Featured Article Summary #277

Userkare, meaning “Powerful is the soul of Ra,” was the second king of Egypt’s Sixth Dynasty during the Old Kingdom. His reign was brief, lasting about two to four years in the late 24th or early 23rd century BC. His exact relationship to the previous king Teti and the next king Pepi I is unknown, and little is firmly known about his rule. Although he is mentioned in some sources, he is oddly absent from many tomb inscriptions of officials from that time, and some carvings were intentionally damaged or altered, leading Egyptologists to suspect Pepi I tried to erase his memory. Because of this, some scholars think Userkare may have been a short-lived usurper, while others suggest he was a legitimate ruler, possibly related to Pepi I, or even a regent. His parents are also unclear, and his tomb has not been found, possibly because it was never completed or because later kings removed evidence of it. Very few objects from Userkare’s life have survived, and only two cylinder seals and a copper mallet can be securely dated to his reign. The seals name Userkare and connect him to Egyptian gods, including Hathor and the sun disk, while the copper mallet records workmen who came from Wadjet in the 10th nome of Upper Egypt and dedicated the tool to “Userkare,” saying he is beloved. Egyptologists Michel Baud and Vassil Dobrev suggest that a copper axe head found in Syria may have belonged to Userkare because it bears a worker group name linked to the pharaonic “Two Golden Falcons,” which could fit between the golden Horus names of Teti and Pepi. Other possible traces of Userkare include inscriptions and cartouches on objects from places like the tomb of Mehi, Tanis, and Ezbet Rushdi, though these may also relate to other kings. Flinders Petrie also proposed that Userkare was the king “Ity” based on a single Wadi Hammamat rock inscription, but modern views largely reject or treat this identification as highly uncertain. Details about Userkare’s reign were once recorded on the South Saqqara Stone, a royal Sixth Dynasty annal likely dating to the reign of Merenre Nemtyemsaf I or Pepi II. The stone was found by Gustave Jéquier in a storeroom in Iput II’s mortuary temple, and it had been reused as a sarcophagus lid for Queen Ankhesenpepi III, though it did not originally match that sarcophagus. Most of the text (about 92%) was lost after the stone was roughly polished, but Userkare’s presence can still be inferred from gaps between earlier reigns and traces of royal titles; from the missing section’s length, he likely ruled for about two to four years. Several ancient king lists mention Userkare. The Abydos king list places his cartouche as the 35th entry, between Teti and Pepi I, suggesting he was the second pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty. The Turin canon may also have included him, but a damaged section of the papyrus makes this uncertain; if he was listed as Pepi I’s predecessor, it would have given him a 20-year reign, which is now thought unlikely due to other evidence from South Saqqara.