Early Dynastic Egypt

by Toby A H Wilkinson

  This trend continues into the Third Dynasty when the Horus names describe either the relationship between Horus and the other gods comprising ‘the corporation’ or the position of Horus as the god most intimately associated with Egyptian kingship. Thus, Horus is both the ‘(most) divine of the corporation’ (Netjerikhet) and the ‘(most) powerful of the corporation’ (Sekhemkhet), and has ‘arisen as a ba’ (Khaba). The king, as the incarnation of Horus, is ‘the strong protector’ (Sanakht) of mankind and the cosmos, and ‘high of the white crown’ (Qahedjet), the most exalted item in the royal regalia. The Horus names of the Third Dynasty kings comprise a miniature theological treatise on Horus, the king, their relationship to each other and to the wider pantheon. In this respect they echo the complex theology of the Pyramid Texts, some of which must date back to the Early Dynastic period.

  The ‘Two Ladies’ title

  The title nbty, the Two Ladies’ (Figure 6.5), emphasised the geographical duality of the Egyptian realm, but at the same time the enduring unification of the Two Lands in the person of the king. A similar concept is expressed in a circumlocution for the king found in one of the titles borne by Early Dynastic queens, ‘she who sees Horus-and-Seth’. The concept that the king embodied both gods highlights a fundamental role of kingship: the reconciliation of opposites in order to maintain the established order. The nbty name emphasised the geographical aspect of this balance.

  The nbty name itself was written after the images of the two deities, the vulture and cobra. In one instance, on a label of Djet from mastaba S3504 at North Saqqara, the cobra is replaced by the red crown, demonstrating a very early association of the two (Gardiner 1958). Each goddess is depicted resting on a basket (nb); the two baskets form a pun on the title itself (nbty) (S.Schott 1956:56). The choice of Nekhbet and Wadjet to symbolise the two halves of the country seems to date back to the immediate aftermath of the unification. Elkab and Buto also represented the very different terrains of the Two Lands: the narrow river valley of Upper Egypt, running through barren desert on either side; and the wide expanses of flat, marshy land in the Delta. It had long been suspected that the towns themselves must have been important localities in the period immediately preceding the unification. Modern excavations have confirmed that this was indeed the case (von der Way 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992; Hendrickx 1994).

  The concept of the ‘Two Ladies’ is first met in the reign of Aha. An ebony label from the tomb of Neith-hotep (probably Aha’s mother) at Naqada shows the serekh of Aha facing a tent-like shrine, enclosing the signs nbty mn. There has been considerable debate about the meaning of this group. It may be the name of a king; more plausibly, it may be the name of the shrine itself, ‘the Two Ladies endure’ (Quirke 1990:23). In this case, the label attests the existence of the Two Ladies’, and their close connection with the kingship, from the very beginning of the First Dynasty; but it does not prove the existence of the Two Ladies’ title at this stage, nor does it have any bearing on the identification of the semi-legendary King Menes.

  The element nbty first appears as a regular element of the royal titulary in the reign of Semerkhet (the element nbwy in Anedjib’s titulary may be seen as a precursor [S.Schott 1956:60]). Many of the Early Dynastic

  Figure 6.5 The Two Ladies. (1) The pairing of the vulture goddess Nekhbet and the cobra goddess Wadjet (known in Egyptian as

  nbty, ‘the Two Ladies’) is first attested (top) on an ivory label of Aha from the royal tomb at Naqada (after Emery 1961:50, fig. 10). (2) The pairing of the two goddesses was adopted in the First Dynasty as one of the king’s principal titles, as shown here on an ivory year label of Qaa from Abydos (after Petrie 1900: pl. XVII.29). Not to same scale.

  kings wrote the titles nswt-bỉty and nbty together, followed by a single name which thus served under both headings. An alternative interpretation sees the nbty element as part of the nswt-bỉty name, only later becoming a separate title in its own right (Müller 1938:51; S.Schott 1956; Quirke 1990:23).

