Manetho

No likeness of Manetho exists. This is a bust of a Neokoros, a senior official in the cult of the Serapis from Roman Egypt, 230-240 CE, over three centuries after Manetho lived. The circlet with the seven-rayed sun disk in the hair identifies his position in the cult.Marble. Altes Museum, Berlin.

Manetho (/ˈmænɪθoʊ/; Koinē Greek: Μανέθων Manéthōn, gen.: Μανέθωνος, fl. 290–260 BCE) was an Egyptian priest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom who lived in the early third century BCE, at the very beginning of the Hellenistic period. Little is certain about his life. He is known today as the author of a history of Egypt in Greek called Aegyptiaca, likely commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BCE). Manetho’s work has not survived; it is known primarily from later references in Josephus’s treatise Against Apion (c. 95 CE) and works by the Christian historians Julius Africanus (c.160–c.240), Eusebius (c. 260 – 339), and George Syncellus (d. 810).

The surviving text of the Aegyptiaca continues to be a crucial resource for understanding ancient Egyptian history more than two millennia since its composition. Until the decipherment of Ancient Egyptian scripts in the early 19th century CE, Manetho's work, surviving as fragments cited or quoted by later authors, was a primary source on those scripts. The text remains important in Egyptology.

Other literary works have been attributed to him.

Name

Scholars agree that "Manetho" is a Greek transcription of an Egyptian name, however there is no consensus on the original. Some speculate that it is a theophoric name invoking either the god Thoth or the goddess Neith, e.g. "Truth of Thoth", "Beloved of Neith", or similar. Another proposal is "I have seen the great god". Others propose an occupational name based on Egyptian Myinyu-heter ("Shepherd" or "Groom"). In Latin sources he is called Manethon, Manethos, Manethonus, and Manetos.

The earliest attestations of his name, all in Greek, come from three sources: an inscription found in Carthage; the Hibeh papyrus; and Josephus. The name that he called himself in Greek was likely Manethôn.

Historical context

Statue of a priest of Osiris, Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, 1st century CE. Le Grand Palais exhibition.

Manetho lived and worked at the very beginning of the new Hellenistic order in Egypt, when the Macedonian Greek Diadochi (successors) of Alexander the Great (d. 323 BCE) fought each other for control of the new empire, a struggle finally ending in partition. In Egypt, diadochos Ptolemy I Soter founded the Ptolemaic Kingdom in 305 BCE. Reigning for nearly three centuries, the Ptolemies were the final and longest-lived dynasty of ancient Egypt before Roman conquest in 30 BCE. They introduced the Hellenistic religion, a unique syncretism between Greek and Egyptian religions and cultures. Manetho wrote Aegyptiaca in order to preserve the history of his homeland for posterity and—as evidenced by his having written it in Greek—for its new foreign rulers.

Manetho originated in Sebennytos and was likely a priest of the solar deity Ra at Heliopolis. He was an authority on the cult of Serapis (a Hellenistic appropriation of Osiris and Apis).

Significance of Manetho's work

The Aegyptiaca (Αἰγυπτιακά, Aigyptiaka), (or "History of Egypt") was a chronological history divided into three volumes; it may have been written as a response to Herodotus' Histories. It is a foundational text for understanding the history of ancient Egypt, particularly its chronology. It provided a structure for understanding the very long history, and was for many centuries a primary source on the subject until the decipherment of Ancient Egyptian scripts in the early 19th century CE. The text remains significant in Egyptology.

Manetho coined the term "dynasty" (using the Greek word dynasteia); his conception was not based on bloodlines—as we understand the term "dynasty" today—but rather as groupings of monarchs punctuated by discontinuities, either geographical (e.g., moving the capital) or genealogical. After each discontinuity came a new dynasty.

Two English translations of the fragments of Manetho's Aegyptiaca have been published: one by William Gillan Waddell in 1940, and another by Gerald P. Verbrugghe and John Moore Wickersham in 2001.

