Egypt's First Rulers

The blog post for this week is written by Jeanne Whitehurst, who has completed her Certificate of Egyptology from the University of Manchester. She moved to Egypt over twelve years ago, just before the revolution. Initially, she lived in Luxor, overlooking Karnak Temple, but now she lives in Aswan overlooking the First Cataract. She was extremely fortunate to have worked with Ted Brock on the sarcophagus of Merenptah (KV 8) as a volunteer.

 

According to the ancient Egyptian tradition written by Manetho, Herodotus, and the ancient Egyptian king lists, the first Dynasty started with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt during the reign of King Menes. This is despite the fact that contemporary archaeological records do not mention him. It is now thought that it was a gradual process of unification with progressive rulers gaining more land to the north and south of the three main centres of Thinis (Abydos), Nekhen (Hierakonpolis, near to Edfu), and Naqada.

Firstly, who was Manetho, the man who gave us the tables of the thirty dynasties that is still used as the basic framework of ancient Egyptian history? He was a priest and a historian who used native sources as the basis for his book (fig. 1). Unfortunately, we do not have the original and instead have to rely on copies of later writers such as Julius Africanus and Eusebius Pamphilus, which contain discrepancies with the names etc. due to being copies.

Fig. 1: Abydos king list

The First Dynasty kings were buried at Umm el Qa’ab at Abydos (80 miles North of Luxor). This had been the burial site of rulers since the Predynastic era (fig. 2). The site was thought to be entrance to the afterlife. The name means “mother of pots” in Arabic since thousands of pots have been discovered there as offerings to the god Osiris, whose major cult centre is there. Additionally, as the first kings were buried there, it was assumed that this was the site of Osiris’s tomb.

Fig. 2: Umm el Qa’ab

One of the earliest kings was Iry-Hor, whose existence was debated until recently when many pot fragments were found bearing his name at his burial at Abydos (fig. 3). Additionally, and more surprisingly, his name has been found in Northern Egypt at Zawiyat el-Aryan (near Giza) and Wadi Ameyra in the Sinai. Does this mean he was the first king to rule a united Egypt? As there is no firm evidence, we cannot be certain, but it is a possibility.

Fig. 3: Pottery from the reign of Iry-Hor (Petrie Museum UC16089)

King Ka, or Sekhen, meaning to embrace (we are unsure of the meaning as hieroglyphs are in their infancy during this time) was the earliest known king with a serekh, denoting a ruler. A serekh is a replica of a palace façade with the kings name inside and Horus on the top. It was inscribed on a number of artifacts found at sites besides Abydos. Adaima in Upper Egypt and in the north Helwan, Tarkhan, Wadi Tumilat, and even Tel Lod in the Southern Levant. The number of artifacts bearing his name outside of Abydos is much greater than his predecessors, which could be another sign of conquering larger portions of land by Thinite kings.

Narmer is usually considered to be the first king of the First Dynasty who unified Egypt. His name has been found throughout Egypt and in Syria Palestine, indicating trade between Egypt and parts of the ancient Near East. A king named Scorpion, whose name is recorded on a ceremonial macehead (fig. 4) found at Hierakonpolis is sometimes interpreted as a predecessor to Narmer or a rival king, although there may be two kings called Scorpion.

 

Fig. 4: The Scorpion Macehead

The first kings and queens of Egypt in order of succession were Narmer, Aha, Djer, Djet, Queen Merneith (possibly acted as co-regent with her son, Den), Den, Anedjib, Semerkhet, and Qa’a. They would have ruled over a territory spanning a similar area to Egypt today with formal borders at Aswan in the south, the Mediterranean Sea in the north, and across to the modern-day Gaza Strip in the east. There are eight kings identified on the Palermo stone, eight on the Abydos kings list engraved during the reign of Seti I (1290–1279 BCE), but only three on the Saqqara canon.

Aha is sometimes called Hor-Aha (fighting hawk) and was known by Manetho as Athothis. The Apis Bull ceremony is mentioned in his reign. Djer, “the rescuer”, is the first to be given the nesu bity name meaning King of Upper and Lower Egypt, this name being Iti. He had a short reign of 5 to 10 years.

Djet, often called serpent or uadji, was known as Uenephes by Manetho. In the king lists he is referred to as Ita. His tomb at Abydos, designated “Tomb Z”, had the famous Louvre stela at its entrance (fig. 5). A rock inscription south of Edfu possibly shows his Horus name wearing the Double Crown, which would be the first depiction of this combined crown. He was possibly married to Merneith as there is evidence from Den’s tomb where she is attributed to be the king’s mother. Following the death of Djet, Merneith appears to have been a co-regent to her son, with her name being found on a funerary stela at Abydos, just like the kings.

