Egypt

Hieroglyphics

"Hieroglyphics" redirects here. For other uses, see Hieroglyph (disambiguation). Egyptian hieroglyphs Hieroglyphs from the tomb of Seti I.jpg Hieroglyphs from the Great Hypostyle Hall in Karnak (Seti I, 13th century BC) Type Logography usable as an abjad Languages Egyptian language Time period ca. 3200 BC[1] - AD 400 Parent systems (Proto-writing) Egyptian hieroglyphs Child systems Hieratic, Demotic, Coptic, Meroitic, Proto-Sinaitic Direction Left-to-right ISO 15924 Egyp, 050 Unicode alias Egyptian Hieroglyphs Unicode range U+13000-U+1342F This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. Egyptian hieroglyphs (/ˈhaɪərəˌɡlɪf, -roʊ-/[2][3]) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt. It combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with a total of some 1,000 distinct characters.[4][5] Cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts are derived from hieroglyphic writing; Meroitic was a late derivation from demotic. Use of hieroglyphic writing arises from proto-literate symbol systems in the Early Bronze Age, around the 32nd century BC (Naqada III),[1] with the first decipherable sentence written in the Egyptian language dating to the Second Dynasty (28th century BC). Egyptian hieroglyphs developed into a mature writing system used for monumental inscription in the classical language of the Middle Kingdom period; during this period, the system made use of about 900 distinct signs. The writing system continued to be used throughout the Late Period, as well as the Persian and Ptolemaic periods. Late survivals of hieroglyphic use are found well into the Roman period, extending into the 4th century AD. With the closing of pagan temples in the 5th century, knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was lost, and the script remained undeciphered throughout the medieval and early modern period. The decipherment of hieroglyphs would only be solved in the 1820s by Jean-François Champollion, with the help of the Rosetta Stone. Contents [hide] 1 Etymology 2 History and evolution 2.1 Origin 2.2 Mature writing system 2.3 Late Period 2.4 Late survival 2.5 Decipherment 3 Writing system 3.1 Phonetic reading 3.1.1 Uniliteral signs 3.1.2 Phonetic complements 3.2 Semantic reading 3.2.1 Logograms 3.2.2 Determinatives 3.3 Additional signs 3.3.1 Cartouche 3.3.2 Filling stroke 3.4 Signs joined together 3.4.1 Doubling 3.5 Grammatical signs 4 Spelling 5 Simple examples 6 Encoding 7 See also 8 Notes and references 9 Further reading 10 External links Etymology The word hieroglyph comes from the Greek adjective ἱερογλυφικός (hieroglyphikos),[6] a compound of ἱερός (hierós 'sacred')[7] and γλύφω (glýphō 'Ι carve, engrave'; see glyph),[8] supposedly a calque of an Egyptian phrase mdw·w-nṯr (medu-netjer) "god's words".[9] The glyphs themselves were called τὰ ἱερογλυφικὰ γράμματα (tà hieroglyphikà grámmata) "the sacred engraved letters". The word hieroglyph has become a noun in English, standing for an individual hieroglyphic character. As used in the previous sentence, the word hieroglyphic is an adjective (in the same way photographic is an adjective), but hieroglyphic(s) has also become a noun in English, at least in non-academic usage.[10] History and evolution Origin Seal impression of Seth-Peribsen (Second Dynasty, c. 28th century BC) Hieroglyphs emerged from the preliterate artistic traditions of Egypt. For example, symbols on Gerzean pottery from c. 4000 BC have been argued to resemble hieroglyphic writing.[citation needed] Proto-hieroglyphic symbol systems develop in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, such as the clay labels of a Predynastic ruler called "Scorpion I" (Naqada IIIA period, c. 33rd century BC) recovered at Abydos (modern Umm el-Qa'ab) in 1998 or the Narmer Palette (c. 31st century BC).[1] The first full sentence written in hieroglyphs so far discovered was found on a seal impression found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen at Umm el-Qa'ab, which dates from the Second Dynasty (28th or 27th century BC). There are around 800 hieroglyphs dating back to the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom Eras. By the Greco-Roman period, there are more than 5,000.[4] Geoffrey Sampson stated that Egyptian hieroglyphs "came into existence a little after Sumerian script, and, probably [were], invented under the influence of the latter",[11] and that it is "probable that the general idea of expressing words of a language in writing was brought to Egypt from Sumerian Mesopotamia".[12][13] However, given the lack of direct evidence, "no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt".[14] Instead, it is pointed out and held that "the evidence for such direct influence remains flimsy" and that "a very credible argument can also be made for the independent development of writing in Egypt..."[15] Since the 1990s, and discoveries such as the Abydos glyphs, it has been held as doubtful whether the Mesopotamian symbol system can be said to predate the Egyptian one.[16] Mature writing system Further information: Middle Egyptian language Hieroglyphs consist of three kinds of glyphs: phonetic glyphs, including single-consonant characters that function like an alphabet; logographs, representing morphemes; and determinatives, which narrow down the meaning of logographic or phonetic words. Hieroglyphs on a funerary stela in Manchester Museum Late Period Further information: Late Egyptian language As writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified glyph forms developed, resulting in the hieratic (priestly) and demotic (popular) scripts. These variants were also more suited than hieroglyphs for use on papyrus. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed alongside the other forms, especially in monumental and other formal writing. The Rosetta Stone contains three parallel scripts - hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. Late survival Hieroglyphs continued to be used under Persian rule (intermittent in the 6th and 5th centuries BC), and after Alexander the Great's conquest of Egypt, during the ensuing Ptolemaic and Roman periods. It appears that the misleading quality of comments from Greek and Roman writers about hieroglyphs came about, at least in part, as a response to the changed political situation. Some believed that hieroglyphs may have functioned as a way to distinguish 'true Egyptians' from some of the foreign conquerors. Another reason may be the refusal to tackle a foreign culture on its own terms, which characterized Greco-Roman approaches to Egyptian culture generally.[citation needed] Having learned that hieroglyphs were sacred writing, Greco-Roman authors imagined the complex but rational system as an allegorical, even magical, system transmitting secret, mystical knowledge.[citation needed] By the 4th century, few Egyptians were capable of reading hieroglyphs, and the "myth of allegorical hieroglyphs" was ascendant.[citation needed] Monumental use of hieroglyphs ceased after the closing of all non-Christian temples in 391 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I; the last known inscription is from Philae, known as the Graffito of Esmet-Akhom, from 394.[17] Decipherment Main article: Decipherment of hieroglyphic writing As active knowledge of the hieroglyphs and the related scripts disappeared, numerous attempts were made to decipher the hidden meaning of the ubiquitous inscriptions. The best known examples from Antiquity are the Hieroglyphica (dating to about the 5th century) by Horapollo, which offers an explanation of almost 200 glyphs. Horapollo seems to have had access to some genuine knowledge about the hieroglyphs, as some words are identified correctly, although the explanations given are invariably wrong (the goose character used to write the word for 'son', zꜣ, for example, is identified correctly, but explained wrongly to have been chosen because the goose loves his offspring the most while the real reason seems to have been purely phonetic). The Hieroglyphica thus represent the start of more than a millennium of (mis)interpreting the hieroglyphs as symbolic rather than phonetic writing. Ibn Wahshiyya's translation of the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyph alphabet In the 9th and 10th century, Arab historians Dhul-Nun al-Misri and Ibn Wahshiyya offered their interpretation of the hieroglyphs. In his 1806 English translation of Ibn Wahshiyya's work,[18] Joseph Hammer points out that Athanasius Kircher used this along with several other Arabic works in his 17th century attempts at decipherment. Kircher's interpretation of the hieroglyphs is probably the best known early modern European attempt at 'decipherment', not least for the nature of his claims. Another early attempt at translation was made by Johannes Goropius Becanus in the 16th century. Like other interpretations before it, Kircher's 'translations' were hampered by the fundamental assumption that hieroglyphs recorded ideas and not the sounds of the language. As no bilingual texts were available, any such symbolic 'translation' could be proposed without the possibility of verification. Kircher further developed the assumption that the last stage of Egyptian could be related to the earlier Egyptian stages.[citation needed] The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum A breakthrough in decipherment began with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone by Napoleon's troops in 1799 (during Napoleon's Egyptian invasion). As the stone presented a hieroglyphic and a demotic version of the same text in parallel with a Greek translation, plenty of material for falsifiable studies in translation was suddenly available. In the early 19th century, scholars such as Silvestre de Sacy, Johan David Åkerblad, and Thomas Young studied the inscriptions on the stone, and were able to make some headway. Finally, Jean-François Champollion made the complete decipherment by the 1820s. In his Lettre à M. Dacier (1822), he wrote: It is a complex system, writing figurative, symbolic, and phonetic all at once, in the same text, the same phrase, I would almost say in the same word.