or shortly after Ay's reign. For this reason, some scholars consider Merneferre Ay to be the last pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. Contents 1 Chronology 1.1 Chronological position 1.2 Reign length 2 Reign and attestations 2.1 Attestations 3 Legacy 4 Ay 5 See also 6 References Chronology[edit] Chronological position[edit] Globular jar of Merneferre Ay, Metropolitan Museum of Art The relative chronological position of Merneferre Ay as a king of the mid 13th Dynasty is well established by the Turin canon, a king list redacted during the early Ramesside period (1292–1069 BC) and which serves as the primary historical source for the Second Intermediate Period. The king list records Ay's name on column 8 line 3 (column 6 line 3 in Alan Gardiner's reading of the Turin canon and entry 7.3 in von Beckerath's reading) and establishes that Merneferre Ay was preceded by Wahibre Ibiau and succeeded by Merhotepre Ini, who was possibly his son.[1] The precise chronological placement of Merneferre Ay varies between scholars, with Jürgen von Beckerath and Aidan Dodson seeing him as the 27th king of the dynasty[4] while Kim Ryholt and Darrell Baker place him in the 32nd and 33rd positions, respectively.[1][5] Similarly, the absolute datation of Ay's reign is debated and varies by 17 years between Ryholt's 1701–1677 BC[1] and Schneider's 1684–1661 BC.[3] Reign length[edit] Until recently, the duration of Merneferre Ay's reign, which is recorded in the Turin canon, was disputed by Jürgen von Beckerath who read the damaged figure on the papyrus fragment as 13 years[6] while both Alan Gardiner and Kenneth Kitchen maintained it should be read as 23 years.[7][8] The dispute was settled in the latest study of the Turin canon by Kim Ryholt who confirms that Merneferre Ay's reign length as recorded on the papyrus is "23 years, 8 months and 18 days".[1] Ryholt insists that "the tick that distinguishes 20 and 30 from 10 is preserved and beyond dispute. Accordingly, 23 years or, less likely, 33 years must be read."[1] This makes Merneferre Ay the longest-ruling pharaoh of the 13th Dynasty at a time when numerous short-lived kings ruled Egypt. Reign and attestations[edit] Green glazed steatite scarab of Merneferre Ay, British Museum.[9] As a king of the mid 13th Dynasty, Merneferre Ay reigned over Middle and Upper Egypt concurrently with the 14th Dynasty, which controlled at least the Eastern Nile Delta. The egyptologists Kim Ryholt and Darrell Baker contend that Mernferre usurped the throne at the expense of his predecessor Wahibre Ibiau.[1][5] They base this conclusion on the total absence of filiative nomina, that is references to the name of his father on the artefacts attributable to him.[1] They believe that this should have been the case had his father been a pharaoh, and indeed a number of 13th Dynasty kings used filiative nomina. Little is known of Ay's consorts, he was possibly married to Ineni whose scarabs are stylistically similar to those of Ay.[1] Attestations[edit] Merneferre Ay is well attested; no fewer than 62 scarab seals and one cylinder-seal[10] bearing his name are known, 51 of which are of unknown provenance[5][11][12] Among the scarabs of known provenance, three are from Lower Egypt, more precisely one from Bubastis and two from Heliopolis.[1][5] The rest of the scarabs of known provenance are from Abydos, Coptos and Lisht, all localities being in Middle or Upper Egypt. Other attestations of Ay include an obsidian globular jar now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,[13] a ball dedicated to Sobek,[14] an inscribed limestone block, part of a lintel, discovered in 1908 by Georges Legrain in Karnak and a pyramidion.[5][15][16] The pyramidion was confiscated from robbers by the Egyptian police in 1911 at Faqus, close to the ancient city of Avaris. It is carved with the name of Ay and shows him offering to Horus "Lord of heaven", demonstrating that a pyramid was built for him during his long reign.