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Menkaure name meaning: what his cartouche says, sign by sign
13 October 2026
Menkaure means "Eternal are the kas of Ra": the life forces of the sun god last for ever. Other books put it as "Lasting are the kas of Ra" or "His kas stay like Ra". The differences come from the grammar of three short words, mn-kꜣw-rꜥ, said "men-kau-ra".
His cartouche writes them with six signs: a sun disc, a game board, a ripple of water and three pairs of raised arms. Menkaure built the third and smallest of the Giza pyramids, around 2532 to 2503 BC by one common dating. The Greeks called him Mykerinos, Latinised as Mycerinus.
Six signs write mn-kꜣw-rꜥ
The sun disc (N5) at the top is Ra, the sun god. It stands first out of respect for the god, but the name is read with Ra last. Under it the game board (Y5) writes mn, "men", to remain, to be firm, to endure. The ripple of water (N35) repeats the n of mn as a reading aid.
Then come the raised arms (D28), written three times. One pair is kꜣ, "ka", a person's life force, the part that receives offerings after death. Writing a sign three times makes it plural, so three pairs are kꜣw, "kau", the kas.
The adjective comes first in Egyptian
Egyptian puts an adjective before its noun to make a short sentence: mn kꜣw, "lasting (are) the kas". With Ra after it, the name says the kas of Ra are lasting. Many translations read it that way, and the site's "Eternal are the kas of Ra" follows them.
A second reading takes the kas to be the king's own and Ra as the comparison: "His kas stay like Ra". Both fit the signs, since hieroglyphs leave the small words of a sentence to the reader. Either way the name joins three ideas that run through royal names of the Fourth Dynasty: permanence, the ka and the sun.
His father Khafre's name, "He appears like Ra", also ends with the sun god. Thutmose III's Menkheperre, a thousand years later, opens with the same sun, game board and water.
His Horus name was Kakhet
His Horus name, written in a rectangular frame under a falcon (G5), was Kakhet, usually given as "Bull of the divine company". The bull stood for royal strength. His pyramid had a name too: Netjeri Menkaure, "Menkaure is divine", with the cloth on a pole (R8) for god.
Mykerinos is the form in Herodotus, who tells of a pious king, kinder than Khufu and Khafre, whose life an oracle cut short to six years. The story is legend. The Turin King List is damaged at this point. Egyptologists generally give him about 18 years, perhaps 22.
His triads show his cartouche best
At Giza his pyramid still keeps a few courses of red Aswan granite at its base, part of a casing never finished. On the north face, a deep gash comes from 1196, when Sultan al-Aziz Uthman tried to pull the pyramid down and gave up after eight months. The pyramid has no carved inscriptions inside. His name shows up in the tombs and titles of his court around the plateau.
His statues from the valley temple, found by George Reisner's expedition, are where his cartouche is best seen. Found in 1908, the triads show him with the goddess Hathor and the god or goddess of one of Egypt's provinces. Most of the complete ones are in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has another. Boston also has the greywacke pair statue of the king with his queen, though that one carries no inscription.
In London, the British Museum keeps parts of a wooden coffin inscribed with his name, found inside his pyramid in 1837. It was made long after his death, a replacement from a later restoration of the tomb. His basalt sarcophagus never arrived: the ship Beatrice sank with it in 1838.
Three pairs of arms end Menkaure's cartouche
Put the sun at the top of the oval, the game board below it with its row of pegs, then the zigzag of water. The three pairs of arms go last, side by side or in a small triangle, elbows bent up like goalposts.
The arms tell this cartouche apart from Thutmose III's Menkheperre, which has the same sun, board and water but a scarab at the end. Senusret III's Khakaure also ends in three kas, so check the sign under the sun: a game board means Menkaure.
Questions
What is a ka?
The ka is a person's life force, born with them and living on after death, where it receives the food and drink offered at the tomb. The sign shows two raised arms.
Is Mycerinus the same as Menkaure?
Yes. Mykerinos is how Herodotus wrote the name in Greek. Mycerinus is the Latin spelling. Manetho called him Menkheres.
How do you pronounce Menkaure?
Usually "men-KOW-ray" or "men-kow-RAH". The vowels are modern guesses: the writing records only consonants.
Glossary
- cartouche
- An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
- coffin
- A box for the body, of wood or stone, often shaped like a person and painted with spells, names and gods. Rich burials nested several coffins inside a sarcophagus.
- dynasty
- A line of kings counted together, usually one family. Egyptologists number Egypt's kings in about 30 dynasties, following the priest Manetho.
- hieroglyphs
- The picture signs of ancient Egyptian writing, used from about 3200 BC to AD 394. A sign can stand for sounds, for a whole word, or for the kind of thing a word means.
- Horus name
- The oldest of a king's names, written in a serekh under the Horus falcon. It names the king as the god Horus on earth.
- pyramid
- A royal tomb with four sloping sides meeting at a point, built in the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza is the largest.
- sarcophagus
- A large stone coffin. In rich burials it held one or more coffins of wood.
- scarab
- The dung beetle, sign of the rising sun and of the word ḫpr, "to come into being". Carved scarabs were used as seals and amulets.
- temple
- The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
- tomb
- A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.
People in this article
Where to see it
- Giza Pyramids site
- Egyptian Museum, Cairo museum
- British Museum, London museum
Sources
More to read
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