Early Dynastic Egypt
Page 40
Harsaphes
The ram god Harsaphes (Hrỉ-š=f in Egyptian) may have originated as a primitive fertility god (cf. B.Altenmüller 1977), but is better attested in historic times as the local god of Herakleopolis. The Palermo Stone records a visit by Den in his regnal year x+9 to Herakleopolis; in the same year the king also visited the temple of a ram deity, and it is tempting to identify this as the local god of Herakleopolis, Harsaphes. An inscribed stone vessel fragment of Den from his tomb at Abydos may refer to the same event: it shows an ornate sanctuary with a ram inside, and a shrine topped by a bucranium (Petrie 1901: pl. VII.8–9). A connection with the royal cult has been posited for Harsaphes, particularly given the Egyptian name for Herakleopolis, Nn-nswt (B.Altenmüller 1977).
Hedjet (the white crown)
A chapel of the white crown (or, less plausibly, an estate named after the white crown) is named on an inscribed stone vessel of Hetepsekhemwy from the Step Pyramid complex (Lacau and Lauer 1959: pl. 11, no. 55). An institution by the same name is mentioned on a vessel of Ninetjer (Lacau and Lauer 1959: pl. 16, no. 78), suggesting a special reverence towards the white crown by the kings of the early Second Dynasty. One possible interpretation is that homage to Upper Egypt and its iconography may have been stressed following the relocation of the royal necropolis to Saqqara at the beginning of the Second Dynasty, and the concomitant loosening of ties between the kingship and Upper Egypt. It has been suggested that the inscriptions of Hetepsekhemwy and Ninetjer refer to shrines set up at the Residence in Memphis (R.Friedman 1994:422, quoting Kaplony 1963). In origin, the white crown may have been particularly closely associated with the Predynastic rulers of Hierakonpolis. The local god of Hierakonpolis, Horus of Nekhen, was customarily depicted as an archaic falcon, often wearing the white crown (B.Adams 1977).
Hedjwer
The baboon deity named h -wr, ‘the Great White’, is first attested unequivocally on an ivory label of Semerkhet from Abydos (Petrie 1900: pl. XII.l =pl. XVII.26). However, a baboon statue from the reign of Narmer (E.Schott 1969) may represent the same deity, as may the figure of an enthroned baboon shown before a statue of Den on a seal-impression from Saqqara (Kaplony 1963, III: fig. 211; F.D.Friedman 1995:33, fig. 19c). One scholar has suggested that the royal ancestors—in whose presence the king took possession of the symbols of rule at the beginning of his reign and again at the beginning of the Sed- festival—were manifest as a white baboon (Helck 1952:75, 1972:97; cf. Kemp 1989:60, fig. 20). The middle relief panel of Netjerikhet from beneath his Step Pyramid shows the king standing at the ( h-)h wrw, ‘the white shrine of the great ones’ (an alternative reading is wrw h-h , ‘the great ones of the white shrine’) (F.D.Friedman 1995:24). The wrw, ‘great ones’, are determined by the figure of a large, squatting baboon. If Helck’s interpretation is correct, ‘the plurality of ancestors denoted by the baboon may be handing over rulership to Djoser, as signified by the testament he holds’ (F.D.Friedman 1995:26).
It is possible that the baboons of glazed composition and stone, frequently deposited as votive offerings in early shrines, were connected with Hedjwer, although other baboon deities are known to have existed. References to a baboon deity, sometimes explicitly identified as Hedjwer, are common in the Early Dynastic period and Pyramid Texts, but are rare in subsequent periods (Kaplony 1977).
Heqet
The frog goddess Heqet was associated with fertility and childbirth. This connection probably derived from the myriad tadpoles which a frog produces, a fact which also led to the tadpole being used as the hieroglyph for one-hundred-thousand. Heqet is mentioned only once in the Pyramid Texts, but her cult seems to have been popular in the Early Dynastic period (Cooney and Simpson 1976:205–7). Two high-status individuals (including a royal prince) buried at Helwan in the Second Dynasty bore theophorous names compounded with Heqet, indicating that her cult was active at the time (Saad 1957:7–10, pls III, IV [nos 2, 3]). The Early Dynastic stela of Wepemnofret (now at Berkeley) also mentions Heqet. A large travertine statuette of a frog in the Cleveland Museum of Arts (CMA 76.5) may be an early cult image of Heqet (Cooney and Simpson 1976). One of only a few surviving examples of large-scale stone animal sculpture from the late Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods, it has been tentatively dated to the reign of Narmer, largely on the basis of stylistic parallels with the baboon statue in Berlin. Although acquired on the art market and unprovenanced, the frog statuette may have come from Abydos where there seems to have been a particular emphasis on the cult of Heqet: small frog figurines were found in the votive deposits underneath the Abydos temple (Petrie 1903: pls X.214, 227, XI.240, 245; cf. Dreyer 1986: pls 32.170–2, 61.d, i, 62.i), and the goddess Heqet is shown in her shrine in the temple of Seti I (Cooney and Simpson 1976:207, fig. 12).
