Neferirkare Kakai
Encyclopedia
Neferirkare Kakai was the third Pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...

 of Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 during the Fifth dynasty
Fifth dynasty of Egypt
The fifth dynasty of ancient Egypt is often combined with Dynasties III, IV and VI under the group title the Old Kingdom. Dynasty V dates approximately from 2494 to 2345 BC.-Rulers:...

. His praenomen, Neferirkare, means "Beautiful is the Soul of Ra
Ra
Ra is the ancient Egyptian sun god. By the Fifth Dynasty he had become a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the mid-day sun...

". His Horus name was Userkhau, his Golden Horus name Sekhemunebu and his Nebti name Khaiemnebty.

Family

It is not known who Neferirkare's parents were. Some Egyptologists see him as a son of Userkaf
Userkaf
Userkaf was the founder of the Fifth dynasty of Egypt and the first pharaoh to start the tradition of building sun temples at Abusir. His name means "his Ka is powerful". He ruled from 2494-2487 BC and constructed the Pyramid of Userkaf complex at Saqqara.- Family :Userkaf's wife was Queen...

 and Khentkaus I
Khentkaus I
Khentkaus I was a Queen of Ancient Egypt during the 4th dynasty. She may have been a daughter of Pharaoh Menkaure, wife of Shepseskaf and mother of Userkaf, but this is by no means certain. Her Mastaba at Giza - tomb LG100 - is located very close to Menkaure's pyramid complex...

.

Scenes discovered in Sahure
Sahure
- Etymology :Sahure's birth name means "He who is Close to Re". His Horus name was Nebkhau.- Biography :Sahure was a son of queen Neferhetepes, as shown in scenes from the causeway of Sahure's pyramid complex in Abusir. His father was Userkaf. Sahure's consort was queen Neferetnebty. Reliefs show...

's funerary domains may indicate however that Neferirkare may have been the son of Sahure and Queen Neferetnebty
Neferetnebty
Neferetnebty was a Queen of Egypt as a wife of Pharaoh Sahure. She lived during the 5th dynasty and was named after Two Ladies, a pair of Egyptian goddesses who protected the pharaoh.- Biography :...

. One theory holds that Neferirkare may have been known as Prince Ranefer when he was young, and had a (twin?) brother named Netjerirenre, who may have taken the throne under the name of Shepseskare.

Neferirkare married Queen Khentkaus II
Khentkaus II
Khentkaus II was a Queen of Egypt. She was a wife of Egyptian Pharaoh Neferirkare Kakai of the Fifth Dynasty. She was the mother of Pharaohs Neferefre and Nyuserre Ini.-Biography:...

 and had 2 sons who both became pharaoh: Ranefer—under the name Neferefre
Neferefre
Neferefre was a Pharaoh of Egypt during the Fifth dynasty. His name means "Beautiful is Re" in Egyptian.-Family:Neferefre was the son of king Neferirkare Kakai by queen Khentkaus II, and the elder brother of pharaoh Nyuserre Ini....

--and Niuserre.

Reign

Little is known about his reign. Manetho
Manetho
Manetho was an Egyptian historian and priest from Sebennytos who lived during the Ptolemaic era, approximately during the 3rd century BC. Manetho wrote the Aegyptiaca...

's Kingslist assigns Neferirkare a reign of 20 years but verso 5 of the damaged Palermo Stone
Palermo stone
The Palermo Stone is a large fragment of a stele known as the Royal Annals of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. It contains records of the kings of Egypt from the first dynasty through the fifth dynasty....

 preserves the Year of his 5th Cattle Count (Year 9 on a biannual count). His following years were lost in the missing portion of the document. The Czech Egyptologist Miroslav Verner
Miroslav Verner
Prof. Dr. Miroslav Verner, DrSc. is a Czech Egyptologist, who specializes in the history and archaeology of Ancient Egypt of the Old Kingdom....

 maintains, however, that it cannot have been as long as 20 years due to the unfinished state of Neferirkare's Abusir pyramid complex.

Since the annals
Annals
Annals are a concise form of historical representation which record events chronologically, year by year. The Oxford English Dictionary defines annals as "a narrative of events written year by year"...

 in the Palermo stone
Palermo stone
The Palermo Stone is a large fragment of a stele known as the Royal Annals of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. It contains records of the kings of Egypt from the first dynasty through the fifth dynasty....

 terminate around Neferirkare’s rule, some scholars have suggested that they might have been compiled during his reign. However, evidence from the other side of the stela implies that the document covered the reigns of later Old Kingdom kings. Hence, it is possible that these Annals were composed during the time of Nyuserre Ini
Nyuserre Ini
Nyuserre Ini , was a Pharaoh of Egypt during the Fifth dynasty. He is frequently given a reign of 24 or 25 years and is dated from ca. 2445 BC to 2421 BC. His prenomen, Nyuserre, means "Possessed of Re's Power"...

 who had a long reign and was the third successor to Neferirkare, after the ephemeral Shepseskare Isi
Shepseskare Isi
Shepseskare Isi, also spelt Shepseskare, , was a Pharaoh of Egypt during the Fifth dynasty, who is thought to have reigned from around 2455 to 2448 BC...

 and the short-lived Neferefre
Neferefre
Neferefre was a Pharaoh of Egypt during the Fifth dynasty. His name means "Beautiful is Re" in Egyptian.-Family:Neferefre was the son of king Neferirkare Kakai by queen Khentkaus II, and the elder brother of pharaoh Nyuserre Ini....

