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Merikare

Hieroglyphic Name :
Merikare Hieroglyphic Name

Name: Merikare, Merykare and Merykara

Merikare (likewise Merykare and Merykara) was an ancient Egyptian king of the 10th Dynasty who was towards the end of the First Intermediate Period. His name cannot be established in the Turin King List; besides his dates are shifting.

Checking to many scholars, he dominated at the end of the 10th Dynasty following his father's long reign in his middle-age. The identity of his predecessor (the so-called "Khety III" who was the proposed author of the Teaching for King Merikare) is yet a motion of argue among Egyptologists. Some scholars tend to name Merikare's herald with Wahkare Khety. These sebayt ("precepts", in ancient Egyptian)  possibly composed under the rule of Merikare himself and fictitiously ascribed to his father  are a collection of teachings for good governance. The text also quotations the eastern borders, recently secured but still in demand of the king's care. In the text, Merikare's unnamed father references having made Thinis, but he proposes Merikare to deal more leniently with the troublesome Upper Egyptian lands.

Once crowned, about 2075 BCE, Merikare wisely submitted himself to the universe of two separate kingdoms (the Herakleopolite and the Theban ones) and tried to keep the policy of passive coexistence achieved by his father. It appears that the period of peace taken a certain sum of prosperity to Merikare's realm. Some time later, the king himself was special to sail up the Nile with his court on a great fleet. Once he given Asyut, the king put in the loyalist nomarch Khety II, who delivered the goods his passed father Tefibi; he likewise made renovations at the local temple of Wepwawet. After that, Merikare advanced farther upriver to the town of Shashotep, likely to squelch a revolt, and at the same time as a present of force to the disruptive southern border arenas.

Merikare died in c. 2040 BCE, a few months before the fall of Herakleopolis. Thus, the final frustration by the Thebans, led by Mentuhotep II of the eleventh Dynasty, was likely brought down upon an ephemeral, unnamed heir.

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