Muthis should not be confused with Muthi.
Muthis | |
Reign: | possibly a year between 393 and 380 BCE |
Predecessor: | uncertain |
Successor: | uncertain |
Muthis may have been an ephemeral ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Twenty-ninth Dynasty.
He is sometime reported as a son of Nepherites I who ruled for a brief time before being deposed by an usurper, Psammuthes.[1] However, this statement is based on an interpretation of a passage in the Demotic Chronicle:
His son (i.e. of Nepherites I) was allowed to succeed him. (But) a short time was vouchsafed to him...Nevertheless, the Demotic Chronicle never mentions the name of Muthis and, as pointed out by the Egyptologist John D. Ray, "his son" could be a reference to Hakor instead.[2]
It is also possible that Muthis was a very shadowly usurper, maybe related to the other usurper Psammuthes. Another option is that "Muthis" was simply a copying error, and therefore never existed; the latter hypothesis is supported by the fact that the name is clearly hellenized but there are no clues of what could have originally meant "Muthis" in Egyptian.[3]
His name does not appear on any monument, and he is only mentioned by Eusebius's Epithome of Manetho. Eusebius gave him a single year of reign and placed him at the very end of the dynasty, after Nepherites II; however, the Armenian version of Eusebius placed him between Psammuthes and Nepherites II.[4]
Ray, J.D., 1986: "Psammuthis and Hakoris", The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 72: 149–158.