.

A decree, exempting personnel belonging to a temple from undertaking compulsory labour, shows that taxation was imposed on everybody as a general rule. An important cache of Old Kingdom administrative papyri, the Abusir Papyri
Abusir Papyri
The Abusir Papyri are the largest papyrus findings to date from the Old Kingdom in Ancient Egypt. The first papyri were discovered in 1893 at Abu Gorab near Abusir in northern Egypt. Their origins are dated to around the 24th century BC during the Fifth dynasty of Egypt, making them, even though...

, was discovered in Neferirkare's mortuary temple between 1893 and 1907. This cache dates primarily from the reigns of Djedkare Isesi
Djedkare Isesi
Djedkare Isesi in Greek known as Tancheres from Manetho's Aegyptiaca, was a Pharaoh of Egypt during the Fifth dynasty. He is assigned a reign of twenty-eight years by the Turin Canon although some Egyptologists believe this is an error and should rather be thirty-eight years...

 and Unas
Unas
Unas was a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, and the last ruler of the Fifth dynasty from the Old Kingdom. His reign has been dated as falling between 2375 BC and 2345 BC...

. One of the documents is a letter from Djedkare to the temple priests provisioning Neferirkare's funerary temple.

Mortuary complex

From the large size of his mortuary complex at Abusir
Abusir
Abusir is the name given to an Egyptian archaeological locality – specifically, an extensive necropolis of the Old Kingdom period, together with later additions – in the vicinity of the modern capital Cairo...

, he was an important king, but since the Palermo stone
Palermo stone
The Palermo Stone is a large fragment of a stele known as the Royal Annals of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. It contains records of the kings of Egypt from the first dynasty through the fifth dynasty....

 fragments after his rule, little is actually known about his reign. The Pyramid of Neferirkare Kakai
Pyramid of Neferirkare Kakai
Pyramid of Neferirkare Kakai is the second pyramid to be built at the necropolis site of Abusir, south of the Giza plateau, in Egypt. The pyramid of Neferirkare is the tallest of all pyramids constructed in Ancient Egypt during its Fifth Dynasty....

 (burial place of the king) was initially designed as a 6-step pyramid
Pyramid
A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a single point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces...

 52 m high, but later it was extended to the form of a typical pyramid and it reached a height of 72 m. The mortuary complex is unfinished, and only part of the lower mortuary temple was completed before, it is supposed, the abandonment of the project.

Personality

Neferirkare's reign was unusual for the significant number of surviving contemporary records which describe him as a kind and gentle ruler. When Rawer
Rawer
Rawer was an Ancient Egyptian Prince, son of Prince Kaemsekhem and Princess Ka'aper. He was a descendant of Kings Khufu and Sneferu. Rawer's brother was Prince Minkhaf II.-Sources:...

, an elderly nobleman and royal courtier, was accidentally touched by the king's mace during a religious ceremony—a dangerous situation which could have caused this official's death or banishment from court since the Pharaoh was viewed as a living God in Old Kingdom
Old Kingdom
Old Kingdom is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley .The term itself was...

 mythology—Neferirkare quickly pardoned Rawer and requested that no harm should occur to the latter for the incident. As Rawer gratefully states in an inscription from his Giza tomb:


Similarly, Neferirkare gave the Priest of Ptah Ptahshepses
Ptahshepses
Ptahshepses was the vizier and son-in-law of the fifth dynasty king Niuserre. His mastaba complex in Abusir is considered by many to be the most extensive and architecturally unique non-royal tomb of the Old Kingdom...

the unprecedented honor of kissing his feet. Finally, when the Vizier Weshptah suffered a stroke while attending court, the king quickly summoned the palace's chief doctors to treat his dying Vizier. When Weshptah died, Neferirkare was reportedly inconsolable and retired to his personal quarters to mourn the loss of his friend. The king then ordered the purification of Weshptah's body in his presence and ordered an ebony coffin made for the deceased Vizier. Weshptah was buried with special endowments and rituals courtesy of Neferirkare. The records of the king's actions are inscribed in Weshptah's tomb itself and emphasize Neferirkare's humanity towards his subjects.
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