Anedjib

Anedjib
Enezib, Andjyeb, Africanus: Miebidos, Eusebius: Niebaïs
A clay seal impression with the name of Anedjib, on display at the British Museum.
Pharaoh
Reign	10 years
Predecessor	Den
Successor	Semerkhet
Royal titulary Horus name Safe is His Heart
Consort	Queen Betrest?
Father	Pharaoh Den
Mother	Seshemetka
Burial	Tomb in Umm el-Qa'ab, Abydos
Monuments	Tomb in Umm el-Qa'ab
Dynasty	1st Dynasty

As the fifth or sixth ruler (if Narmer is included) of the First dynasty of Egypt, Anedjib (also Enezib, Adjib, or Andjyeb meaning "The Man with the Bold Heart" or "Safe is his Heart" ) is poorly attested and fairly obscure within monumental records. He ruled over Egypt for 10 years.

Family

Anedjib was likely a son of Pharaoh Den. Several wives are known for Den, but their respective children are not known and the identity of Anedjib's mother remains a mystery. Anedjib's wife may have been Queen Betrest based on the fact that she is the mother of the next Pharaoh Semerkhet. Others conjecture that Betrest was actually a wife of Pharaoh Den and that Semerkhet is a (half?-)brother of Anedjib. It is possible that Anedjib's mother was Seshemetka.

Length of Reign

While the 3rd century BC priest Manetho records Anedjib ruling Egypt for 26 years, virtually all Egyptologists reject this figure in favor of a far shorter reign due to the relative scarcity of attestations known for this king in the monumental record. Toby Wilkinson's reconstruction of the near-contemporary Palermo Stone shows that Anedjib's reign length was only "10 complete or partial years." Anedjib's penultimate and final year is recorded in Cairo Fragment One register III. While Anedjib is known to have "celebrated a Sed festival, something which did not normally take place until a king had been on the throne for some considerable time," this was presumably because

"Anedjib was elderly when he succeeded Den, and that the celebration of a Sed festival was considered auspicious to renew the powers of a king past his prime."

Reign

Anedjib's predecessor and father, Den, enjoyed a long reign of 30+ years, implying that his successor Anedjib was elderly when he assumed power. Contemporary records suggest that he ruled Egypt during a time of political instability and dynastic conflict between Lower and Upper Egypt. Anedjib himself is presumed to have originated from an area of the Upper Egyptian city of Abydos since he is recorded as "Merbiapen", a Thinite king, on the Saqqara King List from the tomb of Thunery. Anedjib was forced to put down several uprisings in Lower Egypt. Numerous stone vases bearing his serekh had their inscriptions erased under his successor, Semerkhet, which suggests that Semerkhet deposed Anedjib.

Anedjib's tomb, Tomb 10, at Umm el-Qa'ab in Abydos affirms the impression of the crisis-filled nature of his short reign. The tomb is considered to be "one of the worst built and smallest among the Abydos royal tombs, a mere 53.75 X 29.5 ft (16.4 X 9 m)." It was built entirely of wood rather than stone, and was of poor construction quality while "the surrounding 64 graves of retainers were also of low standard."

See also

• Pharaoh
• List of Pharaohs
• First dynasty of Egypt

External links

• Anedjib
• Titulary of Anedjib
• Anedjib