Merenre I

Merenre was the son of Pepi I and of Ankhesenpepi I, one of the two sisters from Abydos whom Pepi married. He was probably born late in his father's long life and was still young when he became pharaoh. Some Egyptologists think that father and son ruled together for a time, because a gold pendant names both and the copper statues of Hierakonpolis may show them side by side, but this is uncertain. Merenre married his aunt Ankhesenpepi II, his father's other queen, and his daughter Ankhesenpepi III later married Pepi II.

The old official Weni, who had served Teti and Pepi I, reached the peak of his career under Merenre. The pharaoh made him governor of all Upper Egypt, from Elephantine to the region of Memphis. Weni proudly recounts that he collected the taxes of the south twice in one year. He fetched a granite sarcophagus, a pyramidion and doorways from Elephantine for the pharaoh's pyramid, and a great altar of alabaster from the quarries of Hatnub, which was cut and shipped in only seventeen days.

At Aswan the Nile flows over a field of granite rocks, the First Cataract, which made navigation difficult. Weni was ordered to dig five channels through it so that boats could pass more easily between Egypt and Nubia. At the same time the Nubian chiefs of Irtjet, Wawat and Medja supplied acacia wood, from which Weni built three barges and four other boats. He claims that the whole work was finished within one year, and that the boats were loaded with granite for the pharaoh's pyramid.

In his fifth year Merenre came in person to the southern frontier. Rock inscriptions on the islands and banks near Aswan show the pharaoh standing while the chiefs of the Nubian lands of Medja, Irtjet and Wawat bow before him. It was rare for a pharaoh of the Old Kingdom to travel so far south himself. The visit shows how important Nubia had become for Egypt, as a source of soldiers, wood, gold, ivory and other goods from further south.

Harkhuf, an official of Elephantine, describes in his tomb at Aswan the journeys he made for Merenre to the land of Yam, far to the south of Egypt, perhaps in the region of modern Sudan. The first, with his father, took seven months, the second eight months. On the third journey he returned with 300 donkeys laden with incense, ebony, ivory, leopard skins, throwsticks and other goods. These are among the oldest accounts of travel into the interior of Africa. Harkhuf made a fourth journey under Pepi II, from which he brought back a dancing pygmy.

Merenre built his pyramid at South Saqqara, near that of his father. It was about 52 metres high, and its chambers are inscribed with Pyramid Texts, fully published only in 2019. In 1881 the Brugsch brothers found in its black sarcophagus the mummy of a young man, which was damaged on the way to Cairo. For a long time it was taken as proof that Merenre died young. Its wrappings, however, look like work of the New Kingdom, so the body may belong to a later burial, and its identity is still uncertain.

Merenre ruled only about ten years, but under him Egypt looked south as never before. His governors opened the cataract to shipping, the Nubian chiefs paid homage to him in person and his caravans reached deep into Africa. After his early death the throne passed to the child Pepi II, whose reign would be the longest of the Old Kingdom.