Two Heracleopolitan dynasties in Manetho's "History of Egypt"

Of all ancient records known to date, only the Turin King-list, with its badly damaged Heracleopolitan section (V. 18-VI. 10), and the epitome of Manetho's «History of Egypt» were intended to give an overall outline of the Heracleopolitan dynastic succession. However, in doing this, they are strikingly divergent: while the Turin King-list seems to show the Heracleopolitans as one dynasty, Manetho divides them into two ones, the IX and the X. The article is written to explain this divergence. Manetho's division into the dynasties is often connected to the locations of their residencies, capitals, etc. From this viewpoint, the Heracleopolitan royal house was not homogeneous. There is some evidence that from the reign of Merikare's father the «kings of Heracleopolis» became also «kings of Memphis». In Eusebius' version of Manetho's king-list, the IX dynasty consisted of four rulers. Hence, on the Turin King-list, the founder of Manetho's X dynasty must have been entered in V. 22 or in V. 23. In V. 23 there is, indeed, a combination absolutely unparalleled elsewhere on the List: a cartouche, unfortunately destroyed, followed by another cartouche with the prenomen «Neferkare». The conjecture «king NN, [a son of] Neferkare», suggested by J. von Beckerath, seems pretty plausible here. But what could be the need for this pointing to a sonship with the king Neferkare mentioned just three lines higher? It seems to have been appropriate in case of a transfer of the capital. If the entry V. 23 names the Heracleopolitan who moved the capital to Memphis, and if the famous «Teaching» is true in assigning this to Merikare's father, then the king in V. 24 must be Merikare himself. The lack of the element -ra in V. 24 is not fatal to this guess, since “the scribe who copied the Turin King-list was neither the most attentive nor the most careful“ (K. Ryholt), and since in the Heracleopolitan section of the List the ra-element lacks throughout, except only for the writing nfr-kA-ra. On the other hand, there are some indications that Merikare's personal name was «Khety», which conforms to the V. 24. Thus, Merikare Khety is likely to have been the sixth king of the Heracleopolitan royal house, and a son of the founder of its Heracleopolitan-Memphite sub-dynasty, known as Manetho's dynasty X. This special status of Merikare's father would perfectly match the fact that the only other Egyptian royal teaching was also ascribed to a king-founder of a new capital and of a new dynasty - to Anememhat I.