Neferkare Khendu (also Neferkare IV) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Eighth Dynasty during the early First Intermediate Period (2181–2055 BC). According to the Egyptologists Kim Ryholt, Jürgen von Beckerath and Darrell Baker he was the sixth king of the Eighth Dynasty.[1][2][3]
Neferkare Khendu's name is attested on the Abydos King List (number 45), a king list dating to the Ramesside-era, and is absent from the Turin canon as a large lacuna in this document affects most kings of the 7th/8th Dynasty.[1]
Cylinder seal with the cartouche "Khamudi", tentatively attributed to Neferkare Khendu by Henri Frankfort.[4][5]
No attestation is firmly attributable to Neferkare Khendu beyond the Abydos king list, although a cylinder seal inscribed with the cartouche Ḫndy, "Khendy", has been tentatively attributed to him by the egyptologist Henri Frankfort in 1926.[2][4][5] Modern scholarship has shown however that the cartouche on the seal is most likely to read "Khamudi", name of the last king of the Hyksos, and furthermore that this cartouche was inserted on the seal as a space filler rather than as an explicit reference to this king.[6] The seal is now in the Petrie Museum, catalog number UC 11616.[6]
References
^ abKim Ryholt: The Late Old Kingdom in the Turin King-list and the Identity of Nitocris, Zeitschrift für ägyptische, 127, 2000, p. 91
^ abDarrell 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. 268-269
^Jürgen von Beckerath: Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen (Münchner ägyptologische Studien), 1984
^ abHenri Frankfort: Egypt and Syria in the First Intermediate Period in JEA, vol 12 (1926), see p. 92 and fig. 6.
^ abFlinders Petrie: Scarabs and cylinders with names : illustrated by the Egyptian collection in University College, London (1917) available online, see pl. XIX, seal under the name "Khondy".
^ abSeal with the cartouche of Khamudi Petrie Museum Online Catalog.
