The Spirits of Nature

Religion of the Egyptians

By

Ottar Vendel
Worshipping Clothing Headgear Regalia Legends of Creation The Myth of Osiris Court in Underworld Book of the Dead Ka and Ba Solar boat of Re Burial customs

Ancient Egypt had by tradition a great variety of gods and what today
can be labeled as spirits and divine forces. Some were depicted just as symbols and others had the form of living createures. In total they were over 2.000(!) but many had similar characteristics and appeared all over the country but with different names. This great diversity is due to the fact that before the country was united the northern Nile Valley was split up into about forty self ruling areas (later to be provinces - called nomes) where the ruling tribes had their own deities and leaders. From the dualism of all gods it's clear that animals were the first to get divine status and by time got human form. Because of this all gods had two things in common - they were family members with counterparts from the opposite sex and manifested themselves on earth through animals. Thus the local wild fauna of birds, crocodiles, snakes, turtles, frogs, plus cattle, dogs, cats and other domesticated animals were considered to be the living images of a particular god or goddess and a natural and indestructible part of the environment in which people lived. All parts of life were covered and there were gods for - beer, plants, digestion, the high seas, female sexuality, gardens, partying etc. Many of them had lots of duties and were with time combined with each other in a great number of ways. Some of them could appear in rather unusual forms like a goddess (curious even by Egyptian standards) having a head of a bee and body from a hippopotamus. When having a glance at a depiction of them shown in upright position with human bodies, the goddesses are easy to single out since they always had their legs joined together, while the males used to be seen on the move - striding.

Different towns struggled to have just their local gods at top of the state religion and thus we have many different religious legends over the years depending upon which town had the greatest politi-cal influence during the period. To increase the number of sup-porters nation wide they could "borrow" abilities from popular gods and give to their own. Because of this over the years different gods came into fashion and later went out of style, with exception of a group that was in front right from the beginning and never lost its popularity. These were responsible for basic and vital things in life like love, joy, dancing, childbirth, justice, and life after death. All aspect of daily life were covered by at least one of these deities, and like people on earth a vast majority of them were married (of- ten to their siblings) and had children. Many ingredients made it possible for common people to identify themselves with them since their personalities were made of both divine strength and human weakness. They did most of the things that ordinary people did, like harvesting, hunting, eating, drinking, partying and even dying. Most of them were depicted as men and women combined with the head of the animal by which they were represented and they could appear in different costumes and be represented by several animals in the Egyptian fauna. In other words - they could appear in many ways and yet some of them were Taueret so alike looking that it's impossible to identify them without reading the connecting text. Just looking at the dresses and the regalia they carry along isn't always enough, because they used to borrow objects from each other. This guesswork is a part of the charm when looking in to their in many ways, to us, unlikely world. As to their names, today we use a blend of both their original Egyptian ones like Re, Ptah and Amon, and the Greek forms like Isis, Osiris and Horus.

Shrines
As for the veneration of the gods scholars of Egyptology doesn't know exactly how this was made during the oldest times, or at what point in history the main gods had cult areas replaced by temples of their own. One clue might be the god Min (see him) who obviously had a very old cult at Koptos in Upper Egypt where two statues of him larger then life size were found in the late 1800s. They had no doubt been situated within a sacred area or by a shrine of some sort, but no remains are left to reconstruct what it may have looked like. After the formation of two separate countries along the Nile (Upper and Lower Egypt) a typical building came to be in each part, which more or less symbolized the country itself in both a religious and political way and underlined its national identity.

It's most likely that local temples made of clay and reed originally were the cult buildings used by tribes along the Nile, and with time two shrines were specified where people could make offers to the main gods. Through their different designs it's easy locate the origin of old writings

found since their depictions were incorporated into the hieroglyphic signs at an early stage (shown to the right of each illustration above). Per-wer, meaning "the Great House", stood for Upper Egypt, and Per-nu, "the House of Flame" was the cupola shaped roofed national temple of Lower Egypt. They are both attested for already during the reign of pharaoh Aha at the beginning of the first dynasty where they are present on a famous wooden label. If at this stage, all mayor gods were worshipped in these buildings is not known. With time the temples were elaborated to be great stone building just for a few very popular gods and goddesses which had fame over the centuries throughout the long Egyptian history. Minor gods had small shrines or were venerated in the homes.

Clothing
When the goddesses and gods were depicted with a human body the variety wasn't so big in the way they were dressed. Less then half a dozen types of garments covers almost all of them. From the beginning they all wore white dresses, or at least single colored. This tradition slowly changed over the years and with time the colors and patterns became elaborated. The peak was reached during the Greco-Roman period when they were seen in outfits like actors in a costume spectacle in a theatre. Excluding the mummy-like creations, here is a type description in brief:

Tunic with suspenders. Male garment, ending above the waist and popular in all times. Example:Re. Dress with suspenders. Female garment, ended above the waist, and was usually white. Example:Hathor. The short loincloth Short and skirt-like garment and popular from earliest times. Example: Asar-hap. The short-sleeved overall From the earliest times very common tight female garment. Example:Isis. The full-length dress Unusual, sleeve-less and for goddesses. Went up to the neck. Example:Seshat.

Notice that long sleeves were not in fashion in any era of Egyptian history, at least for the gods and goddesses. Their dresses were to a great extent similar to those worn by the upper classes

in society during daytime and evenings, and mostly indoors.

Pharaoh's crown
The gods had a lot of different things to put on their heads, and they surely did. In bright contrast to the stereotyped positions of their bodies the painters and sculptors were keen on giving the heads as much attention as possible. This was obviously initiated by pharaoh himself or the priesthood in order to give their favorite gods as much promotion as possible. The different crowns could give a hint where the god originally came from, and by wearing the combined crown for the whole country, the message was given that this god or goddess was important to all Egyptians. To make them conspicuous all crowns, hats etc. were adorned with plumes, horns, snakes, flowers, sun discs, leaves etc painted in bright colors. Especially during the Greco-Roman era the fantasy and elaboration was significant.

Deshret

Hedjet

Peshent

Peshent

Atef

Atef with horns Khepresh

EGYPTIAN CROWNS: The red one was from Lower and the white from Upper Egypt. The double crown represented the whole country. The Atef-crown was worn by Osiris and the type with horns and the sun disc by Re-Horakhte and other gods. The blue helmet-like came during dynasty 18 and was worn by kings and the god Amon.

Headgears of the gods

Besides royal crowns the gods had a lot of other symbols and things to wear upon their heads.
In some cases the headgear was necessary to identify the deities in ques-tion, when they were dressed the same, as they often were. Here is a selection of per-sonal things helping to identify which goddess is depicted in case the written hiero-glyphs don't give a clue. The following objects below are shown as they looked when the bearer in question was facing right. Neit had the a stylised form of her shield and crossed arrows on her head. Isis wore a throne on top, a rather uncomfortable one it seems, and Mat had her standing ostrich feather she was named after. Nephtys had a building topped with a bowl-like object (for collecting rain water?) and Nut had a pot (or a broad vase) upon her head. Selkhet wore the dangerous scorpion (without its deadly sting), and Seshat had the holy Perseatree with two horns over it as her personal sign. Anat had a stylized cow's uterus as her token.Hathor had several objects in her hat box like cow's horns with the sun disc and her favorite musical instrument - the sistrum, which was a rattle.

Most of these 18 objects worn upon their heads were unique for just one female deity, but Hathor's solar disc in variations and Anit's object could be worn by others. Especially the sun (symbolizing the god Re) was seen above the heads of many gods.

Regalia
All paintings, drawings, sculptures and reliefs in Egypt followed a traditional scheme, and changes came slowly with time. Some artistic features did not alter anything at all, and remained unchanged for over 3.000 years. The way of depicting people are among these unaltered expressions of art. The body was normally in profile except for the torso which was shown from the front like the eye, to make the face more expressive. The gods (and kings) depicted were seldom empty handed - they usually carried various objects, and the symbolic meaning of some are still obscure to Egypto-logists. The gods usually had the well knownankh-sign in one of their hands, with the general meaning "life", and also to be interpreted as joy of living. Since the Egyptian religion offered eternal life for those who had behaved well on earth, we don't know if this sign of life meant the next or the present one - or possibly both. The other hand was holding a staff or scepter of some kind, and here we have half a dozen types. Goddesses usually had a scepter topped with a flower in different colors (like a white lily from the Nile) but this was seldom seen among the gods, possibly because it gave a more soft impression to the observer. Very common through all times was the Was-scepter for "command" (see pictures below) and some gods, like Ptah and Osiris, had their own type of this staff.

1) Sceptre with flower often carried by goddesses. 2) The herdsman's crook of god Anedjti, patron of shepherds and protector of domesticated animals.3) Was-sceptre, stood for domination and power. It was very common among gods/kings in all times. 4) Staff of creator Ptah formed of four "djed-pillars" of order and stability (possibly a human spine). 5) Outfit of Osiris: crook and flail (cattle breeding and farming) plus the Was-sceptre and ankh-sign.

The Myth of Osiris

is an old and famous tale which in a way tells how Egypt came to be and points out the devine background of its rulers - the pharaohs. Among variations the main theme is as follows. In the very beginning of time Osiris was king over Egypt and his queen (and sister) was the goddess Isis. He was beloved by the people whom he told how to worship the gods and grow their crops for their daily bread. His brother Set became jealous and tried to overthrow him and become king himself. When participating in a feast with Osiris as host, Set began to describe a beautiful coffin he had, in a way that made the other guests curious.

Osiris

He was asked to fetch it and so he did and this was just in line with his plan. Everyone agreed that it was a magnificent piece of craftsman- ship and Set told them that he would give it away for free to whomever fitted exactly into it. Since he had made the coffin himself it was measured to fit one person only - his brother Osiris. When he placed himself in it everybody could see that he was the one who would get i as a present, but the evil Set had other plans. With his brother Osiris still in it, he and his fellows quickly nailed the lid and threw it into the Nile. Queen Isis was overcome by sorrow and began to search all over the land for it, but in vain. One day she heard that a wonderful tree had sprung on the shores of Byblos in the north on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where the local king had cut it down and built a palace from it. Isis understood that this was the place where the coffin had come to shore and she went there in disguise. She got a job at the court as a hairdresser for the queen and now when she could walk freely inside the castle she began to look for the coffin, and finally she found it in a remote chamber. During the night she managed to snatch it and embarked a boat Isis heading for Egypt. When she came there she hid in the marshlands in the delta. There she opened the coffin and took a last farewell of her beloved husband Osiris and began searching for a suitable place to bury him. But Set was aware of all this and was hiding nearby. When Isis went to rest for the night he snatched the coffin and cut his brother's body into fourteen pieces and spread them all over Egypt. Isis became furious and asked her sister Nephthys and her sonAnubis, to help her to find all the pieces of her husband's body. They now started a nation wide search that lasted for many years and finally all the part of Osiris' body were found except for the penis which had been thrown into the Nile where it was devoured by a fish. Horus Isis made a wooden replacement for it and then put the whole body together. She now asked the sun god Re to make her husband alive just for one day, which he did, and they could have a last night of love together. The next day Osiris died and his body was embalmed by Anubis who thus made him the first mummy. Isis later gave birth to a son who was named Horus and she did all she could to keep it a secret from Set, but he found them and almost killed them in an ambush. They were saved by the god of wisdom - Thoth, and he told them to hide in the reeds in the marshes once more. But as before Set found their hiding place and had more wicked things on his mind. He transformed himself into a snake and gave the Set little Horus child a fatal bite. When Isis came back she found her baby almost lifeless, and took him to the nearest village to get help. A wise old woman examined him and found out that it must have been Set as a snake who had bitten him. Thoth came to their rescue once more and drove out the poison from Horus' body and he recovered. He and his mother stayed hiding in the delta until he was a mature man and sometimes he took the form of a hawk and scouted out Set for the final showdown - the revenge on his murdered father. When that moment came they fought for three days until Thoth stopped the fight. They were both taken to the Court of Law in the Underworld and there they presented their versions of the story leading to the combat. The Court did not believe Set, who was sentenced to pull the boat with the sun across the sky forever. Horus now became the new king of Egypt like his father Osiris before him, and the good had finally conquered evil. Thoth Isis put the body of her dead husband in a coffin and had nineteen identical

coffins made in which she put duplicates. Priest from Egypt's twenty biggest towns then were given one each and could all thereafter claim that they had Osiris' tomb in their town. Thus many places in Egypt were (and still are) called Abusir - the place of Osiris.

