Ouni

Ouni the Old one was the vizier of the Pharaon Pépi {{Ier}} of the Egyptian woman. In addition to the titles and functions related to this official high position it also carried the titles of Gouverneur of High-Egypt and Général of the armies of the King .

Its tomb was found in the necropolis of Abydos in 1860 by Auguste Mariette at the time of the systematic excavation campaign that it carried out to it on behalf of the young whole Service of the Antiquity Egyptian women which it had created. It brought back a stele from there false-carries as two small Obélisque S which framed the entry of the vault of worship, the reliefs and a wall of the tomb comprising a long autobiographical inscription. The whole is today exposed with the museum of Cairo.

From a great value for the history of this period, the text of Ouni teaches us that it organized and ensured him even of great commercial forwardings the the Sinai and in Nubie, and especially a military forwarding in Palestine whose success was complete. The army was divided into two and went up in parallel the Palestinian corridor, a part by overland route the other by the sea. Not only he teaches us that the Egypt had already a powerful fleet but that its army was made up of many quotas directed by high-ranking persons of the court and state under the direct supervision of the vizier giving us their names and their titles. Among these quotas one counts good number of Egyptian conscripts and also from abroad enlisted in Nubie for example. Finally the two army corps met close to fascinating Haïfa tortures the enemy troops of them, inflicting a demolished cuisante to them. In spite of a certain resistance the cities of the area fell the ones after the others after a systematic seat from the principal citadels and the Egyptian army turned over to Egypt victorious and charged with spoils.

The Mastaba of Ouni was the subject of excavations by Kelsey Museum and Pennsylvania-Yale-New York University in 1995 then by Kelsey Museum in 1999 and 2000. These excavations thus revealed in addition to new funerary reliefs left on the spot by Mariette, a new false stele still carries places from there, but this fragmentary time. It reveals us in particular that the vizier also carried the nickname of nefer nekhet mery-Re while the reliefs bring precise details on its family origins attesting that Ouni belonged to a very powerful family.

The fact that it was buried in Abydos and not near Pharaon, the size of sound mastaba and its place in the necropolis crowned show its power and are undoubtedly as many precursory signs of the importance to come from the provincial administration which little by little takes the step on that centralized of monarchy.

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