Talk:Sanakht

@Iry-Hor and A. Parrot: This article states,

Jürgen von Beckerath, Wolfgang Helck, Dietrich Wildung and Peter Kaplony proposed that Sanakht's Horus name is that of the shadowy Horus Sa, seeing the name "Sa" as a short form of "Sanakht".^[1] From this, Wolfgang Helck holds that Sanakht's Nisut-Biti name was Weneg. King Weneg, however, is widely held to have ruled during the Second Dynasty, and Helck's theory has been greeted with skepticism.^[2]

1. [1]

   Jürgen von Beckerath: Handbuch der Ägyptischen Königsnamen (= Münchner ägyptologische Studien. vol. 49). von Zabern, Mainz 1999, ISBN 3-8053-2591-6, p. 49, 283 & 293.
2. [2]

   Wolfgang Helck: Untersuchungen zur Thinitenzeit (= Ägyptologische Abhandlungen, vol. 45). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1987, ISBN 3-447-02677-4, p. 20 & 21.

Supposedly, Helck is among those saying that "Horus Sa" is short for Sanakht, and from that Helck believes that Sanakht's Nisut-Biti name was Weneg, which is doubted by others because Weneg is thought to be 2nd Dynasty rather than 3rd.

But when I checked the cited sources, I found that they don't support these claims about Helck. The Beckerath source only states Beckerath's own opinion and says nothing about Helck. As for pages 20 and 21 of Helck (1987), these don't even mention Sanakht, or Weneg, or pharoah names at all—they are completely unrelated to that subject! They are part of a discussion of the prehistoric cultural background for the period!

Meanwhile, the Horus Sa article states,

Jürgen von Beckerath, Dietrich Wildung and Peter Kaplony proposed that "Sa" is a short form of the Horus-name Sanakht.^[1] Wolfgang Helck rejects this argument on the grounds that the ink inscriptions from the east-galleries of Djoser's pyramid complex date predominantly from the reign of Nynetjer or shortly thereafter, while Sanakht reigned during the mid-3rd dynasty. Furthermore, inscriptions mentioning the "House of the Ka of Hotepsekhemwy" are stylistically similar to that of Horus Sa which would place Sa in the 2nd dynasty since Hotepsekhemwy was the first ruler of that dynasty. Thus, Helck proposed that Horus Sa is the Horus-name of another shadowy ruler of the 2nd dynasty, Weneg, whose Horus-name is otherwise unknown.^[2]

1. [1]

   Thomas Schneider: Lexikon der Pharaonen, p. 243.
2. [2]

   Wolfgang Helck: Untersuchungen zur Thinitenzeit, p. 103 and 108.

This says the opposite about Helck and "Horus Sa": that he *disbelieves* that "Horus Sa" is short for Sanakht because the "Horus Sa" attestations appear to be from 2nd Dynasty; that is why Helck suggests that "Horus Sa" is Weneg. For this statement, checking the citation of Helck (1987), pages 103 and 108, seems to confirm this.

On page 103, Helck states (warning, I do not read German and these translations are machine-generated, though I did what I could to check them):

Der Horusname dieses „Wng“ ist nicht bekannt; man kann daran denken, ihm den Namen des Horus Zꜣ („Schutz“) zuzuweisen, dessen Totentempel (ḥwt-kꜣ) durch Gefäßaufschriften aus der Stufenpyramide des Djoser belegt ist (PD V, Nr. 6 - 39 Exemplare).

(The Horus name of this "Wng" is unknown; one might consider assigning him the name of Horus Zꜣ ("Protection"), whose mortuary temple (ḥwt-kꜣ) is attested by vessel inscriptions from the Step Pyramid of Djoser (PD V, No. 6 - 39 specimens).)

Here Helck writes Weneg as "Wng" and Horus Sa as "Horus Zꜣ".

On page 108, Helck states,

Das ebenfalls in diese Debatte eingebrachte „Ka-Haus des Horus Zꜣ“, das in Tintenaufschriften auf Gefäßen aus den Ostgallerien der Stufenpyramide angetroffen wird, hat nichts mit dem Horus Zꜣ-nḫt zu tun und das schon deshalb nicht, weil die Gefäße mit Tintenaufschriften aus den Ostmagazinen meistens aus der Zeit des Nj-nṯr und in einigen Fällen auch von seinen unmittelbaren memphitischen Nachfolgern stammen (Helck, in: ZÄS 106, 1979, 120 ff.). Oben ist die Möglichkeit angeführt worden, daß es sich bei Horus Zꜣ um den Horusnamen des nswt-bjt Wng gehandelt haben könnte. Zꜣ-nḫt gehört wegen der Sinai-Inschriften zusammen mit Djoser und Sḫm-ẖt; wegen des Auftretens seiner Siegel im Opfertempel der Stufenpyramide ist ein Ansatz nach Djoser naheliegender, da die Siegel dann von späteren Opferlieferungen stammen. Ob er allerdings vor oder nach Sḫm-ẖt anzusetzen ist, bleibt fraglich, aber da die Anlage des Sḫm-ẖt in Saqqara sehr nahe an der des Djoser liegt, möchte man Sḫm-ẖt unmittelbar auf Djoser folgen lassen.

(The "Ka-House of Horus Zꜣ", also introduced into this debate and found in ink inscriptions on vessels from the eastern galleries of the Step Pyramid, has nothing to do with Horus Zꜣ-nḫt, not least because the vessels with ink inscriptions from the eastern magazines mostly date from the time of Nj-nṯr and, in some cases, from his immediate Memphite successors (Helck, in: ZÄS 106, 1979, 120 ff.). The possibility that Horus Zꜣ could have been the Horus name of nswt-bjt Wng has already been mentioned. Zꜣ-nḫt belongs, due to the Sinai inscriptions, together with Djoser and Sḫm-ẖt; because of the appearance of his seals in the sacrificial temple of the Step Pyramid, a post-Djoser placement is more plausible, as the seals would then originate from later offerings. Whether he should be placed before or after Sḫm-ẖt remains uncertain, but since the Sḫm-ẖt complex in Saqqara is very close to that of Djoser, it is reasonable to assume that Sḫm-ẖt immediately followed Djoser.)

Here Helck writes Sanakht as "Horus Zꜣ-nḫt", Nynetjer as "Nj-nṯr", and Sekhemkhet as "Sḫm-ẖt".

I don't know exactly how this confusion about Helck's claims first arose. Both passages were originally added by user Iry-Hor, the incorrect one in Sanakht (this article) here, on 18 November 2012, and the correct one in Horus Sa here, about a month later on 22 December 2012, when that article was first created. But the error in this article on Sanakht didn't really come from Iry-hor, as that user was merely translating the corresponding passage in the German article de:Sanacht, assuming that it was correct, and that passage had been added on 26 December 2011, nearly a year earlier, by German Wikipedia user Nephiliskos. This error from the German article has crept into the French and Portuguese Wikipedias as well, and perhaps others. Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 22:55, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

OK, I have just corrected the above-mentioned false claims about Helck and their citation in this article, basing my fix on the correct claims and citation from the Horus Sa article. Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 23:15, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't read German either, and I'm not conversant with the chronological arguments about this period, so it's not something I would have caught. A. Parrot (talk) 00:58, 2 July 2026 (UTC)