HOME PAGE sca TICE ENTa SITE-INDEX Ancient Egypt: Dynasty Zero by Francesco Raffaele INDEX a + Part I - Introduetion - lotes pil - Part Il - BYNASTY 0: The Kings ‘Notes pu2 - Essential Bibliography. - Appendix I - Table of Royal Names of Nagada IIIB ~ Appendix II - On the terms ynasty 0" and "Dynasty 00" = Part III - DYNASTY 0: Some Researches (next months) ~ Earlier Period kings (Nagada IIC-ILA2) vnasty 00" ~ Dynasty 0 Objects: galleries 7.1 - 2.0 - Download my article: "Dynasty 0", in: AH 17, (S. Bickel - A- Loprieno eds.), 2003, p. 99-141 [PDE here] (This article isa larger, different version than the one of the present page) Please, wait some seconds (very long page, many images) THE DYNASTY 0 Francesco Raffaele - LU.O, Napoli Part I - Introduction ‘The general picture we have of the Egyptian Late Predynastic period and early state is profoundly changing in the last decades. ‘Modern archaeological campaigns, re-examination of scarcely published old excavations, fresh new theoretical and ‘methodological approaches to old and new problems, are quickly transforming the way in which we interpret this, important stage of the ancient Egyptian history and its material remains, ‘An outstanding step of renewal in the Egyptological studies has been accomplished under the influence, since the '70s, of anthropological- formation scholars like B, Trigger and M. Hofliman; Egyptologists have begun to accept and adopt a real multidiseiplinary approach in their researches as well, Especially inthe fist half of the 20th century the lack of history’ characterizing the period in object, was @ main factor leading very learned scholars to ty to extract historical events from myths, iconography and royal symbolism, K. Sethe arrived to reconstruct two predynastic stages of the process of expansion of the Lower Egyptians southwards and then ofthe Upper Egyptians northwards, through sparse allusions in later myths and the order of importance of some hieroglyphs of the royal titular. In these years onc of the mostly debated aspects of Egyptian Late Predynastic studies concems the State formation: infact we are stil very uncertain about the causes and the modalities ofits origin and development.As we will see below there must have been a combination of different factors to start the process of state formation; indeed the attempt to gain the control of Palestinian and Nubian trade routes seems a determining element, ‘Modern Egyptologist are inclined to give more weight to the archacological data than to representations imbued of ideology; and many of the ‘dogmas’ of the past are falling down: for example, the Narmer palette, once considered one of the key sources attesting the ‘Unification’ of Upper and Lower Egypt by this king, is now almost completely dismissed as a proof for such an event, and tendencially removed from discussions about Unification, ‘Scholars now tend to look at this important object as a memorial of a military victory [1] or asa ritual object reinforcing the role of the king through the depiction of a scene (not necessarily happened in Narmer’s reign) which was part of an alrcady well formed iconography and idcology of kingship[2]. ‘The Unification is still a recurrent argument in the discussions on the origin and evolution of the Egyptian state. There is a whole series of so called "monuments of the unification" [3]; palettes, maceheads, other types of decorated objects, but also later-dated documents like Royal Annals, Kings-lists and traditions or quasi-legends preserved by Greek - Roman historians, ‘We have no explicit source of late predynastic date which mentions the ‘Uniting the two Lands’ (‘Sma Tawy’) in the same terms as it appears in Khasekhemwy's reign[4]; the Vth Dynasty Annals report a ‘Sma Tawy' ceremony at the beginning of each king's reign, since those of the Ist Dynasty (Djer). ‘The Palermo stone has preserved, in the first line, some Lower Egyptian kings’ names[5], while on the Cairo 1 fragment both Lower Egyptian and Upper Egyptian Kings were listed (although their names are lost; is possible that the left hhand end of the first line of the original monument did report ‘Double Crown Kings’, thus sovereigns already at the head of a united state(6]. The Turin Canon gives an important list of the kings of Egypt [7]; this papyrus was written during the reign of Ramses IL Contrarily to the funerary Kings lists like those found at Abydos and Saggara (same period) the papyrus of Turin also includes ‘pre-menite’ sovereigns like the Followers of Horus’ and, before them, a number of gods each one reigning in turn for lengthy periods of time since the creation (cfr, Hinduism Yuga, Near Eastern myths, some Maya long counts). Herodotus was the first one to record the Unification of the two lands of Egypt; in the past some Egyptologists have pushed as far as to propose that this concept did not reflect Egyptian history but it could have becn instead an effect of the well known and recurrent dualism of ancient Egyptian ideology tending to coneeive the One as union of two opposites, ‘Some iconographic motives recurring in the predynastic Egyptian ‘art’ since the Nagada Ie period are assumed to have been introduced through various kinds of contacts with Near Easter contemporary cultures, The Master of the Beasts, an hero depicted frontally while grasping with his hands two rampant lions beside him, surely had a precise symbolical meaning. Certainly the Egyptians were initially inspired by the iconography of late Uruk and Elamite glyptic - cylinder seals, which they knew through long distance commercial contacts; but they re-elaborated and manipulated these visual metaphors according to their own ideology: later in Naqada II] another similar motif, that of the two 'serpopards' with their long necks held with ropes, recurs in the central register of the Narmer palette obverse. It has been advanced that this would have the same value as the later fusion of the Upper and Lower Egyptian heraldie plants which symbolized the Union of the two Lands, Indeed, as we have seen, Narmer was probably ritually, magically and symbolically enhancing his role through the depiction of a military victory and subsequent ceremonial of sacrifice of the defeated[8} ‘The described motives abruptly ceased to be represented with the end of the Dynasty 0; on the other hand a further old ‘motif, the king smashing his enemies' heads by a mace, first attested in middle-late Nagada Il (c, 300 years before ‘Narmer) did remain as one of the major symbols of the violent aspect of the Egyptian kingship in its role of anniilator of the forces of chaos which constantly menace the order the king must grant(9]; but we generally don't use to attribute to each depiction of a pharaoh smiting enemies a value of chronicle of a real victory he would have obtained. It's impossible here to even only list the whole series of attributes, emblems and rituals of the early sovereigns which they had manifestly inherited from the middle Naqada or older chiefs[10]. These ‘paraphernalia’, which continued to accompain the pharaohs for the following 3000 years, are thus part of an ideology of power which had already begun to form in the predynastic period. Although, as we have shown, some aspects of the predynastic material and ideological culture were abandoned, many others were maintained forming the base of the Ancient Egyptian civilization and the symbols of a successful ruling elite. This powerful state, which appeared in the past (for the scanty evidence available) as if come out of the nothingness, has had a long period of formation; Cheops and the Great Pyramid are not a starting point in Egyptian history, but the result and the apex of nearly one millenium of evolution, half of which was accomplished before the dynastic period, Therefore, as a result of the actual knowledge, we are inclined to stress the points of continuity between the predynastic and dynastic periods rather then the sudden change between them, which was only a distorted view depending on the scarcity of data available in the past for the oldest phases of this culture. The German archaeologist Werner Kaiser is an outstanding figure of modern Egyptology; still young in 1957 he re- laborated Petrie's Sequence Dating chronology devising the subdivision into stufen: Nagada I, I and IIT with 11 and later 14 sub-phases; the system has carried on for forty years and has only recently undergone some corrections{ 11 In 1964 Kaiser nronosed. in an important article. that the nolitical unification of Eevnt had to be hannened somegenerations before Narmer [12]; moreover the study of the objects commonly found in cemeteries, particularly pottery, had already shown that well before this political unification, a ‘cultural unification’ had affected and amalgamated customs and traditions of the peoples living along the Nile valley. These processes must have been both prolonged ‘ones, not lasting the time span of only one or two generations, ‘As early as the Badarian and Nagada I the cemeteries denote the beginning of social stratification [13] ‘The increasingly larger funerary offerings in certain tombs, the same presence of larger tombs and wealthy burials for children, are all the expressions of two important factors: 1) diffused specifical mortuary beliefs; 2) the formation of a ruling class which did not share anymore the same destiny in life and death as the common people. The small cealitarian communities are becoming large low-density farming villages{ 14] Initially these clites lived in small villages sparsely scattered along the Nile valley; this was not very densely populated at that