Horus
Perhaps originally a sky god, Horus became the deity most intimately associated with the kingship from the late Predynastic period onwards (cf. Hayes 1953:29, fig. 22; Williams 1986: pls 33, 34). It is difficult to be sure exactly how the Egyptians envisaged the relationship between Horus and the king (Hornung 1983:192), but the adoption of Horus as the supreme royal title suggests that the Egyptians ‘found in the soaring falcon their perfect metaphor for majesty’ (Quirke 1992:21).
Falcon deities were worshipped at several sites in Egypt. Whilst they are usually regarded as local gods of independent origin, it is equally possible that ‘they were predynastic differentiations of one and the same deity’, regarded as the supreme god by Egyptians in general (Frankfort 1948:39–40). Perhaps the most important cult centre of Horus in Early Dynastic times was Hierakonpolis. Even in later dynastic times the cult image of the local god, Horus of Nekhen, was depicted as an archaic falcon, apparently emphasising the antiquity of the Horus cult at the site. The association of Horus with the kingship may reflect the importance of Hierakonpolis as a centre of Predynastic political power.
A distinctive form of Horus attested by name from the early Third Dynasty is Hr- Bhdtỉ, ‘Horus the Behdetite’. The northernmost relief panel under the Step Pyramid shows the king, wearing the white crown, ‘standing in the Upper Egyptian shrine of Horus the Behdetite’ (Kemp 1989:58, fig. 19; F.D.Friedman 1995:18). The corresponding panel from the South Tomb gives this same name to the falcon hovering over the king and holding an ankh (F.D.Friedman 1995:20). In origin, the word bhdt means ‘throne seat’, and bhdtỉ may mean ‘he of the throne seat’ (Otto 1975; F.D.Friedman 1995:18). Hence, there may have been a special connection between Horus the Behdetite and kingship. Although Behdet was later identified with Tell el-Balamun in the northern Delta (Gardiner 1944) or with Edfu in southern Upper Egypt, ‘in Djoser’s day the Behdetite may not have been associated with a fixed locality, possibly being understood more generally as a protective power of the king’ (F.D.Friedman 1995:20; cf. Kemp 1989:41).
The middle relief panel from the South Tomb mentions another distinct form of Horus: Hr H m, ‘Horus of Letopolis’. It is significant that this panel is the only one on which the king wears the red crown, and the accompanying inscription uses the archetypal Lower Egyptian shrine as the determinative for the cult-place of Horus of Letopolis. The god ‘had important royal associations in the early Old Kingdom’ (F.D.Friedman 1995:36), various aspects of his insignia being depicted on the funerary furniture of Queen Hetep-heres.
Iat/Iamet
On the Palermo Stone, the fifth regnal year of an unidentified First Dynasty king is denoted by the fashioning or dedication of a divine image of Iamet. Iat/Iamet (the reading of the name is uncertain) is also mentioned in the Pyramid Texts, and she was possibly a milk goddess, responsible for nourishing and nursing the king (Helck 1980).
Isis (?)
The tyet-girdle associated with Isis is attested as early as the First Dynasty. An amulet of this shape made of glazed composition was found in an Early Dynastic tomb at Helwan. However, unambiguous references to Isis by name do not appear until the Fifth Dynasty (in the Pyramid Texts of Unas). The throne-sign used to write th
e name of Isis occurs on a sealing of Peribsen (Petrie 1901: pl. XXI.176), but it is unclear whether the goddess herself is meant. An Early Dynastic rock-cut inscription on Hill B near Buhen may mention Isis (H.S.Smith 1972:59–60).
