20 Facts About Shepseskare

Shepseskare or Shepseskara was an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh, the fourth or fifth ruler of the Fifth Dynasty during the Old Kingdom period.

Shepseskare lived in the mid-25th century BC and was probably the owner of an unfinished pyramid in Abusir, which was abandoned after a few weeks of work in the earliest stages of its construction.

Shepseskare is the most obscure ruler of this dynasty and the Egyptologist Miroslav Verner has strongly argued that Shepseskare's reign lasted only a few months at the most, after that of Neferefre.

The possibility that Shepseskare was a short-lived usurper from outside the royal family cannot be totally excluded.

Shepseskare was a king of Ancient Egypt, the fourth or fifth ruler of the Fifth Dynasty.

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Shepseskare is the least-known king of the Fifth Dynasty as very few artefacts dating to his reign have survived to this day.

Only two cylinder seals of Shepseskare are known: one, made of bronze, bears Shepseskare's Horus name and was uncovered in the ruins of Memphis in the early 20th century.

Beyond these two seals the only surviving artefacts attributable to Shepseskare are five fragments of seal impressions on clay from Abusir and six further fragments discovered in the mortuary temple and Sanctuary of the Knife of the Pyramid of Neferefre, in Abusir.

In 2022, a further clay seal impression of Shepseskare was uncovered in the immediate vicinity of Nyuserre's Abusir sun temple.

Shepseskare is absent from the Turin canon, although in this case a lacuna affects the papyrus on which the list is written at the place where Shepseskare and Neferefre's names should have been.

Shepseskare was likely mentioned in the Aegyptiaca, a history of Egypt written in the third century BC during the reign of Ptolemy II by the Egyptian priest Manetho.

In two articles published in 2000 and 2001 Verner argues that, contrary to what Manetho indicates, Shepseskare must have reigned for a couple of months at the most, a hypothesis already proposed by the French Egyptologist Nicolas Grimal in 1988.

Unlike the other kings of the Fifth Dynasty, Shepseskare's name appears neither in the personal names of people of the time nor in the names of funerary estates.

Shepseskare is absent from the titles and biographies of state officials.

The omission of Shepseskare, be it between Neferirkare and Neferefre or between Neferefre and Nyuserre, indicates that his reign must have been very short.

Verner's arguments together with the scarcity of artefacts attributable to Shepseskare have now convinced many Egyptologists, such as Darrell Baker and Erik Hornung, that Shepseskare's reign was indeed ephemeral.

In view of the scarcity of sources concerning Shepseskare, nothing is known for certain about his relation to his predecessors.

Shepseskare was most likely a member of the royal family, although the possibility that he was a usurper unrelated to his predecessors cannot be totally excluded.

Silke Roth has proposed that Shepseskare was a son of Neferirkare Kakai and a brother of both Neferefre and Nyuserre Ini.

Kaplony has proposed that Shepseskare started to build a sun temple named Htp-jb-R?, reading "Hotepibre" and meaning "Satisfied is the heart of Ra".