[19] Hieroglyphs survive today in two forms: directly, through half a dozen Demotic glyphs added to the Greek alphabet when writing Coptic; and indirectly, as the inspiration for the original alphabet that was ancestral to nearly every other alphabet ever used, including the Latin alphabet. Writing system [] This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. Visually, hieroglyphs are all more or less figurative: they represent real or illusional elements, sometimes stylized and simplified, but all generally perfectly recognizable in form. However, the same sign can, according to context, be interpreted in diverse ways: as a phonogram (phonetic reading), as a logogram, or as an ideogram (semagram; "determinative") (semantic reading). The determinative was not read as a phonetic constituent, but facilitated understanding by differentiating the word from its homophones. Phonetic reading Hieroglyphs typical of the Graeco-Roman period Most non-determinative hieroglyphic signs are phonetic in nature, meaning that the sign is read independently of its visual characteristics (according to the rebus principle where, for example, the picture of an eye could stand for the English words eye and I [the first person pronoun]). This picture of an eye is called a phonogram of the word, 'I'. Phonograms formed with one consonant are called uniliteral signs; with two consonants, biliteral signs; with three, triliteral signs. Twenty-four uniliteral signs make up the so-called hieroglyphic alphabet. Egyptian hieroglyphic writing does not normally indicate vowels, unlike cuneiform, and for that reason has been labelled by some an abjad alphabet, i.e., an alphabet without vowels. Thus, hieroglyphic writing representing a pintail duck is read in Egyptian as sꜣ, derived from the main consonants of the Egyptian word for this duck: 's', 'ꜣ' and 't'. (Note that ꜣ (Egyptian 3 symbol.png, two half-rings opening to the left), sometimes replaced by the digit '3', is the Egyptian alef). It is also possible to use the hieroglyph of the pintail duck without a link to its meaning in order to represent the two phonemes s and ꜣ, independently of any vowels that could accompany these consonants, and in this way write the word: sꜣ, "son", or when complemented by the context other signs detailed further in the text, sꜣ, "keep, watch"; and sꜣṯ.w, "hard ground". For example: G38 - the characters sꜣ; G38 Z1s - the same character used only in order to signify, according to the context, "pintail duck" or, with the appropriate determinative, "son", two words having the same or similar consonants; the meaning of the little vertical stroke will be explained further on: z G38 A A47 D54 - the character sꜣ as used in the word sꜣw, "keep, watch"[clarification needed] As in the Arabic script, not all vowels were written in Egyptian hieroglyphs; it is debatable whether vowels were written at all. Possibly, as with Arabic, the semivowels /w/ and /j/ (as in English W and Y) could double as the vowels /u/ and /i/. In modern transcriptions, an e is added between consonants to aid in their pronunciation. For example, nfr "good" is typically written nefer. This does not reflect Egyptian vowels, which are obscure, but is merely a modern convention. Likewise, the ꜣ and ʾ are commonly transliterated as a, as in Ra. Hieroglyphs are written from right to left, from left to right, or from top to bottom, the usual direction being from right to left[20] (although, for convenience, modern texts are often normalized into left-to-right order). The reader must consider the direction in which the asymmetrical hieroglyphs are turned in order to determine the proper reading order. For example, when human and animal hieroglyphs face to the left (i.e., they look left), they must be read from left to right, and vice versa, the idea being that the hieroglyphs face the beginning of the line. As in many ancient writing systems, words are not separated by blanks or by punctuation marks. However, certain hieroglyphs appear particularly common only at the end of words, making it possible to readily distinguish words. Uniliteral signs Hieroglyphs at Amada, at temple founded by Tuthmosis III. Main article: Transliteration of Ancient Egyptian § Uniliteral signs The Egyptian hieroglyphic script contained 24 uniliterals (symbols that stood for single consonants, much like letters in English). It would have been possible to write all Egyptian words in the manner of these signs, but the Egyptians never did so and never simplified their complex writing into a true alphabet.[21] Each uniliteral glyph once had a unique reading, but several of these fell together as Old Egyptian developed into Middle Egyptian. For example, the folded-cloth glyph seems to have been originally an /s/ and the door-bolt glyph a /θ/ sound, but these both came to be pronounced /s/, as the /θ/ sound was lost. A few uniliterals first appear in Middle Egyptian texts. Besides the uniliteral glyphs, there are also the biliteral and triliteral signs, to represent a specific sequence of two or three consonants, consonants and vowels, and a few as vowel combinations only, in the language. Phonetic complements Egyptian writing is often redundant: in fact, it happens very frequently that a word might follow several characters writing the same sounds, in order to guide the reader. For example, the word nfr, "beautiful, good, perfect", was written with a unique triliteral that was read as nfr: nfr However, it is considerably more common to add to that triliteral, the uniliterals for f and r. The word can thus be written as nfr+f+r, but one still reads it merely as nfr. The two alphabetic characters are adding clarity to the spelling of the preceding triliteral hieroglyph. Redundant characters accompanying biliteral or triliteral signs are called phonetic complements (or complementaries). They can be placed in front of the sign (rarely), after the sign (as a general rule), or even framing it (appearing both before and after). Ancient Egyptian scribes consistently avoided leaving large areas of blank space in their writing, and might add additional phonetic complements or sometimes even invert the order of signs if this would result in a more aesthetically pleasing appearance (good scribes attended to the artistic, and even religious, aspects of the hieroglyphs, and would not simply view them as a communication tool). Various examples of the use of phonetic complements can be seen below: S43 d w - md +d +w (the complementary d is placed after the sign) → it reads mdw, meaning "tongue". x p xpr r i A40 - ḫ +p +ḫpr +r +j (the four complementaries frame the triliteral sign of the scarab beetle) → it reads ḫpr.j, meaning the name "Khepri", with the final glyph being the determinative for 'ruler or god'. Notably, phonetic complements were also used to allow the reader to differentiate between signs that are homophones, or which do not always have a unique reading. For example, the symbol of "the seat" (or chair): Q1 - This can be read st, ws and ḥtm, according to the word in which it is found. The presence of phonetic complements—and of the suitable determinative—allows the reader to know which of the three readings to choose: 1st Reading: st - Q1 t pr - st, written st+t ; the last character is the determinative of "the house" or that which is found there, meaning "seat, throne, place"; Q1 t H8 - st (written st+t ; the "egg" determinative is used for female personal names in some periods), meaning "Isis"; 2nd Reading: ws - Q1 ir A40 - wsjr (written ws+jr, with, as a phonetic complement, "the eye", which is read jr, following the determinative of "god"), meaning "Osiris"; 3rd Reading: ḥtm - H Q1 m&t E17 - ḥtm.t (written ḥ+ḥtm+m+t, with the determinative of "Anubis" or "the jackal"), meaning a kind of wild animal; H Q1 t G41 - ḥtm (written ḥ +ḥtm +t, with the determinative of the flying bird), meaning "to disappear". Finally, it sometimes happens that the pronunciation of words might be changed because of their connection to Ancient Egyptian: in this case, it is not rare for writing to adopt a compromise in notation, the two readings being indicated jointly. For example, the adjective bnj, "sweet", became bnr. In Middle Egyptian, one can write: b n r i M30 - bnrj (written b+n+r+i, with determinative) which is fully read as bnr, the j not being pronounced but retained in order to keep a written connection with the ancient word (in the same fashion as the English language words through, knife, or victuals, which are no longer pronounced the way they are written.) Semantic reading Besides a phonetic interpretation, characters can also be read for their meaning: in this instance, logograms are being spoken (or ideograms) and semagrams (the latter are also called determinatives).[22] Logograms A hieroglyph used as a logogram defines the object of which it is an image. Logograms are therefore the most frequently used common nouns; they are always accompanied by a mute vertical stroke indicating their status as a logogram (the usage of a vertical stroke is further explained below); in theory, all hieroglyphs would have the ability to be used as logograms. Logograms can be accompanied by phonetic complements. Here are some examples: ra Z1 - rꜥ, meaning "sun"; pr Z1 - pr, meaning "house"; sw t Z1 - swt (sw+t), meaning "reed"; Dw Z1 - ḏw, meaning "mountain". In some cases, the semantic connection is indirect (metonymic or metaphoric): nTr Z1 - nṯr, meaning "god"; the character in fact represents a temple flag (standard); G53 Z1 - bꜣ, meaning "Bâ" (soul); the character is the traditional representation of a "bâ" (a bird with a human head); G27 Z1 - dšr, meaning "flamingo"; the corresponding phonogram means "red" and the bird is associated by metonymy with this color. Determinatives Determinatives or semagrams (semantic symbols specifying meaning) are placed at the end of a word. These mute characters serve to clarify what the word is about, as homophonic glyphs are common. If a similar procedure existed in English, words with the same spelling would be followed by an indicator that would not be read, but which would fine-tune the meaning: "retort [chemistry]" and "retort [rhetoric]" would thus be distinguished. A number of determinatives exist: divinities, humans, parts of the human body, animals, plants, etc. Certain determinatives possess a literal and a figurative meaning. For example, a roll of papyrus, Y1 is used to define "books" but also abstract ideas. The determinative of the plural is a shortcut to signal three occurrences of the word, that is to say, its plural (since the Egyptian language had a dual, sometimes indicated by two strokes). This special character is explained below. Here, are several examples of the use of determinatives borrowed from the book, Je lis les hiéroglyphes ("I am reading hieroglyphs") by Jean Capart, which illustrate their importance: nfr w A17 Z3 - nfrw (w and the three strokes are the marks of the plural: [literally] "the beautiful young people", that is to say, the young military recruits. The word has a young-person determinative symbol: A17 - which is the determinative indicating babies and children; nfr f&r&t B1 - nfr.t (.t is here the suffix that forms the feminine): meaning "the nubile young woman", with B1 as the determinative indicating a woman; nfr nfr nfr pr - nfrw (the tripling of the character serving to express the plural, flexional ending w) : meaning "foundations (of a house)", with the house as a