Nebsenre

Nebsenre (meaning "Their Lord is Ra"^[1]) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 14th Dynasty of Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period. Nebsenre reigned for a least five months over the Eastern and possibly Western Nile Delta, some time during the first half of the 17th century BCE.^[3] As such Nebsenre was a contemporary of the Memphis based 13th Dynasty.

Nebsenre
Ranebsen
Small jar and jar lid with cartouche of Nebsenre
Pharaoh
Reign	at least 5 months in the first half of the 17th century BCE
Predecessor	Heribre
Successor	unknown
Royal titulary Praenomen Nebsenre Nb.sn Rˁ Their Lord is Ra[1] [2]
Dynasty	14th Dynasty

Attestations

Historical source

The prenomen "Nebsenre" is preserved on the ninth column, 14th row^{[note 1]} of the Turin canon, a list of kings written during the reign of Ramses II (1279–1213 BCE) which serves as the primary historical source for the Second Intermediate Period.^[5] The canon further credits Nebsenre with a lost number of years, five months and 20 days of reign following Heribre on the throne.^[6] The prenomen of Nebsenre's successor is written as wsf on the Turin king list,^[6][7] indicating that his name was already lost in a lacuna of the document from which the canon was copied in Ramesside times.^[8]

Contemporary artefact

Nebsenre is one of only four^[9] kings of the 14th Dynasty to be attested by an artefact contemporary with his reign: a jar of unknown provenance bearing his prenomen, which was in the private Michailidis collection.^[10][4]

Chronological position

According to the Egyptologists Kim Ryholt and Darrell Baker, Nebsenre was the 14th king of the 14th Dynasty,^[11] a line of rulers of Canaanite descent reigning over the Eastern Nile Delta from c. 1700 BCE until c. 1650 BCE.^{[note 2]} Alternatively the Egyptologist Jürgen von Beckerath sees him as the fifteenth ruler, due to a differing reconstruction of the early 14th Dynasty.^[14]

Notes

1. Following Ryholt's reconstruction of the Turin canon. This corresponds to the eighth column, fourteenth row in the reconstruction of the canon of Gardiner and von Beckerath.^[4]
2. Ryholt dates the beginning of the 14th Dynasty to c. 1800 BCE,^[3] adding five kings to it before Nehesy. This is rejected by most Egyptologists who consider Nehesy to have been either the founder^[12] or the second king of the dynasty.^[13]