time; but the climatic conditions were no more favourable for a life far from the river, hence the small population, had begun to concentrate near the Nile; the agricolture and breeding, which mean better life conditions and increase in the population, were the main sources of food, but also hunt and fishing were practiced (Badarian, Naqada J) Once a group of individuals took the leadership of a larger population (for the charisma, success in battle, superstition, inclination to the power or other attributes proper of their leader), this class became the ruling one, the others the ruled, ‘The rulers exploited the lower classes who were forced to produce for them; the increasing population means larger needs of lands for cultivation and breeding; specialization of crafts requires that agricolture sustains a broader part of population; not only the rulers and their families, but also those who work for them, producing objects, building their houses, procuring them particular materials, defending them from inner and outer dangers. The storage of large quantities of products, made these centers an easy and fat prey for ravagers; but, above all, other similar centers were contemporarily growing by the same 'multiplicatory effect’ of various causes interplaying with each other. The most powerful centers of the late Nagada [ period were those controlling the Thinis- Abydos region, Nagada (Nwbt = Ombos and Ballas) and Hierakonpolis (Nekhen); before Nagada II there likely still existed at least two more independent key- areas at Abadiya (on Qena bend, between the Abydos and Nagada region, thus Hu, Abadiya, Dendera; eft, part II note 36) and in the south at Gebelein, between the Nagada and Iierakonpolis regions, These sites, possibly founded on old islands ofthe Nie (lowing within anarower “course than before), began to be fortified with massive surounding walls the wood Palisades which must have protected the olde villages fiom the bess, were no longet J) Sufficient for these centers ofthe Nagada I period; a clay model of fortification walls ipa been found at Aadiya {13} Kup ofcaciouly decribed tis stage of conflict and competition in terms of many ‘Monopoly games simultaneously played along the Nile: a combination of chances =. aca factors, enviroment, gold and other resources, xury-goods trade, military __ecetstes t-PA. victories) and personal decisions resulted in the growth of fewer and fewer centers which became more and more important and wide by conquering the territory of the neighbouring city-states. The scenario atthe end of Naqada II - beginning of Nagada IIs infact that of few regional states, each one controlling a long sector of Nile valley for many kilometers[16]. These emerging polities were ruled by authoritative chiefs who ‘were continuously strenghtening their position through warfare, monopoly of long distance trade, control of important resourees of their territory, and also elaborating @ true ideology which is evident in the objects their craftsmen produced Cpowerfacts), the first signs of display and ‘conspicuous consumption’ [17). By this time, in Upper Egypt, only the 3 principal polities centered in Abydos, Naqada and Hicrakonpolis continued to flourish; Abadiya and Gebelein had already lost their importance. (MAP) The cemeteries of Naqada, probably the largest center in the Nagada II (Perie's Gerzean) period, show a rather rapid decline in wealth, size and number of tombs during the following period Nagada III; it could be assumed that this site ‘was being eclipsed by the emerging rulers of the Thinite region, buried in Abydos cemetery U [18]; the Thinis/Abydos regional slate, alike the southern one with capital in lierakonpolis (Nekhen), lasted since the dawn of the dynastic period and probably struggled up to that time for the 'scepter of Egypt’; an alternative theory, stressing the importance of trade, would account for the decline of important centers of the past owing to the loss of their commercial importance; the Hierakonpolis leaders might have based their power on the intermediation in long distance trades between northern centers and the Lower and Upper Nubia; ifthe Thinite had begun to directly entertain commercial relations with the A-Group cultures of Seyala and Qustul [19] by-passing HK with the use of the Western Desert roads {20}, the dectine of centers like Nekhen (as perhaps Nwot - Nagada before), would find a good explanation without recurring to military conflicts. In turn the same A-Group rapidly rapidly disappeared with the beginning of the First Dynasty, when the Egyptian kings military expeditions made them capable to directly exploit the Nubian territories. Indeed its ascertained that the Thinite kings were the founders of the Ist Dynasty; the commercial contacts that had spread the Upper Egyptian culture in the north since mid- Nagada II probably (but by no means certainly) drove the main U.E, city states to found new centers in the northern lands; C. Kohler [21] has recently pointed out two important factors of this process: Von der Way's ‘cultural unification’ of Egypt did happen through peaceful interactions (trade contacts) between the Upper Egyptian Nagada Culture and the Lower Egyptian 'Maadi-Buto’; the predynastic Middle Egypt, from Badari to the Gerzah and Tarkhan areas, is now the least known region of Egypt: Kobler thinks there could have been another regional polity, the Badarian facies, in this area, which favoured the northwards expansion of theAbusir el Meleq and Tarkhan) in early Nagada II, and its superimposition in Buto Layer III, marking the beginning of its influence in the Delta, coincides with Nagada [Id2-IIla1. In this period the local (Maadi-Buto) ceramic types are substituted by a production in the distinctive forms of the Naqadan jars, and a Nagada and Near Eastern influenced mudbrick architecture makes its first appearance here in the same period. Later the earliest attestations of royal serekhs at Tarkhan (Petrie's $.D. 77-80 = Nagada IIIB-C1) and Helwan (Abydos Horus Ka) seem to show that the Upper Egyptians were now moving themselves, not only their products and culture, to the North. ‘The Memphite region was a fundamental strategic place: like the U.E. sites it was both very close to important resources and dominating the access to trade routes. Maadi-Buto sites all through the Delta had enjoyed commercial relations with the Palestine and other Canaanite city-states at least since carly Nagada; through those relations foreign pottery reached Abydos where it has been aboundantly found in the cemetery U. In the same way as with Nubia and A-Group cultures in the south, the Thinite rulers shifted their interests towards the northern rich commercial network with Palestine and Syria ‘We have said that Nagada culture spread into the Delta at the end of the phase II (42); the following period signs a progressive uniformation of the whole Egypt into one and the same civilization; but the political uniformity and the events of the phase III, remain obscure: there is not a marked funerary evidence of diffuse warfare and similar tensions; neither the Delta sites show any kind of distructional layers, ‘Maadi-Buto peoples were peaceful ones, living of their lands products and of trades; instead the southern 'Nagadians’ are supposed to have been conquerors which had become few local entities after reciprocal annihilation and consequent enlargement of the strongest proto-states[22]; but if so, where are the proofs of their violent subjugation of the Lower Egyptian region ? We'll examine these and other arguments in the next part, dedicated to Nagada III and the so called Dynasty 0, Notes of Part I [0] This part and the following ones form the core of two articles on Dynasty 0 I have submitted for a review and a [1] Victory over the Libyans (A. Schulman, BES. 11, 1992) but also other peoples have been proposed as Asiatics (Yadin, LE. 5, 1ff WS. Smith, BM.F.A, 65, 1967 p. 74M, asiatic bedouins of the N.E. frontier of Egypt) and Nubians (VOW. Fairservis jr, J.A.R.CE. 28, 1991 p.1-20; ib. p. 20: ...a memorial to Djbwty Ankh, an officer of Narmer's rlitary forces who participated inthe conquest of both banks ofthe Nile Valley south of Eda -or Nekihen- and into Northern Nubia"). [2] J. Baines in O' Connor - Silverman eds. Ancient Egyptian Kingship 1995; but note that a recently found ivory label of Narmer (M.D.A.LK. 54, 1998 p, 139) depicts the same eponymous event’ Also eft. part In. 16 [3]. Monnet Salch in B.LE.A.O. 86, 1986 and 90, 1990; H. Kantor, N.E.S. 3,194 p. 110-136+ fig. E. Baumgartel, ‘The Cultures of Prehistoric Egypt II, 1960; H. Asselberghs, Chaos en Beheersing: Documenten uit Aeneolitisch Egypte, 1961 [4] This king had succeeded, atthe end of the Second Dynasty, in reuniting Egypt after a serious crsis which had probably resulted in two contemporary ruling powers, one in the Memphite area, the other one in the Abydos or ierakonpolis region ‘The formula/ceremony "Sma Shema / Ta-Mhw" recurs during the First Dynasty on Adjib's (and pethaps also on Hor- ‘Aha's) inscribed stone vessels (Pyr Deg IV, nr. 33) and on an important ivory label of Semerkhet (from Qaa's tomb) cf. MDAIK 52, 1995, pl. 14d (lower-right part); this latter has been uncorrectly interpreted by Dreyer as a tax indication (ee ibid, p. 73-74), [5] Below their names the hieroglyph of the siting king with the Red Crown, later symbol of Lower Egypt. Of seven names fully preserved and readable, not one has been found in other contexts (...pu, Ska, Hayw, Tyw, Tjesh, NHb, Wadj?, Mekh,.). [6] The Cairo 1 fragment, for intemal reasons, must be surely placed on the left ofthe