| Seankhibtawy Seankhibra | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Architrave with name of king Seankhibtawy Seankhibra | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pharaoh | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reign | early 20th century BCE | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Dynasty | 11th–13th Dynasty | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Seankhibtawy Seankhibra was anAncient Egyptian king of the11th or more likely the12th or13th Dynasty of Egypt, during theMiddle Kingdom period.
Seankhibtawy Seankhibra is only known from a single architrave found atAyn Shams, the ancient city ofHeliopolis, where it once adorned a private tomb. It is unclear whether Seankhibtawy Seankhibra is an otherwise unknown king or is rather a name variant for another, better known king of the 13th Dynasty.
His identification causes problems inEgyptology, as there is no other king known with the same names, dating to theMiddle Kingdom. The monument with the king's name has been dated beyond doubt to the Middle Kingdom on stylistically grounds. The name of the private person who owned the monument is damaged, but scant remains indicate that it might have been a person called Heny.
The titulary of ancient Egyptian kings consisted of five names, theprenomen and thenomen being the ones most commonly used on monuments. Yet another important name was theHorus name. Seankhibtawy Seankhibra appears on the monument with the Horus name Seankhibtawy and his prenomen Seankhibra. No other known king bears this combination of names. As of 2018, there is only one known king from the same historical period with the prenomen Seankhibra: pharaohAmenemhat VI of the early13th Dynasty. A second king with the same prenomen is attested in theTurin Canon as king of the slightly later14th Dynasty, but he is not known from any contemporary attestations.
The architrave is of unknown provenance, it probably come from an undocumented rescue excavation. The first person who commented on the king wasDetlef Franke who assigned the monument to Amenemhat VI.[1]Kim Ryholt in his study of theSecond Intermediate Period followed Franke's dating.[2] The architrave was only fully published in 2005 by Mey Zaki who, again, follows this dating and identification.[3] In contrast, the EgyptologistWilliam Kelly Simpson has dated the monument to the late11th Dynasty, a time which saw the reign ofMentuhotep IV, a poorly known pharaoh with few attestations.[4] Nevertheless, other Egyptologists such as Alexander Ilin-Tomich, deem it more likely the monument dates to the12th Dynasty on stylistic grounds, possibly to the early part of the Dynasty during the reignsAmenemhat I,Senusret I orAmenemhat II.
Therefore, Seankhibtawy Seankhibra is either an otherwise not yet attested short reigning king; or it is an early name of one of the mentioned kings before they changed name to the form better known from other monuments.[5]