The Aegyptiaca survives in two forms: in excerpts and in an epitome. The excerpts were preserved by Josephus; these include some likely altered by Jewish apologists seeking to align Jewish history with Egyptian tradition. While Manetho described the Jews as descended from lepers, Jewish apologists linked their own ancestry to the Hyksos, and recast the Exodus as a story of the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt. This recasting appears in Josephus’ Contra Apionem.

An early epitome—likely not by Manetho—summarized his dynastic lists with brief notes on major kings and events. Christian chronographers, notably Africanus and Eusebius, preserved this version to compare Biblical and "Oriental" chronologies. Africanus (c. 217–221 AD) retained more accuracy; Eusebius (to 326 AD) introduced changes. Around 800 AD, George Syncellus used these sources in his universal history Ekloge Chronographias, aiming to date the Incarnation to an Anno Mundi of 5500 (see "Byzantine calendar"). He drew on Africanus, Eusebius, and corrupted versions in the Old Chronicle and Book of Sothis.

Ptolemy Philadelphus in the Library of Alexandria by Vincenzo Camuccini (1813)

The Aegyptiaca

Manetho's Possible Sources

It is impossible to identify the specific sources that Manetho used to compose his history. As an Egyptian high priest, he would have had access to records including hieroglyphic tablets, wall reliefs, inscriptions, and payprii temple archives.​ He had read Herodotus and was well-versed in the works in Greek available to him. It should be assumed that his sources also included folk legends and non-historical traditions. Waddell named five well-known artifacts as indicative of the kinds of Egyptian monuments and records that Manetho may have consulted: the Palermo Stone​ (2338 BCE); the Abydos King List (New Kingdom, ca. 1570-1069 BCE); the Karnak King List (ca. 1450 BCE); the Turin King List (1245 BCE); and the Saqqara Tablet (Ramesside Period, 1189-1077 BCE.

Overview

Volume 1 begins from the earliest times, listing deities and demigods as kings of Egypt. Stories of Isis, Osiris, Set, or Horus might have been found here. Manetho does not transliterate either, but gives the Greek equivalent deities by a convention that predates him: (Egyptian) Ptah = (Greek) Hephaistos; Isis = Demeter; Thoth = Hermes; Horus = Apollo; Seth = Typhon; etc. This is one of the clues as to how syncretism developed between seemingly disparate religions. He then proceeds to Dynastic Egypt, from Dynasty One to Eleven. This would have included the Old Kingdom, the First Intermediate Period, and the early Middle Kingdom.

Volume 2 covers Dynasties Twelve–Nineteen, which includes the end of the Middle Kingdom and the Second Intermediate Period (Fifteen–Seventeen—the Hyksos invasion), and then their expulsion and the establishment of the New Kingdom (Eighteen onward). The Second Intermediate Period was of particular interest to Josephus, where he equated the Hyksos or "shepherd-kings" as the ancient Israelites who eventually made their way out of Egypt (Apion 1.82–92). He even includes a brief etymological discussion of the term "Hyksos".

Volume 3 continues with Dynasty Twenty and concludes with Dynasty Thirty (or Thirty-one, see below). The Saite Renaissance occurs in Dynasty Twenty-six, while Dynasty Twenty-seven involves the Achaemenid interruption of Egyptian rule. Three more local dynasties are mentioned, although they must have overlapped with Persian rule. Dynasty Thirty-one consisted of three Persian rulers, and some have suggested that this was added by a continuator. Both Moses of Chorene and Jerome end at Nectanebo II ("last king of the Egyptians" and "destruction of the Egyptian monarchy" respectively), but Dynasty Thirty-one fits within Manetho's schemata of demonstrating power through the dynasteia well. The Thirty-second dynasty would have been the Ptolemies.

Sources and methods

Manetho's used of king-lists to provide a structure for his history; there are surviving precedents to this methodology. Josephus records him admitting to using "nameless oral tradition" (1.105) and "myths and legends" (1.229) for his account; admissions of this type were common among historians of that era. His familiarity with Egyptian legends is indisputable, but how he learned Greek legends is more open to debate. He must have been familiar with Herodotus, and in some cases, he attempted to synchronize Egyptian history with Greek (for example, equating King Memnon with Amenophis, and Armesis with Danaos). This suggests he was also familiar with the Greek Epic Cycle (for which the Ethiopian Memnon is slain by Achilles during the Trojan War) and the history of Argos (in Aeschylus's Suppliants). However, it has also been suggested that these were later interpolations, particularly when the epitome was being written, so these guesses are at best tentative.