Legends of creation
Ancient Egypt had different stories telling about how the world and all its inhabitants once came to be. The legends varied from province to province along the Nile, but after the unification a handful of them grew more popular and others were forgotten. The priesthood in the cult centers of the creator-gods supported their own version and thus we meet gods like Atum, Re, Ptah, Khnum and Kheper performing the act as The Great Maker, but in different ways. There are no Deluge-legends involved in any of the creation stories of the Nilepeople, probably because they had their own big flood every year and the beginning of everything couldn't possibly involve a banality like that. The most common and probably one of the oldest stories, said that at the dawn of time there was nothing but the water called Nun, and the first ground coming out of it was a rock called the "Ben-Ben stone". From a slightly irregular shape at the begin- ning, with time it was elaborated and turned into a broad and short obelisk with a pointed top in a four-side pyramid fashion. Some scholars suggest that this might be the prototype for later pyramids tombs, but others do not. On the Ben-Ben stone stood Atum and he coughed and spat out Shu and Tefnut.

The world creators in breef: ATUM from Heliopolis made everything (even himself) of his own sperm through masturbating or spitting. He then created woman from a bit of flesh from his hand. PTAH from Heliopolis in Lower Egypt made the world by simply saying words and made earth raise from the water, very similar the story in the Bible. RE (also from Heliopolis) is told in a rather late poetic legend to be the creator by using a tear from his eye to build all the world. KHNUM from the island Elephantine at Aswan in the south, was the creator who made the world and all its people on his potter's wheel. The stuff was mud from the Nile. KHEPER (representing Re) made all other gods from matter taken from his own body. He also created life (symbolically) every morning by commanding the sun to rise. AMON from Thebes was during the New Kingdom vaguely connected to the creation of the World, saying that he once (like Atum) had created himself at the dawn of time. THOTH was in Khemenu (Hermopolis) in Upper Egypt, the maker of the world and the first ones he helped to life were four frogs and four snakes, the so called Ogdoad.

The first family

The family from which all people in the world came was Shu, the god of cool air and his wife and sister Tefnut, goddess of rain, warm dew and moisture. They had the twins Geb who was god of the earth and Nut the goddess of the sky. Before they had any children they were separated by command of the solar god Re and Geb wept over his loss and his tears made all the seas and oceans of the world. One legend tells that Re for some reason (possibly jealousy) had become angry with Nut and laid a curse on her telling that none of her coming children could be born on any one day of the year. This was a big setback for Nut and Geb who were just plan-ning to raise a family. In their agony they turned to the god of wisdom - Thoth, for advice. He went to his superior, the shadowy and not often depicted moon-god Aah who was in charge of the Egyptian moon-calendar. This old

table of time consisted of 12 months of 30 days together making the moon-year of 360 days. Thoth made Re a proposition to gamble about the matter and they started to play a game of dice resulting in victory for Thoth. He thereby won the moonlight of the five additional days of the true year (in this case July 14 to 18) and gave it to Geb and Nut who used them for the births of their children. Thus the curse of Re had no effect upon them because their children could all be born outside Aah's moon calendar. In the years to come Nut gave birth to five of the most prominent deities of Egypt: Year 1 - Osiris. Year 2 - Horus (the Elder). Year 3 - Set. Year 4 - Isis. Year 5 - Nephtys.

The origin of Universe.

One of the oldest and best known legends comes from Heliopolis and goes like this: From the beginning there was nothing but a water chaos called Nun, and from that came the godAtum, who had created himself. From matter taken from his own body, he made Shu, the god of the air and Tefnut, goddess of moisture and rain. They in turn had the twins Geb, the earthgod, and Nut, the goddess of the sky. From these two (Geb and Nut) then came all other Egyptian gods and goddessses. Shu was often seen holding up the sky (his daugter Nut) with his son Geb lying under- neath (picture below). This family of four was the very foundation upon which the world existed as they represented the basic elements: earth, water, air and sky.

The first gods.

1) The old tradition from Heliopolis (Iunu) just north of Memphis in Lower Egypt said the creation of all the gods was made by Kheper, who was another form of their local sun god Re. He was self-produced and made the other gods out of the matter of his own body. He was the father of many gods like Osiris, Nephtys, Isis, Set, Horus and others. 2) The priests from Hermo- polis in Air-god Shu holding up the sky-goddess Nut supported Upper Egypt declared for their part by two versions of Khnum. Lying down: earth-god Geb. that Thoth was the primeval god and created the first four couples that built up everything. The first pair was Nun and Nuntet (snakes), who represented and dwelled in the mass of water from which everything emerged. The second was Heh and Hauhet (frogs), who stood for indefinite time and long life. The third was Kek and Keket (snakes), who embodied darkness, and the fourth pair was Niau and Niaut (frogs) representing the void. During the New Kingdom the two latter were replaced by Amon and Amonet. 3) In Sais (in the delta in Lower Egypt) the priests taught the people that their own mighty goddess Neit was behind the origin of the other gods. She was self-begotten and self-produced and mother of the mighty solar god Re. 4) Another story tells that the creation of The World was wet and dark and Atum-Re arose from the Nun and appointed the eight reptile gods above (the so called Ogdoad) to their proper places

and brought order from chaos. Here the frogs Niau and Niaut have been changed for Amon and Amonet which tells that this version is of later date (New Kingdom) when Amon had reached a lofty position among the gods.

Creation of man.
A very old legend in Egypt told that mankind was divided into four types when they were made on the potter's wheel by the great creator Khnum. He made them all out of mud of various colors from the Nile. The order in which they were made was as follows: First was Romut, meaning "men", and these were the Egyptians themselves. The second to come from the potter's wheel was - amu, the people from the desert mountains east of the Nile. This name was later also used for Asians in general. Number three, called - Temehu, was the fair skinned people from the Mediterranean coast west of the Nile Delta and the oases west of the Nile Valley. The last to be made was - Nehesy, the black people to the south of Egypt, below the province of Nubia. Notable is that the names of these people seem to be very old and originating from the early times when the Egyptians didn't have a name for Asians, which they surely encountered well before the first dynasty as shown in archaeology remains. According to another (much younger) legend mankind was created from a tear that fell from the eye of the god Re, and turned into men and women. The fair-skinned Libyans, considered as "cousins" by the people in the Nile valley, were formed in the same way. The two other people have a tear from Re as their origin too, but in a more irregular way.

The Court in the Underworld

When a person had died he was taken to Underworld where his deeds in life were taken to the Court of Osiris for the final judgement. Since this place also was called "The Island of Fire" it's quite obvious that the Egyptians had knowledge about the burning interior of the Earth though they had no volcanoes in their own country. Before coming there the dead person had to pass a labyrinth of gates and doors and answer questions correctly to pass through. The lion-god Aker let him through the last gate and he was facing the fourteen members of the jury in the Tribunal Hall. There he was allowed to speak about his behavior on Earth. (Shown in the upper left in the picture below). Then god Anubis took him into the courtroom presenting him the scale where his heart would be put in balance with the feather of the goddess Mat, patroness of truth and harmony. The procedure was recorded by Thoth - the god of writing and wisdom. Sometimes Thot's animal (a baboon) was sitting on top of the scale ready to adjust the result using a sliding weight.

The deceased enters from the left guided by Anubis. His heart is placed on the scales and the result is recorded by Thoth. Then Horus takes him in front of the judge Osiris for the final verdict. Behind the throne stand Isis and Nephtys. If the heart of the deceased wasn't too heavy with sins from his life on Earth, he went through and could continue his voyage to the afterlife and was granted a plot of land in the "Field of the Reeds". This was the paradise for the ancient Egyptians - to grow crops for eternity in a land that was the very image of the Nile Valley they just had left. If he failed the test on the other hand - his heart was immediately devoured by the beast Ammut sitting under the scale ready to have a good blow-out. In that case the dead faced the most horrible future imaginable for the Egyptians - he was denied an eternal life in the land in the West and his soul would be restless forever.

The seven steps to Paradise

1. Crossing the celestial river by Nemty to the "Land in the West". 2. Passing through gates and labyrinths by answering questions. 3. Being let into the great Court of the Underworld by the god Aker. 4. Addressing a jury of 14 judges about the deeds during life on Earth. 5. Taken by Anubis to "Balance of Truth" to weigh his heart for sins. 6. If the heart wasn't heavy, brought by Horus to Chief Judge Osiris. 7. Entering the "Fields of the Reed" (Paradise) and get eternal life.

The Book of the Dead

The Book of the Dead was (in most versions) an illustrated manuscript which consisted of prayers and magical texts to be used during the funeral and read over the dead to ensure the survival in the afterlife. These texts were a necessary part of the funerary equipment and were thought to help through dangers of the Underworld. Over 150 burial spells were written on papyrus and placed with the dead and the content has been traced back to the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts from 2.300 BC and had probably a long oral tradition before that. Each nome (province) and even towns had their own version putting text mentioning the local gods in favor. For poor people (i.e. the average Egyptian man amnd woman) there were versions not so elaborated (and expensive) and just containing the essence. A big part concerned the moment when the dead came in front of the jury in the Underworld. There he would make confessions like: "I have not killed or used false weights on my balance, or caused pain to anyone". Then he usually stated things like: "I have given clothes to the naked, water to the thirsty and bread to

the hungry" etc, all to convince the jury members of his kind-heartedness. One spell was spoken in front of a tribunal of 42 gods, and proclaimed innocence of a series of specified sins that covered every kinds of wrong doing. This made the soul worthy to go further into the Judgement Hall where the Court of Osiris (see above) had the final word. Being approved of there he was ready to embark on the Boat of Re to sail to the "Land in the West" for eternal rest.

The human soul - Ba, seen as a bird, hovering over his newly mummified master on his bier.

Ka and Ba (body and soul)

The purpose of preserving the body through embalming is clearly shown in the two components the Egyptians thought built up a man's personality. In both cases the physical body was essential for their existence and an eternal life for the deceased. The Egyptians believed that every person (during life and after) was followed by an invisible double called - Ka. He was created at the moment of birth and stood for "force of live" for the person. He could not be seen or depicted but all big tombs had a "blind door" for him to use. After death a transformation of rebirth took place and every night he was released to give his dead master a spiritual travel to the land of the living. The travel itself was made by his soul Ba (see beyond). This was a link from the tomb to life on earth that was supposed to go on forever. The poor commoners who couldn't afford an embalming were offered small simple statuettes of mummies to give their Ka someone to stand beside in the life beyond and thereby please their life-long companion and get eternal rest themselves.

Ka (left) walking beside the body and Ba who was dwelling within.

