I FARAONI

HETEP-SEKHEM-WY

Today I begin Dynasty II as my pharaonic series continues. Most Egyptologists give the dynasty five different kings with the first being Hetep-sekhem-wy.

Photo by me in November 2022. © David Robbins

You may remember the name Hetep-sekhem-wy from my post of about three months ago featuring the earliest-known statue of a non-royal … that being Hetepdief in the featured photo. My three other photos are are also from the reign of Hetep-sekhem-wy.

Hetepdief is significant because his right rear shoulder displays the three serekhs of Dynasty II’s first trio of kings which I’ll go through again later.

The three other third-party photos are:

Photographer: Juan Lazaro, 2000 License: Creative Commons

1) a granite vase from the Egyptian Museum featuring only part of Hetep-sekhem-wy’s name that being the 𓊵 offering table. He is the only king of the 30 dynasties (of whom I am aware) whose name begins with ‘Hetep.’

Photographer: Daderot, 2013 License: Creative Commons

2) a tan-colored bone cylinder from the Brooklyn Museum featuring Hetep-sekhem-wy’s full serekh.

Photographer: Iry-Hor, 2013 License: Creative Commons

3) a black vase from the National Archaeological Museum of France also featuring his full serekh.

Hetep-sekhem-wy deviated from the norm. That is, he moved his tomb from the now traditional necropolis at Umm el-Qa’ab at Abydos to the necropolis of Saqqara at “ineb hedj” ( 𓊅 𓌉 meaning “White Walls” or what we now call “Memphis”). That tomb is, unfortunately, not open and has not been open for, I believe, over a century. It still exists though and lies under the Dynasty 5 Pyramid of Unas. In the comments, I’ll show a map of how it is laid out below the Unas pyramid.

Hetep-sekhem-wy spelled his name in hieroglyphs as: 𓊵 𓌂𓌂𓊵 is ‘ḥtp’ (hetep or hotep) or an offering table whereas 𓌂 is sḫm (sekhem) or a scepter.

The 𓌂𓌂 or duplicate scepter pluralizes his name which adds ‘wy’ or ‘wi’ to the end of his name.

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