Palermo, ie. ater it (this piece is read from right to lft), at 10 yeat-compartments of distance (in ine 2). This abject probably does not belong to the same original slab as the Palermo (slight differences in the stone thickness and inthe size of the year- compartments) but this doesn't affect the discussion, The major reconstructions ofthe original slab and the reciprocal placement ofthe fingments were attempted by L, Borchardt, W. Kaiser (Z.A.S. 86, 1961, 3941), W. Barta (Z.A.S. 108, 1981, 1110), W. Helck (M.D.A.LK. 30, 1974, 3146 id., Untersuchungen zur Thinitenzeit, 1987). All agree in that the line 2 must have begun with Aha's reign (= "Menes” in their view): henceforth each king's reign is divided in rectangular compartments citing the most important events and the Nile level of every single regnal year; therefore Narmer should have been at the end of line 1 which, as we have said, only enumerates a number of earlier and nearly forgotten (mythical ?) kings. [7] The Greek historian Manetho(Ilird century B.C.) who introduced the subdivision ofthe Ancient Egyptian history into dynasties, likely used a source like the Turin Canon to compile his list; bt this latter, except for some intervals giving subtotals of yeas, isa continuous list of kings names, each with his reign duration and with no grouping into ‘dynasties’, [8] Later pharaohs used to copy the representations of ther predecessors’ military exploits; Schulman (op.cit) has shown that the names of the sons of the defeated Libyan chief , Wni and Wsa, are the same in the Abusir reliefs of ‘Sahura and Neferirkara, in the Sagara reliefs of Pepi I and I] and in those of Taharka at Kawa; these belonged respectively to the Veh, Vith and XXVth dynasty! And curiously the evo dead prisoners in the bottom register of the Narmer nalatte reverse’ are Ishellod with hiemelunhs which have mhanotioal vale "Wnt? and ‘Ga recalling the ritedWni and Wsa, (Cf. Smith, B.M.F.A, 65, 1967, 76). [9] S. Hall, The Pharaoh Smites his Enemies, 1986 (esp. p. 4-7). [10] R. Fattovich, "Elementi per una ricerca sulle origini della monarchia sacra Egiziana’, Rivista Studi Orientali 45, 133-49 describes false tail, penis sheath, crowns, maces, reed, sceptres, ritual race, gazelle and hippopotamus hunt, and some further characters common to both predynastic and dynastic sovereigns. See also n. 17. [11] W. Kaiser, Archacologia Gcographica 6, 1957, 69-77; id., M.D.A.LK. 47, 1991; S. Hendrickx, in A.J. Spencer ed, "Aspects of Early Egypt’, 1996; id., Archéo-Nil 9, 1999 p. 13ff [12] W. Kaiser, Z.A.S. 91, 1964 p. 86-125. [13] K. Bard, From Early farmers to pharaohs. Mortuary evidence ... 1994, [14] For some models of State formation ef. B.J. Kemp, Ancient Egypt. Anathomy of a Civilization, 1989; M. Hoffman et al., A Model of Urban Development... J.A.R.C.E, 23, 1986, p.75if;; C. Kohler, G.M. 147, 1995, 79ff, (see below). [15] B. Williams, Security and the problem of the city in the Nagada period’ in P. Silverman ed. 'For his Ka’ 1994 p. 271-83 [16] C. Kohler, G.M. 147, 1995 p. 79 ff; T.A.H. Wilkinson, M.D.A.LK. $6, 2000 p, 376-94, fig. I p. 379, [17] K. Bard, "Toward an Interpretation of the Role of Ideology in the Evolution of complex Society in Egypt J.A.A. 11 (1) 1992 p. 1-24; B. Trigger, ‘Monumental Architecture, a thermodynamic explanation .. W.A. 22.2, 1990 p. 119 ff. [18] T.A.H, Wilkinson, M.D.A.LK. 56, 2000 p. 377-95; id. State Formation in Egypt, 1996. But note that (as my friend John Degreef justly comments) the general mortuary evidence used as a basis to reconstruct ‘events’ could be deceiving: the abandonment of a burial ground might have completely different reasons than the political or economical decline of the center which the cemetery served. [19] The cemeteries 137 at Seyala and L at Qustul have yielded some objects of Upper Egyptian culture inspiration; a row of animals on a gold mace-handle from 137.1 and the important incense burner from L24 (with barks processions leading a ruler with White Crown, Rosette and falcon topped anonymous serekh to a palace facade structure) are dated carly Nagada III; the excavator B. Williams hypothesized a Nubian influence or origin of some of the early Egyptian state iconographic traits; but this assumption, as that of the earliest Unification of Nubia than Egypt, was made some years before the most important findings of the German archaeologists in the Abydos cemetery U. (eft. larger ‘descriptions in part IL and n, 62) [20] For which there is recent evidence in Gebel Tjawty (and Wadi Qash) newly found serekhs and graffiti: ef. Wilkinson, ‘Early Dynastic Egypt’ 1999; id. op.cit., 2000 p. 386. [21] Kohler, op. cit. inn. 16, [22] But we have already pointed also for them the importance of factors like trade and control of resources. (F.R.) wait few seconds more for pt. IT Part Il - DYNASTY 0: THE KINGS (NAQADA IIIb1,2 - early Hel) ‘When W.M-F, Petrie readily published his excavations in the cemetery B of Abydos, [1] it soon became clear to him that that some of the piece of evidence he, and E. Amelineau few years before, had found on that site, did belong to a very ancient period, one immediately preceeding the First Dynasty Horus Aha and the legendary Menes (who was then thought to have been buried in the Nagada "Tomb of Menes” discovered in 1897 by J. de Morgan) (2) The term ‘Dynasty 0', used by James E. Quibell to describe late predynastic materials he found at Hierakonpolis, was adopted by W-M. Flinders Petrie for rulers such as Ka-Ip, Ro, Zeser, Nar-Mer and Sma [3]; only more recently it has gained a general acceptance with its use by W. Kaiser [4] The Dynasty 0 rulers of Thinis/Abydos were buried in the cemetery B; its latest royal ee tomb was that of Aha (if we exclude Dreyer’ attempt to atribute B4O to Athots 1, Djer a5 stared the cemetery commonly known as Umm el Qaab which became the burial place 8 ELEDEL Bf 89£28888%p ofall the other kings ofthe First Dynasty, queen Memneith, and the hundreds of retainers = 4 slain at their burial; after a period of disuse, kings Peribsen and Khasekhemwy of the late Second Dynasty also built their tombs on this sacred ground Cemetery B, the predecessor’ of the Umm el Qaab, was in tum the continuation ofan older necropolis, some steps to the north, i. the curently excavated cemetery U. ‘What had emerged after the work ofthe archaeologists was not the only clue suggesting the existence of a "Dynasty 0” Royal Annals, Turin Canon and later Greck-Latin sources [5], proved as well that many kings had reigned in Upper and Lower Egypt before the so called 'First Dynasty’. It must be soon made a precisation: the terms ‘Dynasty 0! and ‘Dynasty 00" [6], were both cloned to account for newly found royal names and objects of older and older periods: those just mentioned found by Petrie and the more recent ones discovered by the German archaeologists directed by Gunter Dreyer (eft. below): but the word ‘dynasty’ is here somewhat improperly used, because itis often no longer applied to indicate a same line of rulers of a certain site and of equal origin (like for the Manetho's dynasties). Dynasty 0 infact, not only includes the Abydos kings of the B cemetery who preceeded Aha, but also chiefs from entirely different ruling elites of other sites like Tarkhan or Hierakonpolis;king Scorpion I and his contemporaries of Nagada IIlal-2 period, are to be considered Dynasty 00 kings within the same ‘chronological acceplation’ of the term [7] In this survey on Dynasty 0T'Il proceed in an inverse chronological order (but note that no fixed succession has been followed except for Iry Hor-Ka-Narmer; many of the following kings must have had contemporary reigns) The predecessor of Hor Aha was ceratinly the famous NARMER. Since his discovery, a century ago, almost simultaneously at Hiraconpolis by Quibell and Green and at Abydos by Petrie, many more attestations of his name (especially by pottery incised serekkis) have been found in Upper and Lower Egypt, Westem and Eastem Deserts and outside Egypt in Palestine. Narmer is one of the few single individuals of the Egyptian history before the Fourth Dynasty on whom whole books might be written; the role of this sovercign, who can be both considered the last one of Predynastic and the first onc of the Dynastic age, must have been a crucial one in the development of the early state, ‘Some uncertainties in his collocation in late Nagada IlIb2 or Nagada lel, possibly also reflect either a long reign with {important cultural transformations in act, or the fact that this figure fits equally well at the end of a period as at the beginning of a new one. ‘The long debated question of the identity of Menes is an argument which can hardly escape any discussion on such a subject: but it has been until recently treated by many scholars [8], thus I won't rchearse discussions already known and available elsewhere, because my aim here is to focus on the fresh new data and objectives, rather than to face over speculated problems, | Suffice here to underline three points: 1) none of the ‘proofs for the identity of Menes with (2) Narmer or Aha has revealed to be decisive out of any doubt: the so called 'tomb of Menes’ a Spite) giant niched mastaba at Nagada probably built forthe king's mother Neithhotep, produced an | 2:5) ivory label on which the 'Men' sign was below the shrine of the double goddesses, represented | beside the serckh of Aha. The scholars advanced scores of theories on the meaning of this . shrine(9], on the reading of the sign [10], and on the interpretation of the name Men (Menes) as that of Aha or Aha's dead father (Narmer) [11] By the same way Helek's interpretation of the "Prinzenseal" of Narmer with rows of his serekh beside the men checkboard [12), has had, with the diffusion of this opinion in some articles of the Lexicon der Aceyptologie, a certain weight in the equation Ah - Menes. Another important factor is that Menes was later said to have been the foundator of Memphis; Narmer is indeed seareely attested at Saqgara and Helwan [13], while Aha appears as the first ruler to have had a giant mastaba (S 3357) in North Saqgara (probably built for his highest official of the Memphite administration) with impressive funerary offerings [14] 2) Lhave mentioned [15] the modern interpretations of the Narmer palette and the fact that the Unification it was once thought to depict, seems to have happened well before Narmer’s reign and lasted for more than a reign or a generation 16}. 