‘Ba’ and Sneferka
The change of dynasty after the reign of Qaa is likely to have had a political ingredient. It may be no coincidence that two ephemeral Horus names are attested from the period. The first of these, written with a bird and possibly read as ‘Ba’, occurs only once, on a stone vessel fragment from the Step Pyramid (Lacau and Lauer 1959: pl. IV.7). The similarity of the accompanying text to known inscriptions of Qaa suggest that the vessel may originally have been inscribed for Qaa, and usurped by the Horus ‘Ba’ (Helck 1979:124). The second name associated with the end of Qaa’s reign is the Horus Sneferka. The name is attested twice: once on a fragment of a siltstone plate found in the surface debris of the North Saqqara élite cemetery (Emery 1958: pls 28a, 38.1); and once on a similar plate from the Step Pyramid galleries (Lacau and Lauer 1959:15, pl. 17 no. 86). In both cases, the other sign groups in the inscription are associated elsewhere with the serekh of Qaa (Emery 1958:31). On the plate from the Step Pyramid, the name Sneferka seems to be a later addition within the serekh. Neither ‘Ba’ nor Sneferka appears in later king lists. If they were usurpers, they are likely to have been viewed as illegitimate by their successors, and expunged from the historical record. Perhaps more plausible, at least in the case of Sneferka, is the suggestion that this was an alternative Horus name, adopted by Qaa for a short period. The discovery of sealings of Hetepsekhemwy in the tomb of Qaa seems to prove that there was a smooth transition between the First and Second Dynasties (see below).
THE SECOND DYNASTY
The kings who ruled Egypt between the death of Qaa and the accession of Netjerikhet/Djoser are some of the most shadowy figures from the entire span of Egyptian history (cf. Dodson 1996). The inscriptions and monuments from the period record a plethora of royal names, as do the surviving king lists. The names from these two sets of sources bear little relation to each other. It has proved difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile the varying lists and sequences, and scholars today are scarcely more confident about the internal history of the Second Dynasty than were their predecessors a generation ago. The identity and order of the first three kings is certain, thanks to an inscribed statue in the Cairo Museum. The contemporary monuments and the later king lists can be reconciled with reasonable certainty for the first five rulers of the dynasty, whilst Khasekhemwy is universally acknowledged as the last king of the dynasty. In contrast, the positions of the intervening rulers—and indeed the extent of their authority—are obscure. Internal tensions during the middle of the Second Dynasty are suggested by the appearance of Seth in the royal titulary under Peribsen, the very different king lists drawn up for the dynasty in later periods (whereas the king lists agree to a notable extent on the composition of the First Dynasty), and the references under Khasekhem to battles against northern enemies (Kaiser 1992:184–5, n. 44). It is possible that, for a period in the middle of the dynasty, power was divided between kings in the north and south of the country. A study of Nile levels recorded on the Palermo Stone (Bell 1970) indicates that there was a significant drop in the average height of the annual inundation after the end of the First Dynasty. Hence, it is possible that ecological factors may have played a part in the apparent tensions (Hoffman 1980:312). With considerable
uncertainties surrounding the order and number of rulers, an accurate estimate for the length of the Second Dynasty is impossible. A figure of one hundred and twenty-one years has been proposed (Baines and Málek 1980:36), but this is no more than an educated guess.
Hetepsekhemwy
We cannot be certain why the death of Qaa marked the end of a dynasty. The first king of the Second Dynasty seems to have legitimised his position by overseeing the burial of his predecessor, or at least by honouring his mortuary cult: sealings of Hetepsekhemwy have recently been discovered in the offering chambers nearest the entrance of Qaa’s tomb (Dreyer 1993b: 11; Dreyer et al 1996:71–2, fig. 25, pl. 14.a). For his own burial, Hetepsekhemwy broke with tradition and abandoned the ancestral necropolis of Abydos in favour of a site adjacent to the capital. The relocation of the royal mortuary complex to Saqqara represents a fundamental change, and must have some historical significance, even if we are unable to be more specific. Furthermore, the design of the royal tomb at Saqqara was entirely new, necessitated, at least in part, by the different nature of the rock strata at Saqqara compared with Abydos (see Chapter 7).
