Pami

Usermaatre-setepenre Pami-meryamun (Egyptian wsr-mȝʿt-rʿ stp-n-rʿ pȝ-my mrj-jmn) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the 22nd Dynasty who ruled for 7 years. "Pami" in Egyptian, means "the Cat" or "He who belongs to the Cat [\Bastet](/en/w/Bastet)".¹

Identity

Pami's precise relationship with his immediate predecessor Shoshenq IV is unknown. He is attested as the father of Shoshenq V in a stela from the Serapeum of Saqqara, dating to the eleventh year of the latter's reign.

Pami was once assumed to be Pimay, the third son of Shoshenq III who served as the "Great Chief of Ma" under his father. However, the different orthographies of their names (Pami vs. Pimay) prove that they were 2 different individuals.

The name Pami translates as 'The Cat' in Egyptian whereas the name Pimay means 'The Lion.' Pami's name was mistakenly transcribed as Pimay by past historians based upon the identification with Shoshenq III's son. While a previous Dynasty 22 king held the title 'Great Chief of the Ma' before ascending the throne–namely Shoshenq I–Shoshenq III's son, if Pimay did indeed outlive his father, he should have then succeeded his father as king rather than the obscure Shoshenq IV who is not attested as a son of Shoshenq III. Consequently, it seems certain that Shoshenq III outlived all of his sons through his nearly four-decade-long reign.

While a minority of scholars hold to the traditional view that Pami was Pimay, no archaeological evidence proves that Pami was ever a son of Shoshenq III. Pami may have been a son of his obscure predecessor Shoshenq IV instead.

Reign length

According to stelae discovered from the Serapeum of Saqqara, an Apis bull was buried in the second year of Pami's reign.² Pami's fourth year is known from Brooklyn papyrus ‘16.205.’³ A small votive stela (Louvre C 275) presumably from reports a religious ceremony dated to Year 6 of king Pami's reign.