Three hieroglyphs in a cartouche.

Neferirkare's nomen "Kakai" on the Abydos king list.

Contemporaneous sources
Neferirkare is well attested in sources contemporaneous with his reign. Beyond his
pyramid complex, he is mentioned in the tomb of many of his contemporaries such as
his vizier Washptah, the courtier Rawer[23] and the priest Akhethetep.[24]
Neferirkare also appears in the nearly contemporaneous Giza writing board, a short
list grouping six kings from different dynasties dating to the later Fifth or early
Sixth Dynasty.[25] The writing board was uncovered in the tomb of a high official
named Mesdjerw, who may have composed it for his use in the afterlife.[26]

Historical sources
Neferirkare is attested in two ancient Egyptian king lists, both dating to the New
Kingdom. The earliest of these is the Abydos King List written during the reign of
Seti I (fl. 1290�1279 BC). There, Neferirkare's nomen "Kakai" occupies the 28th
entry, in between those of Sahure and Neferefre. During the subsequent reign of
Ramses II (fl. 1279�1213 BC), Neferirkare's prenomen was recorded on the 27th entry
of the Saqqara Tablet, but this time as a successor of Sahure and predecessor of
Shepseskare.[27]

Neferirkare was also given an entry on the Turin canon, a document dating to the
reign of Ramses II as well. Neferirkare's entry is commonly believed to be on the
third column-19th row; unfortunately this line has been lost in a large lacuna
affecting the papyrus and neither his reign length nor his successor can be
ascertained from the surviving fragments. The Egyptologist Miroslav Verner has
furthermore proposed that the Turin canon makes a new dynasty start with this entry
and thus that Neferirkare would be its founder.[28][29][30] The division of the
Turin canon list of kings into dynasties is a currently debated. The Egyptologist
Jarom�r M�lek for example sees the divisions between groups of kings occurring in
the canon as marking transfers of royal residence rather than the rise and fall of
royal dynasties as this term is currently understood, a usage which only began in
the Egyptian context with the 3rd-century BC work of the priest Manetho.[31]
Similarly, the Egyptologist Stephan Seidlmeyer, considers the break in the Turin
Canon at the end of the Eighth Dynasty to represent the relocation of the royal
residence from Memphis to Herakleopolis.[32] The Egyptologist John Baines holds
views that are closer to Verner's, believing that the canon was divided into
dynasties with totals for the time elapsed given at the end of each, though only
few such divisions have survived.[33] Similarly, Professor John Van Seters views
the breaks in the canon as divisions between dynasties, but in contrast, states
that the criterion for these divisions remains unknown. He speculates that the
pattern of dynasties may have been taken from the nine divine kings of the Greater
and Lesser Enneads.[34] The Egyptologist Ian Shaw believes that the Turin Canon
gives some credibility to Manetho's division of dynasties, but considers the king
lists to be a form of ancestor worship and not a historical record.[35] This whole
problematic could be mooted in another of Verner's speculations, where he proposed
that Neferirkare's entry may have been located on the 20th line rather than the
19th as is usually believed. This would credit Neferirkare with seven years of
reign,[29] and would make Sahure the dynasty founder in the hypothesis that the
canon records such events. Archaeological evidences have established that the
transitions from Userkaf to Sahure and from Sahure to Neferirkare were father�son
transitions, so that neither Sahure nor Neferirkare can be dynasty founders in the
modern sense of the term.[36][37]

Neferirkare was mentioned in the Aegyptiaca, a history of Egypt written in the 3rd
century BC during the reign of Ptolemy II (283�246 BC) by Manetho. No copies of the
Aegyptiaca have survived to this day and it is now known only through later
writings by Sextus Julius Africanus and Eusebius. The Byzantine scholar George
Syncellus reports that Africanus relates that the Aegyptiaca mentioned the
succession "Sephr�s ? Nefercher�s ? Sisir�s" for the early Fifth Dynasty. Sephr�s,
Nefercher�s and Sisir�s are believed to be the hellenized forms for Sahure,
Neferirkare and Shepseskare, respectively. Thus, Manetho's reconstruction of the
Fifth Dynasty is in agreement with the Saqqara tablet.[38] In Africanus' epitome of
the Aegyptiaca, Nefercher�s is reported to have reigned for 20 years.[39]