determinative, pr ; nfr f r S28 - nfr : meaning "clothing" with S28 as the determinative for lengths of cloth; nfr W22 Z2ss - nfr : meaning "wine" or "beer"; with a jug W22 as the determinative. All these words have a meliorative connotation: "good, beautiful, perfect". The Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian by Raymond A. Faulkner, gives some twenty words that are read nfr or which are formed from this word. Additional signs Cartouche Rarely, the names of gods are placed within a cartouche; the two last names of the sitting king are always placed within a cartouche: < N5 Z1 i Y5 n A40 > jmn-rꜥ, "Amon-Ra"; < q E23 i V4 p d r A t H8 > qljwꜣpdrꜣ.t, "Cleopatra"; Filling stroke A filling stroke is a character indicating the end of a quadrat that would otherwise be incomplete. Signs joined together Some signs are the contraction of several others. These signs have, however, a function and existence of their own: for example, a forearm where the hand holds a scepter is used as a determinative for words meaning "to direct, to drive" and their derivatives. Doubling The doubling of a sign indicates its dual; the tripling of a sign indicates its plural. Grammatical signs The vertical stroke, indicating the sign is a logogram; The two strokes of the "dual" and the three strokes of the "plural"; The direct notation of flexional endings, for example: W Spelling Standard orthography—"correct" spelling—in Egyptian is much looser than in modern languages. In fact, one or several variants exist for almost every word. One finds: Redundancies; Omission of graphemes, which are ignored whether or not they are intentional; Substitutions of one grapheme for another, such that it is impossible to distinguish a "mistake" from an "alternate spelling"; Errors of omission in the drawing of signs, which are much more problematic when the writing is cursive (hieratic) writing, but especially demotic, where the schematization of the signs is extreme. However, many of these apparent spelling errors constitute an issue of chronology. Spelling and standards have varied over time, so the writing of a word during the Old Kingdom might be considerably different during the New Kingdom. Furthermore, the Egyptians were perfectly content to include older orthography ("historical spelling") alongside newer practices, as though it were acceptable in English to use archaic spellings in modern texts. Most often, ancient "spelling errors" are simply misinterpretations of context. Today, hieroglyphicists use numerous cataloguing systems (notably the Manuel de Codage and Gardiner's Sign List) to clarify the presence of determinatives, ideograms, and other ambiguous signs in transliteration. Simple examples Hiero Ca1.svg p t wA l M i i s Hiero Ca2.svg nomen or birth name Ptolemy in hieroglyphs The glyphs in this cartouche are transliterated as: p t "ua" l m y (ii) s Ptolmys though ii is considered a single letter and transliterated y. Another way in which hieroglyphs work is illustrated by the two Egyptian words pronounced pr (usually vocalised as per). One word is 'house', and its hieroglyphic representation is straightforward: pr Z1 Here, the 'house' hieroglyph works as a logogram: it represents the word with a single sign. The vertical stroke below the hieroglyph is a common way of indicating that a glyph is working as a logogram. Another word pr is the verb 'to go out, leave'. When this word is written, the 'house' hieroglyph is used as a phonetic symbol: pr r D54 Here, the 'house' glyph stands for the consonants pr. The 'mouth' glyph below it is a phonetic complement: it is read as r, reinforcing the phonetic reading of pr. The third hieroglyph is a determinative: it is an ideogram for verbs of motion that gives the reader an idea of the meaning of the word. Encoding This section contains Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Egyptian Hieroglyphs were added to the Unicode Standard in October, 2009 with the release of version 5.2, as the "Egyptian Hieroglyphs" (U+13000-U+1342F) block with 1,070 defined characters (and one reserved codepoint). As of July 2013, four fonts, "Aegyptus", NewGardiner.ttf, Noto Egyptian Hieroglyphs and JSeshFont support this range. Another font, "Segoe UI Historic", comes bundled with Windows 10 and contains the entire Egyptian hieroglyphs block as well as other historic scripts as Cuneiform. See also Ancient Egypt portal Egyptian language Coptic language Middle Bronze Age alphabets Writing in Ancient Egypt Egyptian numerals Gardiner's sign list List of Egyptian hieroglyphs: by common name A-L by common name M-Z by alphabetization Hand (hieroglyph) Manuel de Codage Transliteration of Ancient Egyptian Notes and references ^ Jump up to: a b c Richard Mattessich (2002). "The oldest writings, and inventory tags of Egypt". Accounting Historians Journal. 29 (1): 195-208. JSTOR 40698264. Jump up ^ Jones, Daniel (2003) [1917], Peter Roach, James Hartmann and Jane Setter, eds., English Pronouncing Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 3-12-539683-2 Jump up ^ "hieroglyph". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. ^ Jump up to: a b There were about 1,000 graphemes in the Old Kingdom period, reduced to around 750 to 850 in the classical language of the Middle Kingdom, but inflated to the order of some 5,000 signs in the Ptolemaic period. Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995), p. 12. Jump up ^ The standard inventory of characters used in Egyptology is Gardiner's sign list (1928-1953). A.H. Gardiner (1928), Catalogue of the Egyptian hieroglyphic printing type, from matrices owned and controlled by Dr. Alan Gardiner, "Additions to the new hieroglyphic fount (1928)", in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 15 (1929), p. 95; , "Additions to the new hieroglyphic fount (1931)", in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 17 (1931), pp. 245-247; A.H. Gardiner , "Supplement to the catalogue of the Egyptian hieroglyphic printing type, showing acquisitions to December 1953" (1953). Unicode Egyptian Hieroglyphs as of version 5.2 (2009) assigned 1,070 Unicode characters. Jump up ^ ἱερογλυφικός, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library Jump up ^ ἱερός, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library Jump up ^ γλύφω, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library Jump up ^ Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995), p. 11. Jump up ^ "Hieroglyphic | Definition of Hieroglyphic by Merriam-Webster". Retrieved 2016-08-27. Jump up ^ Geoffrey Sampson (1 January 1990). Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction. Stanford University Press. pp. 78-. ISBN 978-0-8047-1756-4. Retrieved 31 October 2011. Jump up ^ Geoffrey W. Bromiley (June 1995). The international standard Bible encyclopedia. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 1150-. ISBN 978-0-8028-3784-4. Retrieved 31 October 2011. Jump up ^ Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards, et al., The Cambridge Ancient History (3d ed. 1970) pp. 43-44. Jump up ^ Robert E. Krebs; Carolyn A. Krebs (December 2003). Groundbreaking scientific experiments, inventions, and discoveries of the ancient world. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 91-. ISBN 978-0-313-31342-4. Retrieved 31 October 2011. Jump up ^ Simson Najovits, Egypt, Trunk of the Tree: A Modern Survey of an Ancient Land, Algora Publishing, 2004, pp. 55-56. Jump up ^ "challenge the commonly held belief that early logographs, pictographic symbols representing a specific place, object, or quantity, first evolved into more complex phonetic symbols in Mesopotamia." Mitchell, Larkin. "Earliest Egyptian Glyphs". Archaeology. Archaeological Institute of America. Retrieved 29 February 2012. Jump up ^ The latest presently known hieroglyphic inscription date: Birthday of Osiris, year 110 [of Diocletian], dated to August 24, 394[citation needed] Jump up ^ Ahmed ibn 'Ali ibn al Mukhtar ibn 'Abd al Karim (called Ibn Wahshiyah) (1806). Ancient alphabets & hieroglyphic characters explained: with an account of the Egyptian priests, their classes, initiation time, & sacrifices by the aztecs and their birds, in the Arabic language. W. Bulmer & co. Retrieved 31 October 2011. Jump up ^ Jean-François Champollion, Letter to M. Dacier, September 27, 1822 Jump up ^ Sir Alan H. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, Third Edition Revised, Griffith Institute (2005), p.25 Jump up ^ Gardiner, Sir Alan H. (1973). Egyptian Grammar. Griffith Institute. ISBN 0-900416-35-1. Jump up ^ Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian, A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press (1995), p. 13 Further reading Adkins, Lesley; Adkins, Roy (2000). The Keys of Egypt: The Obsession to Decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs. HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-06-019439-1. Allen, James P. (1999). Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-77483-7. Collier, Mark & Bill Manley (1998). How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: a step-by-step guide to teach yourself. British Museum Press. ISBN 0-7141-1910-5. Selden, Daniel L. (2013). Hieroglyphic Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Literature of the Middle Kingdom. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-27546-2. Faulkner, Raymond O. (1962). Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian. Griffith Institute. ISBN 0-900416-32-7. Gardiner, Sir Alan H. (1957). Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, 3rd ed. The Griffith Institute. Hill, Marsha (2007). Gifts for the gods: images from Egyptian temples. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 9781588392312. Kamrin, Janice (2004). Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A Practical Guide. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-4961-X. McDonald, Angela. Write Your Own Egyptian Hieroglyphs. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007 (paperback, ISBN 0-520-25235-7). External links Look up hieroglyph in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Egyptian hieroglyphs. Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics - Aldokkan Glyphs and Grammars - Resources for those interested in learning hieroglyphs, compiled by Aayko Eyma Hieroglyphics! - Annotated directory of popular and scholarly resources Egyptian Language and Writing Full-text of The stela of Menthu-weser Wikimedia's hieroglyph writing codes Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts - Ancient scripts free software fonts [show] v t e Ancient Egypt topics [show] v t e Types of writing systems [show] v t e Egyptian hieroglyphs Authority control NDL: 00978198 Categories: Scripts with ISO 15924 four-letter codesForeign character warning boxesEgyptian hieroglyphsAncient languages

