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Nectanebo II in hieroglyphs: Nakhthorheb, the last native king of Egypt

31 October 2026

Nectanebo II's birth name is nḫt-ḥr-ḥbyt, Nakhthorheb, "strong is Horus of Hebit", and his throne name is snḏm-ib-rꜥ, Senedjemibre, "pleasing to the heart of Ra". Nectanebo is the Greek form of his name.

He ruled from about 360 to 343 BC and was the last Egyptian-born king of Egypt. After him came Persians, then Alexander the Great and the Ptolemies, and no native pharaoh ruled again.

Nakhthorheb puts Horus between strength and a festival

The birth name in our spelling has five signs. The forearm holding a stick (D40) stands for nḫt, "strong". The falcon (G5) is Horus, ḥr. The festival booth (W4) writes ḥb, the bread loaf (X1) adds the t of ḥbyt, and the village sign (O49) shows that ḥbyt is a place. Read in order: nḫt-ḥr-ḥbyt.

Hebit is Behbeit el-Hagar in the central Delta, near the family's home city of Sebennytos. Nectanebo began a great temple of Isis there in hard granite, and the Ptolemies finished it. Its fallen blocks still lie in a heap on the site.

Forearm holding a stick Falcon Festival booth Bread loaf Village

Write Nakhthorheb in a cartouche

Strong is spelled with three sound signs and an arm

In full, the word nḫt is written with the ripple of water (N35) for n, the placenta (Aa1) for ḫ, said like the ch in Scottish "loch", and the bread loaf (X1) for t. The forearm with a stick (D40) follows as a sign of force. It adds no sound and tells the reader the word is about strength.

In royal names the arm often stands alone for the whole word. Nectanebo I, his grandfather, was Nakhtnebef, "strong is his lord", and both kings carried the word at the head of their names.

Ripple of water Placenta

Senedjemibre asks to please the heart of Ra

The throne name opens with the sun disc (N5), rꜥ, Ra, written first out of respect and read last. The folded cloth (S29) is s, and the seed pod (M29) writes nḏm, "sweet, pleasant". Together they make snḏm, "to make pleasant". The heart (F34) is ib, with a single stroke (Z1) under it to show the sign means the thing it shows. Read in spoken order: snḏm-ib-rꜥ.

His cartouche usually adds stp-n-inḥr, "chosen of Onuris", a warrior god honoured at Sebennytos. Some inscriptions name Amun or Hathor in his place.

Sun Folded cloth Seed pod Heart Single stroke

Write Senedjemibre in a cartouche

He seized the throne from his uncle Teos

In 360 BC his uncle, King Teos, marched into Syria against the Persians with Greek mercenaries under the Spartan king Agesilaus. Nakhthorheb commanded the Egyptian soldiers. Teos had paid for the war by taxing the people and seizing temple wealth, and while he was away Egypt turned against him. The army proclaimed his nephew king, Agesilaus took his side, and Teos fled to the Persian court.

A rival king soon rose at Mendes in the Delta. With the Spartans' help Nectanebo defeated him and held the throne for some seventeen years. He spent them building. More than a hundred sites in Egypt show his work.

The Met's falcon spells his name in stone

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has a greywacke statue 72 cm high of Horus as a great falcon wearing the double crown. A small figure of the king stands between its feet under its protection. It is said to come from Heliopolis.

The statue is also a picture of his name. The king holds a sword in one hand, nḫt, "strong". The falcon above him is Horus, ḥr. In his other hand he holds the festival sign, ḥb, for Hebit. Read together, sculpture and figure spell Nakhthorheb.

Read the Met

His sarcophagus became a bath in Alexandria

In 343 or 342 BC the Persian king Artaxerxes III took Egypt. Nectanebo fled south to Upper Egypt and then to Nubia, and his fate after that is unknown. He was never buried in the tomb prepared for him.

His stone sarcophagus, over 3 m long and covered with scenes from the Amduat, the book of the sun's journey through the night, ended up in Alexandria. It stood in the courtyard of the Attarine Mosque and was used for washing, with holes drilled near its base to let the water out. Napoleon's scholars took it, believing it was the tomb of Alexander the Great, and after the French surrender in 1801 it went to the British Museum, where it has been since 1802.

A Greek legend, the Alexander Romance, says Nectanebo fled to Macedonia as a magician and fathered Alexander himself, so that Egypt's last native king became the father of its next ruler.

Read the British Museum

Questions

Was Nectanebo II the last pharaoh of Egypt?

He was the last native Egyptian king. Persian kings, Alexander the Great, the Ptolemies and Roman emperors were all shown as pharaohs after him.

What does Nakhthorheb mean?

"Strong is Horus of Hebit". Hebit is Behbeit el-Hagar in the Nile Delta, where he began a temple of Isis.

Where is Nectanebo II's sarcophagus?

In the British Museum in London. It was found in the Attarine Mosque in Alexandria, where it had been used for washing.

Glossary

birth name: The name a king was given at birth, written in the second cartouche after the title "son of Ra". Egyptologists also call it the nomen.
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.
pharaoh: The king of Egypt. The word comes from per-aa, "great house", a name for the palace that came to mean the king himself in the New Kingdom.
sarcophagus: A large stone coffin. In rich burials it held one or more coffins of wood.
temple: The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
throne name: The name a king took when he came to the throne, written in the first cartouche after the title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt". Egyptologists also call it the prenomen.
tomb: A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.
Upper Egypt: The south of Egypt, the narrow Nile valley from around Memphis to Aswan. It is called upper because it is upstream.