Page from Volume 31 of the Tupper Scrapbook Collection, referencing Manetho's king lists. William Vaughn Tupper, ca. 1891–1895. Boston Public Library.

King lists

Manetho listed the names of eight successive Persian kings, beginning with Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great. Manetho's record of regnal years for these kings is mostly corroborated by Ptolemy of Alexandria in his Canon.

Cambyses (Artaxerxes) b. Cyrus = reigned over Persia, his own kingdom, for 5 years, and over Egypt for 6 years.

Darius (II), the son of Hystaspes = reigned 36 years.

Xerxes (Artaxerxes), the Great, b. Darius = reigned 21 years.

Artabanus = reigned 7 months.

Artaxerxes (Cyrus) b. Xerxes the Great = reigned 41 years.

Xerxes = reigned 2 months.

Sogdianus = reigned 7 months.

Darius (III), the son of Xerxes = reigned 19 years.

Between the reigns of Cambyses and Darius II the son of Hystaspes, there was an interim period whereby the Magi ruled over Persia. This important anecdote is supplied by Herodotus who wrote the Magian ruled Persia for 7 months after the death of Cambyses. Josephus, on the other hand, says they controlled the government of the Persians for a year.

The king-list that Manetho had access to is unknown to us, but of the surviving king-lists, the one most similar to his is the Turin Royal Canon (or Turin Papyrus). The oldest source with which we can compare to Manetho are the Old Kingdom Annals (c. 2500-2200 BC). From the New Kingdom are the list at Karnak (constructed by order of Thutmose III), two at Abydos (by Seti I and Ramesses II— the latter a duplicate, but updated version of the former), and the Saqqara list by the priest Tenry.

The provenance of the Old Kingdom Annals is unknown, surviving as the Palermo Stone. The differences between the Annals and Manetho are great. The Annals only reach to the fifth dynasty, but its pre-dynastic rulers are listed as the kings of Lower Egypt and kings of Upper Egypt. By contrast, Manetho lists several Greek and Egyptian deities beginning with Hephaistos and Helios. Secondly, the Annals give annual reports of the activities of the kings, while there is little probability that Manetho would have been able to go into such detail.

The New Kingdom lists are each selective in their listings: that of Seti I, for instance, lists seventy-six kings from dynasties one to nineteen, omitting the Hyksos rulers and those associated with the heretic Akhenaten. The Saqqara king list, contemporaneous with Ramesses II, has fifty-eight names, with similar omissions. If Manetho used these lists at all, he would have been unable to get all of his information from them alone, due to the selective nature of their records. Verbrugghe and Wickersham argue:

[...] The purpose of these lists was to cover the walls of a sacred room in which the reigning Pharaoh (or other worshiper, as in the case of Tenry and his Saqqara list) made offerings or prayers to his or her predecessors, imagined as ancestors. Each royal house had a particular traditional list of these "ancestors", different from that of the other houses. The purpose of these lists is not historical but religious. It is not that they are trying and failing to give a complete list. They are not trying at all. Seti and Ramesses did not wish to make offerings to Akhenaten, Tutankhamen, or Hatshepsut, and that is why they are omitted, not because their existence was unknown or deliberately ignored in a broader historical sense. For this reason, the Pharaonic king-lists were generally wrong for Manetho's purposes, and we should commend Manetho for not basing his account on them (2000:105).

These large stelae stand in contrast to the Turin Royal Canon (such as Saqqara, contemporaneous with Ramesses II), written in hieratic script. Like Manetho, it begins with the deities, and seems to be an epitome very similar in spirit and style to Manetho. Interestingly, the opposite side of the papyrus includes government records. Verbrugghe and Wickersham suggest that a comprehensive list such as this would be necessary for a government office "to date contracts, leases, debts, titles, and other instruments (2000:106)" and so could not have been selective in the way the king-lists in temples were. Despite numerous differences between the Turin Canon and Manetho, the format must have been available to him. As a priest (or chief priest), he would have had access to practically all written materials in the temple.

