Teti

Nothing is known about Teti before he became pharaoh, except that his mother was called Sesheshet. He probably married Iput, a daughter of Unas, which would have linked him to the old royal house. Officials continued their careers from one reign to the next, so there was no sharp break. Still, his Horus name, "he who pacifies the Two Lands", may hint that he had to settle troubles at the start of his reign. Manetho begins a new dynasty with him.

Several wives of Teti are known. Iput was the mother of his son and successor Pepi I and was buried in a small pyramid near his. Another queen, Khuit, may have been the mother of Userkare. Excavations at Saqqara keep adding to the family: in 2008 a pyramid was found that probably belonged to his mother Sesheshet, and in 2021 the funerary temple of another wife, Queen Neith, came to light. Teti also had about ten daughters, several of whom married leading officials.

Teti built his pyramid at North Saqqara, north-east of the enclosure of Djoser. It was about 52 metres high with a base of about 79 metres, the standard size of the time. Following Unas, he had the walls of the burial chamber and antechamber inscribed with Pyramid Texts. When the pyramid was opened in 1881, a sarcophagus of dark stone was found inside, together with an arm and a shoulder that may come from the pharaoh's mummy. Today the outside of the pyramid is a low mound.

Around Teti's pyramid his highest officials built their tombs in rows, so that the area is called the "street of tombs". The largest belongs to the vizier Mereruka, who married Teti's daughter Watetkhethor: it has 33 rooms, the largest known tomb of an Egyptian noble of the Old Kingdom. Its reliefs show fishing, hunting, craftsmen, dancers, the care of animals and the vizier himself painting the seasons. The neighbouring tomb of the vizier Kagemni, also married to a pharaoh's daughter, is almost as rich. Such tombs show how wealthy and powerful the great families had become.

Manetho, writing two thousand years later, says that Teti, whom he calls Othoes, was murdered by his bodyguards. No contemporary text confirms this, but some details fit a crisis: after Teti came the short and obscure reign of Userkare, and in some tombs of officials of the time names and faces were later erased. The length of his reign is also uncertain. E. Hornung allows about 26 years, but the latest dated record points to about twelve, and many Egyptologists prefer a shorter reign.

Whatever the end of his reign, Teti was not forgotten. His pyramid town near Saqqara kept his name, and his cult continued long after his death. In the New Kingdom he was honoured at Saqqara together with other old pharaohs such as Djoser, Userkaf and Menkauhor, and officials of that time showed themselves praying before these deified pharaohs in their tombs. The cemetery around his pyramid remained in use for burials for many centuries.

Teti opened the Sixth Dynasty, which ruled Egypt for about 150 years until the end of the Old Kingdom. His reign saw the rise of powerful families of officials, whose splendid tombs surround his pyramid, and perhaps the first signs of the conflicts at court that would trouble his successors.