3) Despite frequent examples of misinterpretations of early dynastic writings (espec. kings’ names) by later scribes, itis not easy to think that Menes (Meni in New Kingdom lists) ought to be considered an entirely mythical figure [17]; leaving aside the latest (and more corrupted) sources we must admit that the Ramses Il period occurrance of Meni in the funerary king lists (Abydos) and Royal Canon of Turin [18] can’t be overlooked, also given the general correspondence of the other names with Nebty names attested on Ist Dynasty objects. But this name strangely appears only with the 18th and 19th dynasty ! Furthermore on the Turin papyrus it directly follows the Shemsw Hor (which in turn come after the dynasties of gods) and is written twice: on the first of the two lines with a human determinative, and ‘on the second one with the god determinative. I continue to prospect the alternative hypothesis that, whatever the ‘meaning of the 'men' on the Princes-seals of Narmer and on the Nagada and Abydos Aha label, New Kingdom scribes or priests might have mistaken archaic documents which they surely knew or they could have created a mythical figure of te initiator of the Egyptian human kingship for religious and propaganda purposes, forthe need to establish a precise point of departure of their successful kingship, state, tradition, culture[19} In 1986 the German expedition re-excavating Umm el Qa'ab and the cemeteries B and U at Abydos, found an important scal impression with the Horus names of Narmer, Aha, Djer, Djet, Den and the king's mother Memeith; some years later a new example, again with the kings’ names and the necropolis god Khentyamentiw was found containing all the names up to Qa'a, the last Thinite king of the Ist Dynasty (but now Memeith’s was excluded), ‘On both the clay impressions the oldest king in the list was Narmer: a clear statement of the light in which he was in the middle and late First Dynasty! Ifa Menes did exist, in his quality of initiator of an epoch, he would have never been preceeded by another individual's name: thus Aha can't be considered Menes and, even if Aha's reign monuments at ‘Sagara, Abydos, Naqada are much more impressive than Narmer’s ones, we can plainly believe that this depends on the fact that Aha enjoyed the wealthy state which his father (?) handed him down. As I’ ve stated above, Narmer is ‘much more attested in the whole country and abroad and his reign is marked by an evident evolution in various aspects of the culture of this growing civilization which appears to owe more to him than to Aha [20] ‘Many more objects bearing the name of Narmer are known: in the Hierakonpolis temple Main Deposit’, together with the Great Palette and further older objects, it was also found a small decorated ivory cylinder with the Nar-fish of his name handing a reed towards three rows of Libyan prisoners; another well known and widely discussed and deserihed object is Narmer’s Macehead:very important is also the 1998 finding at Abydos, a label with the year-event depicting the same military victory as on the palette and the cited ivory (sce n.16 and part In.2); the recent book of T.A.H. Wilkinson has a good summary of the sources for this king [21]; however it doesn't include some pieces which have ‘often been related (indced without any sure ground to do it) to ‘Narmer, as the unprovenanced king's head in University College {he proposes a Second Dynasty date for it), or the ivory statuette from Abydos in the British Museum, or, possibly, the limestone stela fragment from Abydos (U.C. 14278; it might have belonged to Horus Aha); furthermore Narmer’s serekh is on the base of a statue of Baboon, the god Hedj-Wrr, in Berlin [22], and (almost completely erased) on the thigh of one of the three Copios Colossi, the one in Cairo ‘Museum (incisions) [23]. A 6,Sem diorite male head found in 1898 by F.W. Green at Hierakonpolis, is at Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (109.1898); there's no trace of it neither in the original publication nor in B. Adams’ publication of Green's MS and in the distribution lists (Ancient Hierakonpolis. Supplement, 1974), but it is proposed as ‘perhaps representing king Narmer’ (thanks to Laura degli Esposti for informing me of this attribution; ef. Fitzwilliam Museum object label and the on-line catalogue). Indeed, considering. ‘material and styl, itis more likely of 2nd-Srd Dynasty, besides not necessarily a royal portrait, A stone vessel from Djoser's complex at Saggara (note 13) has his serekh incised, some vessels from Abydos bear his serekh in relief and a couple of cylinder jars from Tarkhan (?) are inscribed in ink with Narmer’s Horus name. Its not sure if Nar(mer) rather than Scorpion or [Ra]Neb is the inscription in the lower half ofa serekh incised on the left part of the thorax of a statuette (h 11,2em) in Miinchen St, Samm. AK(7149) (ef. the earlier Oxford -"MacGregor" man [1922.70] and the Third Dynasty Brooklyn Museum [58192] Onuris statuette). |As I have said above, Narmer is attested in the Desert (graffiti around Hierakonpolis, Wadi |Qash, Gebel Tiawty, Coptos). [NOTA: removed passage on Westem Desert graft) Yet most of the occurances off Narmer's name is on jars and jar fragments; an astonishing jaumber of serekhs has emerged in the last 25 years irom excavations in Isracl and Palestine (Tel Erani, Arad, En Besor, Half Tettace/Nahal Tillah and mote) signifying an apex of commercial contacts between Egypt and Canaan (in comparison, such proofs are less frequent for the preceeding and following periods). ‘Some more serekhs have been excavated at Minshat Abu Omar (44.3), Tell Ibrahim Awad and Tell Fara'in-Buto in the Delta and at Kafr Hassan Dawood (913) in a ¢. 1000 tombs cemetery on the southern limit ofthe Wadi Tumilat Dreyer interprets a mark on ajar in a private collection (cf. n, 22) as an estate of Narmer in the Eastern Delta, ‘There isa slight possibility that a Nagada IIIbI ruler with the name Nar did exist: a couple of serekhs of this one appear 6n too early jars types (eft. n. 22 and n, 50); but all the other forms ‘Nar’ do belong to Narmer. Infact his name often recurs in this abbreviated form with only the Nar sign; itis unlikely tha, as it was hypothesized, the use of the writing ’Nar’ was (always) from the latter part of his reign [24]. ‘Narmer was buried in the sacred necropolis (B) of Abydos, tomb B17/18 (two united rectangular mudbrick-lined chambers; tot. length c. 10m x 3,00-3,10 large and 2,50-2,80 deep); itis few meters north of the westemmmost chamber (B10) of his follower Aha (Kaiser-Dreyer, M.D.A.LK. 38, 1982, 220-221). ‘Some meters to the north of Narmer's, a true double chamber tomb B97 (these two are circa 1,80 meters distant; BY is c, 5,9 x 3,lm; B7 is c. 6x 3,2 m; both are c. 1,9m deep), produced inscriptional material of his, predecessor: his name, KA, also appears in atleast two different writing forms: with the standard 'ka’ sign | and with the same sign but upset; because this latter can also have a different reading, ic. the verb "to embrace’, P. Kaplony proposed (1958) to read the name Seken. More than 40 inseriptions have been found in Ka's burial chamber (B7, the southern of the two) of the Abydos tomb: one is a seal impression, all the remaining ones are inscribed on tall jars or cylinder vessels (incised or written in black ink). FMB Apart trom this sit, the only further attestation of Ka in Upper Egypt is a carbon Ja scription on ajar fragment recently found at Adama (N, Grimal in BLF.A.O. 9, (48 1999 p. 451 fig. 1; more inscriptions in van den Brink, Archéo-Nil 11, 2001 in print) ao Other traces of Ka have been found in northem sites: in the cemetery A of Tarkhan an ink "Dig? Sf inscribed cylinder vessel from tomb 261, and in Helwan tombs 1627 H2 and 1651 H2 two tall jars with incised inscriptions; a couple of inscribed vessels fragments are Unprovenanced, ‘A new serekh has been found on pottery by F. Hassan in tomb 1008 at Kafr Hassan Dawood, at the southem boundary of the Wadi Tumilat (Hassan in E.A. 16, 2000, 37-9), and another one is known from a pottery fragment from Tell Ibrahim Awad (van den Brink, The Nile Delta... . 