The human soul was called - Ba and was depicted as a bird with a human face, sometimes with the features of the dead person. The Ba (like Ka) appeared for the first time at the moment of birth, but the Ba was dwelling within the body, and after death in the mummy. During life he was

his master's conscience and after death he was himself protected from being misled by evil spirits through rituals and prayers from "The Book of the Dead" performed by priests or relatives. A correct behavior in both worlds was essential to the Egyptians. After death he was released from the mummy every night and could fly back to the world of the living to check things out. Before sunrise he was back within his master, who thus never lost contact with the world he had left.

The Solar Boat of Re

The story of the sun god Re and the voyage in his boat was one of the most important in Egyptian mythology and concerned the very basics of life for the people in the Nile Valley. It clearly shows the cyclic way of looking at time and life that was at hand since the oldest times for Egyptians. The religious beliefs in Heliopolis in Lower Egypt told that Re was the creator of men and at the beginning of the fifth dynasty he reached a very lofty position when the kings adopted his name in their titles claiming to be his sons. Re traveled through the waters of heaven in two different boats each day. The first, Madjet ("being strong"), rose out of the east behind the Mount Bakhu and then passed between two sycamore trees. At noon he was transferred over to a small bark by the name of Semektet ("going weak"), and this vessel took him into the sunset in the west at Mount Manu. He did not navigate the boats himself because this was taken care of by Mat, goddess of justice and stability. She was first mate on the bridge and set the course accompanied by Horus. The first voyage over the sky. The life-giving Re (the sun disk) and the symbol of creation the beetle Kheper on the very first day. Onboard are the gods who had helped to formed the World. The boat was held up by Nun, the lord of the watery chaos be- low from which everything had emerged at the dawn of time - the day before. (See also the gods Hu and Sia).

The boat was not provided with sails, but had another way to get power to move. It was simply pulled across the sky by the evil god Set who had been condemned to do so for killing his brother Osiris (as told in the Myth of Osiris above). At night the god Upuaut stood on the prow and navigation was assisted by pilot fish Abtu and Ant, who swam in front of the boat. The crew consisted of the gods Geb and Heka plus the companions Hu and Sia. They all helped Re to overcome the obstacles set up by those who tried to stop his journey - the three monsters Sebau, Nak, and Apep. The evil creature Apep was the most dangerous one and he took the shape of a big snake or a crocodile. Under the protection of war god Maahes, Re fought and killed the monsters every day and thus secured the way for the sun to rise the next morning. By then the participants were all alive and kicking again and the daily combat could begin as usual. Cloudy days were scary to the Egyptians because it might be that Apep had stopped Re in his

boat. To prevent this and make things go back to normal again they made extra offerings in the temples to make the sun come back. A prayer for life By begging Re to come back in the morning the Egyptians hoped that daily life should go on as usual. Since agriculture was the base of the country, the life giving sun was essen- tial for people's well being and existents. Scene from a prayer book.

The most critical days, that thankfully did not come often, were those with solar eclipses in different stages. It seemed that Apep was swallowing up the sun, but somehow, after extra ceremonies, Re turned out to be the winner in the end. There were even manuals for people to help to fight this evil snake/crocodile that could jump up from the heavenly waters and attack the boat and the people onboard. Even the otherwise bad god Set took part in the struggle, besides pulling the boat, which underlines the importance of the mission. The essence of this myth is that the sun (symbolizing life itself) was a constant struggle. A lifetime for a man was a similar voyage with the birth and peak of living at noon. At twilight life was coming to an end and people finally reach the glorious Land In the West - the next World, after their short stay on Earth. By venerating the gods who struggled every day to make the life-giving sun keep shining, order and stability was secured. This was what the chief navigator goddess Mat stood for and she always managed to get the old barge to port.

Burial customs
The basic purpose of mortuary preparation was to ensure the deceased a successful passage into the next world. The tombs were from the very beginning shallow holes in the sand later to be lined with a wall of sun dried bricks or stones and topped by a mound of sand or clay. The substructures were elaborated downwards when pits leading to grave chambers were cut out in the bedrock starting around 3200 BC. The structures above ground developed into bench-like brick buildings (mastabas) later to be made of stone and ending with the great pyramids 2.400 BC, a time span of evo- lution for almost half a millennium. The amount of grave goods and offerings (for wealthy people) was increasing and be- came more sophisticated and progress was also seen in the treatment of the body of the deceased the mummification. This custom first appeared also in about 3200 BC. and steadily progressed technically for the next 2.000 years from simple dehydration (made by the dry climate) to preparations with chemicals. Originally the dead was placed in a crunched position lying on the side, but with time traditions changed and they were stretched out on their backs. The religious belief was that the body should be preserved intact for the soul to dwell within in the next world. This made kings and other royalties hide their dead protec- ted under mountains of stone (pyramids) and later in secret hideouts in the desert cliffs. Unfortunately the huge monuments draw attension from poor people, and Egyptians never separated the valuable offerings and grave goods from the mummies, which made the robbers plunder it all during periods of political instability.

During the long periods prosperaty, which could last for hundred of years, cults of long deceased kings is noted to have been going on for many generations. In these the content in "the Book of the Dead" (see above) was a crucial element.

Prepared for eternity Anubis who was the watcher over the cemeteries, also took care of the important mummification. In the picture he is making an embalming to make the dead keep his looks in the next world. Without a physical body the soul had no place to dwell and would be restless forever. Poor people could only afford small clay figurines as substitute for a mummified body. Thus the great kings from the Old Kingdom did not come to "the Field of Reeds" after death despite (or more accurate: just because) they tried to protect themselves under mountains of stone, which draw attention to everybody, not the least tomb robbers. The next world was located in more than one place both in a physical and a religious (metaphysical) sense. It could be 1) in the area around the tomb, 2) among the stars, 3) in the celestial regions with the sun god or 4) in the Underworld itself. All places had one thing in common: they were all located in "The Beautiful West" where the day (and life) ended with the setting sun. The journey to the next world was fraught with obstacles in the Underworld. It was a trip by boat through many gates with tricky questions to answer. The judgement after death (see "the Book of the Dead" above) was a subject often depicted from the New Kingdom and onwards. The belief itself was much older, probably from before the first dynasty 2000 years earlier. It was the final judgement whether the deceased had been a good human being or not. Most of them (with means) could pass by giving offerings to the gods and making declarations about their good behavior on Earth, true or not.

Next interesting chapter is: Egyptian History and its famous Kings

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Dawn of Egyptian Culture

Neolitic period 6.000 - 3.500 BC. Predynastic period 3.500 - 3.100 BC. By Ottar Vendel

Records

The Earliest Cultures South and North History Begins The 42 provinces Origin of the Egyptians Eye Makeup Sumerian Connection Hieroglyphs Early Kings The Unification The Royal Cemetery Pharaoh's titles

The first signs of human activity in the area which today is Egypt, dates back around 500,000 years. Pebbles and stone axes from the Abu Simbel region in the far south have been estimated to be of this age. The majority of the stone age finds are 90.000 to 250.000 years old and the materials are mostly the stones quartzite and basalt. These remnants are surely from the dawn of man and not from our own clever and imaginetive sort Homo Sapiens Sapiens. The first fragments of "real" humans and an organized society are from Qadan (250 km south of Aswan) and date back to circa 13.000 to 9.000 BC. and have the first cemeteries with ritual burials. A rudimentary agriculture is shown from all grinding stones and the great number of sickles. In some places fishing is decreasing since the cereal culture, possibly barley, plus hunting (the area by the Nile were then a savannah) gave a sufficient level of feeding. Then, due to a slow change into a drier climate, agriculture was decreasing, and sickles are found more seldom. The fight for fertile land was then a fact for the inhabitants in the Nile Valley and in around 6.000 BC they organized themselves in tribes to protected their possessions. The small semi nomading groups of hunters and fishermen began to be stationary in villages and after the adoption of the "modern" agriculture in around 5.000 BC (like working together on irrigation projects etc), the base to the coming high culture was ready and the key word was - spare time. This was gained when the Nile was flooding and a good harvest didn't make it necessary to gather food and cattle breeding made hunting not a necessety. Some centers based on agriculture and some hunting/fishing grew to quite a substantial size, like the one excavated in the 1930s at Merimde. At approximately the same time communities were developing by other rivers like Indus in today's India/Pakistan and the much closer by Eufrat and Tigris in Mesopotamia the place for the coming high culture of Sumeria. (See the history table for the region). Archaeology in Egypt has revealed habitats (map at upper right) which had their own typical pottery, tools, weapons, burial customs etc. The cultures at the middle Egyptian town of Badari and a couple of minor at the southern delta, lived their own lives until the advanced civilization from the southern town of Nagada started to spread northwards. After almost a millennium it had reached up to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and wiped out the local cultures at Maadi and Omari which until then had influences from the region of today's southern Palestine. The two geographical parts (southern - Upper, and northern - Lower Egypt) thus had a basically common culture just prior to unification. Some differences however were to a great extent preserved, like local gods and symbols, which had originated in the around forty small tribe areas (later to be Egyptian provinces) which were spread along both banks of the Nile. Very important, not to say essential factors for creating this first national state in history were their common language and the developing of a writing system.

Faiyum culture (at right row 1) had flint arrowheads and stone tools. The crude pottery was without decoration. Sickle blades of wood and stone (bottom) are found from this old mixed hunter/farmer society from the period c. 6 000 - 4 000 BC. The Mirimde culture (on row 2) had circular huts with burials along a main "street". The tombs contained no offering goods and the pottery was not decorated. This 12 cm long saw blade was made of brown flint. A face of clay (height: 11 cm) was possibly depicting a dead ancestor. Estimated date: 5 000 - 4 200 BC. The Badari culture (on row 3), had simple clay figures and thin pottery, "black-topped" (20-25 cm) and the first cosmetic palettes (square). A possible parallel culture, the Tasianhad "trumpet" jars. The five cm high stone vase was maybe for perfumed oil. Period around 4500 - 4000 BC. The Nagada culture (row 4 at right) showed an elaborated design on decorated pottery. Brown urn with three women dancing over a big boat with two square cabins. At far left is seen a row of four ostriches.Woman figurine of bone (10-12 cm). Nagada I, (Amaratian) c. 4000 BC .Bearded man of stone (51 cm) from Nagada II, (Gerzean) c. 3500 BC .

A man is harpooning an hippopotamus from a boat (detail). Carving on a slate palette from 4.000 - 3.500 BC. Provenance is unknown. The boat's hull is clearly of Upper Egyptian style. In later times kings were often depicted hunting hippos. (Medelhavsmuset Stockholm).

The two cultures

Prior to the unification in about 3.200 BC. the two main cultures in the north and south were clearly visible. They had different kings wearing different crowns and their main gods were worshipped in temples of a quite different style. The pottery in the north showed influences from the area of Palestine and Syria and in the south new designs were coming from Sumeria in the east such as cylinder seals to make impressions in clay. The north adopted a new architectural design in brickwork and began to make tomb buildings in a rectangular form (mastabas) with walls having fancy recesses, and this was also a cultural inport coming from the Sumerian culture. In the south the tombs for the upper classes did not change and were crude building hardly above ground i an elaborated traditional tribe style from the past.

Nagada statuette of a dancing woman with bird's? head.