Pyramids

Huge stone tombs with four triangle-shaped walls that meet at a top point

King Narmer

Narmer was an ancient Egyptian king of the Early Dynastic Period.[1] He probably was the successor to the Protodynastic king Ka, or possibly Scorpion. Some consider him the unifier of Egypt and founder of the First Dynasty, and in turn the first king of a unified Egypt. Contents [hide] 1 Historical identity 2 Name 3 Reign 3.1 Possible identification with Menes 3.2 Narmer and the unification of Egypt 3.3 Narmer in Canaan 3.4 Neithhotep 4 Tomb and artifacts 4.1 Tomb 4.2 Artifacts 4.3 Nag el-Hamdulab 5 In popular culture 6 Gallery of images 7 Notes 8 See also 9 References 10 Bibliography 11 External links Historical identity[edit] Narmer's identity is the subject of ongoing debates, although the dominant opinion among Egyptologists identifies Narmer with the pharaoh Menes, who is renowned in the ancient Egyptian written records as the first king, and the unifier of Ancient Egypt. Narmer's identification with Menes is based on the Narmer Palette (which shows Narmer as the unifier of Egypt) and the two necropolis seals from the Umm el-Qa'ab cemetery of Abydos that show him as the first king of the First Dynasty. The date commonly given for the beginning of Narmer's reign is ca. 3,100 BC.[2][3] Other mainstream estimatings, using both the historical method and Radiocarbon dating, are in the range ca. 3273-2987 BC. [a] Name[edit] The complete spelling of Narmer's name consists of the hieroglyphs for a catfish (n'r)[1] and a chisel (mr), hence the reading "Narmer" (using the rebus principle). This word is sometimes translated as "raging catfish" .[4] However, there is no consensus on this reading. Other translations include ″angry, fighting, fierceful, painful, furious, bad, evil, biting, menacing″, or "stinging catfish".[5][6][7] Some scholars have taken entirely different approaches to reading the name that do not include "catfish" in the name at all, [8][9][10] but these approaches have not been generally accepted. Rather than incorporating both hieroglyphs, Narmer's name is often shown in an abbreviated form with just the catfish symbol, sometimes stylized, even, in some cases, represented by just a horizontal line.[11] This simplified spelling appears to be related to the formality of the context. In every case that a serekh is shown on a work of stone, or an official seal impression, it has both symbols. But, in most cases, where the name is shown on a piece of pottery or a rock inscription, just the catfish, or a simplified version of it appears. Two alternative spellings of Narmer's name have also been found. On a mud sealing from Tarkhan, the symbol for the Tjay-bird (Gardiner sign G47, a flapping fledgling) has been added to the two symbols for ″Narmer″ within the serekh. This has been interpreted as meaning "Narmer the masculine",[12] however, according to Ilona Regulski,[13] "The third sign (the Tjay-bird) is not an integral part of the royal name since it occurs so infrequently." Godron[14] suggested that the extra sign is not part of the name, but was put inside the serekh for compositional convenience. In addition, two necropolis seals from Abydos show the name in a unique way: While the chisel is shown conventionally where the catfish would be expected, there is a symbol that has been interpreted by several scholars as an animal skin.[15] According to Dreyer, it is probably a catfish with a bull's tail, similar to the image of Narmer on the Narmer Palette in which he is shown wearing a bull's tail as a symbol of power. Reign[edit] Limestone head of a king. Thought by Petrie to be Narmer. Bought by Petrie in Cairo, Egypt. 1st Dynasty. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London Petrie 1939, p. 78, exhibits a limestone head of an early Egyptian king which the Museum identifies as being a depiction of Narmer on the basis of the similarity (according to Petrie) to the head of Narmer on the Narmer Palette. This has not been generally accepted. According to Trope, Quirke & Lacovara 2005, p. 18, the suggestion that it is Narmer is "unlikely". Alternatively, they suggest the Fourth Dynasty king Khufu. Stevenson 2015, p. 44 also identifies it as Khufu. Charron 1990, p. 97 identifies it as a king of the Thinite Period (the first two dynasties), but does not believe it can be assigned to any particular king. Wilkinson 1999 describes it as "probably Second Dynasty". Possible identification with Menes[edit] Reconstruction of the Narmer-Menes Seal impression from Abydos Naqada Label reconstruction Garstang 1905, p. 62, fig3 Although highly inter-related, the questions of "who was Menes?" and "who unified Egypt?" are actually two separate issues. Narmer is often credited with the unification of Egypt by means of the conquest of Lower Egypt by Upper Egypt. While Menes is traditionally considered the first king of Ancient Egypt, Narmer has been identified by the majority of Egyptologists as the same person as Menes. Although vigorously debated (Hor-Aha, Narmer's successor, is the primary alternative identified as Menes by many authorities), the predominant opinion is that Narmer was Menes. [b] The issue is confusing because "Narmer" is a Horus Name, while "Menes" is a personal name (birth name or nisut-bitj name). All of the King Lists which began to appear in the New Kingdom era list the personal names of the kings, and almost all begin with Menes, or begin with divine and/or semi-divine rulers, with Menes as the first "human king". The difficulty is aligning the contemporary archaeological evidence which lists Horus Names with the King Lists that list personal names. Two documents have been put forward as proof either that Narmer was Menes or alternatively Hor-Aha was Menes. The first is the "Naqada Label" which shows a serekh of Hor-Aha next to an enclosure inside of which are symbols that have been interpreted by some scholars as the name "Menes". The second is the seal impression from Abydos that alternates between a serekh of Narmer and the chessboard symbol, "mn", which is interpreted as an abbreviation of Menes. Arguments have been made with regard to each of these documents in favour of Narmer or Hor-Aha being Menes, but in neither case, are the arguments conclusive.[c] Necropolis seal impression of Qa'a Dreyer 1987, p. 36, fig.3 Two necropolis sealings, found in 1985 and 1991 in Abydos, in or near the tombs of Den[23]and Qa'a,[24]show Narmer as the first king on each list, followed by Hor-Aha. The Qa'a sealing lists all eight of the kings of what scholars now call the First Dynasty in the correct order, starting with Narmer. These necropolis sealings are strong evidence that Narmer was the first king of the First Dynasty - hence is the same person as Menes.[25] Narmer and the unification of Egypt[edit] The famous Narmer Palette, discovered by James E. Quibell in the 1897-1898 season at Hierakonpolis,[26] shows Narmer wearing the crown of Upper Egypt on one side of the palette, and the crown of Lower Egypt on the other side, giving rise to the theory that Narmer unified the two lands.[27] Since its discovery, however, it has been debated whether the Narmer Palette represents an actual historic event or is purely symbolic.[d] Of course, the Narmer Palette could represent an actual historical event while at the same time having a symbolic significance. In 1993, Günter Dreyer discovered a "year label" of Narmer at Abydos, depicting the same event that is depicted on the Narmer Palette. In the First Dynasty, years were identified by the name of the king and an important event that occurred in that year. A "year label" was typically attached to a container of goods and included the name of the king, a description or representation of the event that identified the year, and a description of the attached goods. This year label shows that the Narmer Palette depicts an actual historical event,Dreyer 2000. Support for this conclusion (in addition to Dreyer) includes Wilkinson 1999, p. 68 and Davies & Friedman 1998, p. 35. Although this interpretation of the year label is the dominant opinion among Egyptologists, there are exceptions including Baines 2008, p. 23 and Wengrow 2006, p. 204. Archaeological evidence suggests that Egypt was at least partially unified during the reigns of Ka and Iry-Hor (Narmer's immediate predecessors), and perhaps as early as Scorpion I (several generations before Iry-Hor).Tax collection is probably documented for Ka [28] and Iry-Hor.[29] The evidence for a role for Scorpion I in Lower Egypt comes from his tomb Uj in Abydos (Upper Egypt), where labels were found identifying goods from Lower Egypt.[30] These are not tax documents, however, so they are probably indications of trade rather than subjugation. There is a substantial difference in the quantity and distribution of inscriptions with the names of those earlier kings in Lower Egypt and Canaan (which was reached through Lower Egypt), compared to the inscriptions of Narmer. Ka's inscriptions have been found in three sites in Lower Egypt and one in Canaan.