Fig. 5: The stela of Djet

Den (Usaphais of Manetho) was given the nesu bity name of Semti, which is the first time it was ever used. He was certainly one of the most important kings of the Early Dynastic Period. He reigned for approximately 45 years, coming to the throne as a young child. His tomb (Tomb T) introduces a staircase and a large amount of granite from Aswan, which was innovative in tomb building at this time (fig. 6).

Fig. 6: The tomb of Den

Anedjib (Miebis of Manetho) was given the nesu bity name Merpibia. He celebrated his Sed-festival, but perhaps the most interesting thing from his reign is a large mastaba at Saqqara, which contains a mound with a burial chamber. This has often been suggested as the forerunner to the Step Pyramid of the Third Dynasty.

Semerkhet (Sempses of Manetho) was also buried at Abydos. Because his tomb shows evidence of burning, early Egyptologists thought he may have been an illegitimate king, but there is no evidence for this. Several jar labels found in the tomb mention trade with Libya during this time.  

While the relationship with his predecessors or successors is unknown, Horus Qa’a, the last king of the First Dynasty, had his tomb built next to Semerkhet’s and Den’s, which could be an indication that he was closely related to both kings. His tomb (Tomb Q) has an elaborate staircase, which allowed for his superstructure to be built before he died (fig. 7). A bowl fragment found at Saqqara (15 miles South of modern-day Cairo) mentions the first Sed-festival of Qa’a, which usually takes place after a 30-year reign. A large number of mastabas at Saqqara date to his reign, which suggests he ruled for some time. Seal impressions and other sources name him at Saqqara, Abusir, and Abydos, while a rock inscription found at el-Kab could point to a mining expedition in the Eastern desert. An ivory rod and vessels of Syrian-Palestinian origin were found at Saqqara, which suggests trade with this region. A carving on a gaming rod shows the king victorious over an Asiatic person, which could refer to a military campaign or it may be symbolic! With Qa’a, the gruesome practice of retainer sacrifice ends and the Second Dynasty pharaohs would mainly be buried in Saqqara instead of Umm el-Qa’ab.

Fig. 7: The tomb of Qa'a

The First Dynasty kings seem to have been the front-runners in many of the religious and regnal customs that would last for many millennia. The introduction of the serekh, the nesu bity title, the running of the Apis Bull, and the Double Crown of Upper and Lower Egypt.

 

Bibliography:

Dodson, Aidan 2021. The first pharaohs: their lives and afterlives. Cairo; New York: American University in Cairo Press.

Predynastic Egypt

The blog post for this week is written by Yvonne Buskens-Frenken, from the Netherlands. She is a member of the Dutch Egyptology society Mehen and a former student of Egyptology at Manchester University (Certificate 2015 and Diploma 2017). She has visited Egypt many times (but not enough) and hopes to visit the Egypt Centre in the near future.

Introduction
Last week, a new online course was launched by the Egypt Centre called The First Pharaohs: Early Dynastic Egypt, which is hosted by Dr. Ken Griffin. In the following five weeks, the First Dynasty, the Second Dynasty, the origins of Egyptian religion, in addition to art, architecture, and early technologies will be discussed. But the course obviously started with the topic “Egypt before the pharaohs”, the same title as my favourite book of mine from 1980 written by Michal A. Hoffman, which I can recommend outdated perhaps at some points but which book isn’t within Egyptology as discoveries are still being made today and theories are revised and updated?

Egypt’s prehistory
I said “obviously” in the introduction of this blog post because if you want to understand the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt (and beyond) you need to have some knowledge of Egypt’s prehistory: some elements of pharaonic civilisation actually derive from the rather distant prehistoric past. However, the disciplines of Egyptology and Prehistory are in fact completely different with quite distinct primary sources and approaches when it comes to subject and terminology. The prehistory of Egypt starts with the Palaeolithic Period (about 700,000–7,000 BC) and to master that, you need to know a bit about geology, ecology, and climatology. You also need to study of stone tools and geological strata, which is not everyone’s cup of tea. Additionally, this was actually in the beginning of the field Egyptology a real struggle: there was little interest in prehistory (and vice versa in Egyptology within the Prehistory department) as the Palaeolithic and the Predynastic cultures share very few similarities and there are disparate and minimal sources available, which is the opposite for Pharaonic material. Furthermore, the vague dating of the available material is also problematic. However, the dating of objects is an important key in all this and in that context, I would like to discuss here just one sort of dating, namely “seriation”, and I would like to illustrate it with artefacts now held in the Egypt Centre (fig. ***).

