Menkauhor Kaiu (also known as Ikauhor and in Greek as Mencherês, Μεγχερῆς; died c. 2414 BC)[16] was an Ancient Egyptian king of the Old Kingdom period.

The figure of Menkauhor was at the centre of a long lasting funerary cult until the end of the Old Kingdom period, with at least seven agricultural domains producing goods for the necessary offerings.

He is also mentioned on the Saqqara Tablet (30th entry)[17] and on the Turin canon (third column, 23rd row),[18] both of which were written during the reign of Ramesses II (1279–1213 BC).

[1] These sources indicate that Menkauhor succeeded Nyuserre Ini and preceded Djedkare Isesi on the throne, making him the seventh king of the Fifth Dynasty.

[1] A gold cylinder seal bearing Menkauhor's cartouche as part of the name of his pyramid together with the serekh of Djedkare Isesi is now on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

[note 3][30] The seal, purportedly discovered near the Pactolus river valley in western Anatolia,[31] could attest to wide-ranging trade-contacts during the Fifth Dynasty,[22] but its provenance remains unverifiable.

[note 4][33] The only secure depiction of the king dating to the Old Kingdom that has survived to this day is a rough, possibly unfinished, alabaster statuette showing Menkauhor enthroned and wearing the tight-fitting ceremonial robe of the Heb-sed.

[note 5][2][27] The statue was discovered in a cachette built during the late New Kingdom beneath the floor of a room to the west of the sacred lake at the temple of Ptah in Memphis.

[36] Monumental attestations of Menkauhor are limited to a rock inscription at the Wadi Maghareh in Sinai, showing his titulary and a rough stele inscribed with his cartouche from Mastaba 904 at Saqqara.

[40] Owing to the paucity of contemporaneous sources for Menkauhor, his relation to his predecessor, Nyuserre Ini, and to his successor, Djedkare Isesi, cannot be ascertained beyond doubt.

[43] The Egyptologists Hana Vymazalová and Filip Coppens suggest this might refer to the future pharaoh Menkauhor Kaiu at a time when he was still a prince.

[49] Given the scarcity of contemporaneous attestations for Menkauhor, modern Egyptologists consider his reign to have been perhaps eight or nine years long, as indicated by the much later historical sources.

[51][52] The mines of Sinai had been exploited since the Third Dynasty (2686 BC–2613 BC), and both Menkauhor's predecessor Nyuserre Ini and successor Djedkare Isesi sent expeditions to the Wadi Maghareh.

[63] In addition to his service in the Akhet-Ra, Neferiretptah was a priest in Menkauhor's pyramid and held the office of "royal ornament", making him responsible for the precious items in the palace of the king.

[74] Besides these inscriptions, a single seal[note 12][29] bearing the name of the Akhet-Ra is known from the tomb of princess Khamerernebti, located near the mortuary temple of Niuserre in Abusir.

[70] The seal was placed on a large vessel indicating that provisions for the tombs of members of the royal family were dispatched from Menkauhor's temple to Niuserre's pyramid complex.

[70] Menkauhor Kaiu built a pyramid in North-Saqqara, thereby abandoning the royal necropolis of Abusir, where kings of the Fifth Dynasty had been buried since the reign of Sahure, some 80 years earlier.

[83] In 2008, the structure identified by Lepsius was rediscovered by a team of archaeologists under the direction of Zahi Hawass, and excavations at the site quickly established a Fifth Dynasty date as indicated by the construction techniques used in its making.

A broken sarcophagus lid of blue-grey basalt[87] was found in the burial chamber by Cecil Mallaby Firth during his brief excavations of the pyramid in 1930.

[63] This area comprises the tombs of Neferiretptah,[90] Raemankh, Duare, Iti, Sekhemnefer, Snofrunefer, Akhethotep, Ptahhotep and Qednes,[63] all priests of the funerary cult of Menkauhor.

[note 22][101] This cult is evidenced by reliefs showing Menkauhor in the tombs of the "Chief of the artisans and jewelers" Ameneminet and of the physician Thuthu in Saqqara-North, both of whom lived at the time of the late Eighteenth Dynasty (1550–1292 BC),[102] during the reigns of Tutankhamun, Ay and Horemheb.

[104] The persistence of the cult of Menkauhor during the late Eighteenth to Nineteenth Dynasty possibly results from the location of his pyramid, which stood on the way to the necropolis of the Apis bulls, which later became the Serapeum.