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Teti: the pharaoh who founded the 6th Dynasty, in hieroglyphs

13 October 2026

Teti was the first king of Egypt's 6th Dynasty, ruling from about 2345 BC. His cartouche is one of the shortest in Egyptian history: two bread loaves and a reed leaf, read tti, "Teti".

He followed Unas, the last king of the 5th Dynasty, and was buried in a pyramid at Saqqara whose burial rooms are carved with Pyramid Texts. The length of his reign is uncertain. Most Egyptologists now put it at around twelve years.

Teti is written with three alphabet signs

The name is said "teh-tee". The bread loaf (X1) is the sound t, written twice: t, t. The flowering reed (M17) adds the final i. Egyptian writing left out vowels, so the e between the two t's is a modern guess.

Three alphabet signs and nothing else make it a good first cartouche to read. It has no god's name to move to the front and no word-sign to learn. Unlike most kings, Teti seems to have used this one name both as his throne name and as his birth name, so the same oval stands for both.

Bread loaf Flowering reed Cartouche

Teti's Horus name was Seheteptawy

Teti also had a Horus name, written in a frame topped by a falcon: sḥtp-tꜣwj, said "seh-hetep-tawy", "he who pacifies the Two Lands". The folded cloth (S29) writes the s that turns ḥtp, "to be at peace", into "to make peaceful". The offering mat with a loaf on it (R4) is ḥtp, and the land sign, doubled, is tꜣwj, the Two Lands of Upper and Lower Egypt.

Some scholars read the name as a programme: a new king calming a divided court at the start of his reign. Others see it as a standard royal boast. The same ḥtp sign opens the offering formula on false doors all around his pyramid.

Falcon Folded cloth Bread on an offering mat Land with grains

A late story says his bodyguards killed him

How Teti came to the throne is not known. He married Iput, who may have been a daughter of Unas, and their son became King Pepi I. His mother, Sesheshet, may have helped him gain the throne. Another wife, Khuit, may have been the mother of Userkare, a short-lived king who came between Teti and Pepi I.

Manetho, an Egyptian priest writing about two thousand years later, says Teti was murdered by his own bodyguards. No record from his own reign confirms it. The brief, poorly recorded reign of Userkare has led some historians to suspect a palace struggle, and others to doubt the story altogether.

His name runs through his pyramid at Saqqara

His pyramid at Saqqara, called Djed-isut-Teti, "the places of Teti endure", has lost its casing and looks like a low hill. Underneath, the corridors and burial chamber are well preserved. It was the second pyramid to be carved with Pyramid Texts, after Unas, and Gaston Maspero opened it in 1882. His cartouche recurs through the spells, and his greywacke sarcophagus still lies in the burial chamber, inscribed but unfinished.

Around the pyramid lies the cemetery of his court. His queens Iput and Khuit had small pyramids nearby. To the north stand the mastabas of his viziers: Mereruka, married to Teti's daughter Watetkhethor, and Kagemni, married to another daughter. Mereruka's tomb has rooms for his son Meryteti, whose name means "beloved of Teti": look for the king's three signs inside it.

Visit the Pyramid of Teti

The upright reed leaf marks the name on worn stone

Old Kingdom carving is shallow, and in Teti's pyramid many columns are damaged. The two loaves are low half-domes, easy to mistake for the mouth or for a pair of stones. Look for the reed leaf standing upright beside them.

In the spells the cartouche sits inside the text, wherever the king is named.

Mouth

Teti's cartouche has two layouts

Draw the oval upright. Put the reed leaf at the top, then the two loaves stacked under it, or set the loaves side by side and the reed in front of them. Either arrangement reads tti.

Write Teti in a cartouche

Questions

Was Teti really murdered?

Only Manetho says so, writing many centuries later. No contemporary text records it, so most historians treat it as possible but unproven.

Where is Teti buried?

In his pyramid at Saqqara, south of Cairo. His sarcophagus is still in the burial chamber, though the tomb was robbed in antiquity.

What does the name Teti mean?

There is no agreed translation. An earlier king of the 3rd Dynasty, Sekhemkhet, may also have used the name Teti.

Which dynasty was Teti?

The 6th Dynasty, the last great dynasty of the Old Kingdom. He was followed, after Userkare, by his son Pepi I and later by his grandson Pepi II.

Glossary

alphabet sign: A hieroglyph that stands for one consonant, such as the horned viper for f. Egyptian has about 25 of them, used beside signs for two or three sounds.
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.
dynasty: A line of kings counted together, usually one family. Egyptologists number Egypt's kings in about 30 dynasties, following the priest Manetho.
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.
Lower Egypt: The north of Egypt, the flat Nile Delta from around Memphis to the sea. It is called lower because it is downstream.
offering formula: The prayer ḥtp-dj-nswt, "an offering that the king gives", asking for bread, beer and other good things for the dead. It is written on tombs, stelae and coffins.
priest: A servant of a god in a temple, who washed, dressed and fed the god's statue each day. A high priest led the staff of a great temple.
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.
Pyramid Texts: The oldest religious spells of Egypt, carved in the burial rooms of pyramids from the reign of Unas, around 2350 BC, on.
sarcophagus: A large stone coffin. In rich burials it held one or more coffins of wood.
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.