Similar to his predecessor, successor or co-ruler Seth-Peribsen, Sekhemib is contemporarily well attested in archaeological records, but he does not appear in any posthumous document.

They were found in the entrance of Peribsen's tomb at Abydos, in the underground galleries beneath the step pyramid of (3rd Dynasty) king Djoser at Sakkara and on one excavation site at Elephantine.

Egyptologists such as Herman te Velde and Wolfgang Helck think that the double name of Sekhemib came in use when the Egyptian state was split into two independent realms.

Egyptologists such as Walter Bryan Emery, Kathryn A. Bard and Flinders Petrie believe that Sekhemib was the same person as king Peribsen, a ruler who had connected his name with the deity Seth and who possibly ruled only Upper Egypt.

[2][7][8][9] In contrast, Egyptologists such as Hermann Alexander Schlögl, Wolfgang Helck, Peter Kaplony and Jochem Kahl believe that Sekhemib was a different ruler to Peribsen.

Their theory is based on the stone vessel inscriptions and seal impressions that show strong similarities in their typographical and grammatical writing styles.

His realm would have extended down from Ombos up to the Isle of Elephantine, where a new administrative centre called "The white house of treasury" was founded under Peribsen.

Egyptologists such as Wolfgang Helck, Nicolas Grimal, Hermann Alexander Schlögl and Francesco Tiradritti believe that king Ninetjer, the third ruler of 2nd dynasty and a predecessor of Peribsen, left a realm that was suffering from an overly complex state administration and that Ninetjer decided to split Egypt between his two sons (or, at least, his two successors), in the hope that the two rulers could better administer the two states.

Bell points to the inscriptions of the Palermo stone, where, in her opinion, the records of the Nile floods show consistently low levels.

[19][20] Other Egyptologists, such as Michael Rice,[21] Francesco Tiradritti[16] and Wolfgang Helck, believe that there was no division of the Egyptian thrones and that Sekhemib and Peribsen were each sole and independent rulers.

It is possible, that king Nynetjer (or Peribsen) decided to split the whole bureaucracy of Egypt into two separate departments in an attempt to reduce the power of the officials.

The scholars also point to the once palatial and well preserved mastaba tombs at Saqqara and Abydos belonging to high officials such as Ruaben and Nefer-Setekh.

Egyptologists consider the archaeological record of the mastabas' condition and the original architecture as proof that the statewide mortuary cults for kings and noblemen successfully operated during the entire dynasty.

Rice, Tiradritti and Helck think that Nynetjer decided to leave a divided realm because of private or political reasons and that the split was a formality sustained by Second Dynasty kings.

[16][21][22] Scholars such as Herman TeVelde,[23] I. E. S. Edwards[24] and Toby Wilkinson[25] believe the inscription of the famous Annal stone of Fifth Dynasty, a black olivine-basalt slabstone displaying a very detailed king list, also argues against the division of the realm.

Bell may have overlooked that the height of the Nile floods in the Palermo stone inscriptions only takes into account the measurements of the nilometers around Memphis, and not elsewhere along the river.