The types of boats were strikingly different too and in the Delta they had high sterns (like the reed boats in Sumeria) using vaulted cabins. In the south the boats were long with low sterns and possibly partly made of wood, and carrying square flat topped cabins. This is shown clearly in a painting from an old tomb (later in the text below) and on a knife handle made of ivory where combatants fight with clubs. If this is the final battle of unification there are interesting details to put forward: the warriors all look alike with a slight exception for their hair style and wear the same type of clothing and similar weapons. In other words it looks like an internal struggle among cousins from a basically similar culture. Contradict to this is the depiction on the other side of the knife handle where a standing man holding two lions is dressed in a typically old Baby- lonian fashion with a long robe and a turban. He is wearing a full beard, and this is clearly not Egyptian. In about 1900 scholars made up the theory that invaders had penetrated the valley coming through the mountains from the Red Sea 120 km to the east, arriving right at the cradle of culture in Upper Egypt. How, and by what means they had transported themselves all the way from Sumeria wasn't quite clear, but this was yesterday's try to explain the culture influences from the east. This hypothesis is now aban-doned and the "invasion theory" has been changed to culture impulses made by trade. An influx of people (settlers) from the East, in a small scale, might have occurred, but physical evidence to back up this theory has not come up.

The beginning of History

In general the word "historical" means when a culture has developed a pictographic way of recording events and persons. In that sense Egypt's history began in about 3.200 BC when the first hieroglyphic writings come to light on small labels of wood and ivory. Remarkably the structure of the writing system was almost finished in the first dynasty and thus was a product of a development that had been going on for an unknown period of time. Remnants from the earlier stages have not been found and several attempts to derive hieroglyphs from the so-called "pot marks" made on ceramic vessels have, so far, not been successful. The options are two: writing can in the earliest times have been made on material that has decayed, or the system has been imported from abroad. No traces outside or inside Egypt can confirm any of these suggestions. Other ways of recording things is by sculpturing. From the primitive figures of wood, bone and clay appearing in tombs from about 4.500 BC (like the figurine above), next step was to master stone as stuff for artifacts. Cosmetic palettes (for creating eye shadowing make up) from graves were with time made in different shapes and pictures of animals and humans on them became more common. There are a few outstanding remains in early stone sculpture but one Ivory statuette 4000 BC. and tattoos exeption is the two colossi of the fertility god later to be Min which were from a priestess' mummy 2100 BC. found at Coptos. In these early days the god was shown as a bearded man without any hair (bald or possibly with his head shaven). Several small figurines looking like this have been found in tombs and in the temple yard at Hierakonpolis, an old fortified town in Upper Egypt built on an island in the Nile. The finds are dated to a few centuries prior to dynasty one in 3.200 BC. A famous sculpture and with a similar look is a well preserved black stone sculpture now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford known as the Mac Gregor man. These two examples show that handling and forming hard stone was well known even a couple of generations prior to the first dynasty.

Two stone palettes

Left: Old type stone of palette with a hunting scene. ( 4000 - 3500 BC ). Right: Stone palette in shape of an unknown animal ( 3500 - 3200 BC ). In the 1890s some remarkable finds were made at the old town of Nekhen, called Hierakonpolis (Falcon City) by the Greeks. It was situated 140 km south of todays Luxor (yesterday's Thebes) and placed upon a rocky plateau 400 m out in the flood plain from the western bank of the Nile, which made it easy to defend during the flooding season when it was surrounded by water. The foundations and remains of a royal palace told that this was the place where the earliest kings had resided. Under the ground outside the temple was a cache containing lots of remains from the earliest pharaohs, and it was obviously brought her for safe keeping from the cemetery at Abydos up north and possibly some other royal burial ground not yet found. Among the finds were several figures of clay, ceramics, ivory, stone and bone (picture below) and some types (possibly local) were never to be seen again in Egyptian art after the start of the first dynasty.

Some small figures made of ivory depicted a god with a broad beard and sometimes a helmet like cap on his head. He might be the god of fertility - Min, at least in the version with a bald head (see "Nagada" by the picture atop). If the female figurines are early prototypes for later goddesses is not known, but the sleeve-less cloak around one of them (above) is very unusual. (See the link "old king" in the text of king Ka below). Extensive investigations starting in 2002 have revealed a lot about this oldest royal temple in Egypt, the Hierakonpolis center. It went through at least three big changes (enlargements) during the time prior to the union of the countries in around 3.200 BC. In the cemetery of the elite has been found quite elaborated tombs with offerings dating back as long as 3.700 BC. This unex-pected fact gives a time span which is half a millenium longer than previous estimated.

Where did the Egyptians come from?

Thousands of examinations over the years of skeletal remains from graves give the fact that the ancient Egyptians (as well as the present population) belonged to the so called Mediterranean type of the Caucasian people. Today as then they are living in Africa north of Sahara from the Red Sea in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. During the Natufian time around 12 000 years BC the way of making stone flakes for implements (Microburin technique) was very alike in northern Egypt and the area south of the Dead Sea in Palestine. Furthermore, an exchange of people is also confirmed through archaeology. Also dwellings like round huts partly dug into the ground are similar for these areas. The influx of people to Egypt over the last 2.000 years has just slightly effected the bulk of the population, and scholars believe that the human stock of today is very much the same as it was in ancient times. The complexion gets darker when going southwards, following the intensity of the sun, but without any changes towards Negroid looks. Regrettably nonsens about the origins of the Egyptians is today frequently spread through television, but a fact is that Egyptians (now and then) are not ralated to black sub-Saharans. Thus the genetic laboratories of the Egyptian Museum and University of Cairo could in 2010 prove in consensus, that king Tutankhamon was of the West European DNA type R1b, which has no connection at all to black Africans or Asians.

The ancient Egyptians were in general slim hipped with rather broad shoulders and oval faces was in majority. They depicted themselves with long straight noses from the earliest times through portraits made in later periods. (Pictures right are from 1.500 and 3.200 BC). The women hardly never got plump and had no tendency to a large behind like their black sisters further south did. Their hair color was usually black to dark brown. More light skinned individuals were present especially in the coastal area west of the Nile delta among the Libyan tribes (see below). Considering the homogeneity of the people a fair assumption is that most of the Egyptians have entered the Nile Valley from the north (and from the now gone savannas west of the river) and spread to the Red Sea in the east. In the south they stopped at the cataract of Aswan, where the fruitful shores of mud ended and were replaced by cliffs. This point was for thousands of years the natural lower border of Egypt, separating them from the black inhabitants further south by a vast stretch of wasteland.

Geography and climate The first "cultural" remains found are, at the earliest, from around 13,000 BC. These traces are too few for making conclusions about those who left them. When the annual floods with its fertilizing mud started grass began to grow by the shores and hunters had possibility to get prey, and this did not begin to an extent until after the latest Ice Age as recent as around 8,000 BC.

One of the earliest known detailed depictions of an Egyptian comes from the so called the "Hunters' Palette" showing a good dozen worriors with long hair gathered in a net or a short wig. They all had long straight noses and a beard. They were dressed in a skirt of reed and the weapons were: boomerang, axe, spear, club and arch. On their heads they wore plu- mes (as tribe marks?) and by the belt hung a jackal's tail. The man to the right has a standard with a falcon atop and a shield (or maybe a drum). The eastern part of today's Egypt is just the sterile Sahara desert. Archaeology has shown that long before and during the Later Stone Age (neoliticum, beginning around 6.000 B.C.) people lived here as hunters and had a type of culture which to a big part was very similar to the one by the Nile (Hoffman: Egypt Before the Pharaohs" 1979). Furthermore, ancient rock art in the western mountains show hunters, pray and dometicated ani- mals, but the lack of dwelling and tombs makes it all difficult to date the single remains. Scholars estimate within a span of 10.000 to 3.000 years BC. Nontheless this clearly indicates that this region which then was a savannah, provided the Nile Valley with immigrants and possibly vice versa. As late as during the Old Kingdom these so called "sand dwellers" (Egyptian name) were many enough to disurb the state by the Nile which had to take military actions against them bringing back prisoners and live stock to Egypt. In the ealiest days the people by the Nile were hunters too, but had additional skills compared to their neighbors in the deserts. They were used to water and used boats and rafts, could catch fowl, fish and hunted game like crocodiles and hippos. In around 5,000 B.C. agriculture came to the Nile Valley and the population increased considerably. By this time the region had rain falls making the desert areas now flanking the river a grass land feeding animals like buffaloes, giraffes, gazelles, and present were also the feline predators lions and cheetas. Then the climate constantly got drier and at the beginning of dynastic times most of the big grass eaters were extinct. By 2,000 years BC rain falls did appear just occasion-ally and the nomads in the western savannas were the first ones to abandon their hunting grounds. Activities (like small scale agriculture) was from now on possible only in the big oases. To maintain the food supply (crops) the Egyptians had to store and transport water from the river and this could only be done through canal- and dam building in a huge scale. An firm organization was needed to realize this and the centralized power was established since the original tribe areas and their chiefs were inadequate in size to perform such a great task themselves.

The Egyptians classified people into four groups as seen here from the tomb of Seti I. 1) Nehesy - Black inhabitants further south in Africa below today's province of Nubia. 2) Romut - Themselves, the farmers, hunters and fishermen living in the Nile Valley. 3) amu - Asians (and people in the east mountains, usually dressed like Egyptians). 4) Temehu - Libyans, from the coastal area in north-west and western desert, having swanky dresses, fair skin and tribe mark tattoos, seen also on Egyptians, even today. The Eastern Mountains towards the Red Sea probably never had any vast grass areas like the western regions did. Living conditions here were more suitable for small live stock breeding with animals like goats and sheep.Pictorial remains from the inhabitants are remarkably many, and new ones are found by hundreds every year today (2007). These pictures have a significant and common motif which is lacking in the mountains west of the Nile - boats. This area seems to have been fairly occupied at least until the end of the Old Kingdom. Thereafter the mountaineers probably got fewer and are not mentioned specifically in hieroglyphic texts any more. The Egyptian name meaning "easterners" (see text by the picture above) was used also to designate peoples coming from Asia, mostly those from the Middle East region. The "real" Egyptians were the farmers by the Nile with their high and developed culture, and they always considered themselves a separate people from their close neighbors though we can assume that they shared the same language. These relatives disturbed the Egyptian trade routs through robbery etc. and this was the main reason for hostility between these cousins. The Egyptian army was constantly kept alert by maintaining security for their export and import passing these areas. The Egyptian (slightly degrading) name for inhabitants here was "mountain dwellers" an analogue to the people in Sahara westbound being called "sand dwellers".

The Egyptian Eye Paint

The very old Egyptian eye makeup is famous and has influenced modern fashion. This habit was due to the fact that the Egyptians came from the north and had fair skin not adapted to the bright sunshine in the northern Nile Valley. To reduce the irritating light reflected into the eye they shaded the area around it with paint, and this made working outdoors or just being i the sun more bearable. With time people from the upper classes (women and men alike) made this practical painting an essential part of their daily appearance, and it was elaborated in form adding green and blue colors. The stone palettes for grinding eye paint became pieces of art indicating the owner's status. They are found in many different shapes from the oldest times and the most famous is the one of pharaoh Narmer.

The Sumerian connection

Mother symbols of the Nile valley? A mysterious scene from a ceremonial make up palette dated to around 3.300 BC. Two hyena-like animals with puppies, making a roof over two feline fantasy-creatures with long necks which are licking what seems to be a goat. The opposite side has two lions standing on their back feet and mouth to mouth against two goats. Five palettes with dog-like animals are known and others have two giraffes(?) with a palm tree in the center. In one case an unknown king's serek is shown in the middle. (See below number 8 in unidentified kings). The artistic style with two facing animals was common in Sumeria, and might be a cultural import to the Nile Valley. The motif with two animals can also be taken as symbolizing the North and the South.