 

Fig. 1: The Predynastic case

The Predynastic Period and Seriation
In Egyptian prehistory the Predynastic Period, first termed by Jacques de Morgan in 1896, is from about 5,500–3,200 BC. Basically, it is the time when farming was introduced in ancient Egypt until the time of the unification of Egypt. From this period, Badarian, Amratian, Gerzean, and Naqada cultures are known. Phases of cultural development at Naqada, an Upper Egyptian site, is contemporary with those known in el-Amra (hence Amratian) and el-Gerza (hence Gerzean) It is for this reason that the Predynastic Period has been subdivided into the following:

Predynastic	5,500–3,200 BC	(all dates are approximate)
Early Predynastic	5,500–3,800	Fayum A, Merimda, Badarian
	3,800–3,500	Amratian (Naqada IA–IB)
Middle Predynastic	3,550–3,400	Early Gerzean (Naqada IC–IIA–B)
Late Predynastic	3,400–3,300	Middle Gerzean (Naqada IIC)
	3,300–3,200	Late Gerzean (Naqada IID1–IId2)

From three types of dating used today, known as relative, absolute, and radiometric dating, seriation belongs to the first category. For a quick understanding of all sorts of dating methods, please follow this link https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/archaeology/dating.html
Relative dating leads to the relative chronological position of objects, events, and longer periods. It is not always a very accurate method but for the Predynastic and Protodynastic material it is an important tool as lots of material from that period is pottery, which make perfect objects for relative dating. However, while seriation is a method to place pottery into a chronology, a sequence, it does not tell you how old they exactly are or how much time there is between the different types of pots. It doesn’t measure time.

William Flinders Petrie developed a relative chronology system for the 900 Predynastic graves he investigated in Hiw (also known as Hu or Roman Diospolis Parva) and Abadiya (Petrie 1901). Each grave was a separate unit and physically unrelated to the others; it lacked stratification, which made dating difficult. Petrie discovered that one kind of pottery vessel type was present in several graves, the so-called wavy handle pot, but this pot could vary in form (fig. 2). Some were rounded with proper handles, and some were cylindrical with rudimentary handles. Some had forms in between.

Fig. 2: Petrie's Naqada Seriation

Petrie dived the series he found in 50 groups (fig. 3), numbering them from 30–80.  

Fig. 3: Petrie's pottery series

They are dived into three different groups: Naqada I (SD 30–38), Naqada II (SD 39–60), and Naqada III (SD 61–80). The SD numbers can vary a bit depending on which publication you read, more about this later below. Petrie, clever as he was, left the numbers 0–30 open for possible future finds, which would predate his earliest finds.

The cylindrical types were found in the First Dynasty tombs. Under the assumption that in an undisturbed grave all material is contemporaneous, other grave goods could be relatively dated. Wavy-handled pottery was never found in graves holding Amratian vessels (so-called white cross-line vessels). This led to the assumption that Amratian pottery (Naqada I material) was earlier than wavy-handled ones. So what does Naqada I, II, and III pottery looks like? Here are some fine examples from the Egypt Centre.

Naqada I pottery
In fig. 4 you see a black-topped redware pottery vessel from the Egypt Centre (EC276). It is from Petrie’s excavation in Naqada. Black-topped redware is a fine red pottery with blackened rim. How such vessels were decorated has been much debated. This vessel can be given a sequence day between 34–46. 

Fig. 4: Black-topped redware vessel (EC276)

Naqada II pottery
Pottery from this period is probably the most famous of all decorated pottery (D-Ware). Who cannot fall in love with these sometimes very small pots with their geometrical patterns, depictions of boats, humans, animals, and particularly ostriches and gazelles. Here is W5308, a wonderful small specimen (fig. 5). It is about 10cm in height, made of Marl clay, and has a small flat base, rolled rim, two pierced lug handles, and painted decoration (D-Ware). According to the auction catalogue, it was found opposite Gebelein. 

