Seqenenre Tao (also Seqenera Djehuty-aa or Sekenenra Taa, called 'the Brave') was a pharaoh who ruled over the last of the local kingdoms of the Theban region of Egypt in the Seventeenth Dynasty during the Second Intermediate Period.

Seqenenre Tao is credited with starting the opening moves in a war of revanchism against Hyksos incursions into Egypt, which saw the country completely liberated during the reign of his son Ahmose I.

He seems to have led military skirmishes against the Hyksos and, judging from the vicious head wounds on his mummy in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, may have died during one of them.

The relatively short length of Seqenenre Tao's reign did not allow for the construction of many monumental structures, but it is known that he had built a new palace made of mud brick at Deir el-Ballas.

The history of Seqenenre's reign and revolt against the Hyksos had been considered legendary, but from the wounds present on the body, it was concluded by Maspero that he had died in battle.

[14] A reconstruction of his death by Egyptologist Garry Shaw and archaeologist and weapons expert Robert Mason suggested a third, which they saw as the likeliest, that Seqenenre was executed by the Hyksos king Apepi.

[15] Garry Shaw also analysed the arguments for the competing hypotheses and other physical, textual and statistical evidence concluding "that the most likely cause of Seqenenre’s death is ceremonial execution at the hands of an enemy commander, following a Theban defeat on the battlefield.

X-rays that were taken of the mummy in the late 1960s show that no attempt had been made to remove the brain or to add linen inside the cranium or eyes, both normal embalming practices for the time.

[20] In April 2021 his mummy was moved to National Museum of Egyptian Civilization along with those of 17 other kings and 4 queens in an event termed the Pharaohs' Golden Parade.