The scene on a knife handle mentioned above shows two types of boats. The ones with a high prows are believed to be from the northern delta - Lower Egypt - and made of papyrus. The Egyptians living there called their country "Ta-mehu", the land of the papyrus. The others boats have their origin in southern - Upper Egypt - "Ta-schema", the land of the reed, and seem to be partly made of wood. The cabins are different too as shown in the "painted grave" from Hierakonpolis (see picture in chapter "The historical records" below). The high prowed boats also occur in Sumeria but there is no evidence that they were brought to the Nile Valley by invaders or even was a cultural import for that matter, because the reed/papyrus material simply make this the only practical way of constructing such a boat. In the mountains in the East Desert from the possible path of the "invaders" a large number of stone carvings have been found, where boats (often big ones) play a leading roll. It is obvious that this vehicle played a major part in Egyptian society already in prehistoric times but there is no evidence that these vessels were for sailing on the high seas, and the more modest strip of water called the Nile (during the inundation up to 60 km across) would have been enough. At the beginning of the 1900's archaeologists examined the skeletal remains of the earliest graves and found that the remains of the ruling class" indicated that they might have been of heavier stature than the Egyptians in general. This was the ground for the belief that these had come from outside the country. Cylinder seal, Evidence of cultural influence from Sumeria before the unification is proven, but genetic cultural import influence to a notable extent is not. from Sumeria The newcomers were believed to have brought a falcon god into Egypt and were called after him "The followers of Horus". The physical statures of the oldest kings are not known, but remains and depictions of those from dynasties 0-4 tell that some were heavy-built with broad faces, but variations within the families were frequent. The most significant influence from Sumeria was the facade of the royal palace. This was an insignia for the king, depicted in a stylized way and called a "serek". It came into use before dynasty 1, as did the new style of mud brick masonry in northern Egypt used in the mastaba-tombs. <="" a="">

Hieroglyphs - and Egyptian writing

An essential factor for the cultural development in the Nile valley was the invention of writing. This made it possible to pass knowledge to the next generation. The origin of the signs (known by their Greek name hieroglyphs) is still a mystery and the grammatical system was complete already in the first dynasty without a trace of any developing stages. A theory is that it all had been brought to Egypt from outside, but this has not been confirmed. One possibility is that the earliest writing was made on material now totally decayed, but this is naturally hard to prove. Over the years around 1,200 signs have been detected with a core of around 800 from which a selection of around 100 were more frequently in use. When the Roman era was going towards its end a couple of hundred years AC the knowledge of hieroglyphs also came to an end and all writings on buildings, papyrus manuscripts etc became totally illegible. This would however, be restored some 1,500 years later starting in the year 1798 when a French military expedition invaded Egypt for both eco-political and cultural reasons. Besides the troops there were 500 civilians scientists and engineers, geologists, painters and others. They constructed canals, made maps, documented temples, mummies, tombs and all interesting they found in this new culture. They noticed that almost everything from simple hand tools to large buildings were decorated with pictures of birds, flowers, people, frogs and many other things which were placed in rows or columns. This was the first organized attempt to pass the knowledge about them to Europe, and it was made by a man of great farseeing who was chief of the expedition. He was 29 years old and due to his ability in mathematics and leadership he had graduated as an officer of artillery at the age of 16 and got the rank of general at 24. In a few yars he would be famous in European politics and known in history by just his first name - Napoleon.

In the second year of the occupation (1899) a The Rosetta stone has three different alphabets. From top: black stone slab was found outside Rosetta, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic signs and classic Greek. which was a town by the Mediterranean Sea. It was covered with inscriptions in Egyptian using traditional hieroglyphs and a "short- hand" type called demotic plus Greek by their alphabet (picture right). French scientists participating in the expe- dition could read the Greek part at once and it was a religious decree from the priests of Memphis (the capital) giving divine honors to their pharaoh Ptolmaios V, who ruled in Egypt between 205 and 180 B.C. A fair assumption was now made that the content of the three texts was identical, and if so, it was a golden opportunity to descript the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. A complete solution was now at hand and just a matter of time, and it should take - 23 years. The French troops surrendered to the British two years later, and the stone was brought to London in the fall of 1802. The best French linguist had been studying copies of the texts for some years but without any progress, and handed over the task the same year to a Swedish diplomat by the name David kerblad. He was an orientalist and linguistic genius who mastered (among others) the dead Coptic language, classic Greek and historical writing systems. He could within just a couple of months(!) make astonishing pro- gress by correcty identifying all personal names in the demotic section, like Ptolmaios, Cleopatra, Alexander, Berenike, Arsino plus the words "Alexandria", Greek", "Egyptian" and "temple". His results also clearly showed that Coptic (in which the text was written) was a direct descendant of the dead Egyptian which could help to reconstruct old and lost sounds from the Nile Valley. For this purpose he made a list of 29 demotic letters which (later would show) rightly gave the sound values from 15 of them. This was a breakthrough which should turn out to be of great importance in breaking the code of the hieroglyphs. Now the expectations from the public for a fast solution were high, but remarkably nothing of importance was achieved for almost two decades, though publications frequently came where the authors wrongly claimed they have solved the problem. Doing so would surely generate fame of historical proportions, and this fact made all sorts of scientists eager to win the race. Seventeen years later (in 1819) the English polymath Thomas Young wrote an article where he claimed to have found all hieroglyphic letters. Through using them he had identified the name Ptolmaios from the Rosetta Stone. Regrettably just the six letters forming this king's name were later proven to be correct. He followed his own odd theory that all foreign names were written only with hieroglyphs having a sound value (letters), and Egyptian ones with ideograms (signs standing for ideas), but this should later turn out to be wrong. Consequently the scholars working according to this principle hit a dead end and further progress was halted for them. One person who suspected the old Egyptian grammatical pat- tern to be quite different was the French linguist and librarian JeanFranois Champollion. He was a 29 years old teacher at the University of Grenoble and had worked with the hieroglypic riddle in periods for over ten years but Jean-Franois Champollion (1790-1832) had made few publications on the issue. found the key to hieroglyphic writing. After reading Young's article he noticed that find-ing even a few sound values was no doubt a step forward, but far from the solution of the grammatical pattern of the Egyptian language. He now focused on the personal names within the ovals, so called "cartouches". By also choosing older texts copied from temples holding pure Egyptian names, he noticed that these were likely to contain both letters and ideograms. In some cases specific signs ocurred later to be known as guides about gender. Then in the summer of 1822 he practically stumbled over the solution to the system by which the old Egyptian writing was built up. It was a seemingly random mixture of signs making parts of words (no vowels were written prior to the Greek period 200 BC) as well as groups and single signs which had an abstract meaning of themselves. Thus an eye could mean "see" and a picture of a vulture pronounced "ah", being the first sound of its name.

The sun(god) was known to be called Ra (or Re), and names beginning with a picture of the sun he correctly assumed might be that sound. He then was able read the names of the two pharaohs Ramses and Thotmes, with the latter's name having a picture of the god Thot's bird (an Ibis stork) RA-M-S-(E)-S THOT-M-(E)-S as its initial. In short: the names started with the sign depicted (the sun was called Ra), or stood for (the stork symbolized Thot). The other signs were the sounds m and s, just like modern letters and in between them was (the invisible and not written) vowel "e". By recognizing these facts the key to the great puzzle was found and a interpreting of all Egyptian text was possible. After presenting his result to the academic world in Paris, which gave him a positive response, he made a trip to Egypt to evaluate his theories on the site, and it was found to be correct. A very early attempt to descript hieroglyphs was made during the 9th and 10th century. Then an Arab speaking writer and alchemist named Ibn Wahshiyah is said to have had some progress in finding Coptic words and sounds from hieroglyphic texts. His manuscripts were translated into English and published in London in 1806 but have never been referred to by scholars. Since modern Egyptology started at the end of the 1800s, additional stones has constantly been added to the building of the Egyptian language and have been put in their proper floor, due to the fact that many changes were made during its long life of at least 3,500 years.

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The historical records

Painting (detail) from c. 3.400 BC from tomb 100 at Hierakonpolis possibly showing a battle on the Nile. White boats of Upper Egyptian style are surrounding a single black one with a high prow in a Lower Egyptian fashion and probably made of reed. In a canopy on the deck of the biggest white ship (below the blue point) is the king of Upper Egypt. and in this rather sketchy work he is surrounded by fighting men, musicians, dancers, cattle and probably wild animals. A similar (or obviously the same) motif where the two types of vessels are present and a real combat (but without a king) is also shown in details on a very old ivory knife handle. In the lower left corner is a man holding two standing lions, a motif common in Sumerian art.

The single black "enemy" boat indicates that the picture was made from the Upper Egyptian side and the one from the knife handle with equal numbers of participants, points to a neutral (Sumerian?) observer not taking sides in this historical event. In the far lower left corner (shown right and not in the big pic- ture) is a royal motif later to be very common. A figure raises a club and smites three captives. Such scenes were very frequent for the pharaohs for more than three millennia to come. The meaning of the picture has been debated among scholars over the years. A majority says that it's a naval/land combat between Lower and Upper Egypt, and making way for the unification to come a century or two later. During the 1990s old sites of archaeological interest were dug up again after 100 years, and new methods brought a fresh light to old conclusions made by scholars of yesterday. We have reason to believe that prior to the unification progress in various sectors of society like agriculture, breeding of cattle, metalwork, etc was the same in the delta as in the valley itself. Unfortunately knowledge of the north is practically nothing from this period, but from the south the development can be well observed through the advances of modern archaeology. The first areas with centralized power, "mini kingdoms", were placed around the big "knee" of the Nile, where the water strikes hard rocks of granite and has to make a right (eastern) turn. These main areas were at This (north of Abydos), Nagada and above all Hierakonpolis 40 km south of today's Luxor. (See map at top of page). At Hierakonpolis a huge fortified area with a temple was dug up in the 1890s. Luckily many objects from the oldest times to the sixth dynasty were found in a cache called "the Main Deposit" in the temple yard. The town was situated on an island in the Nile and thus easy to protect, because armed struggle for power was significant for this time, at least from evidence in remains like grave goods and inscriptions. Then the oldest royal graves were dug out at Abydos further north, and in less than ten years Egyptian history had been pushed back several centuries. These lucky strikes revealed unknown kings from before the unification and one of them was King Scorpion II (menu left). He was portrayed on a big ceremonial mace head of stone that was found beside other inscribed objects from other rulers. Yet all these were overshadowed by the most famous find - the big slate palette of king Narmer (below). This was a green unbroken 60 cm high ceremonial palette for grinding makeup, and it's now a masterpiece in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Pharaoh's many titles

By the advent of the 12th dynasty in around 2 000 BC the ruler had adopted no less then five titles in his presentation on monuments and in writings. The oldest of them was the so called "Horus Name" which is attested for as far back as when writing began and it was from the beginning connected to the falcon god Hor (Greek: Horus) which stood for the king himself as a person. The bird was usually put atop of a rectangular box (a so called serek seen in the picture left) which symbolized the royal palace and its fancy mud brick facade, and gates, shown in stripes and squares at the bottom. The picture left shows the Horus name of king Qaa of the first dynasty. The well known name "Pharaoh" is a late Greek corruption of two Egyptian words meaning great house. From the Greek period (200s BC) and onwards it was used in writing, just with phonetic hieroglyphs and letters without having a symbol of its own, and in a context like today's words "His Majesty".
The Horus name

The Nebti name and its animals

The second name to be was the so called "Nebti Name", showing the king in his relation to the two goddesses representing the two united kingdoms. They were the vulture-goddess Nekhbet from the Upper Egyptian town of today's elKab and the cobra-goddess Uto, patroness of the town Buto in Lower Egypt. The title manifests the duality of the Egyptian kingship, presenting the king as the ruler of the two countries through their female animal deities. The first king to used a Nebti-name was Den already duing the first dynasty. The picure above right shows the Nebti name of king Pepi II of dynasty six: Netjerikhaw, meaning - The king (Netjer) is the The Two Ladies Divine Of Apparition.