[31] Iry-Hor inscriptions have also been found in two sites in Lower Egypt and one in Canaan.[31][32] This must be compared to Narmer, whose serekhs have been found in ten sites in Lower Egypt and nine sites in Canaan (see discussion in "Tomb and Artifacts" section). This demonstrates a qualitative difference between Narmer's role in Lower Egypt compared to his two immediate predecessors. There is no evidence in Lower Egypt of any Upper Egyptian king's presence before Iry-Hor. The archaeological evidence suggest that the unification began before Narmer, but was completed by him through the conquest of a polity in the North-West Delta as depicted on the Narmer Palette.[33] The importance that Narmer attached to his "unification" of Egypt is shown by the fact that it is commemorated not only on the Narmer Palette, but on a cylinder seal,[34] the Narmer Year Label,[35] and the Narmer Boxes;[36]and the consequences of the event are commemorated on the Narmer Macehead.[37] The importance of the unification to ancient Egyptians is shown by the fact that Narmer is shown as the first king on the two necropolis seals, and under the name Menes, the first king in the later King Lists. Although there is archaeological evidence of a few kings before Narmer, none of them are mentioned in any of those sources. It can be accurately said that from the point of view of Ancient Egyptians, history began with Narmer and the unification of Egypt, and that everything before him was relegated to the realm of myth. Narmer in Canaan[edit] According to Manetho (quoted in Eusebius (Fr. 7(a)), "Menes made a foreign expedition and won renown." If this is correct (and assuming it refers to Narmer), it was undoubtedly to the land of Canaan where Narmer's serekh has been identified at nine different sites. An Egyptian presence in Canaan predates Narmer, but after about 200 years of active presence in Canaan, [38] Egyptian presence peaked during Narmer's reign and quickly declined afterwards. The relationship between Egypt and Canaan "began around the end of the fifth millennium and apparently came to an end sometime during the Second Dynasty when it ceased altogether."[39] It peaked during the Dynasty 0 through the reign of Narmer.[40] Dating to this period are 33 Egyptian serekhs found in Canaan,[41] among which 20 have been attributed to Narmer. Prior to Narmer, only one serekh of Ka and one inscription with Iry-Hor's name have been found in Canaan.[42] The serekhs earlier than Iry-Hor are either generic serekhs that do not refer to a specific king, or are for kings not attested in Abydos.[40] Indicative of the decline of Egyptian presence in the region after Narmer, only one serekh attributed to his successor, Hor-Aha, has been found in Canaan.[40] It should be noted that even this one example is questionable, Wilkinson does not believe there are any serekhs of Hor-Aha outside Egypt[43] and very few serekhs of kings for the rest of the first two dynasties have been found in Canaan.[44] The Egyptian presence in Canaan is best demonstrated by the presence of pottery made from Egyptian Nile clay and found in Canaan.[e] as well as pottery made from local clay, but in the Egyptian style. The latter suggests the existence of Egyptian colonies rather than just trade.[46] The nature of Egypt's role in Canaan has been vigorously debated, between scholars who suggest a military invasion[47] and others proposing that only trade and colonization were involved. Although latter has gained predominance,[46] [48] the presence of fortifications at Tell es-Sakan dating to the Dynasty 0 through early Dynasty 1 period, and built almost entirely using an Egyptian style of construction, demonstrate that there must have also been some kind of Egyptian military presence.[49] Regardless of the nature of Egypt's presence in Canaan, control of trade to (and through) Canaan was important to Ancient Egypt. Narmer probably did not establish Egypt's initial influence in Canaan by a military invasion, but a military campaign by Narmer to re-assert Egyptian authority, or to increase its sphere of influence in the region, is certainly plausible. In addition to the quote by Manetho, and the large number of Narmer serekhs found in Canaan, a recent reconstruction of a box of Narmer's by Dreyer 2016 may have commemorated a military campaign in Canaan. It may also represent just the presentation of tribute to Narmer by Canaanites. [50] Neithhotep[edit] Narmer and Hor-Aha's names were both found in what is believed to be Neithhotep's tomb, which led Egyptologists to conclude that she was Narmer's queen and mother of Hor-Aha.[51] Neithhotep's name means "Neith is satisfied". This suggests that she was a princess of Lower Egypt (based on the fact that Neith is the patron goddess of Sais in the Western Delta, exactly the area Narmer conquered to complete the unification of Egypt), and that this was a marriage to consolidate the two regions of Egypt.[51] The fact that her tomb is in Naqada, in Upper Egypt, has led some to the conclusion that she was a descendent of the predynastic rulers of Naqada who ruled prior to its incorporation into a united Upper Egypt.[52] It has also been suggested that the Narmer Macehead commemorates this wedding.[53] However, the discovery in 2012 of rock inscriptions in Sinai by Pierre Tallet[54] raise questions about whether she was really Narmer's wife.[f] Whether or not she was Narmer's queen, she is the earliest woman in the history of the world whose name is known today, and for whom there is archaeological evidence of her existence[citation needed]. Tomb and artifacts[edit] Tomb[edit] Chambers B17 and B18 in the Umm el-Qa'ab, which constitute the tomb of Narmer. Narmer's tomb in Umm el-Qa'ab near Abydos in Upper Egypt consists of two joined chambers (B17 and B18), lined in mud brick. Although both Amélineau and Petrie excavated tombs B17 and B18, they were not identified as Narmer's until Kaiser 1964, pp. 96-102, fig.2 (For a discussion of Cemetery B see Dreyer 1999, pp. 110-11, fig. 7 and Wilkinson 2000, pp. 29-32, fig. 2). Narmer's tomb is located next to the tombs of Ka, who likely ruled Upper Egypt just before Narmer, and Hor-Aha, who was his immediate successor.[g] As the tomb dates back more than 5000 years, and has been pillaged, repeatedly, from antiquity to modern times, it is amazing that anything useful could be discovered in it. Because of the repeated disturbances in Umm el-Qa'ab, many articles of Narmer's were found in other graves, and objects of other kings, were recovered in Narmer's grave. However, Flinders Petrie during the period 1899-1903, [58] [59] and the German Archaeological Institute (DAI)(numerous publications with either Werner Kaiser or his successor, Günter Dreyer, as the lead author - most of them published in MDAIK beginning in 1977) have made discoveries of the greatest importance to the history of Early Egypt by their re-excavation of the tombs of Umm el-Qa'ab. Despite the chaotic condition of the cemetery, inscriptions on both wood and bone, seal impressions, as well as dozens of flint arrowheads (Petrie says with dismay that "hundreds" of arrowheads were discovered by "the French", presumably Émile Amélineau. What happened to them is not clear, but none ended up in the Cairo Museum.[60]) Flint knives and a fragment of an ebony chair leg were also discovered in Narmer's tomb, all of which might be part of the original funerary assemblage. The flint knives and fragment of a chair leg were not included in any of Petrie's publications, but are now at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology (University College London), registration numbers UC35679, UC52786, and UC35682. According to Dreyer,[61] these arrowheads are probably from the tomb of Djer, where similar arrowheads were found.[62] It is likely that all of the kings of Ancient Egypt, buried in Umm el-Qa'ab, had funerary enclosures in Abydos' northern cemetery, near the cultivation line. These were characterized by large mud brick walls that enclosed space in which funerary ceremonies are believed to have taken place. Eight enclosures have been excavated, two of which have not been definitely identified. [63][64] While it has yet to be confirmed, one of these unidentified funerary enclosures may have belonged to Narmer[h] Artifacts[edit] Narmer is well attested throughout Egypt, southern Canaan and Sinai: altogether 98 inscriptions at 27 sites.[i] At Abydos and Hierakonpolis Narmer's name appears both within a serekh and without reference to a serekh. At every other site except Coptos, Narmer's name appears in a serekh.In Egypt, his name has been found at 17 sites: 4 in Upper Egypt (Hierakonpolis,[70] Naqada,[71] [72] Abydos, [58][59] and Coptos[73]);[74] ten in Lower Egypt (Tarkhan,[75][76] Helwan,[77][78] Zawyet el'Aryan,[79] Tell Ibrahim Awad,[80] Ezbet el-Tell,[81] Minshat Abu Omar,[82] [83] Saqqara,[84][85] Buto,[86] Tell el-Farkhan,[87][88] and Kafr Hassan Dawood[89]); one in the Eastern Desert (Wadi el-Qaash[90]); and two in the Western Desert (Kharga Oasis[91] [92] and Gebel Tjauti.