The Pharaoh Pepi I Meryre
In this article we learn about an important Egyptian king who gave Egypt periods of splendor and power. The king is Pharaoh Pepi I, the third king of the 6th Dynasty, whose titling was Meryre (meaning "beloved of Ra").
There are many inscriptions about Pepi I from which we know that he was the son of Thetis and Iput and that he ruled Egypt from about 2330 to 2280 BCE. In Pepi's biography, found in the tomb of court official Uni, it is reported that in his time corrupt courtiers allied themselves with princes and nobles eager to make themselves autonomous from pharaonic power or with queens and concubines who wished to pass on power to their son, and it was in this climate of conspiracies and plots that his wife even hatched a conspiracy against him. Pharaoh Pepi I foiled the deception.
During the reign of Pepi I the nobles of the provinces increased their power by making themselves increasingly independent of central authority. We know that Pepi I married the daughter of a nobleman from Abydos, Khui, in accordance with a marriage policy that aimed to create a link with the princes who threatened his power, and also to have the guarantee of a dynastic continuity through heirs worthy of the royal title, thus preventing the throne from going to suitors without any rights.
But it was precisely the decision to bestow too many concessions on the nobles of the provinces that made them strengthen their power, causing, albeit unintentionally, the weakening of the central government in favor of the aristocracy.
Like all pharaohs of that period, Pepi I had a pyramid built for himself that was named Mennefer-Pepi meaning "PEPI IS BEAUTIFUL AND STABLE," an appellation that gave its name to the nearby city that the Greeks called "Memphis."
Located in the necropolis of Saqqara, the pyramid of Pepi originally measured 79 m on each side and about 52.50 m high. Now it is reduced to a pile of rubble. The walls and inner corridors of the pyramid were covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions in green, the color of rebirth, placed in vertical columns: they contained the Pyramid Texts, such as religious texts, incantations and prayers that in Egyptian funerary belief were supposed to help the deceased reach the afterlife.
Unfortunately, the tomb of Pepi I was violated and the sarcophagus is now empty: in the king's burial chamber there was a hole in the floor where Pharaoh's canopic jars, also stolen, had certainly been placed at the time of burial.
Pharaoh's funerary temple is also in ruins today: inside it many wooden and stone statues were found, some without heads, which probably symbolized Egypt's enemies and were used to perform magic rites. Also south of the main pyramid five smaller pyramids were discovered that belonged to the pharaoh's wives, as was the custom in the funerary tradition of the time.
Of Pharaoh Pepi I remain today a statue more than 2 meters high, made of cast and hammered copper, found in the temple of Heracleopolis and preserved today in the Cairo Museum: it represents the oldest known metal sculpture. Inside the statue was found a smaller one that may have belonged to his son Merenra I or perhaps to Pepi himself, depicted at a younger age.
Under Pepi I, Egypt experienced a period of great prosperity: he implemented an internal policy aimed at consolidating central power through the colonization of fertile oases in the Western Desert, the construction of monuments throughout Egypt, trade expeditions and contacts with foreign countries: this is why the cult of Pharaoh Pepi persisted into later eras. A capable and energetic man, Pepi represents one of the most influential pharaohs of Ancient Egypt.