Number three in order of titles was the "Golden Horus Name" and shows the god sitting upon the sign for "gold" - a necklace. The title must have had new meaning compared to the others already in use, but this hasn't been fully sorted out by the scholars of Egyptology. Each king put an attribute in front of the falcon or replaced it upon the symbol. The piture right shows king Djedkare Isesi from dynasty V put- ting the Djed pillar into the sign making the meaning - "The golden Horus is firm". During later times kings had des- cribed themselves as "made as a falcon of gold" with an unclear meaning. Gold was clearly connected to "eternity" and the royal burial chambers were called "golden rooms".
The golden Horus

The sedge and the bee

The "Nisu-bity name" came to use more frequently during the third dynasty and then finally replaced the most prom- inent of titles - The Horus Name. This prefix shows the sedge plant of Upper Egypt and the honey bee from Lower Egypt. It thus was "he of the sedge and the bee" meaning the ruler of the two countries. It was given the king when he entered office and from dynasty 11 always written within or in front of a cartouche (picture right). It usually started with the solar disk (god Re) followed by stereotyped names like "(I'm) Strong is the spirit of Re, Re is my guide in life" etc.

The Son of Re

The Nomen was given to the king to be when he was born, and was thus realy a personal name by which he was called by his family members. From dynasty four the prefix "Son of Re" was added by a goose (son of) and the solar disk for Re. It was written within a cartouche from the third dynasty and onwards. Sometimes the words "The Good God" could be written just before the name to put a divine touch to the name of the human person who could be called Senwosret, Seti or Amenemhet. The picture right shows this type of personal name from dynasty six, simply saying - Pepi son of Re.

Historical event on record ?

The famous big cosmetic slate palette of king Narmer. Size: 64 x 42 cm. Its purpose was probably to show the king as the guarantor for Egypt's stability, keeping rebellious tribes in order. The Pharaoh is wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt and smiting enemies. A falcon (king himself) holds foes by a nose-ring, and six flowers give the number 6,000. Behind the pharaoh stands his sandal bearer. At top: two heads of the cow goddess Hathor are flanking the king's name: a catfish and a chisel. Bottom: Fallen men with the sign "town" and its name - a rosette. On the opposite side (not shown) the king is wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt as he inspects decapitated foes. A very fine photo is published here. The question over the years has been if tradition is right about a single military attack from the south invading the north, and the answer is most likely - it's not. Narmer isn't the only king who showed himself as the winner smiting enemies and wearing both crowns, because so did Scorpion. And if Menes wasn't identical with any of those, we have three kings as the presumed founders of dynasty number one. The theory that's most likely is that it took a long time - maybe generations, to make Egypt one, and thus we have a possible founder who was the first to rule over the whole Nile valley. King Aha (see dynasty 1) is a strong candidate for this post since he is the first one to be present with substantial monuments in both parts of the country.

The Egyptian canons

The sources to help Egyptologists to establish the order of kings and time span of ruling from these early days, are rather scarce. One of the reasons are that no written documents from outside Egypt exists, and that is of course due to the fact that during this era writing was in its infancy and only in Sumeria had people reached the same state of technique. The other reason is that the Egyptians were not very keen on recording their history as a long time span, they generally took the short time view and noted events that had passed during the year or a single reign. Fortunately there are a few exceptions from this pattern that bring some light over the earliest dynasties. Apart from single notes, carvings on potsherds etc, the main records are:

The Palermo stone

dynasty 5

2.400 BC

(carving) The Cairo stone (carving) The Karnak list (on stone) The Abydos list (on stone) The Sakkara list (on stone) The Turin canon (on papyrus) Manetho's list (payrus/stone) dynasty 5 dynasty 18 dynasty 19 dynasty 19 dynasty 19 Greek period 2.400 BC 1.500 BC 1.300 BC 1.300 BC 1.300 BC 200 BC

The only one of these records that was made to give a correct version of the history, is the list of Manetho. The others were all made for different purposes, not entirely known. The Palermo and Cairo stones are possibly in a class all by themselves, and so is the Canon of Turin, written on papyrus. The lists from Karnak and Abydos are both parts of temple decora-tions and obviously some kings are deliberately omitted for being either too insignificant or politically incorrect in some way. The Sakkara list on the other hand, is the only "private" record of substance, coming from a tomb of a caretaker of cults for dead kings. By combining these records scholars have got a rather good picture of the order of kings, but the time span for the earliest dynasties and the order of some rulers (from dynasties 2 and 3) is still a subject of discussion. The Palermo stone was a part of a bigger stone slab on which the Egyptians recorded the events for each year for the earliest kings, and the present one during its making - the fifth dynasty. In the top row kings from before the unification are noted and if they have existed they are the oldest persons on earth recorded by their names. In this case the kings from Lower Egypt are those who have been saved for later times, and in a another similar stone (more damaged) called the Cairo stone, the rulers from Upper Egypt are depicted but the part with their names is missing. Notable is that these stones are the oldest records of its kind, and the recording was made at least 600 years after the unification in around 3.200 BC by the mythical king Menes.

The Palermo stone (detail). In each cell (the lower part of picture) the most important event for each year was noted. Below: two recordings of the height of the annual flooding of the Nile. The line between cells two and three (from the right) is believed to be the break when the second king Aha ended his reign and office was taken over by Djer. At top: squares with the old kings of Lower Egypt before the unification. In red: the first full named person in human history, a king from more than 5.000 years ago. His name was Seka.

This may seem a long time, but Manetho who made his work nearly 3.000 years after Menes, has been proven to be correct by archaeology in many cases where other sources have failed or said otherwise. This shows that the Egyptians kept records of their history, but they were not so keen on publishing it. Manetho was probably given the task by the king himself, probably one of the two first in line by the name Ptolmaios. They were of Greek decent and had another view of history and were not bound to Egyptian traditions. Therefor we can assume (hope) that Manetho (though he was an Egyptian himself) had a more neutral and "scientific" approach and didn't omit insignificant and politically "incorrect" rulers from the past that we know was common. His original writings are regrettably lost, but vital parts have survived through rewritten list made by others which has effected the content in a negative way. The most quoted of them is a Roman Christian historian called Africanus who lived in the 3rd century AD.

The Unification
In about 3.200 BC Upper and Lower Egypt were united, thereby cre- ating a nation of a 1.200 km fertile strip of land alongside the river Nile, from Aswan in the south to the Mediterranean Sea in the north. Two nations became one under a divine king ruling from a new found- ed capital by the name Ineb Hedj ("The White Walls") which later was changed by the Greeks to Memphis. Thereby the first national state on earth was created, and it lasted for 3.500 years, a record that's unlikely to ever be beaten. From the oldest times the two parts had been divided into around 42 provinces(nomes) and these local areas with their own capitals and gods, were in function as long as the Egyptian history lasted and the local tribeleaders became governors workig for the state. Manetho was a Greek speaking Egyptian priest and historian living in the 200s BC. He made a huge work of the Egyptian history (original lost) and wrote that the unification was made by a king called Menes coming from Thinis (This), a place just north of Abydos in Upper Egypt (see map left). He should thus be the founder of the first of 30 dynasties in which Manetho divided the Egyptian history. The road to unification seemed to have been a short and straight one, and this was common belief into the mid 1900s. However science has developed much in the field of Egyptology and we now know that the process ending with the unification was a long chain of steps that lasted for many years, maybe generations. In the south the religious center was Nekhen (Greek: Hierakonpolis) where the falcon goddess Nekhbet was the patroness of the country. Her northern counterpart was the cobra goddess Wadjet residing in Buto in the delta, and she was the guardian of Lower Egypt. After the unification the royal burials took place in the south (at Aydos) for the two first dynasties, and thereafter in the capital Memphis (and its burial ground Sakkara). Thousands of graves from ordinary people (most of them in Upper Egypt) were dug up by archaeologists in the late 1800s and the change in burial traditions indicated a change in society as the years passed. From using burials in a round or oval pit, indicating a reed hut, the tombs turned into square constructions, sometimes walled under ground with wooden planks or sun dried bricks walls and with a mound of sand or lose stones atop. This was the proof that the herdsmen and hunters of the Nile Valley started to be settled as farmers living in permanent houses at the edge between the desert and the fertile soil.

The royal cemetery at Abydos

Having reached this far in history (~ 3.150 BC), the burial customs and design of the tombs had gone through considerable changes since a few generations back. The uppermost classes (the royal court and high officials) began to use cemeteries of their own and elaborated their tombs to a form called mastaba which became the normal type for centuries to come. The two royal cemeteries were located at Abydos in Upper Egypt, and at Sakkara, by the new common capital Memphis in the north. The oldest tombs in Abydos go back before the unification, and kings like Iry-Hor and Ka are unlikely to have more than one place for their final rest. The dualism of the king's office makes it difficult for Egyptologists, and it's quite possible that the regents had twograves - one in the south at Abydos, and the other at the capital Memphis. But where the body of the king was actually buried is anybody's guess.

The Abydos royal cemetery is placed 2 km from the Nile. The oldest tombs are from before the first dynasty. If the tombs were copies of their earthly palaces it would be a rectangular building. The earliest kings had lots of sacrificed(?) servants beside them, but this tradition was probably gone by the time of king Peribsen from dynasty two. About seven rulers from the second dynasty are without monuments at Abydos, and are most likely buried in Sakkara. From the third dynasty and onwards the Abydos cemetery wasn't used for royal burials. Another fact is that the tombs in the south were all considerably smaller and cruder than those in the north. But inscribed remains with the names of the kings and side burials (of retainers) were more frequent in the south, where also half a dozen large enclosed areas were built, obviously for ceremonies in the cults of the dead pharaohs. The tombs at Abydos were irre-gular rectangular constructions, built on sand and gravel nearly two kilometers from the Nile. They were obviously built to be under ground, perhaps with a low wall on the surface imitating the form of the house the king had resided in during his reign. In Memphis on the other hand, they were fancy rectangular mud brick mastabas in a northern fashion with slightly sloping walls above ground, and with time with larger underground chambers hewn down into the bedrock. They stood right on the high escarpment overlooking the Nile Valley and the capital below and some of them were decorated with symmetrical patterns painted in bright colors. The style with sloping walls and recesses (see picture below) was an influence from the Sumerian culture in Mesopotamia, and went out of fashion at the end of the second dynasty. By that time the royal court and the administration had moved permanently to Memphis and the southern burial ground was abandoned for good.