Khentiamentiu
The god of the Abydos necropolis, ‘the Foremost of the Westerners’, is named on the necropolis seals of Den (Dreyer 1987) and Qaa (Dreyer et al. 1996:72, fig. 25). It is likely that the first temple at Abydos, founded in the late Predynastic period, was dedicated to Khentiamentiu (perhaps already an epithet used as a euphemism for Osiris). The temple retained this dedication throughout the Old Kingdom (a stela set up in the temple refers to statues of Pepi II ‘in the temple of Khentiamentiu’ [O’Connor 1992:89]), only becoming a cult centre dedicated explicitly to Osiris in the First Intermediate Period.
Khnum
A ram deity, possibly Khnum, is one of the elements composing a personal name on a private stela from Abydos dating to the reign of Djer (Petrie 1901: pl. XXVI.62) and one from the following reign of Djet (Petrie 1902: pl. XIII.151). Another theophorous personal name, read as Khnum-hotep, occurs on a sealing from the tomb of Merneith (Petrie 1900: pl. XXIII.42). Numerous inscribed stone vessels from the galleries beneath the Step Pyramid bear the personal name Iy-en-khnum (Lacau and Lauer 1965:3–8, pls 2–9 [nos 2–8]) and this individual probably lived during the reign of Ninetjer (Kahl 1994:880; Faltings and Köhler 1996:100, n. 52). An even closer devotion to the god is expressed in the personal name H nmw-ỉt(=ỉ), ‘Khnum is (my) father’, inscribed on another stone vessel from the Step Pyramid hoard (Lacau and Lauer 1965:49, pl. 29.3 [no. 95]). An incomplete First Dynasty plaque of glazed composition from the early temple at Abydos shows a ram holding a was-sceptre. The figure is accompanied by a complex jumble of hieroglyphs, the interpretation of which is difficult, but the ram may be Khnum (Petrie 1903: pls I, V.36).
Mafdet
A stone vessel fragment from the tomb of Den at Abydos shows the fetish of the feline goddess Mafdet (Petrie 1901: pl. VII.7). Possibly from the same reign, another inscribed stone vessel shows Mafdet as a lioness, though clearly identified by name; the left-hand fragment was found in the tomb of Den at Abydos (Petrie 1901: pl. VII. 10), but the right-hand fragment was found in the neighbouring tomb of Semerkhet (Petrie 1900: pl. VII.4). (For the two fragments joined see O’Connor 1987:35, fig. 14.) A fragmentary sealing from the tomb of Den also shows the fetish of Mafdet (Petrie 1900: pl. XXXII.39). The importance of the goddess in the reign of Den is emphasised by an entry
for this king on the Palermo Stone: one of the eponymous events of Den’s year x+13 is the fashioning or dedication of a divine image of Mafdet (see Figure 8.6 for all these illustrations). Since an image of Seshat was dedicated in the same year, there may have been a connection between the two goddesses, though this is by no means certain.
In the Pyramid Texts, Mafdet is referred to as a killer of snakes (Utterance 295 [§438]) (Gardiner 1938:89), and more particularly as the
Figure 8.6 The goddess Mafdet. Represented as a feline, Mafdet may have acted as guardian of the king in the palace. Her cult appears to have enjoyed particular prominence during the reign of Den: (1) seal- impression of Den from Abydos, showing the fetish of Mafdet (after Petrie 1900: pl. XXXII.39); (2) relief inscription on a stone vessel from the tomb of Den at Abydos, showing the fetish of the goddess Mafdet (after Petrie 1901: pl. VII.7); (3)
entry from the third register of the Palermo Stone, referring to a year in the reign of Den as ‘the year of dedicating an image of Mafdet’ (after Schäfer 1902: pl. I); (4) inscription depicting and naming Mafdet, on a stone vessel from Abydos, dating to the reign of Den (after Petrie 1900: pl. VII.4; Petrie 1901: pl. VII.10).
Not to same scale.
protectress and avenger of the king (Utterance 297 [§440–1]). The points of the harpoon with which the king decapitates his adversaries are likened to ‘the claws of Mafdet’ (Utterance 519 [§1212]). Mafdet may have held a special place in the sphere of kingship during the Early Dynastic period, perhaps responsible for the purely physical well-being of the king (Westendorf 1966:131–5). As nbt hwt nh , ‘mistress of the estate (or mansion) of life’, Mafdet may have been considered as the protecting power of the royal court. In the Early Dynastic period the ‘Estate of Life’ may have designated the living- quarters of the royal palace (Gardiner 1938:89), or perhaps more specifically ‘the royal eating and food storage areas’, and Mafdet may have been embodied in the cats which probably protected these facilities against snakes and vermin (O’Connor 1987:35). Another suggestion is that Mafdet was originally a tamed big cat (possibly a leopard used for hunting) who escorted the ruler, protecting him and at the same time symbolising his silent power and strength (Westendorf 1966:131–5). The fetish of Mafdet shows execution equipment, and the goddess is thus regarded as a manifestation of judicial authority (Lurker 1980:79). The connection may be that, as the deity symbolic of royal power, she led rebels to their execution.
