page_title: Rahotep
section_title: Reign
hierarchical_section_title: Rahotep / Reign
caption_attribution_description: English: Picture of two scarabs with the name Rahotep, believed by Petrie to refers to phaaoh Rahotep of the 17th Dynasty, Second Intermediate Period.
context_page_description: Rahotep was an Egyptian pharaoh who reigned during the Second Intermediate Period, when Egypt was ruled by multiple kings. The Egyptologists Kim Ryholt and Darrell Baker believe that Rahotep was the first king of the 17th Dynasty.
context_section_description: While Ryholt and Baker propose that Rahotep was the first king of the 17th Dynasty, Jürgen von Beckerath sees him as the second king of that dynasty.
  Alternatively Claude Vandersleyen has tentatively dated Rahotep to the 13th Dynasty on the grounds that he believes Rahotep to be related to Sobekemsaf I, which Vandersleyen also dates to the 13th Dynasty because of the quality and number of statues attributable to him. Baker deems these arguments "slim and rejected by most scholars".
  If he was indeed a ruler of the early 17th Dynasty, Rahotep would have controlled Upper Egypt as far north as Abydos. According to Ryholt's reconstruction of the Second Intermediate Period, Rahotep's reign would have taken place shortly after the collapse of the 16th Dynasty with the conquest of Thebes by the Hyksos and their subsequent withdrawal from the region. In the wake of the conflict the Hyksos would have looted and destroyed temples and palaces. Rahotep consequently "boasts of restorations [he performed] in temples at Abydos and Coptos". In Abydos he had the enclosure walls of the temple of Osiris renewed and in Coptos he restored the temple of Min of which "gates and doors [have] fallen into ruins". This chronology of events is debated and some scholars contest that Thebes was ever conquered by the Hyksos. Rather, they believe the kings of Upper Egypt could have been vassals of the Hyksos.
caption: Two scarabs bearing the inscription "Rahotep", believed by Flinders Petrie to referring to this king.[11]
exif: {}