Early Dynastic Egypt (13 page)

Although the rulers buried at Qustul in Cemetery L adopted royal iconography, they do not seem to have recorded their names in recognisable form. An incised inscription on a pottery vessel from tomb L2 has been interpreted by the excavator as the name of an otherwise unattested Lower Nubian king, *Pe-Hor (Williams 1986:149). However, once again, the inscription may not be a name at all, but rather a general mark of royal ownership.

Two pottery vessels from the Early Dynastic cemetery at Tura (Junker 1912:47, fig. 57.3–4; van den Brink 1996: table 1 nos 7–8, pl. 25.b and d) are inscribed with a
serekh
which has been read as *Ny-Hor (Kaiser and Dreyer 1982:264–8) but which may simply be a cursive rendering of the name of Narmer (Fischer 1963:44–7), since abbreviated writings of this king’s name are common (cf. Kaiser and Dreyer 1982: fig. 14.38). The same may be true of the
serekh
from Tarkhan (Petrie 1914: pls VI and XX.l; van den Brink 1996: table 1 no. 9, pl. 26.a), read by some scholars as *Hat-Hor (Kaiser and Dreyer 1982). However, in both cases, the vessels themselves suggest a date somewhat earlier than the reign of Narmer (van den Brink 1996), and the possibility that they record the names of earlier rulers cannot be excluded. The name written in ink on a vessel from tomb 412 at Tarkhan (Petrie
et al.
1913: pl. XXXI.71) is unlikely to be royal (contra von der Way 1993:100–1), as it is not written within a
serekh
. More probably the tomb owner was a member of the local or regional élite.

The owner of Abydos tomb B0/1/2

Many sherds and complete vessels from tomb B1/2 and the adjacent pit B0 at Abydos are inscribed with a device consisting of a falcon perching on a mouth-sign. This has been read as the name of a king and the presumed owner of the tomb, *Iry-Hor (Kaiser and Dreyer 1982:212; cf. Petrie 1902:4). There are problems with such an interpretation (Wilkinson 1993b; O’Brien 1996:131–2), not least the fact that the ‘name’ is never found

in a
serekh,
despite this device already having been in use for royal names prior to the construction of tomb B0/1/2 (von der Way 1993:99, seeks to counteract this argument by citing the pot mark from Qustul Cemetery L discussed above). None the less, the existence of a King *Iry-Hor has gained wide acceptance (for example, van den Brink 1996). Whilst it is possible that the tomb belonged to a contemporary of Narmer’s (Wilkinson 1993b), the recent re-excavation of chambers B1 and B2 and the discovery of an adjoining pit B0 (Dreyer
et al.
1996) make it more likely that the whole complex belongs in the sequence of royal burials stretching back from the First Dynasty tombs in Abydos Cemetery B to their Predynastic forerunners in the adjacent Cemetery U. Moreover, the twin chambers closely resemble the tombs of kings ‘Ka’ and Narmer, and the location of B0/1/2—if not the pottery—also suggests that the owner of the complex should be placed immediately before ‘Ka’ in the order of succession (Hendrickx, personal communication, contra Kaiser 1990:289, fig. 1, who seems to place *Iry-Hor rather earlier, to account for the lack of a
serekh
).

King A

In contrast with some or all of the above cases, two royal names from the late Predynastic period almost certainly refer to particular kings. Because neither can be read as yet, they are designated here as King A and King B. The first is attested on a vessel from the eastern Delta. The inscription consists of a
serekh,
surmounted by a falcon, with three h signs/maces in its upper part (Fischer 1963:44, fig. 1, pl. Vl.a and c; van den Brink 1996: pl. 30.a). Although the signs may be a writing of a royal name, it should be noted that maces and
serekh
s occur together on several other vessels dating to the threshold of the First Dynasty (van den Brink 1996: pls 26.a, 28, 30.b-c). Hence, the three maces on the eastern Delta jar may simply represent general symbols of royal authority, and the inscription as a whole could be ‘an extended version of an anonymous
serekh’
(Hendrickx, personal communication). Two similar
serekh
s are attested on vessels from Tura (Junker 1912:46 and 47, fig. 57.1 and 2), though both lack the Horus falcon. Moreover, in both cases the h signs/maces occur in the lower part of the frame, replacing the more usual vertical strokes by which the palace facade is indicated, and three circles are shown beneath the
serekh
(van den Brink 1996: table 1 nos 18–19). Because of these differences, the Tura
serekhs
may not represent the ruler whose mark appears on the jar from the eastern Delta. If, on the other hand, the three inscriptions do signify one and the same king, the fact that he is unattested outside Lower Egypt may be significant (van den Brink 1996:147), but it would be dangerous to reconstruct the extent of a ruler’s authority on the basis of a few pot marks.