[93][94]). During Narmer's reign, Egypt had an active economic presence in southern Canaan. Pottery sherds have been discovered at several sites, both from pots made in Egypt and imported to Canaan and others made in the Egyptian style out of local materials. Narmer serekh on pottery sherd from Nahal Tillah (Canaan) showing stylized catfish and absence of chisel, Courtesy Thomas E. Levy, Levantine and Cyber-Archaeology Laboratory, UC San Diego Twenty serekhs have been found in Canaan that may belong to Narmer, but seven of those are uncertain or controversial. These serekhs came from nine different sites: Tel Arad,[95][96] En Besor (Ein HaBesor),[97][98] Tel es-Sakan,[99][100] Nahal Tillah (Halif Terrace),[101] Tel Erani (Tel Gat),[102][103] Small Tel Malhata,[104][105] Tel Ma'ahaz,[106] Tel Lod,[107] and Lahav.[108] Narmer's serekh, along with those of other Predynastic and Early Dynastic kings, has been found at the Wadi 'Ameyra in the southern Sinai, where inscriptions commemorate Egyptian mining expeditions to the area.[109][110] Nag el-Hamdulab[edit] First recorded at the end of the 19th century, an important series of rock carving at Nag el-Hamdulab near Aswan was rediscovered in 2009, and its importance only realized then.[111] [112] Among the many inscriptions, tableau 7a shows a man wearing a headdress similar to the white crown of Upper Egypt and carrying a scepter. He is followed by a man with a fan. He is then preceded by two men with standards, and accompanied by a dog. Apart from the dog motif, this scene is similar to scenes on the Scorpion Macehead and the recto of the Narmer Palette. The man - armed with pharaonic regalia (the crown and scepter) can clearly be identified as a king. Although no name appears in the tableau, Darnell 2015 attributes it to Narmer, based on the iconography, and suggests that it might represent an actual visit to the region by Narmer for a "Following of Horus" ritual. In an interview in 2012, Gatto[113] also describes the king in the inscription as Narmer. However, Hendrickx places the scene slightly before Narmer, based, in part on the uncharacteristic absence of Narmer's royal name in the inscription. In popular culture[edit] The First Pharaoh (The First Dynasty Book 1) by Lester Picker is a fictionalized biography of Narmer. The author consulted with Egyptologist Günter Dreyer to achieve authenticity. Murder by the Gods: An Ancient Egyptian Mystery by William Collins is a thriller about prince Aha (later king Hor-Aha), with Narmer included in a secondary role. The Third Gate by Lincoln Child is an adventure story with a dose of the occult about an archaeological expedition in search of the real tomb of Narmer and its mysterious contents. Pharaoh: The boy who conquered the Nile by Jackie French is a children's book ( ages 10-14) of the adventures of Prince Narmer. Beginning of an Empire: An Egyptian Historical Fiction Novel by Joseph Hergott is an adventure story for young adults based on the premise that Narmer and Menes were separate people, but twin brothers. The Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan is a young person's trilogy based on Egyptian mythology. Narmer is mentioned to be an ancestor of the books' protagonists Carter and Sadie Kane. Gallery of images[edit] Alabaster statue of a baboon divinity with the name of the pharaoh Narmer inscribed on its base, on display at the Ägyptisches Museum Berlin. A mud jar sealing indicating that the contents came from the estate of the pharaoh Narmer. Originally from Tarkhan, now on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. The Narmer Macehead, on display at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK. Pottery sherd inscribed with the ''serekh'' and name of the pharaoh Narmer, on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Narmer wearing the Deshret crown of Lower Egypt on the Narmer Palette. Incised inscription on a vessel found at Tarkhan (tomb 414), naming king Narmer; Petrie Museum UC 16083. Narmer serekh in its full formal format on an alabaster vase from Abydos, Petrie, 1901, RT II, p. 44, fig. 52.359(detail). Drawing of Narmer serekh on pottery vessel with stylized catfish and without chisel or falcon, copyright Kafr Hassan Dawood Mission. Arrowheads from Narmer's tomb, Petrie 1905, Royal Tombs II, pl. IV.14. According to Dreyer,[61] these arrowheads are probably from the tomb of Djer, where similar arrowheads were found.[62] Notes[edit] Jump up ^ Establishing absolute dating for Ancient Egypt relies on two different methods, each of which is problematic. As a starting point, the Historical Method, makes use of astronomical events that are recorded in Ancient Egyptian texts, which establishes a starting point in which an event in Egyptian history is given an unambiguous absolute date. "Dead reckoning" - adding or subtracting the length of each king's reign (based primarily on Manetho, the Turin King List, and the Palermo Stone) is then used until one gets to the reign of the king in question. However, there is uncertainty about the length of reigns, especially in the Archaic Period and the Intermediate Periods. Two astrological events are available to anchor these estimates, one in the Middle Kingdom and one in the New Kingdom(for a discussion of the problems in establishing absolute dates for Ancient Egypt, see Shaw 2000a, pp. 1-16). Two estimates based on this method are: Hayes 1970, p. 174, who gives the beginning of the reign of Narmer/Menes as 3114 BC, which he rounds to 3100 BC; and, Krauss & Warburton 2006, p. 487 who places the ascent of Narmer to the throne of Egypt as c. 2950 BC. It is important to note that several estimates of the beginning of the First Dynasty assume that it began with Hor-Aha. Setting aside the question of whether the First Dynasty began with Narmer or Hor-Aha, to calculate the beginning of Narmer's reign from these estimates, they must be adjusted by the length of Narmer's reign. Unfortunately, there are no reliable estimates of the length of Narmer's reign. In the absence of other evidence, scholars use Manetho's estimate of the length of the reign of Menes, Manetho of 62 years. If one assumes that Narmer and Menes are the same person, this places the date for the beginning of Narmer's reign at 62 years earlier than the date for the beginning of the First Dynasty given by the authors who associate the beginning of the First Dynasty with the start of Hor-Aha's reign. Estimates of the beginning of Narmer's reign calculated in this way include von Beckerath 1997, p. 179 (c. 3094-3044 BC); Helck 1986, p. 28 (c. 2987 BC); Kitchen 2000, p. 48 (c. 3092 BC), and Shaw 2000b, p. 480 (c. 3062 BC). Considering all six estimates suggests a range of c. 3114 - 2987 BC based on the Historical Method. The exception to the mainstream consensus, is Mellaart 1979, pp. 9-10 who estimates the beginning of the First Dynasty to be c. 3400 BC. However, since he reached this conclusion by disregarding the Middle Kingdom astronomical date, his conclusion is not widely accepted. Radiocarbon Dating has, unfortunately, its own problems: According to Hendrickx 2006, p. 90, "the calibration curves for the (second half) of the 4th millennium BC show important fluctuations with long possible data ranges as a consequence. It is generally considered a 'bad period' for Radiocarbon dating." Using a statistical approach, including all available carbon 14 dates for the Archaic Period, reduces, but does not eliminate, these inherent problems. Dee & et al., uses this approach, and derive a 65% confidence interval estimate for the beginning of the First Dynasty of c. 3211 - 3045 BC. However, they define the beginning of the First Dynasty as the beginning of the reign of Hor-Aha. There are no radiocarbon dates for Narmer, so to translate this to the beginning of Narmer's reign one must again adjust for the length of Narmer's reign of 62 years, which gives a range of c. 3273-3107 BC for the beginning of Narmer's reign. This is reassuringly close to the range of mainstream Egyptologists using the Historical Method of c. 3114 - 2987 BC. Thus, combining the results of two different methodologies allows to place the accession of Narmer to c. 3273 - 2987 BC. Jump up ^ The question of who was Menes - hence, who was the first king of the First Dynasty has been hotly debated. Since 1926, 70 different authors have taken an opinion on whether it is Narmer or Aha.