[16][17] The fact that the pyramidion was probably discovered by the robbers in modern-day Khatana, part of the ancient city of Avaris (modern-day Qantir) is important since it was likely the capital of the 14th Dynasty during Ay's lifetime. Egyptologists believe that the pyramidion originates in fact from Memphis, in the necropolis of which Ay's pyramid must be located. Accordingly, this suggests that the pyramid was looted at the time of the Hyksos invasion c. 1650 BC and the pyramidion taken to Avaris at this moment.[1][5] This is vindicated by the "damaged text on the pyramidion [which] originally invoked four gods" two of whom were Ptah and Re-Horus (for Ra-Horakhty). The cults of these gods were based in the Memphite necropolis, not in Avaris.[1] Other objects which suffered the same fate include two colossal statues of the 13th Dynasty king Imyremeshaw. Legacy[edit] Lintel of Merneferre Ay.[15] Even though Merneferre Ay is well attested, the number of objects attributable to him is relatively small given his nearly 24 year-long reign.[5] This may point to serious problems in Egypt at the time and indeed Ryholt and others believe that by the end of Ay's reign "the administration [of the Egyptian state] seems to have completely collapsed".[1] Merneferre Ay is the last Egyptian king of the 13th Dynasty who is attested by objects from outside of Upper Egypt.[3] This may indicate the abandonment of the old capital of the Middle Kingdom Itjtawy in favor of Thebes.[18] Daphna Ben Tor believes that this event was triggered by the invasion of the eastern Delta and the Memphite region by Canaanite rulers. Indeed some egyptologists believe that by the end of Ay's reign the 13th dynasty had lost control of Lower Egypt, including the Delta region and possibly Memphis itself. For these authors, this marks the end of the Middle Kingdom and the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period.[18] This analysis is rejected by Ryholt and Baker however, who note that the stele of Seheqenre Sankhptahi, reigning toward the very end of the 13th Dynasty, strongly suggests that he reigned over Memphis. Unfortunately, the stele is of unknown provenance.[1][5] Ay[edit] Merneferre Ay is sometimes confused with Ay, a ruler at the end of the 18th Dynasty (1549–1292 BC). However, both kings ruled in completely different dynasties and have nothing in common other than a similar name. See also[edit] Wikimedia Commons has media related to Merneferre Ay. List of pharaohs References[edit] ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. ^ Gae Callender: 'The Middle Kingdom Renaissance (c. 2055–1650 BC) in: Ian Shaw (editor): The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, OUP Oxford (2003), ISBN 978-0192804587. ^ a b c d Thomas Schneider in: Ancient Egyptian Chronology - Edited by Erik Hornung, Rolf Krauss, and David A. Warburton, available online, see p. 181, 497 ^ Jürgen von Beckerath: Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen, Münchner ägyptologische Studien, Heft 49, Mainz : Philip von Zabern, 1999, ISBN 3-8053-2591-6, see p. 98–99 ^ a b c d e f g h Darrell D. Baker: The Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs: Volume I - Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300–1069 BC, Stacey International, ISBN 978-1-905299-37-9, 2008, p. 65–66 ^ Jürgen von Beckerath: Untersuchungen zur politischen Geschichte der Zweiten Zwischenzeit in Ägypten, Glückstadt, J.J. Augustin, 1964 ^ Alan Gardiner: The Royal Canon of Turin, Griffith Institute new edition (1988), ISBN 978-0900416484 ^ Kenneth Kitchen: The Basics of Egyptian Chronology in Relation to the Bronze Age at the "High, Middle or Low", University of Göteborg conference, 1987, JSTOR 505957 ^ Harry Reginald Hall: Catalogue of