Meni, Meny or Menankhpepy (also mentioned as Prince Mena in older sources) was an ancient Egyptian high official who lived during the reigns of Pepy I and Merenre Nemtyemsaf I, in the late Sixth Dynasty. Most of what is known about his life comes from his mastaba burial tomb in the Dendera Necropolis, a few hundred metres south of the Temple to Hathor. This tomb was explored during 1897 and 1898 by a team led by the British archaeologist Flinders Petrie.
Meni's full name was Men-ankh-Pepy (), which can be translated as "Pepy's life is enduring" and makes reference to that king. However, in most inscriptions his name is rendered just as Meni (), which was his nickname or good name.
Life
While some authors suggested that Meni might have lived during the Ninth Dynasty (mainly on the basis of palaeography), and even the Eleventh Dynasty (based on architectural style), it seems now more probable that he lived during the late Sixth Dynasty, as his different titles appear to indicate. During his lifetime, Meni held a number of administrative titles, most of which can be associated with the pyramid estates of Sixth Dynasty kings Pepy I and Merenre. He managed the estate of both pyramid settlements, and held the office of royal seal-bearer. He is also described as a sole companion, meaning he had relatively direct access to the king, though this was a relatively low rank. Within the context of royal service, Meni is also recorded as overseer of tenant landholders of the Great House. In his local area, he was charged with supervising "all vegetation" and "every desert", as well as the "fishers, fowlers and hunters" of the nome (Dendera).
As was common at that time, he also held religious offices: he was a lector priest, and captain of the bat- or khebat-boat, an obscure term unattested elsewhere. It most likely refers to the ritual barque of Hathor, akin to the Abydos boats. The term itself ( or ) may be a participle of either ḫbꜣ or bꜣ, two verbs meaning "to hack up". Thus, the name of this barque might have been "the hacked up (one)". Other people buried at Dendera had titles referring to the construction and towing of Hathor's barque, which indeed had a crew of oarsmen. Probably this is the same type of ritual barque that is recorded much later to have made a festival journey to Edfu.
A cornice inside his tomb, which was found badly damaged, includes a short biographical text in which Meni extols his good deeds, including some unusual phrases only attested in Dendera so far:
In the corridor of his mastaba, a damaged slab was found of a man with his wife. It depicts Nebet-tef, together with her title of lady-in-waiting. While the name of the man is lost, the scene probably depicted Meni's wife. Likely, this slab was part of an architrave that may have included offerings and an appeal to the living along with another representation of the couple (a reconstruction can be seen below). Another inscription, badly defaced, mentions the phrase "... with barley, wheat, cattle...", which tells about accumulation of property. This may refer to Meni's private estate or may concern the temple of Hathor in Dendera, mentioned in the following line.
A full list of Meni's titles is as follows: sole companion (), seal-bearer of the king of Lower Egypt (), overseer of tenant landholders of the Great House (), ruler of the estate (the pyramid) of "The-perfection-of-Mery-Re-abides" (), ruler of the estate (the pyramid) of "The-perfection-of-Merenre-appears" (), high official (), estate manager (), lector priest (), director in the barque of Hathor (), overseer of every cultivated place and every desert place (), overseer of fishers, fowlers and hunters of the nome (), overseer of all vegetation of the nome ().
There is no evidence as to how many years Meni lived. One of his stelae (currently kept at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo) represents him as a portly and elderly person; in the same stela, he is wearing a long kilt, which is generally associated with portly old age in the Old Kingdom. Since such depictions are rare at Dendera, this may not be a meaningless stereotype, but an indication that he may have lived until a relative old age.