Fig. 5: D-ware vessel (W5308)

Another Naqada II pottery vessel is W1045 (fig. 6). It is small-shouldered ovoid jar with a flat base, recurved rim, and two wavy handles (wavy-handled ware). It is made of red Marl fabric with many small limestone inclusions. The vessel was excavated from grave 42 within the Fort at Hierakonpolis in 1905 by John Garstang. This is one of the earlier types of Petrie’s wavy-handled sequence, dating to the Naqada II Period, which derived from Palestinian imports. It is sorted in Petrie’s sequence (SD 62–72) and belongs to one of the true wavy-handled jars, before they transmuted into cylindrical jars.

Fig. 6: Wavy-handled jar (W1045)

Naqada III pottery
Speaking of cylindrical jars, AB107 (fig. 7) is an example of the last in the line of wavy handled jars from the sequence by Petrie. It is a medium cylindrical Marl clay jar with a flat base, rolled rim, and string-line decoration just below the rim.

Fig. 7: Cylindrical jar (AB107)

As noted above, seriation is not an accurate method and Petrie’s sequence dating had some flaws. W. Kaiser and S. Hendrickx updated his work. Kaiser came up with another subdivision about 60 years after the work of Petrie, a fine tuning as it was based on excavations at Armant by Mond and Myers in the 1930s. This led to the following (see chart below)

 

Naqada I	SD 30–38
Naqada II a and b	SD 38/40–45
Naqada II c and d	SD 40/45–63
Naqada III	SD 63–80

In 1989, Hendrickx’s thesis allowed Kaiser’s system to apply to all of the Naqada culture sites in Egypt, resulting in slight modifications (transitional subphases between Naqada I and II).

Bibliography:

Adams, Barbara 1988. Predynastic Egypt. Shire Egyptology 7. Princes Risborough: Shire Publications.

Hoffman, Michael A. 1991. Egypt before the pharaohs: the prehistoric foundations of Egyptian civilization, revised ed. Austin, Tex.: Univ. of Texas Press.

Midant-Reynes, Béatrix 2000. The prehistory of Egypt: from the first Egyptians to the first pharaohs. Translated by Ian Shaw. Oxford; Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

Petrie, W. M. Flinders 1901. Diospolis Parva: the cemeteries of Abadiyeh and Hu 1898–99. With chapters by A. C. Mace. Egypt Exploration Fund, Special Extra Publication 20. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.

An Introduction to the Harrogate Loan

Last Tuesday (28th February) was a day that will forever be etched into the history of the Egypt Centre. In the year that we celebrate our twenty-fifth anniversary, approximately 700 objects arrived in Swansea from Harrogate Museums, where they will remain on loan for the next three years. During this time, the collection will be researched, displayed, and presented online, thus making the objects more accessible to Egyptologists and the wider public. This blog post will undoubtedly be the first of many relating to the Harrogate loan over the next few years and serves as a brief introduction to the collection.

The story of the Harrogate loan coming to Swansea is a long one. Back in July 2022, our award-winning volunteer, Sam Powell, visited Harrogate to examine a wooden tomb figure (HARGM7673) as part of her ongoing PhD research. During discussions with Harrogate curators, Sam told them about the Egypt Centre, the museum’s object-based learning approach, and our collaboration with colleagues teaching Classics, Ancient History, and Egyptology at Swansea. Sam also showed them our fantastic online collection catalogue, which is hosted on the Abaset platform she created. As the Harrogate collection had been largely understudied (research and analysis of a selection of objects had been previously undertaken by Prof. Joanne Fletcher and Dr Stephen Buckley), the curators thought that this might be an opportunity to send it to Swansea on loan. Discussions took place shortly after, and May Catt (Visitor & Cultural Services Manager) visited the Egypt Centre in September 2022 to see the museum and our storage facilities. Impressed with our facilities and resources in Swansea, discussions progressed, loan agreements were drawn up, objects were removed from display and carefully packed, and couriers (Constantine) were tasked with the transportation of the objects. As the transfer date drew near, I was, unsurprisingly, both excited and nervous in anticipation. It was quite a relief when the objects safely arrived and were deposited in the Egypt Centre store under our care (fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Happy faces after the Harrogate coffin has been safely deposited in the Egypt Centre store

Harrogate’s museum is one of many regional museums with a collection of Egyptian antiquities (fig. 2). The objects were donated by two local collectors, Benjamin Kent (1884–1968) and James Roberts Ogden (1866–1940), who had assembled their collections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many of the objects, particularly those from Kent, were purchased at auction, which is similar to how the Egypt Centre collection was formed. In fact, objects from Kent’s collection are known to have come from the auctions of Robert de Rustafjaell (1859–1943), Henry Martyn Kennard (1833–1911), Frederick George Hilton Price (1842–1909), Field Marshal Francis Wallace Grenfell (1841–1925), and others. These collectors are all known from material housed in the Egypt Centre, thus providing an excellent link between both collections. The Harrogate loan project has been called “Rediscovering Egypt”, with the aim to study both the objects and the collectors—how did Ogden and Kent acquire their objects and why?

