* The monuments furnish proof that their contemporaries
considered these ephemeral rulers as so many illegitimate
pretenders. Phtahshopsîsû and his son Sabû-Abibi, who
exercised important functions at the court, mention only
Unas and Teti III.; Uni, who took office under Teti III.,
mentions after this king only Papi I. and Mihtimsaûf I. The
official succession was, therefore, regulated at this epoch
in the same way as we afterwards find it in the table of
Saqqâra, Unas, Teti III., Papi I., Mihtimsaûf I., and in the
Royal Canon of Turin, without the intercalation of any other
king.
** Brugsch, in his Histoire d’Egypte, pp. 44, 45, had
identified this king with the first Metesouphis of Manetho:
E. de Rougé prefers to transfer him to one of the two
Memphite series after the VIth dynasty, and his opinion has
been adopted by Wiedemann. The position occupied by his
inscription among those of Hamraamât has decided me in
placing him at the end of the Vth or beginning of the VIth
dynasty: this E. Meyer has also done.
We know not whether revolution or sudden death put an end to his activity: the “Mastabat-el-Faraun” of Saqqâra, in which he hoped to rest, never exceeded the height which it has at present.* His name was, however, inscribed in certain official lists,** and a tradition of the Greek period maintained that he had been assassinated by his guards.*** Teti III. was the actual founder of the VIth dynasty,**** historians representing him as having been the immediate successor of Unas.
* Ati is known only from the Hammamât, inscription dated in
the first year of his reign. He was identified by Brugsch
with the Othoes of Manetho, and this identification has been
generally adopted. M. de Rougé is inclined to attribute to
him as prænomen the cartouche Usirkeri, which is given in
the Table of Abydos between those of Teti III. and Papi I.
Mariette prefers to recognize in Urikeri an independent
Pharaoh of short reign. Several blocks of the Mastabat-el-
Faraun at Saqqâra contain the cartouche of Unas, a fact
which induced Mariette to regard this as the tomb of the
Pharaoh. The excavations of 1881 showed that Unas was
entombed elsewhere, and the indications are in favour of
attributing the mastaba to Ati. We know, indeed, the
pyramids of Teti III., of the two Papis, and of Metesouphis
I.; Ati is the only prince of this period with whose tomb we
are unacquainted. It is thus by elimination, and not by
direct evidence, that the identification has been arrived
at: Ati may have drawn upon the workshops of his predecessor
Unas, which fact would explain the presence on these blocks
of the cartouche of the latter.
** Upon that of Abydos, if we agree with E. de Rougé that
the cartouche Usirkeri contains his prænomen; upon that
from which Manetho borrowed, if we admit his identification
with Othoes.
*** Manetho (Unger’s edition, p. 101), where the form of the
name is Othoes.
**** He is called Teti Menephtah, with the cartouche
prænomen of Seti I., on a monument of the early part of the
XIXth dynasty, in the Museum at Marseilles: we see him in
his pyramid represented as standing. This pyramid was opened
in 1881, and its chambers are covered with long funerary
inscriptions. It is a work of the time of Seti I., and not a
contemporary production of the time of Menkaûhorû.
He lived long enough to build at Saqqâra a pyramid whose internal chambers are covered with inscriptions,* and his son succeeded him without opposition. Papi I. reigned at least twenty years.**
* The true pronunciation of this name would be Pipi, and of
the one before it Titi. The two other Tetis are Teti I. of
the Ist dynasty, and Zosir-Teti, or Teti II., of the IIIrd.
** From fragment 59 of the Royal Canon of Turin, An
inscription in the quarries of Hât-nûbû bears the date of
the year 24: if it has been correctly copied, the reign must
have been four years at least longer than the chronologists
of the time of the Ramessides thought.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Béchard.
He manifested his activity in all corners of his empire, in the nomes of the Said as well as in those of the Delta, and his authority extended beyond the frontiers by which the power of his immediate predecessors had been limited. He owned sufficient territory south of Elephantine to regard Nubia as a new kingdom added to those which constituted ancient Egypt: we therefore see him entitled in his preamble “the triple Golden Horus,” “the triple Conqueror-Horus,” “the Delta-Horus,” “the Said-Horus,” “the Nubia-Horus.” The tribes of the desert furnished him, as was customary, with recruits for his army, for which he had need enough, for the Bedouin of the Sinaitic Peninsula were on the move, and were even becoming dangerous. Papi, aided by Uni, his prime minister, undertook against them a series of campaigns, in which he reduced them to a state of helplessness, and extended the sovereignty of Egypt for the time over regions hitherto unconquered.
Uni began his career under Teti.* At first a simple page in the palace,** he succeeded in obtaining a post in the administration of the treasury, and afterwards that of inspector of the woods of the royal domain.***