  Early Dynastic inscriptions record only a few distinctive nbty names; that is, those which differ from the king’s nswt-bỉty name. A nbty name, sn, is attested on a few inscriptions from the reign of Qaa. This may have the meaning ‘brother’, expressing the king’s closeness to the patron goddesses. A recently discovered year label of Qaa from his tomb at Abydos gives an otherwise unattested version of the king’s nbty name, shtp(- nbty), ‘the one who pacifies (the Two Ladies)’ (Dreyer et al. 1996:74, pl. 14.e). This seems to express the role of the king in placating the gods and in maintaining the harmony of opposites necessary for cosmic order. The Horus Sekhemkhet imitated his illustrious predecessor Netjerikhet in many ways, not least in the choice of his nbty name: an ivory plaque, found in one of the subterranean magazines of Sekhemkhet’s unfinished step pyramid, is inscribed nbty srtỉ(- nh ). The name srtỉ(- nh ) is difficult to translate precisely, but it is clearly connected with the word sr and probably refers to the sacred nature of kingship. The word sr had added significance in Egyptian, conveying a sense of separateness. This sense that the king is set apart from the rest of humanity was expressed in concrete terms in the location and architecture of the Third Dynasty step pyramid complexes.

  The nswt-bỉty title

  The nswt-bỉty title was an innovation of Den’s reign, one of several important developments which characterise the middle of the First Dynasty. It has been suggested that the adoption of the new title coincided with the first occurrence of the joint ceremony of h t nswt-bỉty, ‘the appearance of the dual king’, recorded on the Palermo Stone in the reign of Den (year x+3) (Godron 1990:180). The new title took second place in the royal titulary, coming immediately after the king’s Horus name. Whereas the Horus name remained the principal means of identifying the reigning king, the nswt-bỉty title and name often seem to have been used in secondary contexts (Quirke 1990:23). For example, inscriptions referring to buildings or boats named after the king use the nswt- bỉty (or nswt-bỉty-nbty) name.

  The name itself followed the title nswt-bỉty, translated literally as ‘he of the sedge and bee’. The meaning of the title is complex and many-faceted. In bilingual inscriptions of

  the Ptolemaic period, the Greek equivalent of nswt-bỉty translates as ‘king of Upper and Lower Egypt’. This has remained the traditional translation for nswt-bỉty, even though it is unlikely to have been the original sense. Rather, the recently suggested ‘dual king’ gives a better approximation of the true meaning (Quirke 1990:11). The title seems to have stressed the role of the king as the embodiment of all the dualities which made up Egypt and the cosmos according to the Egyptians’ world-view. Above all, perhaps, the dual title nswt-bỉty stressed the two different aspects of kingship, the divine and the human. The usual word for ‘king’ in ancient Egyptian was nswt, and this appears to have been the superior designation for the ruler (although it may simply have been an abbreviation of the full title nswt-bỉty [Quirke 1990:11]). In other contexts, especially administrative, the king might be referred to indirectly as bỉty. For example, the position of ‘king’s treasurer’ was designated by the title h tmw-bỉty, not *h tmw-nswt. The nswt- bỉty title ‘probably fused two hierarchically ordered words for king and aspects of kingship’ (Baines 1995:127). It seems likely that nswt, as the superior title, conveyed the divinity of the king, expressed in his role as the incarnation of Horus and earthly representative of the gods. (It is significant that the Egyptian word for ‘kingship’ is derived from nswt.) By contrast, bỉty may have indicated the king’s human aspect, especially his position as head of state and government (Ray 1993:70; Shaw and Nicholson 1995:153). The introduction of the nswt-bỉty title marks an important stage in the formulation of kingship ideology. Henceforth, emphasis was firmly placed upon the king’s role in binding together Egypt and the cosmos. Harmony of opposites is a theme which was given visual expression in some of the earliest monuments of kingship, particularly the ceremonial palettes from the late Predynastic period. With th
e introduction of the nswt-bỉty title in the reign of Den, this theme was brought into the royal titulary.

  nswt-bỉty names

  After the title nswt-bỉty came a name which may also have been the king’s birth name (S.Schott 1956:76). It was certainly the name by which many kings were known in later annals and king lists. The nswt-bỉty title was often paired with the element nbty, after the introduction of the latter in the reign of Semerkhet. Peribsen was the first king to separate the two elements and use the nswt-bỉty title alone once more (S.Schott 1956:61), on a sealing from Abydos (Petrie 1901: pl. XXII.190).