[16] Most of these are only passing references, but there have been several in depth analyses on both sides of the issues. Recent discussions in favor of Narmer include Kinnaer 2001, Cervelló-Autuori 2005, and Heagy 2014. Detailed discussions in favor of Aha include Helck 1953, Emery 1961, pp. 31-37, and Dreyer 2007. It is interesting to note that, for the most part English speaking authors favor Narmer, while German speaking authors favor Hor-Aha. The most important evidence in favor of Narmer are the two necropolis seal impressions from Abydos, which list Narmer as the first king. Since the publication of the first of the necropolis sealings in 1987, 28 authors have published articles identifying Narmer with Menes compared to 14 who identify Narmer with Hor-Aha. Jump up ^ In the upper right hand quarter of the Naqada label is a serekh of Hor-Aha. To its right is a hill-shaped triple enclosure with the "mn" sign surmounted by the signs of the "two ladies", the goddesses of Upper Egypt (Nekhbet) and Lower Egypt (Wadjet). In later contexts, the presence of the "two ladies" would indicate a "nbty" name (one of the five names of the king). Hence, the inscription was interpreted as showing that the "nbty" name of Hor-Aha was "Mn" short for Menes.[17] An alternative theory is that the enclosure was a funeral shrine and it represents Hor-Aha burying his predecessor, Menes. Hence Menes was Narmer.[18] Although the label generated a lot of debate, it is now generally agreed that the inscription in the shrine is not a king's name, but is the name of the shrine "The Two Ladies Endure," and provide no evidence for who was Menes.[19] The second document, the seal impression from Abydos, shows the serekh of Narmer alternating with the gameboard sign (mn) sign, together with its phonetic compliment, the n sign, which is always shown when the full name of Menes is written, again representing the name "Menes". At first glance, this would seem to be strong evidence that Narmer was Menes.[20] However, based on an analysis of other early First Dynasty seal impressions, which contain the name of one or more princes, the seal impression has been interpreted by other scholars as showing the name of a prince of Narmer's named Menes. Hence Menes was Narmer's successor, Hor-Aha. Hence Hor-Aha was Menes.[21] This was refuted by Cervelló-Autuori 2005, pp. 42-45; but opinions still vary, and the seal impression cannot be said to definitively support either theory.[22] Jump up ^ According to Schulman the Narmer Palette commemorates a conquest of Libyans that occurred earlier than Narmer, probably during Dynasty 0. Libyans, in this context, were not people who inhabited what is modern Libya, but rather peoples who lived in the north-west Delta of the Nile, which later became a part of Lower Egypt. Schulman describes scenes from Dynasty V (2 scenes), Dynasty VI, and Dynasty XXV. In each of these, the king is shown defeating the Libyans personally killing their chief in a classic "smiting the enemy" pose. In three of these post-Narmer examples, the name of the wife and two sons of the chief are named - and they are the same names for all three scenes from vastly different periods. This proves that all, but the first representation, cannot be recording actual events, but are ritual commemorations of an earlier event. The same might also be true of the first example in Dynasty V. The scene on the Narmer Palette is similar, although it does not name the wife or sons of the Libyan chief. The Narmer Palette could represent the actual event on which the others are based. However, Schulman (following Breasted 1931) argues against this on the basis that the Palermo Stone shows predynastic kings wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt suggesting that they ruled a unified Egypt. Hence, the Narmer Palette, rather than showing a historic event during Narmer's reign commemorates the defeat of the Libyans and the unification of Egypt which occurred earlier. Köhler 2002, p. 505 proposes that the Narmer Palette has nothing to do with the unification of Egypt. Instead she describes it as an example of the "subjecting the enemy" motif which goes back as far as Naqada Ic (about 400 years before Narmer), and which represents the ritual defeat of chaos, a fundamental role of the king. O'Connor 2011 also argues that it has nothing to do with the unification, but has a (very complicated) religious meaning. Jump up ^ During the summer of 1994, excavators from the Nahal Tillah expedition, in southern Israel, discovered an incised ceramic sherd with the serekh sign of Narmer. The sherd was found on a large circular platform, possibly the foundations of a storage silo on the Halif Terrace. Dated to c. 3000 BCE, mineralogical studies conducted on the sherd conclude that it is a fragment of a wine jar which had been imported from the Nile valley to Canaan.[45] Jump up ^ In 2012, Pierre Tallet discovered an important new series of rock carvings in Wadi Ameyra. This discovery was reported in Tallet 2015, and in 2016 in two web articles by Owen Jarus[55] These inscriptions strongly suggest that Neithhotep was Djer's regent for a period of time, but do not resolve the question of whether she was Narmer's queen. In the first of Jarus' articles, he quotes Tallet as saying that Neithhotep "was not the wife of Narmer". However, Tallet, in a personal communication with Thomas C. Heagy explained that he had been misquoted. According to Tallet, she could have been Narmer's wife (Djer's grandmother), but that it is more likely (because Narmer and Hor-Aha are both thought to have had long reigns) that she was in the next generation - for example Djer's mother or aunt. This is consistent with the discussion in Tallet 2015, pp. 28-29. Jump up ^ Narmer's tomb has much more in common with the tombs of his immediate predecessors, Ka and Iry-Hor, and other late Predynastic tombs in Umm el-Qa'ab than it does with later 1st Dynasty tombs. Narmer's tomb is 31 sq. meters compared to Hor-Aha, whose tomb is more than three times as large, not counting Hor-Aha's 36 subsidiary graves. According to Deyer,[56] Narmer's tomb is even smaller than the tomb of Scorpion I (tomb Uj), several generations earlier. [57] In addition, the earlier tombs of Narmer, Ka, and Iry-Hor all have two chambers with no subsidiary chambers, while later tombs in the 1st Dynasty all have more complex structures including subsidiary chambers for the tombs of retainers, who were probably sacrificed to accompany the king in the afterlife. O'Connor 2009, pp. 148-150 To avoid confusion, it's important to understand that he classifies Narmer as the last king of the 0 Dynasty rather than the first king of the 1st Dynasty, in part because Narmer's tomb has more in common with the earlier 0 Dynasty tombs than it does with the later 1st Dynasty tombs. Dreyer 2003, p. 64 also makes the argument that the major shift in tomb construction that began with Hor-Aha, is evidence that Hor-Aha, rather than Narmer was the first king of the 1st Dynasty. Jump up ^ Next to Hor-Aha's enclosure is a large, unattributed enclosure referred to as the "Donkey Enclosure" because of the presence of 10 donkeys buried next to the enclosure. No objects were found in the enclosure with a king's name, but hundreds of seal impressions were found in the gateway chamber of the enclosure, all of which appear to date to the reigns of Narmer, Hor-Aha, or Djer. Hor-Aha and Djer both have enclosures identified, "making Narmer the most attractive candidate for the builder of this monument".[65] The main objection to its assignment to Narmer is that the enclosure is too big. It is larger than all three of Hor-Aha's put together, while Hor-Aha's tomb is much larger than Narmer's tomb. For all of the clearly identified 1st Dynasty enclosures, there is a rough correlation between the size of the tomb and the size of the enclosure. Identifying the Donkey Enclosure with Narmer would violate that correlation. That leaves Hor-Aha and Djer. The objection to the assignment of the enclosure to Aha is the inconsistency of the subsidiary graves of Hor-Aha's enclosure, and subsidiary graves of the donkeys. In addition, the seeming completeness of the Aha enclosure without the Donkey Enclosure, argues against Hor-Aha. This leaves Djer, whom Bestock considers the most likely candidate. The problems with this conclusion, as identified by Bestock, are that the Donkey Enclosure has donkeys in the subsidiary graves, whereas Djer has humans in his. In addition, there are no large subsidiary graves at Djer's tomb complex that would correspond to the Donkey Enclosure.[66] She concludes that, "the interpretation and attribution of the Donkey Enclosure remain speculative."[67] There are, however, two additional arguments for the attribution to Narmer: First, it is exactly where one would expect to find Narmer's Funerary Enclosure - immediately next to Hor-Aha's. Second, all of the 1st Dynasty tombs have subsidiary graves for humans except that of Narmer, and all of the attributed 1st Dynasty enclosures, except the Donkey Enclosure, have subsidiary graves for humans. But neither Narmer's tomb nor the Donkey Enclosure have known subsidiary graves for humans. The lack of human subsidiary graves at both sites seems important. It is also possible that Narmer had a large funerary enclosure precisely because he had a small tomb.