King B

Two rock-cut inscriptions in the western desert behind Armant show another royal name (Wilkinson 1996a). The
epigraphy
of the inscriptions, particularly the rendering of the falcon atop the
serekh,
confirms that the king in question reigned at the very end of the Predynastic period (‘Dynasty 0’,
c.
3100 BC). Because of difficulties in deciphering early Egyptian script, a plausible reading of the name has not yet been proposed. Given the southerly location of the inscriptions, it is possible that the king was a member of the

royal family of Hierakonpolis, which seems to have maintained control over the southernmost part of Upper Egypt until the threshold of the First Dynasty. The extent of King B’s authority cannot be ascertained, but he was clearly in a position to mount expeditions into the western desert. The inscriptions highlight the extent of Egyptian interest in the peripheral areas prior to the First Dynasty. The
serekh
of King B may occur again, but without the falcon, on a rock-cut inscription in the eastern desert (Winkler 1938,1:10 and 31). The site lies on the ancient Qena to Quseir route to the Red Sea coast, in an area visited regularly by Egyptian expeditions in late Predynastic and Early Dynastic times.

‘Scorpion’ and/or ‘Crocodile’

One of the most striking royal monuments from the period immediately preceding the First Dynasty is the Scorpion macehead from Hierakonpolis. Despite the objection of some scholars (for example, Malek 1986:29), the scorpion sign almost certainly records the name of the king, since it has been convincingly demonstrated that the
rosette/palmette
sign above the scorpion signified the ruler (H.S.Smith 1992:244). In view of the close stylistic similarities between the Scorpion macehead and the monuments of Narmer, the two kings were probably near contemporaries (Kaiser 1990:289, fig. 1). However, since no evidence of Scorpion has been found at Abydos— but note that the four-chambered tomb B50, devoid of any inscriptions, has been suggested as a possible burial place for Scorpion (Dreyer 1990:71)—he may not fit into the Thinite dynastic sequence at all. Instead, he may have belonged to the royal house of Hierakonpolis (Trigger
et al.
1983:46), as suggested by the place he chose to dedicate his ceremonial macehead. In this case, he may have been at least partly contemporary with Narmer. The
serekh
of ‘Scorpion’ may occur on a wine jar from Minshat Abu Omar (Wildung 1981:37, fig. 33; van den Brink 1996: pl. 28), although this inscription has also been read as the name of Aha (Wildung 1981:35) Two
serekh
s written in ink on pottery vessels from Tarkhan (Petrie
et al.
1913: pl. LX; Petrie 1914: pl. XL) have been read as ‘Scorpion’ (Kaplony 1963, II: 1090), although in the absence of any further comparable inscriptions a definitive reading remains impossible for the present.

A recent hypothesis assigns the Tarkhan inscriptions to another proposed king of ‘Dynasty 0’, the Horus ‘Crocodile‘ (Dreyer 1992a). This reading is based upon new infra-red photographs of the inscriptions and their comparison with a seal-impression from a third tomb at Tarkhan, dated to the reign of Narmer. The sealing, which may have belonged to a governor of the Tarkhan region, shows a series of crocodiles above coils which probably represent water. On the basis of the inscribed vessels themselves and the form of the
serekh
s, the Horus ‘Crocodile’ is identified as a usurper or alternatively a king reigning concurrently with the main Thinite royal family, early in the reign of ‘Ka’. Following this interpretation, the Minshat Abu Omar
serekh
mentioned above has now been attributed to ‘Horus (Crocodile) the Subduer’ (van den Brink 1996:147). The proposed new reading of the three inscriptions and the existence of a King ‘Crocodile’ is not universally accepted. By contrast, the Scorpion macehead remains a powerful piece of evidence for the existence of a late Predynastic king of this name.