While the precise origins for Manetho's king-list are unknown, it was certainly a northern, Lower Egyptian one. This can be deduced most noticeably from his selection of the kings for the Third Intermediate Period. Manetho consistently includes the Tanite Dynasty Twenty-one and Dynasty Twenty-two lineage in his Epitome such as Psusennes I, Amenemope and even such short-lived kings as Amenemnisu (five years) and Osochor (six years). In contrast, he ignores the existence of Theban kings such as Osorkon III, Takelot III, Harsiese A, Pinedjem I, and kings from Middle Egypt such as Peftjaubast of Herakleopolis. This implies that Manetho derived the primary sources for his Epitome from a local city's temple library in the region of the River Nile Delta which was controlled by the Tanite-based Dynasty Twenty-one and Dynasty Twenty-two kings. The Middle and Upper Egyptian kings did not have any effect upon this specific region of the delta; hence their exclusion from Manetho's king-list.

Transcriptions of Pharaonic names

By the Middle Kingdom, Egyptian kings each had five different names, the "Horus" name; the "Two Ladies" name; the "Gold Horus" name; the praenomen or "throne name"; and a nomen, the personal name given at birth (also called a "Son of Ra" name as it was preceded by Sa Re'). Some kings also had multiple examples within these names, such as Ramesses II who used six Horus names at various times. Because Manetho's transcriptions agree with many king-lists, it is generally accepted that he was reliant on one or more such lists, and it is not clear to what extent he was aware of the different pharaonic names of rulers long past (and he had alternate names for some). Not all of the different names for each king have been uncovered.

Manetho did not choose consistently from the five different types of names, but in some cases, a straightforward transcription is possible. Egyptian Men or Meni (Son of Ra and king-list names) becomes Menes (officially, this is Pharaoh I.1 Narmer—"I" represents Dynasty I, and "1" means the first king of that dynasty), while Menkauhor/Menkahor (Throne and king-list names, the Horus names is Menkhau and the Son of Ra name is "Kaiu Horkaiu[...]") is transcribed as Menkheres (V.7 Menkauhor). Others involve a slight abbreviation, such as A'akheperen-Re' (Throne and king-list names) becoming Khebron (XVIII.4 Thutmose II). A few more have consonants switched for unknown reasons, as for example Tausret becoming Thouoris (XIX.6 Twosre/Tausret). One puzzle is in the conflicting names of some early dynastic kings— although they did not have all five titles, they still had multiple names. I.3/4 Djer, whose Son of Ra name is Itti is considered the basis for Manetho's I.2 Athothis. I.4 Oenephes then is a puzzle unless it is compared with Djer's Gold Horus name, Ennebu. It may be that Manetho duplicated the name or he had a source for a name unknown to us. Finally, there are some names where the association is a complete mystery to us. V.6 Rhathoures/Niuserre's complete name was Set-ib-tawi Set-ib-Nebty Netjeri-bik-nebu Ni-user-Re' Ini Ni-user-Re', but Manetho writes it as Rhathoures. It may be that some kings were known by names other than even just the five official ones.

Thus, how Manetho transcribed these names varies, and as such, we cannot reconstruct the original Egyptian forms of the names. However, because of the simplicity with which Manetho transcribed long names (see above), they were preferred until original king-lists began to be uncovered in Egyptian sites, translated, and corroborated. Manetho's division of dynasties, however, is still used as a basis for all Egyptian discussions.

Similarities with Berossos

Most of the ancient witnesses group Manetho together with Berossos, and treat the pair as similar in intent, and it is not a coincidence that those who preserved the bulk of their writing are largely the same (Josephus, Africanus, Eusebius, and Syncellus). Certainly, both wrote about the same time, and both adopted the historiographical approach of the Greek writers Herodotus and Hesiod, who preceded them. While the subjects of their history are different, the form is similar, using chronological royal genealogies as the structure for the narratives. Both extend their histories far into the mythic past, to give the deities rule over the earliest ancestral histories.