52 fig. 8.2). Finally there is a cylinder seal from Helwan 160.113 with an anonymous serekh and a human figure beside it; this has his arms raised and the right hand appears to be partly placed in the serekh, just nearby to where the name would be ‘written; A.J. Serrano has thus proposed that this figure could designate the king and his royal name -Horus Ka-contemporarily [25] ‘The serekh is probably anonymous and of slightly earlier date than Ka's reign, as Dr. C. Koehler believes. ‘The stratigraphic analysis at cemetery B seems to confirm that Ka immediately preceeded Narmer; indeed there are some inconsistenies: an important tall jar type which has been used before and after Ka's reign, has never been found during his own. ‘A recent useful innovation in the study of this period has been achieved by E.C.M. van den Brink [26] he has produced a catalog of 24 complete jars with incised serekhs of Nagada IIIb-c1. The interest of this work is in that, contrarily to two older corpora provided by W. Kaiser in 1964 and 1982, van den Brink's has been prepared giving much more than a superficial consideration to the pottery types on which the serekhs are incised. The analysis of the pottery types has resulted in a distribution of the serekhs within four main phases corresponding to the development of the jars types; this comparative study has succeeded in fixing a more certain chronological frame for some royal names of Nagada IIIb; although few minor problems do arise [27] this system has offered a valuable means of relative datation of these names and it has even avoided the weak points inherent to Kaiser's subdivision into three 'Horizonten’ ZBI Before continuing to ascend the Abydene line of Dynasty 0 we must consider two rulers who have left a} no trace of themselves at Abydos; King SCORPION (I]), and Horus Crocodile, Both are known by <4 very few inscribed objects, > The particularity ofthese rulers is thatthe epigraphy, provenance and typology of their sources speaks for a datation surely not post-Narmer and very likely neither pre- Ka, They might be thought to represent 'Gegenkonigen’ (as Dreyer defines Crocodile) thus rebels or usutpers; more likely they were the last expressions of ancient local indipendent ruling lineages which ceased to reign only when the powerful kings of the Thinite region moved northward to occupy the terrtiries with which, until then, they had only entertained peaceful commercial relations; but in this respect the position of Scorpion IT at Hierakonpolis is harder to explain and Dreyer thinks this was a Thinite king too. The different T= Writing of his name and the Nekhen finds can't be a certain indication of the Hierakonpolite origin of Scorpion Il: Iry Hor had a different royal name mark too, and Narmer was also known at Nekhen. ‘The giant macchead of Scorpian from Hierakonpolis (it's bigger than Narmer’s) is another important masterpiece of the period; for tis reason (as well as for its being virtually the only object surely atributable to this king, for the debates ‘on the ritual it depiets and for some further motives) this macchead is of public domain in the field of divulgative Egyptology; there is no need to add a detailed description; | only remark that the name of this king is not written in the serekh and is not surmounted by Horus; the expression for ‘sovereign’ is rendered by the 'Rosette' [28]; Cialowiez thinks that atthe right end of the rows of Rekhyt-bows standards and dancers in the upper registers, there would be the standing king Scorpion represented (in higher scale) with the red crown of Lower Egypt (eft. Adams - Cialowiez, Protodynastic Egypt, 1997 fig.l). ‘Another macehcad from the same cachette at Hicrakonpolis, far more fragmentary than the already fragmentary previous one, shows a king sitting under a canopy; he wears the red erown and the Heb Sed robe; Arkell interpreted a slightly visible sign before the head as a Scorpion [29]; Adams has found no trace ofthe rosette in a break in front of| the red crown curl; therefore the object could belong to another king of the period immediately before Narmer (or ‘Natmer’s own): I would suggest thatthe fragmentary glyph might be interpreted as @ standard with a crocodile whose tail hangs down (Horus Crocodile 2). Cialowiez has given a convincing interpretation ofthe scene as the Sed celebration after a military victory of Scorpion (or Narmer); tothe right of the sitting king, in the centre of the scene, there is a big falcon (tured towards the king) holding in the claws a rope which directs to the right-end of the preserved fragment; here, behind and in a lower position than the falcon, there must be a number of prisoners (one ear is clearly visible) which the rope Kept during their presentation to the king by Horus. ‘The last reluctantly accepted piece of evidence for king Scorpion Il isa graffito in Upper Nubia, Gebel Sheikh Suleiman (30) It is not far from the notorious graffito now in Khartoum Museum: it represents a scorpion with a prisoner into its claws; two more human figures with a bow and false tails, are directed towards the captive and the scorpion. This scene could, in my opinion, be far earlier than the presumed time of Scorpion II: its surely related to a chief, but I would prefer a date in Nagada Illa (Scorpion 12) or even late Nagada Il ‘The date is fer more certain for an alabaster vessel from Quibell and Green's Hierakonpolis excavations: but the scorpions and bows which surround its body can't be attached with full confidence to king Scorpion; a larger group of objects which would be assigned to this king's reign has been proposed by Kaplony (31]: but it can't be assumed that almost any known late predynastic representation of scorpions ought to refer to the king in object. ‘The tomb of Scorpion II has never been found; Dreyer and Hoffman have speculatively proposed respectively the 4- chambers Abydos B50 and the Hierakonpolis loc. 6 tomb 1 [32]. Therefore the slight traces of Scorpion II hinder any safe reconstruction about the place of origin of this obscure sovereign and his role in the late predynastic history. ‘A royal name within a falcon topped serekh incised on a jar from tomb 160.1 at Minshat Abu ‘Omar has been altematively read as Aha and Scorpion. The sign does look like a scorpion, curved with both the tal (which is drawn above the body) and the head looking rightward, whereas the falcon looks towards the left, Van den Brink has proposed that this sign might be an ‘upset variant of the coil identified by Dreyer on two vessels and a seal impression from Tarkhan foe helevw F23715, [Kaiser and Kaplony read their serekhs name as Scorpion (with the tail fnow curved below the animal); but this is impossible because the [scorpion would have on both the examples an opposite orientation than foot the M.A.O. one), a king CROCODILE, ruler of the Tarkhan region; he also advanced that to tis king might belong the apparently anonymous serekh (? ef. n, 36) (surmounted by a bull's ead and surrounded by crocodiles) on a seal impression also found by Petrie at Tarkhan (tomb 414, Narmer’s reign)[36]. Contrarily to Kaiser and Kaplony, Dreyer (thanks to new infrared photos) doesn't see only one sign in the ink serekhs, ‘but a crocodile (in profile) above a coil of rope (eff. note 39), T must now make a remark: the M.A.O. 160.1 has much more distinction between a squarish body and a slender linear tail, but I suggest that a crocodile would not be depicted, even in a cursive and stilized writing, as an animal with two very distinct parts of the body (cfr hieroglyphs of other animals as bees, searabs, birds), because it has @ uniform shape from his head to almost all the tail length; so this is surely not a crocodile. The sign looks more like a scorpion (this ‘must not necessarily mean that it belongs to king Scorpion Il of Hierakonpolis, it might also be another omonymous sovereign). The alternative proposed by van den Brink is also interesting (note 33) becuse he thinks that the only coil is, hore represented, thus (Crocodile) The Subduer (sn) The crocodile is gencrally depicted in profile (with straight or curved tail) not to be confused with the lizard [37]; the scorpion sign here is identical with the Gardiner’s sign G 4 (fear’) which is used in Saqgara king list and Turin Canon as a later variant of the mid Second Dynasty king's name Sened. ‘This makes what we have assumed to be the scorpion tail become the head of a goose; and this isthe only way to account for the animal to look towards the opposite direction than Horus (unless considering it as an unlikely kind of politcal statement against the other Horus kings of the country), because the sig ‘sna is always written withthe body in accordance to the writing direction and the curved snout and face in the opposite direction (cfr the Saqgara King list and Turin Canon). ‘Therefore the two vessels in Tarkhan t, 315 and 1549 could not name Scorpion (Ll) but a Nagada IIIb2 king whose name can be read Horus Sened, ‘The Dreadful [38] or (if two signs are involved as Dreyer has hypothesized) Crocodile the Subduer [39] ‘The oldest king known from Abydos necropolis B is IRY HOR. His name was read Ro’ by Petrie but the identification as a royal name was considered doubtful ‘because the falcon is directly placed on the mouth sign and it never appears in a serekh; only since an article of Barta (G.M. 53, 1982 p. 11-13) and the publication of the second DAIK (re)excavations campaign at Umm el Qaab his status and reading as king ‘Iry Hor' has been almost universally accepted; Wilkinson has advanced this could be a treasury mark; Kaplony read it, since 1963, as a private name Wr-Ra (thus interpreting the bird as a wr swallow) [40]. ‘Many jar fragments from the chamber BI (c. 6 x 3,5) of his double tomb (B12) ‘were incised with this name; the German equipe excavation of B2 (m. 4,3 x 2.45) produced another incised jar fragment plus eight ink inscriptions and a private seal impression, vessels fragments with the name of Narmer and Ka and parts of a bed, in particular a fine ivory fragment of bull-leg bed-foot. An offering pit BO is immediately south of B2. ‘Two seal impressions with rows of Hor+mouth (no register line) are known: one from Abydos B1 and another from debris of tombs 786-89 at Zawiyet el Aryan [41]; this latter is the only signal of the presence of Iry Hor outside of Abydos necropolis, if we exclude a further uncertain incision on a spindle whorl from Hierakonpolis (42) Few meters north of Iry Hor’ B 0/1/2 there are 3 tombs (X, Y, Z) which link the B ‘cemetery with the more ancient cemetery U; some of its latest tombs (U-j, U-k, U- s, U-E, U-g, Usb, U-i, U-t and the cited U-x, U-y, U-z datable to Nagada illa2-b1) prosecute towards the past the history of the Abydos chiefs; they will be analyzed in a further study ("Dynasty 00"). We leave now definitively Abydos to consider royal names from other cemeteries Note that (contra Kaiser, Dreyer, van den Brink and partly T. Wilkinson) Stan Hendrickx doubts that all the serekhs I am going to consider from early Nagada B actually do represent royal names (G.M. 2001 in print) ‘Three pear-headed mace signs form the name of another king whose serekhs were found at Turah [43]; these have both three circles below the serekh and no falcon atop it. These signs substitute the palace facade device inthe serek, and only @ narrow empty space (where the name is usually written) is left in the upper part. But a variant of the same ‘name was found somewhere in the Eastern Delta. with the nalace facade lines. the three maces in the namereigns of Iry Hor, Ka, early Narmer, Crocodile and Scorpion. 