[39] The earliest historical source on the matter is the South Saqqara Stone, a royal annal inscribed during the reign of either Merenre or Pepi II.

c. 1250 BC) probably records Merenre I in the fifth column, fourth row,[note 5] and may have supported his relative position within the dynasty although his name as well as those of his predecessor and successor is illegible.

According to the Byzantine scholar George Syncellus, Africanus wrote that the Aegyptiaca mentioned the succession "Othoês → Phius → Methusuphis → Phiops" at the beginning of the Sixth Dynasty.

[79] The Egyptologist Elmar Edel[80] thought such lengths of reign would explain the time necessary for the peaceful relations that Egypt entertained with Lower Nubian chiefs under Merenre to switch to more adversarial ones under Pepi II.

Because of this failed conspiracy, Pepi I may have taken the drastic[note 9] step of crowning Merenre during his own reign,[94] possibly "in an attempt to secure stability and continuity within the family" as Miroslav Bárta writes;[94] thereby creating the earliest documented co-regency in the history of Egypt.

[56][95] That such a co-regency took place was first proposed by Étienne Drioton who pointed to a gold pendant bearing the names of both Pepi I and Merenre I as living kings, implying that both ruled concurrently for some time.

[98] A possible further piece of evidence for a co-regency is given by two copper statues uncovered in an underground store beneath the floor of a Ka-chapel of Pepi in Hierakonpolis.

[107] For Vassil Dobrev and Michel Baud, who analysed the royal annals of the South Saqqara Stone, Merenre directly succeeded his father in power.

[108] Furthermore, the shape and size of the stone on which the annals are inscribed makes it more probable that Merenre did not start to count his years of reign until soon after the death of his father.

[112][113] For the Egyptologists Nigel Strudwick and Petra Andrassy this witnesses to an incessantly[112] evolving domestic policy aimed at managing the remote southern provinces.

[117][114] The increasing political and economic importance of individual nomes and local centres is reflected in that even the highest ranking officials including the viziers and the overseers of Upper Egypt started to be abundantly buried in the provinces rather than close to the royal necropolis.

[123] At the personal level, Merenre may have appointed Idi,[124] possibly a relative of Djau, to the courtly rank of sole companion of the king and nomarch of the Upper Egyptian eighth nome.

[146] In addition to these activities, Merenre made a decree pertaining to the funerary cult of Menkaure as shown by fragmentary inscriptions uncovered in the latter's mortuary temple.

[152] Given Pepi II's youth on acceding to the throne and Merenre's likely short reign, William J. Murnane and others after him including Anthony Spalinger[81] and Nigel Strudwick[152] have rejected the idea of a co-regency between the two rulers.

[154] Weni, who began his career under Teti, rose through the ranks of the administration under Pepi I was the leader of this expedition and reported its goal: His majesty sent me to Ibhat[note 11] especially to bring back the sarcophagus "Chest of the living" and its lid, as well as a costly and noble pyramidion for the pyramid of Merenre, my mistress.

[162]While there is no direct evidence for Egyptian activity in Sinai specifically during Merenre's reign, frequent expeditions were sent in the region for turquoise and other resources during the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties.

[167] In addition, a possible military campaign in the southern Levant which Weni may have conducted under Pepi I shows the continuing interest in those regions to the east and northeast of the Nile Delta on behalf of the Egyptian state at the time.

Two rock reliefs depict the king receiving the submission of Nubian chieftains, the earlier of which, located on the ancient route from Aswan to Philae near the First Cataract, shows Merenre standing on the symbol for the union of the two lands, suggesting that it was carved during his first year of reign.

[163] Three Egyptian hosts were sent in expeditions by Merenre to procure luxury goods from Lower Nubia,[171] where tribes had united to form a state,[172] into the land of Yam [fr], possibly modern-day Dongola or Shendi.

The third one led by Harkhuf numbered three hundred asses carrying various goods including incense, ebony and grain in large storage jars.

[180] In the year of the fifth cattle count since the beginning of his reign, Merenre travelled south to Elephantine from his capital to receive the submission of Nubian chieftains.

A visit from the king himself, when he stood at the far end of the foreign lands: the rulers of Medja, Irertjt and Wawat kissed the ground and gave great praise.

[172] This is suggested by another inscription of Merenre on the rock face of a natural grotto in a niche of the temple:[185]Year of the fifth occasion, second month of the Shemu season, day 24.

[202] The rest of the texts found in the burial chamber pertain to the anointing and wrapping of the king,[203] his provisioning,[204] summons by Isis and Nephthys,[205] and the ascent to the sky.

[206] Leading out of the sarcophagus chamber, the walls of the antechamber bear texts calling for the king's joining the company of the gods and apotropaic formulae.

The Brugsch brothers decided to transport the mummy to Cairo, in order to show it to Auguste Mariette, head of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities and by then dying.

[210][211][212] Preliminary forensic analyses of the mummy by Grafton Smith indicate that it is that of a young man, as suggested by possible traces of a sidelock of youth.

[79][213] The identity of the mummy remains uncertain as Elliot Smith observed that the technique employed for the wrapping was typical of the Eighteenth Dynasty (fl. c.

[219] Another piece of evidence concerning this cult comes from a decree of Pepi II exempting people living in the pyramid town of Merenre from tax or corvée.

[226][227][228][note 15] The deposit of cultic objects comprising the two bronze statues of Pepi I and possibly Merenre uncovered by James Quibell in Hierakonpolis was in all probability placed there during building works in the early Middle Kingdom period.