In his Chronography, Syncellus goes so far as to insinuate that the two copied each other:

If one carefully examines the underlying chronological lists of events, one will have full confidence that the design of both is false, as both Berossos and Manetho, as I have said before, want to glorify each his own nation, Berossos the Chaldean, Manetho the Egyptian. One can only stand in amazement that they were not ashamed to place the beginning of their incredible story in each in one and the same year.

While this does seem an incredible coincidence, the reliability of the report is unclear. The reasoning for presuming they started their histories in the same year involved some considerable contortions. Berossos dated the period before the Flood to 120 saroi (3,600 year periods), giving an estimate of 432,000 years before the Flood. This was unacceptable to later Christian commentators, so it was presumed he meant solar days. 432,000 divided by 365 days gives a rough figure of 1,183+1⁄2 years before the Flood. For Manetho, even more numeric contortions ensued. With no flood mentioned, they presumed that Manetho's first era describing the deities represented the ante-diluvian age. Secondly, they took the spurious Book of Sothis for a chronological count. Six dynasties of deities totalled 11,985 years, while the nine dynasties with demigods came to 858 years. Again, this was too long for the Biblical account, so two different units of conversion were used. The 11,985 years were considered to be months of 29+1⁄2 days each (a conversion used in antiquity, for example by Diodorus Siculus), which comes out to 969 years. The latter period, however, was divided into seasons, or quarters of a year, and reduces to 214+1⁄2 years (another conversion attested to by Diodorus). The sum of these comes out to 1,183+1⁄2 years, equal to that of Berossos. Syncellus rejected both Manetho's and Berossos' incredible time-spans, as well as the efforts of other commentators to harmonise their numbers with the Bible. Ironically as we see, he also blamed them for the synchronicity concocted by later writers.

Transmission and reception

What fragments of Aegyptiaca did survive became the contested by different advocates of Egyptian, Jewish, and Greek histories in the following centuries. These contests took the form of polemics, with each author claiming his own civilization as the world's oldest.

The earliest surviving attestation to Manetho is that of Contra Apionem ("Against Apion") by Flavius Josephus, nearly four centuries after Aegyptiaca was composed. Even here, it is clear that Josephus did not have the originals, and constructed a polemic against Manetho without them. Avaris and Osarseph are both mentioned twice (1.78, 86–87; 238, 250). Apion 1.95–97 is merely a list of kings with no narratives until 1.98, while running across two of Manetho's dynasties without mention (dynasties eighteen and nineteen).

Contemporaneously or perhaps after Josephus wrote, an epitome of Manetho's work must have been circulated. This would have involved preserving the outlines of his dynasties and a few details deemed significant. For the first ruler of the first dynasty, Menes, we learn that "he was snatched and killed by a hippopotamus". The extent to which the epitome preserved Manetho's original writing is unclear, so caution must be exercised. Nevertheless, the epitome was preserved by Sextus Julius Africanus and Eusebius of Caesarea. Because Africanus predates Eusebius, his version is usually considered more reliable, but there is no assurance that this is the case. Eusebius in turn was preserved by Jerome in his Latin translation, an Armenian translation, and by George Syncellus. Syncellus recognized the similarities between Eusebius and Africanus, so he placed them side by side in his work, Ecloga Chronographica.

Africanus, Syncellus, and the Latin and Armenian translations of Eusebius are what remains of the epitome of Manetho. Other significant fragments include Malalas's Chronographia and the Excerpta Latina Barbari, a bad translation of a Greek chronology.

Legacy of the Aegyptiaca

Manetho wrote at the request of Ptolemy I or Ptolemy II to give an account of the history of Egypt to the Greeks from a native perspective. When it was written, it would have proven to be the authoritative account of the history of Egypt, superior to Herodotus in every way. The completeness and systematic nature in which he collected his sources was unprecedented.

Syncellus similarly recognised its importance when recording Eusebius and Africanus, and even provided a separate witness from the Book of Sothis. Unfortunately, this material is likely to have been a forgery or hoax of unknown date. Every king in Sothis after Menes is irreconcilable with the versions of Africanus and Eusebius.