The large gallery tomb at Saqqara was identified as Hetepsekhemwy’s on the basis of numerous seal-impressions (Barsanti 1902; Maspero 1902). Apart from these sealings, the tomb was virtually empty. Objects bearing the name of Hetepsekhemwy have, however, come to light elsewhere. The best known is the pink granite statuette of Hetepdief, a priest who evidently served the mortuary cults of Hetepsekhemwy and his two successors (Fischer 1961:46, fig. 1; Malek 1986:32). In addition, an Early Dynastic grave at Badari contained an alabaster vessel fragment inscribed with the serekh of Hetepsekhemwy, the name of an estate, and the title of a mortuary priest (Brunton 1927: pl. XIX.25). A cup of black granite bearing the name of Hetepsekhemwy is unprovenanced (Kaplony 1965:23, pl. IV, fig. 48), while a bone cylinder which probably formed the finial of a shaft or part of a piece of furniture is said to be from Helwan (Needier 1984:375, 379, pl. 84, fig. 44). Two inscribed stone bowls were found in the pyramid complex of Menkaura at Giza (Reisner 1931:102 and 186, fig. 57.37, pl. 70.c). Further examples of ‘heirlooms’ are the stone vessel fragments from the tombs of Peribsen (Petrie 1901: pl. VIII.8–11) and Khasekhemwy (Amélineau 1902: pl. XXI.6), and numerous inscribed stone vessels from the Step Pyramid complex (Lacau and Lauer 1959: pls 10–12). These latter formed part of the accumulated ritual material from the royal magazines, collected together by Netjerikhet to furnish his burial. The inscriptions provide most of our meagre information on the reign of Hetepsekhemwy.
Nebra
Very little is known about Hetepsekhemwy’s successor; there is even some dispute about the reading of his name. It used to be realised as ‘Raneb’, for R -nb(.ỉ), ‘Ra is (my) lord’ (for example, Baines and Málek 1980:36; Trigger et al. 1983:70); but recently, the favoured reading of the king’s name reverses the two elements to give Nb-r , ‘lord of the sun’. According to this view, the word r would simply be the name of the sun, not yet the name of the solar deity (Quirke 1990:23–4).
Sealings of Nebra were found together with those of Hetepsekhemwy in the royal gallery tomb at Saqqara (Barsanti 1902; Maspero 1902), suggesting that Nebra oversaw the burial of his predecessor. Confirmation that Nebra succeeded Hetepsekhemwy is provided by a stone bowl from the Step Pyramid which shows the juxtaposed serekhs of the two kings (Lacau and Lauer 1959: pl. 11 no. 58), and by the statue of Hetepdief mentioned earlier. There is also a flint bowl of Hetepsekhemwy, reinscribed by Nebra, from the Menkaura pyramid complex (Reisner 1931:102, pl. 70.c). The same practice was evidently continued by Nebra’s successor, since a bowl with the serekh of Nebra, reused by Ninetjer, was found in the tomb of Peribsen at Abydos (Petrie 1901: pl. VIII.12). The most famous artefact created for Nebra is his fine funerary stela of pink granite (Fischer 1961). It is the first royal stela to come from a site other than Abydos, and lacks the raised border typical of First Dynasty funerary stelae. Although found at Mit Rahina, it seems certain that Nebra’s stela once stood in front of his tomb, which must therefore be located at Saqqara. One possibility is that the gallery tomb constructed for Hetepsekhemwy was in fact appropriated by his successor. Alternatively, the galleries beneath the Western Massif and below the North Court of Netjerikhet’s Step Pyramid complex may have been Second Dynasty royal tombs. Nebra is further attested only once: his serekh is cut on a rock at Site 34, behind Armant in the western desert (Winkler 1938, I: pl. XI.4; Emery 1961:93, fig. 56). The site is close to an ancient trade route linking the Nile valley with the western oases, and the inscription suggests that Nebra mounted an expedition outside the Nile valley.
Ninetjer
By far the best attested king of the early Second Dynasty is Ninetjer, N
ebra’s successor. The position of his titulary on the Palermo Stone suggests that he must have been on the throne for at least thirty-five years (cf. Helck 1979:128). Three high-status tombs in the élite cemetery at North Saqqara contained sealings of Ninetjer (S2171: Quibell 1923: pl. XV.3; Porter and Moss 1974:436; S2302 (which probably belonged to the Overseer of Sculptors, Nỉ-rw-3b): Quibell 1923:30, pl. XVII.3; Porter and Moss 1974:437; S2498: Quibell 1923:44–5; Porter and Moss 1974:440), as did a tomb across the Nile in the Early Dynastic necropolis at Helwan (505 H.4: Saad 1951:17, pls XII.a, b, XIII.a). Five different jar-sealings of the king were discovered in a large mastaba near Giza (Petrie 1907:7, pl. VE). Further sealings of Ninetjer (S.Hassan 1938:521; Porter and Moss 1974:613) led to the identification of the king’s own tomb at Saqqara. Located some 130 metres east of Hetepsekhemwy’s (/Nebra’s?) monument, Ninetjer’s tomb follows a similar design (Kaiser 1992:180, fig. 4d).
