Pepi I Meryre

Son of Teti and possibly grandson of the Fifth Dynasty's last ruler, Pepi took the throne after his father's likely murder and the brief, shadowy reign of Userkare. Around his twentieth year, a consort tried to engineer her son's succession through conspiracy; later, his own vizier may have plotted against him. As local dynasties grew bold and pharaonic grip weakened, Pepi answered with temples and chapels across Egypt, promoted officials of humble birth to check noble families, and married two daughters of the Abydos nomarch - making their mother and brother viziers. He sent armies into Nubia and the Levant, landed troops by sea on foreign coasts, and kept trade routes to Byblos and Ebla humming. His pyramid at Saqqara, lined with the Old Kingdom's richest cache of Pyramid Texts, anchored a cult that lasted into the Middle Kingdom before the stone was quarried away under the Mamluks.