Fifth Dynasty of Egypt

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The Fifth Dynasty of ancient Egypt held power for around 150 years, stretching from the early 25th century BC to the mid 24th century BC. Nine kings ruled in succession during this span, a period when the very fabric of Egyptian religion shifted beneath their feet. What drove those changes? Why did one king's reign last only a few months while another stretched for more than three decades? And what do finds near the Sea of Marmara, thousands of miles from the Nile, tell us about the reach of this dynasty? Those are the threads this story follows.

• 2. Nine Kings, One Question

  ›

  How Userkaf founded the Fifth Dynasty is not known for certain. The Westcar Papyrus, composed during the Middle Kingdom, offers one version: it tells of king Khufu of Dynasty IV receiving a prophecy that triplets born to the wife of a priest of Ra in Sakhbu would overthrow him and his heirs. Those three children, the papyrus says, were named Userkaf, Sahure, and Neferirkare. Khufu was said to have attempted to have them killed. Scholars today recognize the story as legend at best, and admit they have no firm answer for how the transition from Dynasty IV actually occurred.

  The line of succession through the dynasty is broadly agreed upon across ancient king lists, but one figure, Shepseskare, introduces a specific puzzle. His reign lasted around a few months near 2458 BC. The Abydos King List and the Saqqara Tablet place him before Neferefre; Egyptologists today, however, believe he actually reigned briefly after Neferefre rather than before him. The Turin King List, now in a fragmentary state, is missing names and reign lengths for parts of this dynasty, leaving some questions permanently open.

  Manetho assigned 248 years of rule to the Fifth Dynasty, but modern scholars consider 150 years the more probable figure. Manetho also wrote that the dynasty's kings ruled from Elephantine. Archaeologists found no support for that claim; the evidence clearly places the royal palaces at Ineb-hedj, the city whose name translates as "White Walls."

• 3. The Ra Temples

  ›

  From Userkaf through Menkauhor Kaiu, each king built a temple dedicated to Ra at or near Abusir. That unbroken string of solar sanctuaries signals something larger than personal piety. The cult of Ra had been gaining importance throughout the dynasty, and these temples were its most visible expression on the Egyptian landscape.

  Late in the dynasty, a second religious current gained force. The cult of the deity Osiris rose to prominence, most notably inside the tomb of the last Fifth Dynasty king, Unas. Unas reigned from around 2375 BC to around 2345 BC, and the inscriptions within his pyramid represent one of the dynasty's most consequential legacies. Those texts belong to a tradition that had been building since the dynasty's early years, when the earliest known copies of funerary prayers inscribed on royal tombs first appeared. These are the Pyramid Texts, a body of incantations that would endure long after the Fifth Dynasty itself had ended.

• 4. Trade and Reach

  ›

  Expeditions to Wadi Maghareh and Wadi Kharit in the Sinai continued the pattern established by earlier dynasties, targeting turquoise and copper. Quarries northwest of Abu Simbel supplied gneiss. Trade caravans pushed south to the land of Punt to return with malachite, myrrh, and electrum. Archaeological finds at Byblos, the Phoenician city, attest to diplomatic expeditions that reached the eastern Mediterranean coast.

  The most puzzling evidence of the dynasty's reach comes from the site of Dorak, near the Sea of Marmara. Objects bearing the names of several Dynasty V kings were found there. Whether they arrived through direct trade or by some less direct path remains an open question, and scholars have not resolved it. The finds stand as a reminder that the dynasty's connections, formal or incidental, extended well beyond the Nile valley.

• 5. Commoners and Their Words

  ›

  Ptahhotep served as vizier to Djedkare Isesi, who reigned from around 2414 BC to around 2375 BC. Later copyists attributed to Ptahhotep a text known as the Maxims of Ptahhotep, and through that attribution he won a fame that outlasted his king. The text became one of the most celebrated works of Egyptian wisdom literature, copied and studied long after the Fifth Dynasty had passed.

  Ptahhotep was not the only non-royal Egyptian whose memory the period preserved. Tombs of commoners from this era were decorated with inscriptions, just as royal tombs were, but the content differed sharply. Royal walls carried prayers and incantations. The walls of non-royal tombs carried biographies of the person buried inside. That shift in what was worth recording, from divine petition to personal life, opens a window onto how Egyptian society was changing during the final generations of the Fifth Dynasty.