Egyptian scarabs, etc., in the British Museum, vol 1 (1913), available not-in-copyright here, p. 20., scarab is now in London, British Museum EA 16567 ^ Cylinder Seal of King Merneferre Aya, Metropolitan Museum of Art, see the online catalog [1] ^ Five scarab-seals of Merneferre Ay are now in the Petrie Museum, see three of them on Digital Egypt ^ Olga Tufnell: Studies on Scarab Seals, vol. II, Aris & Philips, Warminster, 1984, pp. 159–161, 181, 184–187, 200, 368–369, seals No. 3168–3183, pl. LV–LVI. ^ Globular Jar of King Merneferre Aya, Metropolitan Museum of Art, see the online catalog [2] ^ Gerard Godron: Deux objets du Moyen-Empire mentionnant Sobek, BIFAO 63 (1965), p. 197–200, available online Archived 2014-09-07 at the Wayback Machine ^ a b Georges Legrain: Notes d'inspection - Sur le Roi Marnofirrì, in Annales du Service des antiquités de l'Egypte (ASAE) 9 (1908) available not-in-copyright here, p. 276. ^ a b Labib Habachi: "Khata'na-Qantir: Importance", ASAE 52 (1954) pp. 471–479, pl.16–17 ^ Labib Habachi: Tell el-Dab'a and Qantir, Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (2001), pp. 172–174, no. 18, ISBN 978-3-7001-2986-8 ^ a b Daphna Ben Tor: Sequences and chronology of Second Intermediate Period royal-name scarabs, based on excavated series from Egypt and the Levant, in: The Second Intermediate Period (Thirteenth-Seventeenth Dynasties), Current Research, Future Prospects edited by Marcel Maree, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 192, 2010, p. 91 Preceded by Wahibre Ibiau Pharaoh of Egypt Thirteenth Dynasty Succeeded by Merhotepre Ini v t e Pharaohs Protodynastic to First Intermediate Period  (<3150–2040 BC) Period Dynasty Pharaohs   (male female♀) uncertain Protodynastic (pre-3150 BC) Lower Hedju Hor Ny-Hor Hsekiu Khayu Tiu Thesh Neheb Wazner Hat-Hor Mekh Double Falcon Wash Upper Finger Snail Fish Pen-Abu Animal Stork Canide Bull Scorpion I Shendjw Iry-Hor Ka Scorpion II Narmer / Menes Early Dynastic (3150–2686 BC) I Narmer / Menes Hor-Aha Djer Djet Den Anedjib Semerkhet Qa'a Sneferka Horus Bird II Hotepsekhemwy Nebra/Raneb Nynetjer Ba Nubnefer Horus Sa Weneg-Nebty Wadjenes Senedj Seth-Peribsen Sekhemib-Perenmaat Neferkara I Neferkasokar Hudjefa I Khasekhemwy Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BC) III Djoser Sekhemkhet Sanakht Nebka Khaba Qahedjet Huni IV Snefru Khufu Djedefre Khafre Bikheris Menkaure Shepseskaf Thamphthis V Userkaf Sahure Neferirkare Kakai Neferefre Shepseskare Nyuserre Ini Menkauhor Kaiu Djedkare Isesi Unas VI Teti Userkare Pepi I Merenre Nemtyemsaf I Pepi II Merenre Nemtyemsaf II Netjerkare Siptah 1st Intermediate (2181–2040 BC) VII/VIII Menkare Neferkare II Neferkare III Neby Djedkare Shemai Neferkare IV Khendu Merenhor Neferkamin Nikare Neferkare V Tereru Neferkahor Neferkare VI Pepiseneb Neferkamin Anu Qakare Iby Neferkaure Neferkauhor Neferirkare Wadjkare Khuiqer Khui IX Meryibre Khety Neferkare VII Nebkaure Khety Setut X Meryhathor Neferkare VIII Wahkare Khety Merykare Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period  (2040–1550 BC) Period Dynasty Pharaohs   (male female♀) uncertain Middle Kingdom (2040–1802 BC) XI Mentuhotep I Intef I Intef II Intef III Mentuhotep II Mentuhotep III Mentuhotep IV Nubia Segerseni Qakare Ini Iyibkhentre XII Amenemhat I Senusret I Amenemhat II Senusret II Senusret III Amenemhat III Amenemhat IV Sobekneferu♀ 2nd Intermediate (1802–1550 BC) XIII Sekhemrekhutawy Sobekhotep Sonbef Nerikare Sekhemkare Amenemhat V Ameny Qemau Hotepibre Iufni Ameny Antef Amenemhet VI Semenkare Nebnuni Sehetepibre Sewadjkare Nedjemibre Khaankhre Sobekhotep Renseneb Hor Sekhemrekhutawy Khabaw Djedkheperew Sebkay Sedjefakare Wegaf Khendjer Imyremeshaw Sehetepkare Intef Seth Meribre Sobekhotep III Neferhotep I Sihathor Sobekhotep IV Merhotepre Sobekhotep Khahotepre Sobekhotep Wahibre Ibiau Merneferre Ay Merhotepre Ini Sankhenre