Much of what we know about Ninetjer’s reign derives from the annals of the Palermo Stone. The whole of the fourth register of the stone comprises years from the early and middle parts of his reign, namely year 5 or 6 to year 20 or 21 (Schäfer 1902:22–6, pl. I). The foundation of a chapel or estate, named Hr-rn, is recorded for year 7; but, otherwise, most of the eponymous events are the regular ritual appearances of the king and various religious festivals. The festival of Sokar seems to have been celebrated at intervals of six years, while the running of the Apis bull is recorded twice, in years 9 and 15. With the exception of a ceremony in year 19 associated with Nekhbet, goddess of the Elkab area, the festivals recorded for Ninetjer’s reign are closely connected with the Memphite
region. This may be significant: apart from stone vessels reused for the burials of Peribsen and Khasekhemwy at Abydos (Petrie 1901: pl. VIII.13; and Amélineau 1902: pl. XXI.5, respectively), Ninetjer is not attested outside the Memphite region. It is possible that court activity in the early Second Dynasty was largely, if not entirely, confined to Lower Egypt. This might account for the internal tensions—maybe amounting to civil war – which appear to have engulfed the country towards the end of Ninetjer’s reign. The Palermo Stone hints at possible unrest in Ninetjer’s year 13 (Schäfer 1902:24). The entry reads ‘first feast of Dw3-Hr-pt. Attacking the towns of Sm-r and H3’. The name of the second locality means ‘north land’, and some have interpreted this entry as recording the suppression of a rebellion in Lower Egypt (Emery 1961:93). Although the Palermo Stone breaks off after year 19, two further events which probably belong to the latter part of Ninetjer’s reign are known from stone vessel inscriptions. The ‘fourth occasion of the Sokar festival’ (Lacau and Lauer 1965:88, fig. 172 [no. 273]; Helck 1979:128) probably took place in year 24, judging by the periodic nature of its celebration; the ‘seventeenth occasion of the [biennial] census’ (Lacau and Lauer 1965:89, fig. 173 [no. 274]; Helck 1979:128) will have occurred in year 34.
With so long a reign, it is likely that Ninetjer celebrated at least one Sed-festival. No contemporary inscriptions attest such an occasion, although the statuette of the king discussed below is certainly suggestive. The stock of stone vessels found in the Step Pyramid galleries may originally have been prepared for Ninetjer’s Sed-festival (Helck 1979). According to this theory, the vessels remained in the magazine at Saqqara and were never distributed because internal unrest had already broken out, disrupting communications and weakening the authority of the central administration; the vessels were subsequently appropriated by kings of the late Second and early Third Dynasties. This hypothesis is certainly appealing and has received recent support from Buto (Faltings and Köhler 1996:100 and n. 52): an analysis of the pottery from the Early Dynastic level V indicates a date not later than the reign of Peribsen; the same level also yielded seal-impressions naming ly-en-khnum, one of the most prominent officials mentioned on stone vessels from the Step Pyramid galleries, and placed by Helck in the reign of Ninetjer.
The statuette of the mortuary priest Hetepdief indicates continuity between the first three kings of the Second Dynasty, their mortuary cults being served by one and the same individual. Ninetjer certainly maintained the mortuary cult of one predecessor: an inscribed stone vessel from the Step Pyramid juxtaposes the serekh of Ninetjer and the ka-chapel of Hetepsekhemwy (Lacau and Lauer 1959: pl. 15 no. 74). Apart from the numerous inscribed stone vessels (Lacau and Lauer 1959: pls 13–16), only two objects bearing the name of Ninetjer have survived. One is a small ivory vessel from the Saqqara region (Kaplony 1964: fig. 1074). The other is of far greater importance in the history of Egyptian art: an alabaster statuette of the king, enthroned and wearing the close-fitting robe associated with the Sed-festival (Simpson 1956). The statuette represents the earliest complete and identifiable example of three-dimensional royal statuary from Egypt.
Plate 3.2 King Ninetjer. Crude stone statuette of unknown provenance, now in the Georges Michailides Collection (photograph courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society).
