Baka (prince)

Baka was a prince of the ancient Egyptian 4th dynasty and son of Pharaoh Radjedef; his mother is unknown. When Prince Baka is only known from an incompletely preserved statue, which dates from the Pyramid district of his father in Abu Roasch and is now located in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Maybe Baka was identical to the sparsely occupied Pharaoh Bicheris.

Baka as possible Pharaoh

The Egyptian historian Manetho called as the successor of Pharaoh Khafre a king named Bicheris, which is, however, hardly been archaeologically documented. The only contemporary attributions come from its ascribed begun pyramid complex in Saujet el- Arjan. In the local excavation several workers graffiti were discovered, containing a majority of royal cartouche. These same cartridges are the subject of lively controversy, as the excavator of the pyramid complex, Alexandre Barsanti, the graffiti did not reflect in his excavation publication as facsimiles, but merely as rough sketches. Thus, while the second character is clearly recognizable in the cartridges as Ka - symbol, the first character is, however, rendered so indistinct that it could not be clearly identified to date.

The now widespread reading is as Baka, whereupon the equation of Bicheris based with a son of Pharaoh Radjedef. The difficult thing, however, is the different spelling of the two names. So the name of the Prince Baka is written on the Statue of Abu Roasch a ram, the name of Saujet Arjan el- but, more specifically with a bird well with a stork. Both characters have but the phonetic value of Ba ( or Bi), which at least would give a same pronunciation.

The name Baka could then have been distorted in the course of Egyptian history to Ba -ka -Re, which is the Greek form of the name Bicheris derived. A similar proposal already made ​​George Andrew Reisner. He assumed that already Bicheris even his birth name Baka changed after the accession in Ba -ka -Re.

Since the reading of the names of train Saujet el- Arjan is however not unique, even the equation of Baka and Bicheris is not without controversy. So Bicheris was equated among other things, with Šetka another son of Radjedef.