Khui

Khui was an ancient Egyptian king and/or nomarch during the early First Intermediate Period. Khui may have belonged to the Eighth Dynasty of Egypt, as Jürgen Beckerath has proposed, or he may instead have been a provincial nomarch who proclaimed himself king.

Attestation Khui is not known from historical sources and the only certain attestation of his existence is a fragmentary relief on a stone block showing his cartouche which was published in 1912 by the Egyptologist Ahmed Bey Kamal and later republished by Raymond Weill. The block was excavated from a mastaba tomb of the necropolis of Dara near Manfalut.

King or nomarch Based on the cartouche surrounding Khui's name on the relief from Dara, Egyptologists including Jürgen Beckerath have proposed that he was a king of the early First Intermediate Period, belonging to the Eighth Dynasty.

On the other hand, Egyptologists Barry Kemp and Toby Wilkinson believe it more likely that Khui was a nomarch, that is a provincial governor, who took advantage of the power vacuum following the collapse of the Old Kingdom and proclaimed himself king, in the same way as the coeval and neighboring Heracleopolite founders of the 9th Dynasty.