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( ) ( ) Volume 14 issue 5 April 2014 NETFISHING A NCIENT EGYPT explores the WORLD WIDE WEB ...
NARMER AND EGYPT’S FIRST DYNASTY This month NETFISHING continues its look at the history of Egypt by seeing what the World Wide Web has to say about the mythical King Narmer and the First Dynasty of the ‘Early Dynastic Period’ whose dates have recently been revised as a result of new research.
It is apparent that during the latter part of the Predynastic Period (prior to c. 3100 BC) the kings of the South (Upper Egypt) made repeated attempts to conquer the Northern Kingdom of the Delta (Lower Egypt). Eventually they were successful and their conquest, around 3100 BC, marks the beginnings of a united country, the ‘Two Lands’ as the Egyptians were to later call them. This conquest is accredited to a mythical king called Menes (refer: www.touregypt.net/featurestories/menes1.htm), although the earliest archaeological evidence for a king wearing both the White Crown (of Upper Egypt) and the Red Crown (of Lower Egypt) is of a king Narmer – who is generally accepted as being the first king of the newly united country. Refer: www.touregypt.net/featurestories/narmer.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narmer http://xoomer.virgilio.it/francescoraf/hesyra/narmer.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Dynastic_Period_of_Egypt
The Early Dynastic Period, more generally known as the Archaic Period, is of great importance as it was during this period that Egypt defined its borders and relations with foreign powers, established its system of centralised government, developed a new capital city at Memphis, and began to exploit its vast stone and mineral resources. Indeed it was the Archaic Period which was to lay the foundations for the later glories of the Old Kingdom. Refer: http://www.ancient-egypt.org/_v4s/history/early-dynastic-period/ http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/history1-2.htm
Excavations at Hierakonpolis (capital of the Southern Kingdom) have revealed the famous Narmer Palette and the ceremonial Mace-heads of both Narmer and the ‘Scorpion King’. Refer:
These items provide a great deal of information about the foundation of the new country and are discussed in an article by Professor N. B. Millett at: www.antiquityofman.com/millet_narmer_macehead.html
The order of the kings is now generally agreed upon, and a team, led by Dr. Michael Dee from the University of Oxford, has recently put forward a new, more accurate, dating system based on a revised study of radiocarbon dates. The First Dynasty (3111- 2886 BC) list of rulers is now dated as: Aha 3111 - 3045 BC Djer 3073 - 3036 BC Djet 2989 - 2941 BC Queen Merneith 2946 - 2916 BC Den 2928 - 2911 BC Anedjib 2916 - 2896 BC Semerkhet 2912 - 2891 BC Qa‘a 2906 - 2886 BC Refer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23947820 http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/science-timeline-ancient-egypt-first-dynasty-01357.html
Much of what we know of the period has had to be reconstructed from fragmentary inscriptions, especially those of the Fifth Dynasty Palermo Stone, ivory labels (discovered in the mastaba tombs) and other archaeological finds. Refer: http://ancient-egypt.org/index.html http://egypt-grammar.rutgers.edu/Artifacts/Palermo%20Stone.pdf http://xoomer.virgilio.it/francescoraf/hesyra/tagcorpus.htm
Pottery, as ever, has been an important indicator of social development, although during the Archaic Period, stone vessels were still very much in demand as funerary items for royal burials. Refer: www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/pottery/useearly.html www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/pottery/archaicpottery.html http://www.aeraweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/egyptian-pottery-v2.pdf http://xoomer.virgilio.it/francescoraf/hesyra/aufgefasse.htm
During Egypt’s Second Dynasty, tensions again developed between the Northern and Southern lands and these developments will be discussed in the next issue.
Victor Blunden Back to Ancient Egypt Magazine - Volume 14 Issue 5 contents
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