Finally, in modern times, Manetho's legacy is still apparent in the way Egyptologists divide the dynasties of the Egyptian kings. The French explorer and Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion reportedly held a copy of Manetho's lists in one hand as he attempted to decipher the hieroglyphs he encountered. Most modern scholarship that mentions the names of the kings will render both the modern transcription and Manetho's version, and in some cases Manetho's names are even preferred to more authentic ones. Today, his division of dynasties is used universally, and this has permeated the study of nearly all royal genealogies by the conceptualization of succession in terms of dynasties or houses.

In 1845, German classicist August Böckh published his treatise Manetho und die Hundssternperiode, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Pharaonen "Manetho and the Dog Star Period, A Contribution to the History of the Pharaohs". It remains untranslated into English.

There are scholars who claim that Aegyptiaca is a source of early antisemitic ideas because of its account of Exodus, an account repeated by later ancient authors such as Posidonius, Lysimachus of Alexandria, Chaeremon of Alexandria, Apion, and Tacitus. Other scholars disagree with this interpretation.

See also

• Berossus
• Flavius Josephus
• Hierombalus
• History of Ancient Egypt
• List of lists of ancient kings
• Ptolemaic dynasty

References

• Cory, I.P. Ancient Fragments, Containing What Remains Of The Writings Of Sanchoniatho, Berossus, Abydenus, Megasthenes, And Manetho. London: William Pickering, 1828.
• Flannery, Edward. The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism. N.p.: Paulist Press, 1985.
• Herodotus. The Histories, trans. Godley, A.D. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1921.
• Moyer, Ian S. Egypt and the Limits of Hellenism. Cambridge University Press, 2011. ISBN 9781139496551, 1139496557
• Nirenberg, David. Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition. New York City: W.W. Norton, 2012. ISBN 9780393239430
• Rutherford, Ian. Greco-Egyptian Interactions: Literature, Translation, and Culture, 500 BC–AD 300. Oxford University Press, 2016. ISBN 978-0-19-965612-7
• Synkellos, Geōrgios. Adler, William. Tuffin, Paul. The Chronography of George Synkellos: a Byzantine Chronicle of Universal History from the Creation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0199241902
• Verbrugghe, Gerald. Wickersham, John Moore. Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated: Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. United States: University of Michigan Press, 2001. ISBN 9780472086870, 0472086871
• Waddell, William Gillan, ed. Manetho. The Loeb Classical Library 350, ser. ed. George P. Goold. London and Cambridge: William Heinemann ltd. and Harvard University Press. 1940.

Further reading

• Barclay, John M.G. 2011. Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary, Volume 10: Against Apion. N.p.: Brill: ISBN 9789004117914.
• Candelora, Danielle. "The Second Intermediate Period." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. 20 Mar. 2024; Accessed 9 Apr. 2025. https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-1201.
• Dillery, John. “The First Egyptian Narrative History: Manetho and Greek Historiography.” Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 127 (1999): 93–116. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20190475. PDF
• Leahy, A., ed. 1990. Libya and Egypt: c1300–750 BC. London: SOAS Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies and the Society for Libyan Studies.
• Redford, Donald Bruce. 1986a. "The Name Manetho." In Egyptological Studies in Honor of Richard A. Parker Presented on the Occasion of His 78th Birthday, December 10, 1983, edited by Leonard H. Lesko, 118–121. Hannover and London: University Press of New England. ISBN 0-87451-321-9.
• ———. Pharaonic king-lists, annals, and day-books: a contribution to the study of the Egyptian sense of history. Mississauga: Benben, 1986. ISBN 0920168078, 978-0920168073
• Thompson, Dorothy J. Memphis Under the Ptolemies: Second Edition. NED-New edition, 2. Princeton University Press, 2012. ISBN 9780691140339. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1n9dknx. Accessed April 8, 2025.

External links

• The Fragments of Manetho online (transcribed from the 1940 Waddell Loeb Classical Library edition)
• Manetho, with an English translation by W.G. Waddell on the Internet Archive
• Manetho und die Hundssternperiode, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Pharaonen ("Manetho and the Dog Star Period, A Contribution to the History of the Pharaohs") (1845) on the Internet Archive
• The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt online (subscription required)