by
Damien F. Mackey
Introduction
From the historical entities, DEN and KHASEKHEMWY - identifications of the biblical Joseph, as we have found - there may be derived multiple names applicable to Joseph.
I already listed these in my article:
Joseph as Chancellor of Egypt, Hemaka
(7) Joseph as Chancellor of Egypt, Hemaka | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Den, ‘he who brings water’, also has the Manethonic name, Usaphais, which (Usaph-) is straight-out Yosef (Joseph).
Khasekhemwy - who is also Khasekhem; Hetepsekhemwy; Hotepsekhemoui; and Sekhemkhet - importantly has the name Imhotep (-ef), presumably the Imhotep of the Famine Stela, who is the favoured person for Joseph.
He is also Bebi, a name of Famine significance.
And he, as Sekhemkhet, has the names of Djoser (Zoser) and Tyris (the Tyrian), and, as I am shortly to suggest, may be the important Khety (Kheti).
More recently, I have connected the Joseph-like Hemaka to the name Khasekhem.
Since these multiple names embrace a vast period from the First Dynasty until the Eleventh Dynasty, that is, in unrealistic conventional terms, I have also had to connect them in partnership with a ruler of, now the First Dynasty, now the Third Dynasty, and now the Eleventh Dynasty. This I did in my article:
Biblical King of the seven-year Famine
(9) Biblical King of the seven-year Famine | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
The Famine king, I concluded, was the multiply-identified:
Djer (Nynetjer)/Djet (First Dynasty);
Horus Netjerikhet (Third Dynasty);
Mentuhotep II Netjerihedjet (Eleventh Dynasty)
Now, Mentuhotep II had an important treasurer named Khety (Kheti), about whom we do not appear to know anywhere near enough.
Khety
Silsileh rock relief depicting a giant king Mentuhotep II, on the right Intef III and the treasurer Kheti and, on the left, queen Iah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kheti_(treasurer)
heti
ẖtj(j)
in hieroglyphs
Era: Middle Kingdom
(2055–1650 BC)
Kheti was an ancient Egyptian treasurer of the 11th Dynasty, under king Mentuhotep II. Kheti appears in several sources and was one of the most influential figures at the royal court of the king. He is depicted in two rock reliefs at Shatt er-Rigal where he is standing in front of the king. Once the king wears the Sed festival dress. It can be assumed that Kheti was involved in arranging the festival for the king. …. His name and title appear in the funerary temple of the king in Deir el-Bahari and he had a tomb near the funerary temple of his king. …. The tomb (TT311) was found heavily destroyed but there are still many remains of reliefs showing that it was once decorated. ….
[End of quote]
Since Mentuhotep II was the Famine king, I would be looking to connect this Kheti with the nomarch of the same name of a Famine era, commonly known as Khety II of Assiut, and linking the name Kheti to one of our Joseph names above, Sekhemkhet -khet, Kheti.
In the following account of Kheti by Brian Fagan, “Ancient Egypt’s Great Hunger” (2021), the official grows up in an era of abundance for Egypt, but then, as in the case of the biblical Joseph, there occur sequences of low Niles and a protracted Famine:
https://popular-archaeology.com/article/ancient-egypts-great-hunger/
….
By any standards, another nomarch, Khety II of Assiut, was well connected. He grew up at the royal court and boasted in his tomb inscriptions that he learned swimming with the pharaoh’s children.
Young Khety grew up during prosperous times, when brimming Nile floods irrigated the fertile lands around Assiut. Profoundly loyal to the pharaohs, he rose to become nomarch of Assiut, a tax collector and powerful administrator who served as the king’s representative in his nome, a province far upstream from the court at Memphis. But the good times were over. Flood after flood peaked quickly, at much lower levels than before. Thousands of hectares of normally fertile soil received no water from the usual inundation. In desperation, villagers planted crops on sand banks exposed by the receding water. Khety soon found himself confronted by famine. Though unlike many Egyptian officials of the day, he was a proactive administrator, who paid careful attention to impending flood levels predicted by his scribes. His sepulcher boasted of the drastic measures he took to feed his people: “I nourished my town, I acted as [my own] accountant in regard to food and as giver of water in the middle of the day.” He dug a canal 10 meters wide to divert precious irrigation water to drought-stricken farmland. Like Ankhtifi, he built dams, drained water from swamps for irrigated lands, and rationed grain, placing guards on grain bins.
[End of quote]
Kheti referred to himself as a “giver of water”. As Den, he was “he who brings water”.
He was “a proactive administrator”, “like Ankhtifi”, who I think he was.
Kheti had reason to be more proactive than the rest, presuming that he was Joseph, for it had been Divinely revealed to him what was coming.
Like Khasekhemwy-Imhotep, who I think he was, “he built dams, drained water from swamps for irrigated lands, and rationed grain, placing guards on grain bins”.
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