Brick mastaba from Nagada in Upper Egypt over Narmer's queen Neit-Hotep. Her name Neit suggests an origin from Lower Egypt. Founded on the bedrock without substructure. Mea- sures: 53 x 27m. The sloping walls with recesses was a style from Sumerian architecture. When looking at the style of tombs from royalties and high officials it's not difficult to conclude that they were reflections of their residences during their earthly life. All the rooms filled with gifts and all kinds of supplies for the next life, were in life various store rooms for the big household. The dead shouldn't miss anything from his former life and therefore he also had his bathroom and lavatory. The chamber with his mummy was of course his bedroom where he now could sleep for eternal times. As to his harem and other employees in housekeeping it's clear that parts of the staff of the first kings were sacrificed and followed their master into the next world, but this tradition disappeared rather quickly. During the first dynasty lots of large mastaba graves were built in Sakkara, but their contents (in some unique cases undisturbed for nearly 5.000 years) do not point out for sure that the monument was a tomb for a king. Names of high officials and kings have been found, and if the owners were officials, the tombs were much bigger and more elaborated than those of the kings in Abydos. It doesn't seem logical to us, but we don't know the Egyptians' reflections about it, so this issue has to be unanswered for the time being.

A house for eternity: The tomb was a copy of the residence on earth and the burial chamber was the bedroom. In mastaba-tombs the roof was probably slightly vaulted and the ceiling in the bedroom was made of wooden planks. The minor rooms for storing were not roofed and filled with sand. The height is estimated to have been about three to four metres. To the far right is the 2nd dynasty king Khasekhemwy's unusual tomb from Abydos with the burial chamber built entirely of stone for the first time. It is the largest on the site: 70 ~ 15 m. In style it has a slight resemblance to the contemporary mastabas from Sakkara and Giza (left), but is cruder and lack artful decorations and symmetry.

The great mastabas in Sakkara

When the first dynasty kings built their tombs in Abydos, things were also happening in the capital
Memphis at the burial ground in Sakkara. On the high desert edge overlooking the capital and the fertile valley, about 20 large mastabas were built during the c. 175 years of the first dynasty. The size, type and technical improvements shown in these have no counterparts in Abydos, and some archaeologists, among them the one the who dug out most of them, thought that these were the tombs where the kings had been buried. Today the opinion is different due to the fact that more and more of old monuments (except royal tombs) have been uncovered in Abydos such as large enclosed areas with thick brick walls and a dozen boat graves from the oldest dynasties. Nevertheless the Sakkara tombs shows astonishing improvements as the tombs through the years got an increasing part under ground in the bedrock. Furthermore we have the fact that some monuments had side burials for servants. The one with the most (dated to the reign of Djer) had 62. During the reign of Ka the first self supporting vault ever known in the history of architecture was built. The general answer to the question who were the owners of these great tombs is: high officials. For the first and last time in Egyptian history the royal court had been overshadowed in tomb prosperity by bureaucrats, if this is the right answer. Royal power thus did not gain land from the high officials in the first 150 years of the existence of the united Egyptian state. It's interesting to make a comparison between monuments from the first king Aha. The difference between one of his three separate chambers that made his monument in Abydos, and a mastaba from Memphis' cemetery.

A mastaba (41x15 m) in Sakkara from the reign of king Aha, seen from above and the side. The burial chamber plus four rooms were cut down into the bed- rock and roofed with wooden planks. Two low brick walls enclosed the tomb. Upper right corner: Aha's grave chamber in Abydos in the same scale. Why these mastabas were elaborated artful buildings and the royal tombs in Abydos smal- ler, crude and sloppy in their design, is still an unsolved mystery of Egyptology.

Technical advances
During the second dynasty the Egyptians had performed with brilliant skill in working in hard stone. The statue of Khasekhemwy from dynasty two is so far the best example of this achievement, with shaped and polished surfaces in hard stone. On the east bank of the Nile opposite Sakkara, dozens of graves from wealthy nonroyal inhabitants of Memphis were buried in tombs where the substructures were built of large blocks of fine shaped stones. Notable is that in these days the hardest metal known by the Egyptians was copper and at this time bronze came into use (a bowl from Khasekhemwy is known) and to cut out the bedrock they had to use implements made of hard stone (dolerite). This was the only way they could work for a thousand years(!) when finally tools made of the new hard metal - iron, came into use. Noticing the quality of these tombs of lower officials, archaeologists had reason to believe that the three first kings of the second dynasty whose tombs were not to be found at the cemetery in Abydos - Raneb, Nynetjer and Hetepsekhemwy had their last resting places hidden somewhere under the sand in Sakkara, and finds from the beginning of the twentieth century seem to con- firm this suggestion. There the building of tombs had taken a new big step downwards under ground, and the developing of new technique in cutting stone and tunneling in the bedrock made it possible to elaborate the final resting places of the kings. A new era had begun and the Egyptians were able to master the hardest of stones to make anything from small statuettes to huge monuments.

Underground galleries from king Hotepsekhemwy's tomb in Sakkara. Entrance: a staircase from north. 4 blocks of hard stone were dropped from above into the corridor to prevent intrusion to his burial chamber (bedroom in red), bathroom (blue) and lavatory (green). The volume of rock cut out: circa 4.000 cubic meters.

It was in Sakkara, the necropolis of the capital Memphis this great leap forward was taken and the site had been used as a burial ground even before the founding of the town itself. Making an estimation that only oneperson was buried every year (a very low figure) the total of tombs would still be 3.000(!) waiting to be excavated. No doubt there is still a lot to be revealed from the sand in this old cemetery, where new finds come to surface regularly. In 1901 the Italian archaeologist Barsanti made a scoop when he by coincidence practically stumbled down into a vast underground gallery of rooms going out from a long corridor ending with a grave chamber (see picture above). Clay stoppers from storage jars revealed the owner's name - pharaoh Hotepsekhemwy, the first king of the second dynasty. Egyptologists now had an example that cutting stone and tunneling the bedrock was well advanced at this early state of Egyptian history. A few decades later another gallery of similar shape was found c. 150 meters to the east. Lots of remains from later times were found within it, but remaining clues told that this was the tomb of pharaoh Nynetjer, the third king of the same dynasty. The tomb of the ruler thought to have been in charge between these two - Raneb, hasn't been found yet, but there is a fitting space between the found galleries that is suitable to contain this monument. There is no trace of the tomb from the following king from dynasty two - Sened, who according to Manetho had a long reign of well over 40 years. But 100 m north of Hotepsekhemwy's galleries is a much bigger one with a length of 350 m and now within the enclosure wall of the later grave complex of pharaoh Djoser. This, not so well examined, large gallery is most likely what is left of the tomb of Sened. Unfortunately no structures above ground remains from these three underground tombs, and we don't know if they had mastaba-like buildings or not. Further reading about these kings can be found in the chapter of the dynasties 1-2. (Menu above).

The Predynastic period

3.500 - 3.200 BC.

Dynasty "0"
In these old times local chiefs ruled over different parts of the Nile Valley. In Upper Egypt urban areas, "proto kingdoms", emerged around places like Hierakonpolis, Nagada, and Abydos (This). Knowledge about Lower Egypt from this time is still awaiting to be developed among Egyptologists of today.

The archaeological remains

In the 1990s some astonishing finds were made at the old royal cemetery at Abydos. When ex- cavating the area north of the tombs from the first dynasty and just before, a vast burial ground of older date was found. The place has been called "Cemetery U" (picture below) and over a dozen tombs of substance were dug out by the German Institute of Archaeology in Cairo (DAIK). These new-found monuments were older than those from Cemetery B to the south, where pharaohs from the first dynasty had their last resting places.

The oldest "royal" tombs in Egypt so far have been found at Cemetery U at Abydos which has over a dozen monuments.

With a few exceptions the older tombs consisted of only one chamber and those with elabo- rated structures like a couple of connecting store rooms, are probably made close to the first dynasty. With one possible exception (see tomb J above and Scorpion I) there were no traces of names to identify the buried by name, but in this early state of hieroglyphic writing it's possible that the Egyptians weren't able to make phonetic signs of their rulers' names. Sereks showing the palace facade of the king's residence in some cases with a long necked bird on top, have

been found on small ivory tags. An estimation of the time span during which the grave yard was in use, makes a couple of centuries a fair guess. If they were just local kings or ruled over greater areas is not known, but it shows that the unification was a process that took generations to achieve. Writing developed and from just before the unification dozens of royal marks are known from various places and some from unidentified kings. Pharaohs known by names are: Crocodile, Scorpion I & II, Iryhor, Ka and Menes. They can be read about through the menu left.

Sereks with names hard to read

1) Copy from tomb 1549 at Tarkhan. Some see a resemblance to king Crocodile's seal. A crocodile's head facing left on a line (standard?) is possible. Top sign hard to read. 2 and 3) Rock carvings from the desert east of Armant: square and a crescent with lines (beams?). Possibly sign P on top and a hnt-sign at bottom. Pe Hor?, Pe Henet? 4) Painting from tomb of king Ka (dyn. I) from Abydos, copied by Petrie 1902. Looks like a boat (?) with lines going from the hull. Shows no resemblance to any other sign. 5 Serek from tomb of king Qa (dynasty I) from Abydos, found in 1902. Some see the head of a bird facing right in this uncertain fragmentary sign (see king Bird dynasty 1). 6 Archaeologist's drawing (Petrie Museum) said to be from Tarkhan tomb 315. The findings from there have no such sign though, and it's possibly a misinterpretation. 7 Painted jar from Tarkhan, tomb 1702. The serek had a big upstanding object outside like #10. The sign within has been read Hat Hor. Is it a club, scepter, spear or an arm ? 8 Serek from centre of a ceremonial palette with a common motif of dogs? with suckling puppies. The grid has similarities to king Den's name written in the Abydos list 1300 BC. 9 Jar from Ezbet el-Tell. A line-sign (Narmer?). Circle outside like the sign of god Re. 10 Serek from tomb 140 Minshat Abu Omar attested by some to Scorpion with the animal depicted with his tail pointing left. Others say Crocodile might be the owner.

Crocodile
This ruler is known only from a few remains, and especially an impression coming from a cylinder seal (link above) found in the wealthy large tomb 414 at Tarkhan. When it was excavated in 1912, regrettably not a single remain was found of the deceased him- self. The motif on this remarkable impression is water waves with crocodiles, but unfortunately the owner has not left a name to identify himself. There is something that might point out his pro- venance though - in the seal is a standard depicted with a crocodile having two objects standing on its back. This can be a hint that he was a ruler from the only nome (province) in the country with this animal as its symbol (picture below right). It was the 6th nome of Upper Egypt, right at the upper part of the "knee" of the Nile, today known as the "Quena Bend". The capital here was Iunet Tantere, later to be Dendera. In a short distance to the south is the old town of Coptos known for its early advanced culture with monumentalstone statues, around 2,6 m in height, manufactured before the first dynasty. This region has a strategic location, because from here go the paths between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea. The road from today's Quift (Coptos), is called Wadi Hammamat, and coils through 120 km of sterile desert mountains, but 5000 years ago conditions may have been different. A theory among scientists is that cultural influences (like cylinder seals) possibly came to Egypt from Sumeria by this route before the first dynasty. If this was the case, the leader of this region would surely have been the first to observe all news coming from abroad, and maybe the local chief "Crocodile" was that person. When the proto-kingdoms slowly were formed in the early times the urban centers were Hierakonpolis, Nagada and This (Thinis) and possibly leaving the "in between" Dendera region more or less independent in the middle right by today's "Quena bend". (Kemp 1991, p. 34, Manley 1996 p. 22). A fact is that this province and its capital is one of the few in Egypt to have a long tradition of a crocodile cult and the age of the cemeteries goes way back beyond the first dynasty. The chief ruling this stretch of land could thus make a mini-kingdom of his own and might be an explanation to the elusive ruler which we for practical reasons call "Pharaoh Crocodile". Another possible site is the Faiyum basin with its old veneration of the crocodile god Sobek and its location

next door to Tarkhan and the national capital to be (Memphis). But the standards of the nomes in this region have never included a crocodile.

