Neferirkare Kakai (also known as Raneferirka Kakai and in Greek as Nefercherês, Νεφερχέρης) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, the third king of the Fifth Dynasty. Neferirkare, the eldest son of Sahure with his consort Meretnebty, was known as Ranefer A before he came to the throne. He acceded the day after his father's death and reigned for eight to eleven years, sometime in the early to mid-25th century BCE. He was himself very likely succeeded by his eldest son, born of his queen Khentkaus II, the prince Ranefer B who would take the throne as king Neferefre. Neferirkare fathered another pharaoh, Nyuserre Ini, who took the throne after Neferefre's short reign and the brief rule of the poorly known Shepseskare.
Neferirkare was acknowledged by his contemporaries as a kind and benevolent ruler, intervening in favour of his courtiers after a mishap. His rule witnessed a growth in the number of administration and priesthood officials, who used their expanded wealth to build architecturally more sophisticated mastabas, where they recorded their biographies for the first time. Neferirkare was the last pharaoh to significantly modify the standard royal titulary, separating the nomen or birth name, from the prenomen or throne name. From his reign onwards, the former was written in a cartouche preceded by the "Son of Ra" epithet. His rule witnessed continuing trade relations with Nubia to the south and possibly with Byblos on the Levantine coast to the north.
Neferirkare started a pyramid for himself in the royal necropolis of Abusir, called Ba-Neferirkare meaning "Neferirkare is a Ba". It was initially planned to be a step pyramid, a form which had not been employed since the days of the Third Dynasty circa 120 years earlier. This plan was modified to transform the monument into a true pyramid, the largest in Abusir, which was never completed owing to the death of the king. In addition, Neferirkare built a temple to the sun god Ra called Setibre, that is "Site of the heart of Ra". Ancient sources state that it was the largest one built during the Fifth Dynasty but as of the early 21st century it has not yet been located.
After his death, Neferirkare benefited from a funerary cult taking place in his mortuary temple, which had been completed by his son Nyuserre Ini. This cult seems to have disappeared at the end of the Old Kingdom period, although it might have been revived during the Twelfth Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom, albeit in a very limited form. In all probability, it was also around this time that the story of the Papyrus Westcar was first written, a tale where Userkaf, Sahure and Neferirkare are said to be brothers, the sons of Ra with a woman Rededjet.
Sources
Contemporaneous sources Neferirkare is well attested in sources contemporaneous with his reign. Beyond his pyramid complex, he is mentioned in the tomb of many of his contemporaries such as his vizier Washptah, the courtier Rawer and the priest Akhethetep. Neferirkare also appears in the nearly contemporaneous Giza writing board, a short list grouping six kings from different dynasties dating to the later Fifth or early Sixth Dynasty. The writing board was uncovered in the tomb of a high official named Mesdjerw, who may have composed it for his use in the afterlife.
Historical sources Neferirkare is attested in two ancient Egyptian king lists, both dating to the New Kingdom. The earliest of these is the Abydos King List written during the reign of Seti I (fl. 1290–1279 BCE). There, Neferirkare's nomen "Kakai" occupies the 28th entry, in between those of Sahure and Neferefre. During the subsequent reign of Ramesses II (fl. 1279–1213 BCE), Neferirkare's prenomen was recorded on the 27th entry of the Saqqara Tablet, but this time as a successor of Sahure and predecessor of Shepseskare.
Neferirkare was also given an entry in the Turin canon, a document dating to the reign of Ramesses II as well. Neferirkare's entry is commonly believed to be in the third column-19th row; unfortunately this line has been lost in a large lacuna affecting the papyrus, and neither his reign length nor his successor can be ascertained from the surviving fragments. The Egyptologist Miroslav Verner has furthermore proposed that the Turin canon makes a new dynasty start with this entry and thus that Neferirkare would be its founder. The division of the Turin canon list of kings into dynasties is a currently debated topic. The Egyptologist Jaromír Málek, for example, sees the divisions between groups of kings occurring in the canon as marking transfers of royal residence rather than the rise and fall of royal dynasties, as this term is currently understood. That usage only began in the Egyptian context with the 3rd-century BCE work of the priest Manetho. Similarly, the Egyptologist Stephan Seidlmeyer, considers the break in the Turin Canon at the end of the Eighth Dynasty to represent the relocation of the royal residence from Memphis to Herakleopolis. The Egyptologist John Baines holds views that are closer to Verner's, believing that the canon was divided into dynasties, with totals for the time elapsed given at the end of each, though only a few such divisions have survived. Similarly, Professor John Van Seters views the breaks in the canon as divisions between dynasties, but in contrast, states that the criterion for these divisions remains unknown. He speculates that the pattern of dynasties may have been taken from the nine divine kings of the Greater and Lesser Enneads. The Egyptologist Ian Shaw believes that the Turin Canon gives some credibility to Manetho's division of dynasties, but considers the king lists to be a form of ancestor worship and not a historical record. This whole problem could be mooted by another of Verner's speculations, where he proposes that Neferirkare's entry may have been located on the 20th line rather than the 19th, as is usually believed. This would credit Neferirkare with a seven-year reign, and would make Sahure the dynasty founder, according to the hypothesis that the canon records such events. Archaeological evidence has established that the transitions from Userkaf to Sahure and from Sahure to Neferirkare were father–son transitions, so that neither Sahure nor Neferirkare can be dynasty founders in the modern sense of the term.
