Manetho’s list of Egyptian dynasties continues to confuse scholars to this day. In the eighteenth century CE, many people assumed they were all consecutive, and each king was the ruler of all of Egypt. Emerging evidence gradually forced them to abandon this idea, and most scholars accepted the concept that multiple regional rulers reigned concurrently during the First, Second, and Third Intermediate Periods. Nevertheless, historians still want to believe that the kings of those intermediate periods were consecutive unless overwhelming evidence proves they were not. This traditional idea still influences Egyptologists and historians today. After all, they reason, did those pharaohs of minor dynasties not call themselves “the king of Upper and Lower Egypt”? However, this phrase became a traditional title with very little substance in most cases, and it was analogous to the practice of ancient kings in many places around the Earth who pretentiously proclaimed themselves to be “the king of the world.”
Early in their history, the ancient Egyptians divided their land into city-state-like territories called “nomes.” In time, 42 of these divisions developed. They were much like the Canaanite regions under Egyptian rule during the Amarna Period ; each “mayor” controlled his city and the surrounding territory. Some predominant mayors, such as Rib-Hadda of Gubla (Byblos), ruled over other smaller towns within his region. Egypt’s nomarchs were comparable to Canaan’s mayors.
In some periods, a nomarch gained control over a large area or region of Egypt, and sometimes he dominated the entire country. That latter circumstance occurred in the Twelfth and Eighteenth Dynasties when a nomarch became the emperor of Egypt, and his descendants continued to retain power.
Although, at times, these local ruling families ceased to exist due to warfare or disease, for the most part, approximately 42 ruling “pharaohs” (or nomarchs) existed simultaneously. Even when a ruling family died out, an extended family member likely stepped into his position; usurpations undoubtedly occasionally occurred. Even in these situations, a continuous line of nomarchs (or a ‘dynasty’) ruled the nome. Just because the king lists did not record the later successors in their houses does not mean they no longer existed. For example, when the Egyptian Eighteenth Dynasty began, several contemporary minor nomarchs were likely direct descendants of earlier and previously prevalent dynasties.
From this common-sense perspective, we can see that the traditional understanding that the ruling families simultaneously ceased to exist when another conquered it was the exception rather than the rule. When these conflicts occurred, the most typical outcome was likely that a dominant ruling family lost its regional power but continued to have authority over its nome.
Manetho and the Turin King List enumerated the nomarchs of the most predominant ruling families. Nevertheless, these listings did not signify that other minor nomarchs were not simultaneously in charge of their territories while recognizing the more powerful rulers with authority over them. Acknowledging this situation in his era, one ancient official wrote, ‘We serve the big king and the little kings.’
Some of those local nomarchs likely became prominent enough to be included in king lists due to their unique services to the emperor. Some of the more obscure pharaonic families from the First and Second Intermediate Periods included many rulers with very short reigns. This circumstance suggests they were temporary officeholders appointed by the Sixth or Twelfth Dynasty emperor (or his higher administrators). Thus, some of these obscure “dynasties” were likely lists of rotating officials that later compilers considered a king list.
The nineteenth-century-CE concept of a single-file list of consecutive dynasties is only partially valid. A better mental image is of racehorses heading toward a finish line. Most horses are next to their competitors to some degree, some a little, and others almost neck-in-neck, whereas a few are separate from the herd. Nevertheless, Manetho’s list of dynasties also included a geographical element, so they were not all in strictly chronological order, with some digressions to somewhat earlier periods, especially when they were primarily contemporary. Instead of accepting that the traditional ideas of non-overlapping dynasties are accurate, a common-sense perspective is to assume that Manetho’s and the Turin King List’s consecutively listed dynasties were concurrent to some degree unless definitive evidence proves otherwise.
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