Amenemhat IV’s death left no securely attested surviving male successor, creating a succession crisis that enabled Sobekneferu’s accession as ruler in her own right.
Sobekneferu (also written Neferusobek) took pharaonic titles and ruled as a “female king,” adopting the standard five-fold royal titulary rather than ruling only as a queen or regent.
The Turin King List (Turin Canon) preserves a precise reign total for Sobekneferu: 3 years, 10 months, 24 days (as transmitted in modern editions), reflecting an official Ramesside-period tradition of late-12th-Dynasty chronology.
A Nubian fortress graffito at Kumma records the Nile inundation height for Sobekneferu’s third regnal year, showing continued border administration and record-keeping in Lower Nubia late in the 12th Dynasty.
An inscription from Egypt’s Eastern Desert preserves a date formula for Sobekneferu: “year 4, second month of Peret (Emergence)”, indicating she reached at least a fourth regnal year in contemporary documentation.
Surviving seals and scarabs bearing Sobekneferu’s name provide additional contemporary attestations for her short reign, beyond monumental inscriptions and later king lists.
Two pyramids at Mazghuna were excavated in the early 20th century and have been attributed (without recovered names) to the last two rulers of the 12th Dynasty—Amenemhat IV and Sobekneferu—based on architectural comparisons; Sobekneferu’s burial remains unconfirmed.
Sobekneferu died without a known heir, bringing the 12th Dynasty—and the strongest phase of the Middle Kingdom’s centralized rule—to an end; she was followed by the weaker 13th Dynasty.
A glazed steatite cylinder seal (EA16581) bears Sobekneferu’s royal titulary and an epithet linking her to Sobek, lord of Shedyt, providing material confirmation of her official royal names and cultic associations.
Sobekneferu appears in the tradition of king lists preserved at Karnak, showing that despite later omissions elsewhere, some official New Kingdom compilations still recorded her among earlier rulers.
In the New Kingdom, the Abydos King List excluded several categories of rulers, including known female pharaohs such as Sobekneferu, reflecting later ideological choices about legitimate kingship.
Later historical tradition (via Manetho’s king-list tradition) transmits Sobekneferu under the Greek name Skemiophris and assigns her a reign of about four years, illustrating how her rule was remembered in Greco-Roman historiography.
Sobekneferu: End of the 12th Dynasty (reign c. 1806–1802 BCE)