'e® the writing showed instead tree maces the reading would be Hedjw / HEDJW-HOR. or Nagada IIIb! [47]; the serekhs have only an horizontal line in the name-space, so, despite the lack of the falcon, they're usually read NYHOR, Sometimes they have been read as a variant of Narmer's name [48]: a serekh of this latter (2) from Erbet el-Tell [49] has the Nar sign represented just as an horizontal stroke. Another serekh has been always considered to be of Narmer: it was found by Petrie in Tarkhan tomb 1100; the (complete) jar inscription has the Nar fish inside the serekh (no falcon upon) and a kind of mer-hoe below it; Helck supposed this sign was an altemative tothe ‘mer chisel forthe second part of the kins name; but probably the hieroglyph is Gardiner sign U13-14 (shen'a, deposit ‘The problem with this vessel arises by its form typology (74b), whichis v.d Brink type IIb: too early for Narmer's reign; indeed the horizontal hieroglyph is here not a simple stroke but it closely resembles the body of the Naish [50]. HAEHOR js the reading of a serekh om jac from Tarkhan tomb 1702 (as for Nj-Hor ths serekh is falconless 00, s0 the reading could be simply Hat or Haty [51]; the name sign would be probably associated with Nar(mer) too ifthe jar on which itis incised (type 74b) wasn't of too early a type for Narmer’s reign which is Nagada IITb2- el. in Two more serekhs from Turah are dated in v, den Brink phase/typology IIb (Kaiser, 1982 Horizont A) The earliest serekhs of Nagada IIIb1 (van den Brink type Ia) are, alike the oldest of those emerged from the necropolis, U.at Abydos ({Ia2) [52], anonymous and without falcon atop of them, The only exception is provided by five known attestations of an anonymous serekh surmounted by two falcons facing each other. sdat soon recognized as archaic; their provenance was a site few miles distant, fnown as El-Beda, where they had been found during the planting of a palm-grove [Led to that place Cledat found more fragments in the debris, but, when he returned jonce again in the following year he only gathered few flints [53]. In his publication he reported three serekhs with the double falcon and another one with only a strange mark on its right (see below and 1.56). In 1912 it had already been published the excavation in Turah by Junker; in a tomb at Ezbet Luthy (SS) [54] some years before, a complete jar with the Double-falcon serekh had been found. ‘The fifth inscription of Double Falcon is on a jar from Sinai [55]; all the S incised serekhs have a mark con the right (but the Turah on the left). Dreyer (M.D.A.LK. 55, 1999, 1ff) thinks the upper part of two of the serekhs from el-Beda represents a 'dw’ related to the royal name Double-Falcon (he considers dw as a variant of the three-mounts sign khaset) which might have influenced later concave-top serekhs. The last known Double-Falcon serckh fragment has been found at Tell Ibrahim Awad (van den Brink, Nile Delta p.52 fig. 8.1), More inscriptions of Double Falcon will be published by van den Brink in Archéo-Nil 11, 2001 in print. Arrelicf on a slate palette in Geneva shows a standard (?) with two falcons facing cach other, beside it there is the curly tail dog which is also found on the Brooklyn Muscum Knife handle from Abu Zeidan tomb 32 (early Naqada II, eft Needler, 1984), on the Pitt-Rivers comb, and on the Gebel Arak and Gebel Tarif knife-handles (see their pictures below, in the Conclusions). ‘Southern Palestine, ‘One of the fragments Cledat found at El-Beda had and incised serekh (without name-compartment) with a strange mark on its right: it could perhaps represent a name, Ka(2)-Neith [56] ‘Two complete jars with serekh have been found at Rafiah, Southern Palestine [57], one on a ved. Brink type Ia and another on a type I jar; type I corresponds with late stufe IIIa2 / early I1Ib1 to which two more examples are added by van den Brink: they are anonymous serekhs on two jars from tombs 1021 and 1144 at Abusir el Meleq [58] Early Nagada IITb1 are the Abydos tombs U-s (119) and U-t (120) which yielded some ink anonymous serekhs [59] ll ’ Anonymous serekhs are being somewhat frequently found in Delta, Upper and Lower Egypt, but also in ‘The study of these inscriptions provide important informations about the oldest forms of writing and their use: this always concemms the royal propaganda and the royal administration, ‘They can give interesting clues about the regional authority of the rulers and the range of their commercial - exploitative activities, Indeed it is very difficult trying to trace the area of influence of many of these local chiefs basing on few inscriptions only. The problem is that all the rulers attested in Nagada IIIB (= b1-2), with the exception of the Thinite line Iry Hor- ‘Narmer, have not been documented by royal tombs of their own but only from inscriptions found in their dignitaries’tombs, in desert graffiti or on some unprovenanced objects. In this respect it is noteworthy the material excavated in urban or cultual areas as those reached by the German at Tell Fara‘in Buto where serekhs have been found too. Ancient royal inscriptions reported in the desert sites can be a valid suggestion not only to know the paths to some resources but also fo understand possible directions of commercial or ‘colonial’ interest (as the discussed case of the Wadi Qash and Djebel Tjawty or those in Nubia. During the 1910-11 archaeological survey of Nubia, C.M. Firth found at Sayala in a disturbed tomb (n.1 of cemetery 137) a gold mace-handle (now lost) decorated with embossed motives representing rows of animals, a typical late ‘Nagada theme often found on ivories, bones, combs and knife-handles (60]. This object was probably imported from Upper Egypt; the chiefs of the Seyala polity controlled the entrance to the Wadi Allaqi (rich in gold mines) and a part of the trade circuit between Egypt and Upper Nubia. Some of the graves in cemetery 137 had sandstone slabs as a roof and the mentioned tomb I also contained two Egyptian palettes, two stone vessels, two mace heads (each one with gold hhandle) and other status-marking objects; thus Seyala must have been an important trade center which, as possibly the whole A-Group and the much later C-group culture, benefited of the role of mediation in the complex net of interexchange of products between Upper Nubia and Upper Egypt and beyond; near Seyala there were found rock drawings with reprsentations of boats in the peculiar style of Nagada Ile excavations have been published by B. Williams; they show clear traces of Egyptian influence. The most important tomb of the cemetery (L) was L24, in which a stone decorated fragment from an incense bummer revealed an astonishing representation of a boat procession towards a palace facade building; the first boat carries a prisoner held onto a seat by another individual; the central boat carries the king, sitting and equipped with ong robe, flail and white erown; he faces towards the last boat as te falcon on the serekh ‘which is justin front of his head followed by a 9 slender petals rosette; before the last boat an arpoon, a rampant antelope and a man and, below the prow ofthe last boat a kind of saw-fish saw (eft. those on Coptos Colossi) and a big fish. The last boat is occupied by a wild animal (halfway between bull and lion) followed by a faleon (?) topped standard [61]. Another incense burner was found in tomb LL (below). Such a evidence, even not lacking chronological problems, was interpreted by the excavator as a proof fora possible Nubian A-group influence on the Egyptian state formation! Now thal excavations in the cemetery U at Abydos have brought to the light a series of early Nagada Ill royal tombs (the 12-chambers U5 is contemporary or earlier than Qustul L24) this theory needs no altemative discussions to be disproved (but indeed K. Seele and B. Williams proposed an early Nagada Illa datation for the "Archaic Horus" burner from L11, the Qustul burner of L24 and the emergence of the Nubian monarchy -ofr B. Williams, op.cit. 1986, 1987) Some ofthe paintings on vessels from the tombs of Qustul have motifs related to the late Nagada l- early Nagada I Egyptian iconography, especially the bowls from tombs L19 and L23 (see figure below; this parallels the similarities