‘Ka’

The horizontal stratigraphy of the royal burials at Abydos and the ceramic evidence—the types of pottery associated with the early royal names – make it fairly certain that Narmer was immediately preceded (as ruler of This, and perhaps as king of all Egypt) by the king whose Horus name shows a pair of arms, the hieroglyph later read as
k3.
King ‘Ka’, as he is generally known (but note Kaplony 1958), was buried in the double tomb B7/9, situated between the graves of his Predynastic forebears in Cemetery U and the tombs of his successors, the kings of the First Dynasty (Petrie 1901: pl. LIX). (The theory that the
serekh
s of ‘Ka’ from tomb B7/9 refer to the ka(-tomb) of Narmer [Baumgartel 1975:31; repeated by O’Brien 1996:132] would seem to be invalidated by the occurrences of the same
serekh
at sites other than Abydos.) Clay sealings from tomb B7/9 confirm its attribution (Petrie 1901: pls II.l and XIII.89). ‘Ka’ is the best attested king before Narmer, his name having been found at sites from Tell Ibrahim Awad in the north-eastern Delta (van den Brink 1992b: 53, n. 14) to Abydos in Upper Egypt. Two jars incised with the
serekh
of ‘Ka’ were found in graves at Helwan (Saad 1947:111 and 112, figs 11–12), apparently indicating that the city of Memphis—which the Helwan necropolis served— was already in existence before the reign of Narmer. This is despite later tradition that Menes founded Egypt’s new capital at the beginning of the First Dynasty. The
serekh
of ‘Ka’ also occurs on a
cylinder vessel
from Tarkhan (Petrie
et al.
1913: pl. LXI). Here, and in the numerous inscriptions from the king’s tomb at Abydos (Petrie 1902:3, pls I- III), the accompanying signs refer to revenue received by the royal treasury. They illustrate the functioning of the centralised economy before the beginning of the First Dynasty, and they confirm that, from earliest times, tax collection was organised separately for Upper and Lower Egypt.

A NATION IS BORN

From the beginning of the First Dynasty, the Nile valley and Delta, from Elephantine to the Mediterranean coast, was under the control of a single government, presided over by a king from the Thinite royal family. Although the First Dynasty kings chose to be buried in their ancestral royal necropolis at Abydos, for at least part of the year they probably resided at and governed from a new capital city, located strategically at the junction of Upper and Lower Egypt, ‘the balance of the two lands’. The foundation of Memphis as the national administrative centre really represents the culmination of the unification process. The earliest élite tomb at North Saqqara dates to the reign of Aha (
c.
2950 BC), but burial activity at Helwan—which served as the capital’s second cemetery—began at least as early as the reign of ‘Ka’ (cf. Saad 1947:111 and 112, figs 11–12). It was ‘Ka’s’ successor and Aha’s predecessor, Narmer (probably the historical Menes), who became associated in later tradition with the foundation of Memphis, and he may have been the first king to establish his residence in the city.

Once the prize of national unity had been won, Egypt’s early kings set about establishing mechanisms of rule that would maintain and bolster that unity, guaranteeing their own privileged position at the same time. The ideology of divine kingship, elements of which had been developed by Upper Egyptian rulers in Predynastic times, was promulgated vigorously through iconography, architecture, ritual and royal activities. The

king was presented as the binding force of national unity and as the champion of Egypt and its people against the forces of chaos, embodied in Egypt’s neighbours. Official xenophobia, nationalism and a strong sense of Egyptian identity were deliberately fostered by the early state as part of its propaganda of rule. In essence, the concept of the nation state, so dominant in world politics today, was the invention of Egypt’s early rulers. The means they employed to promote this concept and the character of the state they moulded form the subjects of Parts II and III.

CHAPTER THREE HISTORICAL OUTLINE‌

THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD: TERMINOLOGY AND DEFINITION

Ancient Egyptian civilisation—as defined by the use of monumental hieroglyphics and the institution of divine kingship—endured over a period of some three millenniums. With such a long stretch of time to study, Egyptologists have found it necessary to divide Egyptian history into broader periods. These tend to follow the known pattern of internal political developments, corresponding to eras of unified government and the intervening periods of political fragmentation. The time-span that concerns us here is the first such period, standing at the beginning of the Egyptian historical sequence. The formative phase of Egyptian civilisation is sometimes referred to as the
‘Archaic’
period (Emery 1961). However, the term ‘archaic’ implies a value-judgement based upon hindsight. Moreover, it seems an unfair label to apply to the dynamic and sophisticated early culture of the Nile valley, and its use is waning amongst Egyptologists who study the period (for example, Spencer 1993). Hence, the more neutral and descriptive term, ‘Early Dynastic’, is preferred here.