Fig. 2: Egypt on display in Harrogate (photo by Sam Powell)

As only a few days have passed since the collection arrived, we have not had the opportunity to look at any of the objects in detail. Our first priority was to assign a shelf number to each of the objects, which was completed by myself, Meg Gundlach (Collections Access Manager), and Cath Bishop (Egypt Centre volunteer) on Friday. The material is quite diverse and includes stelae, statues, pottery, stone vessels, shabtis, amulets, canopic jars, a coffin, funerary cones (something we have no examples of at the Egypt Centre), mummy masks, jewellery, papyrus, copper alloy votive statues, maceheads, terracotta figures, and many more object types. There is even a number of Etruscan mirrors (much to the excitement of our ancient historians at Swansea) and a large collection of cuneiform tablets, bricks, and cylinder seals! Perhaps the most famous object is the famous Anubis mask (fig. 3), which can be traced back to the 1907 sale of Robert de Rustafjaell. To give readers a sense of some of the treasures in the Harrogate loan, I’ve chosen just a few objects that immediately caught my attention.

Fig. 3: Unboxing the Anubis mask (photo by Sam John)

HARGM3584 (fig. 4) is one of a number of inscribed stelae in the Harrogate loan. Carved across three registers, it contains a winged Behdet in the lunette, with two recumbent jackals on plinths below. In the second register, the deceased is shown in adoration on the far right before a table of offerings, an enthroned Osiris, and standing figures of Anubis and Hathor (all unlabelled). In the register below, five columns of hieroglyphs begin with the offering formula addressed to Osiris. This inscription provides the name of the owner as Hetepnesmin (ḥtp-n.s-Mnw), who held the title “Singer of Min”. This name is only attested once—according to the fantastic names database produced and maintained by Prof. Erhart Graefe—on a stela from Akhmim in the British Museum (EA1018). Whether this is the same woman remains to be seen, but the stela does highlight the potential for prosopographical research on this unpublished collection. 

Fig. 4: Stela of Hetepnesmin

HARGM3722 is one of three shabtis of Seti I that arrived on Tuesday. While the other two are the more common wooden figures, this one is a beautiful faience example (fig. 5). These faience shabtis are undoubtedly some of the finest ever produced and it is so exciting to have it in Swansea. This shabti, along with the 160+ other examples, will be studied by our Collections Access Manager, Meg Gundlach, who wrote her PhD research at Swansea on the stone shabtis of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty.

Fig. 5: Shabti of Seti I

The final object (HARGM7627) that caught my attention was a glazed steatite scaraboid engraved on both sides (fig. 6). On the first side, a recumbent sphinx wearing a nemes-headcloth is depicted holding an offering. The hieroglyphs directly above identify the sphinx as the female ruler Hatshepsut (Maatkare). Behind the head is a winged snake protecting the ruler. On the reverse side, a large baboon is shown squatting atop a neb-basket. The cartouche above again provides the name of Hatshepsut (Maatkare), who is given the titles “the Good God, Lady of the Two Lands”. Despite being miniature, you can really see the detail that the craftsman has been able to achieve!

Fig. 6: Scaraboid of Hatshepsut

The entire collection will be presented online later this year on the Abaset platform including photos and 3D models of the objects. Three temporary exhibitions on the material are planned during the course of the loan, with the first taking place to coincide with our twenty-fifth anniversary conference in the Autumn. A special thanks to May Catt, Nicola Baxter, and Karen Southworth (Harrogate Museums) for making this loan happen. We look forward to working with this fantastic collection over the next few years and presenting it to a wider audience!

Bibliography:

Hirons, Jo 2002. Henuttawy in Harrogate. Ancient Egypt: the history, people and culture of the Nile valley [10] (2/4), 28–33.

Millerman, Alison 2004. Howard Carter and the goldsmith: James Roberts Ogden (1866–1940). Ancient Egypt: the history, people and culture of the Nile valley [24] (4/6), 46–50.