between the A-group incense burners (but also scals -cf. below- and the Sayala macc-handle) and the Upper Egyptian ‘ 4 \ = Cross-comparisons of ceramic types (in the richest tombs there was also pottery imported from Upper Egypt and. Palestine) lead us to prefer a later Nagada IIIb1-2 date for the emergence and apex of this Ta-Seti state into the A- Group culture. Initial A-Group coincides with Nagada I, terminal A-Group with Early Dynastic period; military raids and the more frequent presence of Ist Dynasty rulers in Nubia likely aimed to obtain a direct control of the products trades with the lucrative markets of the far south (felines pelts, elephant tusks, gold, resins, timber, apes and other exotic genders), therefore when Egypt was capable to bypass or to abolish the costly intermediation of A-group centers, this culture rapidly declined, and certainly the military intervention of Egypt accelerated its complete extinction, ‘Another tomb (L2) at Qustul contained, among some objects, a eylinder jar (net-painted decoration) and, above all, a storage jar [62] inscribed with a falcon on a squarish sign it has been read PE-HOR. This possible royal-name was incised, unlike most ofthe serckhs on jars, post - firing; in these circumstances, as van den Brink notices [63], the clay can’t consent easy round seratches as when it's wet, but, like in tock graffiti, it forces the engraver to produce mostly squatish signs. T; Wilkinson [64] states that the inscription may merely represent a ownership mark, This latter author recalled the attention on {wo rock graffiti (which he never coupled with the one from Qustul) {651 whose serekh contained, just below the faleon. a sign he reads P (lthosh in one of the two inscriptions it‘has more rounded horizontal sides); even harder to interpret is the lower sign, which rests with some vertical strokes cone the base of the serekh and has a rounded upper part; Wilkinson proposes it could be ‘spt’ (Gardiner D24) or more likely "khent’ (Q3) comparing it with similar signs in Den's domain 'Hor Sckhenty Dw’ on seal impressions [66]. But almost certainly this is not a ‘khent’, which would be drawn with the vertical signs partly overlapping and surpassing the upper horizontal curve, I would propose two alternatives: the lower sign could be either the one of serekh panelling or the profile of an animal with tail and snout bent close to the ground[67]. Infact G. Dreyer (Umm el-Qaab I, 1998 p. 179) reads it P + Elephant. ‘The first evidence to suggest the possibility of a Nubian (A-Group) proto-state "Ta-Set' during early Nagada III was a seal impression from Siali, found in 1960 by K. Seele. It represents a sitting, bearded, bare, roler(?) apparently saluting with his hand the Te-Seti glyphs (Land of bows). There arealsoa | AV“) | falcon atop a niched building (in Kaplony this seems an ensete tree; note the differences in the ‘airts| interpretation of the impression by Williams and Kaplony), an anonymous falcon-topped serekh (maybe two) (near the head ofthe siting man) and some hounds (or monkeys). Over the nested rectangles-palace with falcon there are two "D-Pylons" (2) and seven circles with a projection from their upper part; finally, alike on the Qustul burner and on the Metropolitan Museum knife-handle, there is a crescent and also the strange wavy band (fale tal ? Cf. below) Since long before this later finding, a seal from Faras (near Qustul) was known displaying the same kind of Palace Facade (Williams, INES, 46,24; LAS. fig. 884, no falcon), a Sal The southernmost attestation ofa possibly Dynasty 0 serek is that at Gebel Sheikh Suleiman, near Wadi Halfa and Buhen (lind cataract, 50 Km south of Qustul). This graffito (now in Khartoum . Museum) had been interpreted as reporting a military raid of king Djer, early First Dynasty [68]. W. Hclck expressed first doubts about the reading as Djer, proposing the serekh ought to have been an anonymous one [69]. This was further developed after a new analysis by Mumane [70] showing thatthe 'djer’ sign was a deeper and later antelope facing left. Despite the now widely accepted datation to the Dynasty 0 (Nagada IIIb!) I woulda't exclude a priori (on the basis of the iconography and falcon! serekly cities signs) possible lower date up tothe Hind dynasty [71] Thos arn nssipins om Tata mst no be reviewed they at two seeks Gom iombs 415.80 cemetery Ayan (SD. Ro com. L?) anda pousbe pat oan om 413.7 sem. A) Tomb 3 srk hasbeen quate Namer een 204 long beaed fon surmount the srk fom, 300; 90 roughly aa sgsn he ane ane at pasty rena of Aa ae (731 Theoldeto ete msrption (ed. 7) wih no seek, Was ea ate pate ame Dehsty Merby Pee; ithas bomn considered a royal nameby Kate, whl reper (74 conpars he bi ite con of pevously eat ssc taut to Aba. Therfre th two sry rval mais song ese the tink nro shuld Be date 0 aod [eps Thpsmonsttemos ingot deat bet of yay Oat oi Mop Maser PSR ata Now York ain NTN Werave sey considered he wegen dev called Rose appesting aa mark of epaly = (cp) neat the name of Scorpion TT and the Qustl incense bummer ruler into a boat (and as a ttle oF amet ofl or pest onthe Nar at) The race ln scompaigs a ose seth (a ole erased sigs (ete) which pest nest anier whe cow king on he ight hard ee Matalin scum ke ade recto [75]. As on the Qustul object this ivory handle represents a boats procession. The king with flail sits in an high prow/tem bat acing a paling ovata standard wish has wo resents po towing tes) om he Pelco te sundad rope appara ch fur beds before which hve ithe ne eneny Bead = pap sig Samouned by Hors on Nama lee oro, apy and undecphrbl sigs Below how tes canoe eats probably ind by a era (Per sin; i lt oat onthe ig ars Dende man is are (had front of his face); this man is thus depicted just below the king; behind his head there's a kind of thick wavy band (Simro lhe wast ofthe man standing before the Bulls boat on te Qs ens ue) whch could ep of the boat stem (the following boat has a lotus-bloom like sign on the stern, not beside it). ‘The verso of the knife handle shows two rows of men turned towards a mat-work and niches shrine (Pet Wr?) dppeenlysuroaded by wae tees aman nelng behind he vine ade lower oma of even kein the aquting ikon kas mised a pil pose of the prise) pesade byte vaing King wih whit cow tthe upperow renin ve pay vale baded mon hldng nthe anda Kind of ok eng on he Shout inte night had ie bent and ince handle towing stk, The pace between he ors behind thokings head iscompltcy dtced ma TREK? The other object is the Metropolitan Museum decorated palette [76] . It is decorated on one side only and shows the typical scenes with animals and monsters within a frame provided by the two rampant ccanids (Lycaons) forming the unpreserved edge of the palette, Above a coiled snake, which forms the usual circle for grinding powder, there isa falcon topped anonymous serekh: itis low in heightsign to be very similar to that on the Narmer (?) stela fragment from Abydos [77], it slightly |-esembles ‘men’ and 'djer’ hieroglyphs too. AY not the place for a detailed discussion of the palette and its probable chronological position fclatively to the other palettes. We must here only underline the importance of the serekh which indicates that other more developed Hpalcttcs must have been late Dynasty 0 productions and many of them (as the Bull, Tchenw, $Battleficld palettes) certainly even contained, in their lost portions, the royal names of some of the Dynasty 0 kings we have reviewed here [78]. Despite the recent occurrance of a decorated palette at {Mfinshat Ezzat in a middle First Dynasty context (with tools with Den's serekh) this latter palette fmust have been a two centuries old ceremonial object for that time and all these palettes do remain chronologically linked with the period Nagada Ilfal/2-b1/2 (Hendrickx’s A1/2-B) [79] The possible royal names Dreyer proposes to read on the Coptos Colossi and on some seal impressions, tags and. vessels inscriptions from Abydos cemetery U, will be considered in the page of Dynasty 00/Naqada (Tle-d2/) I1Ta1-2. For some more Dynasty 0 royal names which have been published after this page was finished (or which Ihave known, later) see the Table of Royal Names [*Nj-Neith, *Hwt-Hor (?) and the Adaima serekh (Horus Ka ?)] CONCLUSIONS: ‘The Nagada IIB ‘culture’ can now be analyzed through a considerable number of found-types: pottery and stone vessels, decorated- palettes, -knife handles and -ivories, other gravegoods, desert graffiti, tombs. But this apparently densely populated scenario is instead somewhat hard to be satisfactorily figured out. ‘One of the major lacunae is the lack of known royal cemeteries other than the Abydos B and Qustul L necropolis. Despite the good picture we are depicting of Hierakonpolis (espec. loc. 6 and 29A) and the data from the Memphis/Fayyum area and Delta, no other royal tomb hhas ever been located of Nagada IIIbI,2 period, Serekhs continue to emerge from private tombs (*), but itis very hard to reconstruct the history of Late Predynastic Egypt without other ‘precious pieces’ of this complex puzzle. Delta sites as Tell Fara'in-Buto and Tell Farkha are noteworthy for their urban - templar contexts, ‘Aatifats like the knife handles of Gebel Tarif, Gebel el Arak, Camsarvon, University College (see figure) and Brooklyn Museum, or the Metropolitan Museums Davis comb and others, are known since long time (see them all here) [80]; the same goes for the corpus of Ceremonial Slate Palettes; they demonstrate the existence of a still partially obscure world of 'visual metaphors’ pertaining tothe ideology and to the ‘atistial’ expression of well formed