Sewadjtu Mersekhemre Ined Sewadjkare Hori Merkawre Sobekhotep Mershepsesre Ini II Sewahenre Senebmiu Merkheperre Merkare Sewadjare Mentuhotep Seheqenre Sankhptahi XIV Yakbim Sekhaenre Ya'ammu Nubwoserre Qareh Khawoserre 'Ammu Ahotepre Maaibre Sheshi Nehesy Khakherewre Nebefawre Sehebre Merdjefare Sewadjkare III Nebdjefare Webenre Nebsenre Sekheperenre Djedkherewre Bebnum 'Apepi Nuya Wazad Sheneh Shenshek Khamure Yakareb Yaqub-Har XV Semqen 'Aper-'Anati Salitis Sakir-Har Khyan Yanassi Apepi Khamudi XVI Djehuti Sobekhotep VIII Neferhotep III Mentuhotepi Nebiryraw I Nebiriau II Semenre Bebiankh Sekhemre Shedwast Dedumose I Dedumose II Montuemsaf Merankhre Mentuhotep Senusret IV Pepi III Abydos Senebkay Wepwawetemsaf Pantjeny Snaaib XVII Rahotep Nebmaatre Sobekemsaf I Sobekemsaf II Sekhemre-Wepmaat Intef Nubkheperre Intef Sekhemre-Heruhirmaat Intef Senakhtenre Ahmose Seqenenre Tao Kamose New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period  (1550–664 BC) Period Dynasty Pharaohs   (male female♀) uncertain New Kingdom (1550–1070 BC) XVIII Ahmose I Amenhotep I Thutmose I Thutmose II Thutmose III Hatshepsut♀ Amenhotep II Thutmose IV Amenhotep III Akhenaten Smenkhkare Neferneferuaten♀ Tutankhamun Ay Horemheb XIX Ramesses I Seti I Ramesses II Merneptah Amenmesses Seti II Siptah Twosret♀ XX Setnakhte Ramesses III Ramesses IV Ramesses V Ramesses VI Ramesses VII Ramesses VIII Ramesses IX Ramesses X Ramesses XI 3rd Intermediate (1069–664 BC) XXI Smendes Amenemnisu Psusennes I Amenemope Osorkon the Elder Siamun Psusennes II XXII Shoshenq I Osorkon I Shoshenq II Takelot I Osorkon II Shoshenq III Shoshenq IV Pami Shoshenq V Pedubast II Osorkon IV XXIII Harsiese A Takelot II Pedubast I Shoshenq VI Osorkon III Takelot III Rudamun Shoshenq VII Menkheperre Ini XXIV Tefnakht Bakenranef XXV Piye Shebitku Shabaka Taharqa Tanutamun Late Period and Hellenistic Period  (664–30 BC) Period Dynasty Pharaohs   (male female♀) uncertain Late (664–332 BC) XXVI Necho I Psamtik I Necho II Psamtik II Wahibre Ahmose II Psamtik III XXVII Cambyses II Petubastis III Darius I Xerxes Artaxerxes I Darius II XXVIII Amyrtaeus XXIX Nepherites I Hakor Psammuthes Nepherites II XXX Nectanebo I Teos Nectanebo II XXXI Artaxerxes III Khabash Arses Darius III Hellenistic (332–30 BC) Argead Alexander the Great Philip III Arrhidaeus Alexander IV Ptolemaic Ptolemy I Soter Ptolemy II Philadelphus Arsinoe II♀ Ptolemy III Euergetes Berenice II Euergetes♀ Ptolemy IV Philopator Arsinoe III Philopator♀ Ptolemy V Epiphanes Cleopatra I Syra♀ Ptolemy VI Philometor Cleopatra II♀ Ptolemy VII Neos Philopator Ptolemy VIII Euergetes Cleopatra III♀ Ptolemy IX Soter Cleopatra IV♀ Ptolemy X Alexander I Berenice III♀ Ptolemy XI Alexander II Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos Cleopatra V♀ Berenice IV Epiphaneia♀ Cleopatra VI Tryphaena♀ Cleopatra VII Philopator♀ Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator Arsinoe IV♀ Ptolemy XIV Ptolemy XV Caesarion Dynastic genealogies 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 11th 12th 18th 19th 20th 21st to 23rd 24th 25th 26th 27th 30th 31st Ptolemaic List of pharaohs Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Merneferre_Ay&oldid=993051983" Categories: 18th-century BC Pharaohs 17th-century BC Pharaohs Pharaohs of the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt Hidden categories: Webarchive template wayback links Commons category link is on Wikidata AC with 0 elements Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Languages አማርኛ العربية Català Čeština Deutsch Español Euskara فارسی Français Italiano ქართული Magyar مصرى Nederlands 日本語 Русский Slovenščina Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Tagalog ไทย Українська Tiếng Việt Yorùbá 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 8 December 2020, at 15:15 (UTC). 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