Bakenranef
From Open Encyclopedia
Bakenranef (also known by the Greek form of his name, Bocchoris) was a king of the Twenty-fourth dynasty of Egypt. While Manetho considers him the sole member of the Twenty-fourth dynasty (frags. 64, 65), modern scholars include his father Tefnakhte in that dynasty. Also, while Sextus Julius Africanus quotes Manetho as stating that Bakenrenef ruled for six years, some modern scholars again differ and assign him a shorter reign of only five years based on evidence from an Apis Bull burial.
Manetho is the source for two events from Bakenrenef's reign. The first is the story that a lamb uttered the prophecy that Egypt would be conquered by the Assyrians, a story later repeated by such classical authors as Claudius Aelianus (De Natura Animalis 12.3). The second was that Bakenranef was captured by Shabaka, a king of the Twenty-fifth dynasty, who executed Bakenrenef by having him burned alive.
Diodorus Siculus, writing about three centuries after Manetho, adds some different details. Diodorus states that although Bakenranef was "contemptible in appearance", he was wiser than his predecessors (1.65). The Egyptians attributed to him a law concerning contracts, which provided for a way to discharge debts where no bond was signed, and was observed down to Diodorus' time (1.79). For this, and other acts, Diodorus included Bakenranef as one of the six most important lawgivers of ancient Egypt.
Despite the importance implied by these writers, few contemporary records of Bakenranef have survived. The chief inscription of his reign concerns the death and burial of an Apis bull in Year 5 and 6 of his reign; the remainder are a few stelae Auguste Mariette recovered while excavating the Serapeum in Saqqara. Shabaka deposed him and buried the Bull in his own Year 2 while campaigning in Lower Egypt. This effectively ended the short-lived 24th Dynasty of Egypt as a potential rival to the Nubian 25th Dynasty.
| Preceded by: Tefnakhte | Pharaoh of Egypt Twenty-fourth Dynasty | Succeeded by: Shabaka |