[68][69] In the absence of finding an object with a Narmer's name on it, any conclusion must be tentative, but it seems that the preponderance of evidence and logic support the identification of the Donkey Enclosure with Narmer. Jump up ^ Of these inscriptions, 29 are controversial or uncertain. They include the unique examples from Coptos, En Besor, Tell el-Farkhan, Gebel Tjauti, Lahav, and Kharga Oasis, as well as both inscriptions each from Buto and Tel Ma'ahaz. Sites with more than one inscription are footnoted with either references to the most representative inscriptions, or to sources that are the most important for that site. All of the inscriptions are included in the Narmer Catalog, which also includes extensive bibliographies for each inscription. Several references discuss substantial numbers of inscriptions. They include: Database of Early Dynastic Inscriptions, Kaplony 1963, Kaplony 1964, Kaiser & Dreyer 1982, Kahl 1994,van den Brink 1996, van den Brink 2001, Jiménez-Serrano 2003, Jiménez-Serrano 2007, and Pätznick 2009. Anđelković 1995 includes Narmer inscriptions, from Canaan within the context of the overall relations between Canaan and Early Egypt, including descriptions of the sites in which they were found. See also[edit] List of Pharaohs Narmer Palette Menes Thinis References[edit] ^ Jump up to: a b Wilkinson 1999, p. 67. Jump up ^ Hayes 1970, p. 174. Jump up ^ Quirke & Spence 1992, p. 223. Jump up ^ Redford 1986, pp. 136, n.10. Jump up ^ Pätznick 2009, pp. 308, n.8. Jump up ^ Leprohon 2013, p. 22. Jump up ^ Clayton 1994, p. 16. Jump up ^ Pätznick 2009, p. 287. Jump up ^ Ray 2003, pp. 131-148. Jump up ^ Wilkinson 2000, pp. 23-32. Jump up ^ Raffaele 2003, pp. 110, n. 46. Jump up ^ von Beckerath 1999, p. 36. Jump up ^ Regulski 2010, p. 126. Jump up ^ Godron 1949, p. 218. Jump up ^ Pätznick 2009, p. 310. Jump up ^ Heagy 2014, pp. 83-84. Jump up ^ Borchardt 1897, pp. 1056-1057. Jump up ^ Newberry 1929, pp. 47-49. Jump up ^ Kinnear 2003, p. 30. Jump up ^ Newberry 1929, pp. 49-50. Jump up ^ Helck 1953, pp. 356-359. Jump up ^ Heagy 2014, pp. 77-78. Jump up ^ Dreyer 1987. Jump up ^ Dreyer et al. 1996, pp. 72-73, fig. 6, pl.4b-c. Jump up ^ Cervelló-Autuori 2008, pp. 887-899. Jump up ^ Quibell 1898, pp. 81-84, pl. XII-XIII. Jump up ^ Gardiner 1961, pp. 403-404. Jump up ^ Dreyer, Hartung & Pumpenmeier 1993, p. 56, fig. 12. Jump up ^ Kahl 2007, p. 13. Jump up ^ Dreyer 2011, p. 135. ^ Jump up to: a b Jiménez-Serrano 2007, p. 370, table 8. Jump up ^ Ciałowicz 2011, pp. 63-64. Jump up ^ Heagy 2014, pp. 73-74. Jump up ^ Quibell 1900, p. 7, pl. XV.7. Jump up ^ Dreyer 2000. Jump up ^ Dreyer 2016. Jump up ^ Quibell 1900, pp. 8-9, pls. XXV, XXVIB. Jump up ^ Anđelković 1995, p. 72. Jump up ^ Braun 2011, p. 105. ^ Jump up to: a b c Anđelović 2011, p. 31. Jump up ^ Anđelović 2011, p. 31. Jump up ^ Jiménez-Serrano 2007, p. 370, Table 8. Jump up ^ Wilkinson 1999, p. 71. Jump up ^ Wilkinson 1999, pp. 71-105. Jump up ^ Levy et al. 1995, pp. 26-35. ^ Jump up to: a b Porat & 1986-87, p. 109. Jump up ^ Yadin 1955. Jump up ^ Capagno 2008, pp. 695-696. Jump up ^ de Microschedji 2008, pp. 2028-2029. Jump up ^ Dreyer 2016, p. 104. ^ Jump up to: a b Tyldesley 2006, pp. 26-29. Jump up ^ Wilkinson 1999, p. 70. Jump up ^ Emery 1961, pp. 44-47. Jump up ^ Tallet 2015. Jump up ^ Owen Jarus: Early Egyptian Queen revealed in 5.000-year-old Hieroglyphs at livescience.com Jump up ^ Kaiser et al. Jump up ^ Dreyer 1988, p. 19. ^ Jump up to: a b Petrie 1900. ^ Jump up to: a b Petrie 1901. Jump up ^ Petrie 1901, p. 22. ^ Jump up to: a b G. Dreyer, personal communication to Thomas C Heagy, 2017 ^ Jump up to: a b Petrie 1901, pp. pl.VI.. Jump up ^ Adams & O'Connor 2003, pp. 78-85. Jump up ^ O'Connor 2009, pp. 159-181. Jump up ^ Bestock 2009, p. 102. Jump up ^ Bestock 2009, pp. 102-104. Jump up ^ Bestock 2009, p. 104. Jump up ^ Dreyer 1998, p. 19. Jump up ^ Bestock 2009, p. 103, n.1. Jump up ^ Quibell 1898, pp. 81-84, pl. XII-XIII. Jump up ^ Spencer 1980, p. 64(454), pl. 47.454, pl.64.454. Jump up ^ The Narmer Catalog http://narmer.org/inscription/0084 Jump up ^ Williams 1988, p. 35-50, fig. 3a. Jump up ^ The Narmer Catalog http://narmer.org/inscription/0085 Jump up ^ Petrie, Wainwright & Gardiner 1913. Jump up ^ Petrie 1914. Jump up ^ Saad 1947, p. 26-27. Jump up ^ The Narmer Catalog http://narmer.org/inscription/0114 Jump up ^ Dunham 1978, pp. 25-26, pl. 16A. Jump up ^ van den Brink 1992, p. 52-53. Jump up ^ Bakr 1988, pp. 50-51, pl. 1b. Jump up ^ Wildung 1981, pp. 35-37. Jump up ^ The Narmer Catalog http://narmer.org/inscription/0121 Jump up ^ Lacau & Lauer 1959, pp. 1-2, pl. 1.1. Jump up ^ The Narmer Catalog http://narmer.org/inscription/0115 Jump up ^ von der Way 1989, p. 285-286, n.76, fig. 11.7. Jump up ^ Jucha 2008, p. 132-133, fig 47.2. Jump up ^ The Narmer Catalog http://narmer.org/inscription/6002 Jump up ^ Hassan 2000, p. 39. Jump up ^ Winkler 1938, pp. 10,25, pl.11.1. Jump up ^ Ikram & Rossi 2004, pp. 211-215, fig 1 & 2. Jump up ^ The Narmer Catalog http://narmer.org/inscription/6015 Jump up ^ Darnell & Darnell 1997, pp. 71-72, fig. 10. Jump up ^ The Narmer Catalog http://narmer.org/inscription/4037 Jump up ^ Amiran 1974, p. 4-12, fig. 20, pl.1. Jump up ^ The Narmer Catalog http://narmer.org/inscription/0123 Jump up ^ Schulman 1976, pp. 25-26. Jump up ^ The Narmer Catalog http://narmer.org/inscription/0547 Jump up ^ de Miroschedji & Sadeq 2000, pp. 136-137, fig. 9. Jump up ^ The Narmer Catalog http://narmer.org/inscription/6009 Jump up ^ Levy et al. 1997, pp. 31-33. Jump up ^ Yeivin 1960, pp. 193-203, fig. 2, pl. 24a. Jump up ^ The Narmer Catalog http://narmer.org/inscription/0124 Jump up ^ Amiran, Ilan & Aron 1983, pp. 75-83, fig.7c. Jump up ^ The Narmer Catalog http://narmer.org/inscription/6006 Jump up ^ Schulman & Gophna 1981. Jump up ^ van den Brink & Braun 2002, pp. 167-192. Jump up ^ Amiran, Ilan & Aron 1983, pp. 82-82, n. 22. Jump up ^ Tallet & Laisney 2012, pp. 383-389. Jump up ^ The Narmer Catalog http://narmer.org/inscription/4814 Jump up ^ Gatto et al. 2009. Jump up ^ Darnell 2015. Jump up ^ Gatto 2012. Bibliography[edit] Adams, Matthew; O'Connor, David (2003), "The Royal mortuary enclosures of Abydos and Hierakonpolis", in Hawass, Zahi, The treasures of the pyramids, Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, pp. 78-85. Amiran, Ruth (1974), "An Egyptian jar fragment with the name of Narmer from Arad", IEJ, 24,1: 4-12 Amiran, R.; Ilan, O.; Aron, C. (1983), "Excavations at Small Tel Malhata: Three Narmer serekhs", IEJ, 2: 75-83. 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Ikram, S.; Rossi, C. (2004), "A new Early Dynastic serekh from the Kharga Oasis", JEA, 90: 211-215 Jiménez-Serrano, A. (2003), "Chronology and local traditions: The representation of power and the royal name in the Late Predynastic Period", Archéo-Nil, 13: 93-142. Jiménez-Serrano (2007), Los Primeros Reyes y la Unificación de Egipto [The first kings and the unification of Egypt] (in Spanish), Jaen, ES: Universidad de Jaen, ISBN 978-84-8439-357-3. Jucha, M.A. (2008), Chłondicki, M.; Ciałowicz, K.M., eds., "Pottery from the grave [in] Polish Excavations at Tell el-Farkha (Ghazala) in the Nile Delta. Preliminary report 2006-2007", Archeologia, LIX: 132-135. Kahl, J. (1994), Das System der ägyptischen Hieroglypheninschrift in der 0.-3. Dynastie, Göttinger Orientforschungen. 4. Reihe: Ägypten, 29, Wiesbaden . 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Hierakonpolis: City of the Hawk [show] v t e Pharaohs [hide] v t e First Dynasty of Ancient Egypt Pharaohs Menes/Narmer Hor-Aha Djer Djet Den Anedjib Semerkhet Qa'a Regents Neithhotep Merneith Queen consorts Benerib Herneith Penebui Nakhtneith (Khenthap) Semat Serethor Seshemetka Betrest Officials Amka Hemaka Sabef Meriiti Other people Ahaneith Artefacts and monuments Narmer macehead Narmer palette Tomb of Anedjib Den seal impressions Abydos boats MacGregor plaque Mastabas S3503 and S3504 Capital Thinis

Geography

The study of the earth the physical features of an area

Egyptian Social

Women can inherit property and initiate divorce, slaves

Papyrus

a reed plant that grew wild along the Nile

Nubia

a region in North Africa located on the Nile river south of Egypt

Dynasty

a series of rulers from the same family

Nile Delta

has much fertile soil and was the home of one of the world's earliest civilizations.

Cataracts

rapids along a river, such as those along the Nile in Egypt

Bureaucrats

the appointed officials who operate government agencies from day to day

Upper/ Lower Egypt

the two halves to Egypt

Embalming

treating with preservatives to prevent decay

Delta

A landform made of sediment that is deposited where a river flows into an ocean or lake

Pharaoh

A ruler of ancient Egypt

Status

A social position that a person holds

Thebes

An ancient city in Upper Egypt that became the capital of the New Kingdom

Savannas

Areas of tall grasses and scattered trees and shrubs