Neferirkare was mentioned in the Aegyptiaca, a history of Egypt written in the 3rd century BCE during the reign of Ptolemy II (283–246 BCE) by Manetho. No copies of the Aegyptiaca have survived to this day and it is now known only through later writings by Sextus Julius Africanus and Eusebius. The Byzantine scholar George Syncellus reports that Africanus relates that the Aegyptiaca mentioned the succession "Sephrês → Nefercherês → Sisirês" for the early Fifth Dynasty. Sephrês, Nefercherês and Sisirês are believed to be the hellenized forms for Sahure, Neferirkare and Shepseskare, respectively. Thus, Manetho's reconstruction of the Fifth Dynasty is in agreement with the Saqqara tablet. In Africanus' epitome of the Aegyptiaca, Nefercherês is reported to have reigned for 20 years.
Family Parents and siblings
Until 2005, the identity of Neferirkare's parents was uncertain. Some Egyptologists, including Nicolas Grimal, William C. Hayes, Hartwig Altenmüller, Aidan Dodson and Dyan Hilton, viewed him as a son of Userkaf and Khentkaus I, and a brother to his predecessor Sahure. The main impetus behind this theory was the Westcar Papyrus, an Ancient Egyptian story narrating the rise of the Fifth Dynasty. In it, a magician prophesizes to Khufu that the future demise of his lineage will be in the form of three brothers – the first three kings of the Fifth Dynasty, born of the god Ra and a woman named Rededjet. Egyptologists such as Verner have sought to discern a historical truth in this account, proposing that Sahure and Neferirkare were siblings born of queen Khentkaus I.
In 2005, excavations of the causeway leading up to Sahure's pyramid yielded new relief fragments which showed indisputably that pharaoh Sahure and his consort, queen Meretnebty, were Neferirkare's parents. Indeed, these reliefs—discovered by Verner and Tarek El Awady—depict Sahure and Meretnebty together with their two sons, Ranefer and Netjerirenre. While both sons are given the title of "king's eldest son", possibly indicating that they were twins, Ranefer is shown closer to Sahure and also given the title of "chief lector-priest", which may reflect that he was born first and thus given higher positions. Since Ranefer is known to have been the name of Neferirkare before he took the throne, as indicated by reliefs from the mortuary temple of Sahure (see below), no doubt remains as to Neferirkare's filiation. Nothing more is known about Netjerirenre, an observation which has led Verner and El-Awady to speculate that he could have attempted to seize the throne upon the unexpected death of Neferirkare's son and successor Neferefre, who died in his early twenties after two years on the throne. In this conjectural hypothesis, he would be the ephemeral Shepseskare. Finally, the same relief, as well as an additional one, record a further four sons of Sahure – Khakare, Horemsaf, Raemsaf and Nebankhre. The identity of their mother(s) is unknown, so they are, at minimum, half-brothers to Neferirkare. Fragments of reliefs from the mortuary and valley temples of Sahure showing Neferirkare as a prince.The reliefs were altered during the latter's reign with the addition of royal titles and regalia.
Consort and children As of the early 21st century, the only known queen of Neferirkare is Khentkaus II. This is due to the position of her pyramid next to that of Neferirkare as was normal for the consort of a king, as well as her title of "king's wife" and several reliefs representing both of them together. Neferirkare could possibly have had at least one other spouse, as suggested by the presence of a small pyramid next to that of Khentkaus, but this remains conjectural.
Neferirkare and his consort Khentkaus II were, in all likelihood, the parents of prince Ranefer B, the future pharaoh Neferefre. This relationship is confirmed by a relief on a limestone slab discovered in a house in the village near Abusir depicting Neferirkare and his wife Khentkaus with "the king's eldest son Ranefer", a name identical with some variants of Neferefre's own. This indicates that, just as for Neferirkare, Ranefer was Neferefre's name when he was still only a crown prince, that is, before his accession to the throne.
Neferirkare and Khentkaus II had at least one other child together, the future pharaoh Nyuserre Ini. Indeed, Neferirkare's consort Khentkaus II is known to have been Nyuserre's mother, since excavations of her mortuary temple yielded a fragmentary relief showing her facing Nyuserre and his family. Remarkably, on this relief both Khentkaus and Nyuserre appear on the same scale, an observation which may be connected with Khentkaus' enhanced status during Nyuserre's reign, as he sought to legitimise his rule following the premature death of Neferefre and the possible challenge by Shepseskare. Further evidence for the filiation of Nyuserre are the location of his pyramid next to that of Neferirkare, as well as his reuse for his own valley temple of materials from Neferikare's unfinished constructions.
Yet another son of Neferirkare and Khentkhaus has been proposed, probably younger than both Neferefre and Nyuserre: Iryenre, a prince iry-pat whose relationship is suggested by the fact that his funerary cult was associated with that of his mother, both having taken place in the temple of Khentkaus II.