  Den’s nswt-bỉty name, zmtỉ (S.Schott 1956:60), appears on many contemporary inscriptions, especially the stone vessels found beneath the Step Pyramid. The name was also used on royal seals, frequently without reference to the king’s Horus name. It must, therefore, have had a significance of its own. It means ‘the two deserts’, referring to the eastern and western deserts which guarded the Nile valley on each side. It reinforces the message of the nswt-bỉty title: that the king’s rule extends over the whole of Egypt, east and west as well as north and south. Given the evidence that Den probably conducted a military campaign against the nomadic tribespeople of the eastern desert, his nswt-bỉty name may have had added resonance, proclaiming his intention to subdue Egypt’s desert borderlands and bring them under his yoke. An alternative reading of the name is h 3stỉ, translated as ‘the foreigner’ or ‘the Sinaitic’ (Godron 1990:21). It has been suggested that

  Den adopted this secondary name following a military success against the inhabitants of the Sinai, recorded on the ivory label from Abydos (Godron 1990:180).

  The nswt-bỉty-nbty name of Den’s successor, the Horus Anedjib, is curious and quite impenetrable: mr-p-bỉ3. For many years, the nswt-bỉty-nbty name of Semerkhet likewise defied interpretation; but it has now been shown to read ỉrỉ-n r, ‘guardian of the god’. If the nbty element is interpreted as forming part of the name, rather than another title, then the name should read ỉrỉ-nbty, ‘guardian of the Two Ladies’ (Quirke 1990:23). The name expresses the close relationship between the king and the divine sphere. It also conveys something of the tension inherent in the ideology of divine kingship: the king is separate from the rest of humanity, the interlocutor between people and gods, indeed the gods’ representative on earth; but he is still not quite one of the gods, possessing only ‘limited divinity’ (Quirke 1990:11). It is the royal ka, the divine essence incarnate in the king, which passes unchanged from generation to generation; the king himself cannot escape death. Finally, the nswt-bỉty-nbty name of Hetepsekhemwy (htp) is merely an abbreviation of his Horus name.

  The gold sign and ring of eternity

  Perhaps the most difficult title to interpret satisfactorily is the one which first appears in the Old Kingdom but which clearly has antecedents in the Early Dynastic period. This is the ‘Golden Horus’ title (cf. S.Schott 1956:68–73), written with a figure of the god Horus surmounting the hieroglyph for ‘gold’ (nbw). The title seems to have expressed the divinity of the king since, according to Egyptian mythology, the gods’ bodies were made of gold. The immunity of this metal from tarnishing, combined with its obvious solar connotations, was no doubt the underlying reason for this association (Quirke 1990:11). To the Egyptian mind, with its propensity for seeking multiple and intertwined meanings, the ‘Golden Horus’ title may have had a further significance. The ancient name of Naqada, the cult centre of the god Seth, was Nubt, meaning ‘golden (city)’; Seth himself was often described as nbwty, ‘the one of Nubt’ or ‘the golden one’. The image of the Horus falcon surmounting the sign for gold may have had the added symbolism of Horus conquering Seth. The title may therefore have expressed the role of the king as champion of Maat and defender of the cosmic order against the forces of chaos.

  A fragmentary inscription from the tomb of Den at Abydos shows the king’s serekh juxtaposed with a vertical group of three signs: a cobra, the gold sign and a ring (Spencer 1993:87, fig. 66). A similar combination of the gold sign and ring occurs in the titulary of Netjerikhet (Lauer 1939: pl. XVI.1–2; S.Schott 1956:63). A stone vessel fragment of Khasekhemwy from Abydos shows the group nbw t s in place of the customary nbwy htp ỉm=f. The group may, perhaps, be interpreted as the king’s ‘gold name’. On the Palermo Stone and its associated fragments, it appears that a cartouche and a phrase incorporating the gold sign regularly formed part of the royal titulary, coming between the Horus name of the king and the name of his mother (S.Schott 1956:71). The entries for Djer, Semerkhet and Ninetjer all show this feature. It may be that the name in the cartouche, at this period and in the reign of Sneferu, is in fact the ‘gold name’ (S.Schott 1956:71).