leading rminds. Another ivory knife handle, very similar to the one from Gebel Arak, has been found in tomb U-503 (see below) at ‘Abydos, dating Nagada Ild2. And the german excavators ofthe cemetery U have also published some late Nagada | vvessels which provide us the earliest attestation of motives common to the later royal iconography [81]. This was already ‘announced! too by well known representations like the Hierakonpolis tomb 100 paintings, the Gebelein cloth, the Nagada jar-fragment red crown and mote [82]. Therefore the process of origin and evolution of the most ancient proto-state(s) must be investigated since a period which is very distant from the time of "Menes", and which involves the need to fill up many gaps (eft. below). Of course the prime mover of our deeper knowledge and understanding of this ‘historical’ periods and its products lies always beneath the ground: like for the deciphering of unknown scripts (or for the interpretation of forgotten languages) the principal aid comes from the variety of sources. The more documents we have, the easier our task. But I have likewise expressed above (part 1) the need for multidisciplinary approaches to practical and theorical questions: in other words its important to try to see our objectives from different points of view (not only art history, philology, archaeology, but also palaeobotany, geology, anthropology, semiothic, sociology, history of religions, statistics, ethnology and others) like indeed it's happening in these last decades [83]. ‘The problem of the reliefs earved on palettes and knife-handles, apart from the meaning of their symbolism, is that nearly all of them are unprovenanced, thus without an archaeological contest which may indicate their datation, Only the Abu Zcidan t. 32 knife handle and few more had a precise chronological collocation, ‘The mentioned German excavation at Abydos have produced some additional important evidence which can be useful to set these categories of objects into a better defined chronological framework: in part IIL’ Il try to elaborate a sequence of the known palettes and knife handles, starting from these objects as the Knife handle from Abydos U-503 or the fragments from tomb 2-127; both tombs date Nagada IId; I would suggest that such a date, earlier than Abu Zeidan knife handle in Brooklyn (Early Nagada IIL in W. Needler, 1984), suggests thatthe reliefs with rows of animals ‘were contemporary, not earlier, than those with human figures and boats. Alternatively the Brooklyn ivory handle would have been already c, two centuries old an object when it was buried in tomb 32 (other implications of the datation of U-127 handle, will be dealt with below in pt. IID. Therefore the first need is always that for newer and newer archaeological campaigns. Related to this aspect is the necessity for an equal consideratrion of the territory: until recently the Delta was a big question mark many scholars didn't hesitate to define "a closed book". Kaiser, Bietak, Wildung, Von der Way, van den Brink, Kroeper and many others have contributed to open that book. Now it is the Middle Eeypt, between Badari and Gerzah, the least known part of the Nile valley [84] ‘There is a number of further question marks like the Mesopoltamian influences, the writing in Nagada IIlal,2, themeaning of some enigmatical representations, the relative and absolute order of ceremonial palettes, knife-handles, maceheads, pottery types, the horizontal stratigraphy of whole cemeteries, foreign commercial contacts, chronological problems and correlations with Near Eastern phases, stages and modalities of tae successful expansion of the Nagada culture and the state formation, ‘After this introduction on the footprints of the Dynasty 0 rulers, I am going to consider, in part III, some specifical problems concerning their world. It's difficult to understand a culture only by means of some of its aspects; we have no transparent documentation of the political, social, economical and religious systems of the earliest state, Only few clues which must be carefully analyzed and interpretated, ‘Some of the hypothesis we actually do accept might be disappointed in the future, It's still a long way to go: the main point is that we are already walking it Notes of Part Il [1] Petri, Royal tombs pt. I, 1900, id, Royal Tombs pt. Il, 1901, id., Abydos pt. I, 1902; For general discussions ofthe period see J. Vandier, Manuel «' Archaeologie Egyptienne I, 1952; 1. Hayes, The Sceptre of Egypt, 1953; B. Trigger in Trigger, Kemp, 0' Connor, Lloyd eds, The Rise of Egyptian... 1-70, 1983; W. Helek, Untersuchungen 7ar Thinitenzeit,1987 (esp. p. 90-99); T.A'H. Wilkinson, State Formation in Egypt, 1996; id, Early Dynastic Egypt, 1999, exp. 47-59; id. MD.ALK. 56, 2000; Himenez Serrano, Los Reyes del Predinistico Tardio (Naqada IID, in: BAEDE 10, 2000, 33-52; K. Cialowiez, La Dynastie 0, eonquerants ou administrateurs 2 in Studies in Ancient Art and Civilization, 1.7, 1995 p. 7-23; id, La Naissance ..., 2001; S. Hendrickx, Arguments for an Upper Egyptian Origin of the Palace- Facade and the Serekh during Late Predynastic - Early Dynastic times, G-M. forthcoming 2001 (I must thank Stan Hendrickx for sending me this article). Petrie was undoubtly the first Egyptologist to think and work in a modern scientific way; he excavated sites from all the periods of Egyptian history, but his greatest contributc was that in the Perdynastic and Early Dynastic. He always used to quickly publish his excavations (although he was often forced to make selections of his findings for limits of budget and costs); his researches had not as a main aim the ‘hunt for Museum pieces’ (he openly criticized Amelineau's “methods") but in his view a sherd could have the same value as a statue. He was not only a forerunner inthe fieldwork, but also in theoretical approach: despite the lack, at that time, of methods of absolute datation, Petrie had invented an ingenious system of relative chronology (Sequence Dating) based on seriations of archaeological contexts (tombs) through their founds (mostly gravegoods which he previously arranged in a relative order basing on the development of their shapes, decorations and other attributes). This method allowed him to have a sufficiently precise idea of the datation (into 50 seq.dat. stages) of any tomby-type) he excavated which produced a good number of pottery types or other classes of seriated objects. Pete's published excavations and corpora of predynastc pottery (nine classes and ‘more than 700 types), protodynastic pottery and slate palettes continue to be of fundamental importance for the modern pre- and proto-dynastic studies. His subdivision ofthe predynasti into three ‘cultures’, Amatian [S.D. 30-37 (mod, shift. 30/31 - 37/39)], Gerzean [S.D. 38-60 (38/40 - 52/62)] and Semainean [S.D. 60.75/76 (54/62 - 76/79)), was later refined and correlated with the Early Dynastic period, forming the basis of the successive chronologies (Kaiser's 'stufen’ eft. W. Needler, Predynastic and Archaie Objects... 1984, 44: NAQADA I= S.D. 30-38; NAQADA Ila,b = S.D. 38- 40/45; NAQADA Tle,d= S.D. 40145 - 63; NAQADA TIT ~ §.D. 63-80; for further adjustments see Kaiser, M.D.A.LK. 46, 1990 and especially S Hendricks, in A.J. Spencer ed., Aspects of Early Egypt, 1996 p. 36-69) {2] Petrie equated Aha with 'Menes' which, in later traditions, isthe name given tothe foundator of Memphis and of the "First Dynasty’, Petrie was one of the first scholars, with J. Garstang, to challenge the ownership of the Naqada mastaba to Menes. For a recent re-analysis of this tomb and its founds ef. Kahl ct al., M.D.A.LK. $7, 2001 (in print) and id., ‘Vergraben, verbrannt, verkannt und vergessen. Funde aus dem "Menesgrab", Munster 2001 (my most sincere thanks to J. Kahl for presenting me this publication). [3] Zeser and Sma revealed not to be royal names at all; ‘ip’ is not part of Ka's name but an indication of U.Eg. product. Thave been unable to ascertain the absolute first use ofthe name "Dynasty 0"; Petre uses it in Diospolis Parva, 1901, 24, and in his divulgative "listory of Egypt’ 7th ed,, 1912, but I think already ia its Sth edition, 1902 and I don't know ifin the older editions too). In Hierakonpolis part I, 1900, J. E. Quibell describes some predynastic objects as ‘Dynasty ©, thus it must be Quibell or Petre to frst adopt this term around 1899. ([am indebted to J. Kahl and E.C.M.van den Brink for their suggestions on this and other matters; but obviously eventual mistakes are only mine). (4) MD.ALLK. 41, 1985, p, 71 [5] As Herodotus, Manetho, Diodorus Siculus, Plinius the Elder; forthe Shemsu Hor, the names on Annals line 1, and Annals reconstructions eff. pt. I passim and notes 5-7; also oft. Kaiser, Z.A.S. 84, 1959 p, 119-32; id., Z.A.S. 91, 1964 ». 86ff; W. Helek, Untersuchungen zu Manetho... 1956; id, Untersuchungen zur Thinitenzet, 1987 [6] ‘Dynasty 00" has been introduced by E. van den Brink, The Nile Delta in Transition, 1992, vin.1, but it hasn't been as widely used as ‘Dynasty 01. He states that Dynasty 00, 0 and I respectively coincide with the periods Naqada Illa b and. [Tleft prev. m; also note that T. Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, 1999 p. $2 tends to include inthe Dynasty 00 ‘meaning, also the anonymous "owners ofthe Abydos vessel [U-S02, U-239], the tombs in Nagada cemetery T, the Hierakonpolis painted tomb (100) and the Gebelein painted cloth, therefore all evidence of high status, likey local chiefs, which do belong to the previous period, Nagada Il and, above all, to different regions-stocks. See Wilkinson op. SiH S8 6 forthe form Dymacty 0”