Mehit
A deity associated with Hierakonpolis and (primarily) This (Emery 1961:125), Mehit is depicted as a recumbent lioness with three bent poles projecting from her back. Mehit occurs on a number of Early Dynastic sealings (for example, Petrie 1901: pl. XVI.116), always preceding a depiction of the archetypal Upper Egyptian shrine, the pr-wr. Mehit may have been a general protector deity, associated with holy places. It is quite possible that, like Horus the Behdetite, the lioness goddess later identified as Mehit was not, at first, attached to a particular locality.
Min
The colossal statues of a fertility god found in the temple at Coptos indicate that the cult of the deity later named as Min was important from Predynastic times (Payne 1993; cf. Kemp 1989:81, fig. 28; Dreyer 1995b). Although in origin a local deity of Coptos (which always remained the god’s principal cult centre), Min probably enjoyed a national significance from an early period. The tradition in the Late Period that Min ruled Egypt at the beginning of history—a myth which linked Min with the first ‘historic’ King
Menes—may preserve echoes of the god’s importance during the period of state formation (Hornung 1983:108). The ‘thunderbolt’ symbol of Min, also attested from the Predynastic period, occurs on the Scorpion macehead, on a divine standard. Two such symbols are depicted flanking the head of Bat on a decorated ivory plaque from Early Dynastic Cemetery 300 at Abu Rawash (Klasens 1958:50, fig. 20(y), 53, pl. XXV). The symbol is also shown on a private stela from the reign of Djer (Petrie 1901: pl. XXVI.68) and on a sealing from the tomb of Merneith at Abydos (Petrie 1901: pl. XVII.135). It has been suggested that, like other prominent deities, Min may originally have been a god associated with the celestial realm, in this case the phenomenon of thunder (Wainwright 1941:30). The Palermo Stone records the fashioning or dedication of an image of Min as the eponymous event of year 7 of an unidentified First Dynasty king. An identical entry is given for year 6 of Semerkhet (on the main Cairo fragment), and for year 3 of an unidentified Third Dynasty king. A fragment of a slate bowl from the tomb of Khasekhemwy is inscribed in ink with the figure of Min (Petrie 1902: pl. III.48). Identical inscriptions were found in the galleries beneath the Step Pyramid, indicating that both sets of funerary provisions were drawn from the same source (Lacau and Lauer 1965: pl. 15.1–5). The full text gives the legend pr Mnw, ‘estate of Min’, showing that the cult of Min was flourishing and in receipt of royal patronage at the end of the Second Dynasty.
Neith
Neith was a warlike goddess whose name perhaps means ‘the terrifying one’. Her symbol, the crossed arrows, occurs as early as the Predynastic period, and Neith was clearly an important deity at the very beginning of the Early Dynastic period, with a ‘dominant role at the royal court’ (Hornung 1983:71). ‘Neith’ is thus a common element in the theophorous names of Early Dynastic queens (cf. Weill 1961, chapter 13), notably Neith-hotep (the wife of Narmer), Herneith (possibly a wife of Djet) and Merneith (the mother of Den and regent during his minority). Personal names incorpor
ating the name of Neith are also common amongst the retainers buried in the subsidiary graves surrounding the royal tombs at Abydos from the reign of Djer (Petrie 1900: pl. XXXI.9 [tomb Z], 10 [tomb W51], 11 [tomb W58], 20 [tomb T], pl. XXII.14). A label of Aha seems to record a royal visit to the shrine of Neith. This was probably located at Saïs in the north-western Delta, the principal cult centre of Neith in historic times (Petrie 1901: pl. IIIA.5). (The inscription of Wadj-hor-resne, recording the restoration of the temple of Neith at Saïs during the Persian period, speaks of the antiquity of the temple and its cult [Lichtheim 1980:36–41].) One of Merka’s numerous titles was hm-n r Nt, ‘priest of Neith’. The reverence shown to the cult of Neith by the early kings of Egypt and their wives may reflect the importance of the Delta, and of Saïs in particular, in the process of state formation.