  The ring (šn) symbolises eternity, and was later elongated to form the cartouche that enclosed the king’s birth name (Müller-Winkler 1984). It seems to stress the permanence

  of Egyptian kingship, the immutability of an institution which was characterised as part of a divinely ordained cosmic order. The earliest cartouche occurs on a fragmentary sealing of the Horus Sanakht from Beit Khallaf (Garstang 1902: pl. XIX.7; Seidlmayer 1996b: pl. 23). Sanakht was probably the penultimate king of the Third Dynasty, and the introduction of the cartouche as a frame enclosing a royal name may have been an innovation of his reign. Although in earlier times the ring seems to have been associated with the king’s ‘gold name’, on the sealing of Sanakht it is likely that the elongated ring—in other words the cartouche—encloses the king’s nswt-bỉty name. Certainly, all the examples of a cartouche from the following reign contain the king’s nswt-bỉty name. Indeed, this element of the royal titulary seems to have come to prominence at the end of the Third Dynasty.

  ROYAL RITUALS AND FESTIVALS: CELEBRATIONS OF KINGSHIP

  One of the most enduring ways of reinforcing rule—from the earliest states to the modern world—is through carefully stage-managed ceremonies. The ruler is presented to his people, or a select group of them, in a setting which emphasises his authority, both political and supernatural. This is particularly true of ancient Egypt, where ‘kingship is ritual’ (Baines 1995:130). The celebration of periodic festivals not only gave a sense of order and routine to the ritual life of the country, it also guaranteed the institution of kingship regular exposure in a court-controlled setting.

  Egypt’s Early Dynastic rulers instituted a number of rituals and festivals designed to promote the position of the king and of kingship at the very centre of Egyptian society. The iconography of the Narmer macehead suggests that many aspects of royal ritual and ideology had already been established by the beginning of the First Dynasty. Others may have been innovations of later reigns. All were assimilated into a body of tradition which was presented as eternal and unchanging. The various celebrations took place throughout a king’s reign, beginning at his accession and coronation. Regular ritual appearances reinforced his divine status, whilst the legitimacy and efficacy of his rule were renewed later in his reign during the complex Sed-festival.

  The accession and coronation

  The death of a king was a time of great cosmic danger, since the forces of disorder (both supernatural and human) might take advantage of the transition to disrupt the established order. Whilst in the Middle and New Kingdoms the institution of co-regency ensured a smooth succession and reduced the potential for dynastic intrigue, no such mechanism seems to have existed in earlier periods. Certainly, there are hints from the Fourth Dynasty that the succession was not always trouble free. The existence of several royal princes, each with his own powerful position in the administration, must have presented great opportunities for political manoeuvring. As one might expect, the evidence for such events is very limited. None the less, there are intimations of struggle surrounding the succession at certain points in the Early Dynastic period. An ephemeral ruler, perhaps a usurper, called Sneferka is attested at the end of the First Dynasty; the sequence of kings

  in the middle of the Second Dynasty is still not firmly e
stablished, and there may have been a contest for power between two royal factions.

  If Egypt was vulnerable to political upheaval at the death of a king, the supernatural dangers were equally great. Since the king was the defender of created order and the conqueror of the forces of chaos, his death represented the temporary victory of those same malign powers. Without its champion, Egypt was in mortal danger from supernatural forces of evil. Hence, the accession of a new king was accompanied by a series of rituals, designed to restore Maat and to reassert Egypt’s place at the centre of the cosmos. The ceremonies surrounding a change of reign may be divided into two quite separate events: the accession and the coronation.

  According to later sources, the proclamation of a new king—in other words, his accession to the throne—took place at the ideologically propitious moment of sunrise. The dawn of a new day, marking the defeat of darkness by the forces of light, and the rebirth of creation, was an appropriate metaphor for the beginning of a new reign, with its parallel connotations (Frankfort 1948:148). Indeed, the same verb (h ỉ) was used by the Egyptians to denote both the rising of the sun and the public appearance of the king. We have no direct evidence of accession rituals, but we may assume that they were characterised by great solemnity.

  By contrast, there is limited evidence for the various ceremonies which marked the coronation of the king. Only after he had completed the necessary ritual acts, on a favourable day in the calendar, was the king possessed of all his powers, and was Egypt once again under the guidance of a divine authority. It is likely that the coronation ceremonies were scheduled for one of the days in the year which marked new beginnings (Frankfort 1948:104): the first day of the season of winter, when the Nile floodwaters began to recede; the summer and winter solstices; the spring and autumn equinoxes; or New Year’s Day itself. In the Early Dynastic period the coronation seems to have consisted of two distinct ceremonies, each of which embodied one of the roles of kingship. Recorded on the Palermo Stone at the beginning of each new reign, these ceremonies were the ritual reunification of the Two Lands and the circuit of the wall at Memphis.