Weneg
As we have seen, there are indications of a breakdown in central authority at the end of Ninetjer’s reign. Before order was re-established towards the end of the Second Dynasty, the kingship seems to have been held by a number of ephemeral rulers who are only poorly attested in contemporary inscriptions (Figure 3.4). Ninetjer’s immediate successor, at least in the north of Egypt, was a king whose nswt-bỉty name has been read as Weneg (Grdseloff 1944:288–91). His Horus name remains unknown (cf. Wildung 1969b; Helck 1979:131). An unpublished inscription of Weneg from a mastaba at North Saqqara (S3014: Lacau and Lauer 1959:16, n. 2) is very similar to an inscription of Ninetjer (Lacau and Lauer 1959: no. 68), suggesting that this may be another case of a king re- cutting one of his predecessor’s
Figure 3.4 Ephemeral rulers, 1: Weneg (1) and Nubnefer (2). Both kings seem to have ruled in the middle of the Second Dynasty. The royal names were incised on stone vessels found in galleries beneath the Step Pyramid of Netjerikhet at Saqqara (after Lacau and Lauer 1959: planches V.4, VI.4).
stone vessels (Helck 1979:124). A second stone vessel from the same Saqqara tomb names the two tutelary goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt, Nekhbet and Wadjet (Kaplony 1965:7, figs 6 and 8, 16 n. 6; Helck 1979:131). However, Weneg is unattested outside Saqqara and there is no evidence to confirm that his rule extended into the south of the country. Twelve stone bowls from the Step Pyramid complex name Weneg (Lacau and Lauer 1959: pls 19 no. 105, 20 nos 101–7). Weneg’s tomb has not been located. If, as is likely, it followed the pattern of earlier Second Dynasty tombs and comprised a set of subterranean galleries, then it may lie beneath the North Court of Netjerikhet’s Step Pyramid complex. Alternatively, there is a possibility that other Second Dynasty royal tombs once stood to the south of the Hetepsekhemwy and Ninetjer galleries; this would explain the location of Sekhemkhet’s step pyramid enclosure some distance to the west. The whole area was levelled by Unas for the construction of his pyramid and causeway.
Sened
According to later king lists, Ninetjer’s second successor was a king with the nswt-bỉty name Sened (Helck 1984c). Unfortunately, there are no proven contemporary inscriptions of this ruler. The best piece of evidence is a block, inscribed with the words nswt-bỉty Snd, reused in the funerary temple of King Khafra at Giza (Steindorff, in U.Hölscher
1912:106). It may be Second Dynasty, although the epigraphy of the inscription would tend to suggest a slightly later date. An undisputed Fourth Dynasty inscription, in the tomb of Shery, provides the second mention of a King Sened, and indicates that his mortuary cult was celebrated at Saqqara and was still current over one hundred years after his death (Grdseloff 1944:294; Wildung 1969b: pl. III.2; Kaiser 1991). Shery’s titles suggest a connection between the mortuary cults of Sened and Peribsen, a king of the Second Dynasty who is otherwise only attested in Upper Egypt. If Sened ruled only in the north of Egypt and Peribsen only in the south, the juxta-position of their two mortuary cults at Saqqara may indicate that the territorial division of the country which is proposed afte
r the reign of Ninetjer was amicable at first (Helck 1979:132). The only other occurrence of Sened’s name is on the belt of a Late Period bronze statuette of a king (Wildung 1969b: pl. IV.l). This suggests that, however obscure Sened may be to modern Egyptology, he was still remembered by his countrymen centuries after his death. As with Weneg, Sened’s tomb has not been identified. Given the reference to his mortuary cult in the inscription of Shery, it must have been located somewhere in the Saqqara necropolis. It has been suggested, though without firm evidence, that the galleries beneath the Western Massif of the Step Pyramid complex may have been Sened’s tomb, since the tomb of Shery (overseer of the king’s mortuary priests) probably lay a short distance to the north (Dodson 1996:24).
Nubnefer
This name is attested just twice, on stone vessels from the Step Pyramid (Lacau and Lauer 1959: pl. VI.3–4 [nos 99–100]). By a network of associations, we may conclude that Ninetjer and Nubnefer were near contemporaries (Helck 1979:124). Nubnefer cannot easily be the nswt-bỉty name of Ninetjer, since this name is known (it is also Ninetjer). Nubnefer may, therefore, have been an ephemeral ruler who held the kingship briefly during the period of unrest which seems to have followed the death of Ninetjer. His exact place in the order of succession cannot be established.
Early Dynastic Egypt Page 13