Old depictions of a crocodile. Left: Seal from Helwan east of Memphis with a male figure (king?) by a royal serek topped by Horus. The croc has an object on his head. Middle: Seal from tomb 414 at Tharkan with two standing objcts on its back. Right: The much later sign for nome # six in Upper Egypt with a standig feather. A tomb at Helwan east of Memphis has revealed an unique cylinder seal showing a crocodile and an empty serek with the Horus falcon (picture above far left, colors not genuine). Its age has been estimated to the period just prior to the unification and this can be King Crocodile showing himself in the new cylinder style manner. Also occurring is a male figure (the king himself?) with up-raised arms and two long-necked fantasy animals (or possibly giraffes) flanking two trees. The latter motif is found on old cosmetic palettes from before the unification. Crocodiles on the other hand, do not occur on these palettes where several other types of animals (wild, domesticated and fantasy) often were depicted. The long necked beasts possibly symbolize the two nations with the growing tree(s) being the fertile Nile they both live in symbiosis with. Note also the crocodile's head and the object(?) upon it, and compared to the feather from the nome standard far right. The German Egyptologist Werner Kaiser has put forward the hypothesis that Crocodile might have been a local high official in the Tarkhan region during the reign of king Narmer, whose name (in variations) also was found in this tomb. His countryman Gunter Dreyer takes another view and interprets the mud-seal impression from the Tarkhan tomb as a mark from a "real" king over some area simultaneously with the rulers from Hierakonpolis in the south and in This downstream (north). He made his conclusion after studying infrared photographs and other compara- tive objects. He also estimates king Crocodile's reign to be contemporary to those of Narmer and Iryhor. Since no tomb of Crocodile has been found at Abydos among the other early rulers buried there, he might have been an opponent to these kings. If that's the case king Crocodile's tomb might still await to be found somewhere, possibly around Dendera in his own province. The fact that both Crocodile's and Narmer's sealing were found in the same Tarkhan tomb does not have to be puzzling and plausible explanations can be made. If the tomb belonged to a nome governor or someone else of high rank, and this is highly prob- able, surely both Narmer and Crocodile would have paid tribute to the deceased by sending funeral gifts. Sealings from both kings would in that case be present in the tomb, and exactly this is what was found. Since Narmer seems to have been the most powerful of the two, it is likely that his gifts were more in numbers, and just so was the case when the remains from the tomb were analysed. The historical scenario here described is of course made up, but the physical details are all correct and fit together. In other words: it's quite possible that something like this once happened and was revealed 5000 years later when the 6 square meters of tomb 414 at Tarkhan was investigated in 1913. There are two other finds from Tharkan (tombs 315 and 1549) found by Flinders Petrie during the same season (picture right). On two cylin- drical vases (Petrie Mueum in London) sereks were roughly painted and in 1992 these were considered to be

depictions of King Crocodile by the German Egyptologist Gunter Dreyer. This interpretation is highly questionable (to this author at least) and the objects rather look like a plucked goose (left version) than a crocodile with a figure possibly looking like a stylized water wave (right). The goose was an "ordinary" hieroglyph and appears in the king lists made half a millennium later in the cartouche of king Sened from the second dynasty. It would take over 1.400 years before the crocodile became the insignia and name of a king in Egypt again. A row of pharaohs took this animal to their hearts and titles during the troublesome period of dynasty 13 at the end of the Middle Kingdom.

Scorpion I
In the early 1990s an elaborated tomb (right) marked with "J" was exca- vated in Abydos (picture right). It was found in the oldest part of the burial site at the so calledCemetery U 150 meters north of the ones from Narmer and Aha. The construction was built of dried mud bricks and the walls were rather thin compared to the monuments of the fol- lowers. The size (7,5 x 10 m) told that the owner had been a person of very great importance. The original structure was the burial chamber in the upper right corner and nine offering rooms connected to one an- other (and the grave chamber) by narrow slits, probably symbolizing doors. The tomb was later enlarged with two rooms built in two stages, at the south long the side. The date of this extension is not known, but it was probably made close to in time, or even just when the original monument was finished, and found too small to contain all the funeral gifts. The grave goods found within it were remarkable and a big surprise for the excavators: images of scorpions in a royal fashion and lots of jars imported from northern Palestine 1000 km to the north-east possibly to have contained wine. Some were attached with small ivory tags depicting birds and other animals and one obviously marked with the name of the town Bast (Greek: Bubastis, see picture left). That town was situated in the mid-east delta in Lower Egypt 550 km away at the northern end of the Nile Valley. Obviously parts of the provisions for the owner came from there, stored in these imported jars. The archaeologists working at the site were from the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo (DAIK) under the super- vision of Gnther Dreyer. He put forward the theory that this could be the tomb of a pharaoh he called Scorpion I, due to the fact that his "name" or rather insignia had been found. Another thing is that among several depictions and sculptures of a scorpion at the Main Deposit at Hierakon- polis, nobody can tell if it's made for Scorpion 1 or 2. A royal scorpion penetrating into the pro- vince of Nubia is known from some illu- startions and a carved similar motif on a limestone urn is in the picture right. The crests upon which the falcons (the king) sit has been a symbol of this province since earliest times. The three birds at the bottom seem domesticated and duck-like, possibly applying to the inhabitants in the region. They are here flanked by bows from archers.

Other scorpions of glazed pottery, ivory and limestone were also present in the great find at Hierkonpolis, and some can be seen here.

Scorpion II
king famous for his two ceremonial of stone, found in the last decade of the called Main Deposit within the old temple Hierakonpolis. Though badly damaged, are extraordinary records from this early history. The motif from the smallest one picture right with the animal in question king's face, reconstructed by the Arkell from the remains on the damaged artifact (in picture right). Looking at the drawing from the original (in picture below right) the image of a scorpion is highly disputable and a crocodile's tail hanging down is another sugg- estion. In that case it can be connected to another shadowy ruler from the same period of time. (See Crocodile from menu left). Scorpion II is the mace-heads made 1800s in the so area of the visible parts time in Egyptian is shown in in front of the Egyptologist

The biggest and most famous is on the other hand of good quality in the parts remaining of a magnificent big mace head earlier mentioned. It's today exhibited at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford England. His tomb has not been detected so far (year 2001) but there is a possibility that his last resting place was in the four-chamber grave (B 50) just 30 meters south-west of Narmer's in the old part of the royal cemetery at Abydos, or identical to the tomb thought to be from his namesake number one. The B 50 monument is placed right in the center of the tombs from the pharaohs of the first dynasty, but has regrettably not left a single shred of evidence to make an identification of the owner. Another possibility is that he was not buried in the area at all because he was a ruler from Hierakonpolis further to the south, and not connected to kings from Abydos (This). If so his tomb might still be hidden under the sand in the Hierakonpolis area. Other remains of Scorpion II are sparse and only a few names in sereks painted on pots can possibly be attested him. An exception is a rather anonymous statuette in a German collection, which is the only of its kind known where he (or his double number one) is seen in a 3D way. He has got the regent number II because remains from a supposed older tomb called U-j (see Scorpion I above) at the same burial ground (Abydos) has brought to light objects with incised scorpions. The excavator's theory is that the owner could have been an earlier ruler with the same "name". It might also be the fact that the tomb U-j was the last resting place for the only pharaoh wearing that name. The mace heads found should in that case originally have been put in his grave and later transported to the temple area of Hierakonpolis for safe keeping. The content of his tomb found in the 1990s were thus the leftovers from robbers. This scenario might have been the fact for the remains from Abydos of Narmer as well. (See Scorpion I from the menu left and text above).

Iryhor
This ruler is the oldest known by name who is buried in the royal cemetery of Abydos. He is believed to have reigned in around 3100 BC. The picture right shows what's left of the two chambers from his tomb. The southern one seems to have been extended in an irregular way with the original measures left only in the part facing north. Only the substructure of sun dried bricks remains and it's possible that no superstructure has ever existed. The site was axcavated in 1902 by the English archaeologist Flinders Petrie and in the 1980s an expedition from the German Archaeology Institute in Cairo (DAIK) reexcavatedthe tomb using modern methods. New remnants came to light and the there were found seal impressions and potsherds with Iryhor's personal insignia. Parts of a bed and a fine ivory fragment of a bed-foot made like a bull's leg were also among the new interesting finds. The big jar with the carved in falcon (picture left), was unearthed in 1902 from chamber B 1, the supposed place of king's body. Then in the 1980s it produced an incised jar fragment and a astonishing eight ink inscriptions and a seal impression, plus remains holding the names of Narmer and Ka (JEA 1993). The amount of finds in such a small place was unexpected and the fragments with Narmer's name means that the tomb was opened at a later date (and restored?) and new offerings were placed within. The reading of Iryhor's name is far from certain, and is interpreted by using the word for falcon god (Hor) who sits upon a sign for mouth (iry). Petrie interpreted the sign as Ro. No other ruler had the name of the falcon (the icon of the king himself) as an integrated part of his name, but it works well as an identification for this ancient leader. His place in the sequence of reign was given after king Ka by Petrie, despite the fact that this king had his name within a serek. He made the conclusion on mainly three facts: 1) The big jar with the name (above left) is of a later type that did not occur in the tomb of Ka. 2) The seal with the falcon and the mouth was very alike those of Narmer and Aha and not at all like Ka's more simple one. 3) The seal impression (of clay) was of yellow marl like the ones made in later times, but Ka's was of black mud. Some Egyptologists don't recognize him as a real "king" at all mainly because of the absence of a serek or hieroglyphs indicating a royal title, the word "king" etc. The sign of the falcon and the mouth has been taken as the mark for the royal treasury and the jar type mentioned by Petrie occurs for the first time during the reign of Narmer. But since we now know (after the digging in the 1980s) that the tomb was reopened, this argument for Iryhor ruling after Ka is no longer valid. The place and size of his tomb plus the (royal) falcon attribute and the tradition of the burial ground indicate the opposite though, and the serek might not have been invented yet as a symbol of the king himself. Exactly where to put Iryhor's reign in the sequence of rulers is even harder to do today (year 2001) and an additional ruler from tomb U-j has entered the arena in the 1990s (see Scorpion I from menu left). The future hopefully will spread more light on this matter.

Ka

King Ka ruled a generation prior to dynasty I, and was buried in a double tomb at Abydos. where he is considered to have preceded king Narmer as king of This. This conclusion is based upon analysis of the ceramics and other offerings from his grave and its building style and position in the cemetery. Its feature (picture left) was very alike his supposed predecessor's king Iryhor both in position and shape, with two chambers beside each other in a "row" with pointing short sides and a gap between of a couple of meters. When it was excavated in 1902 lots of remains with the king's name came to light and the identification is thus clear. He is a well-attested king and his remnants have been found as far north as the northeast delta in Lower Egypt plus Helwan opposite Memphis and Tarkhan at the level of the Faiyum basin. Findings connected to him has not been found south of Abydos (the area of the old capital of This). This indicates that he had no relationship to the (earlier?) rulers from Hierakonpolis. Among the finds from his tomb were several potsherds found with his "name", two raised arms, a sign later to mean "soul" and pronounced "ka". He had it written within a "serek", thought to be a depiction of the facade of the royal palace (picture right). He was the first pharaoh to adopt this sign and the falcon on its top, in this illustration (picture right) accompanied with the plant symbolizing Upper Egypt. Of the two chambers he is likely to have been buried in southern (B7) and the other (B9) was for offerings and supplies. He could possibly have been the father of Narmer, whose tomb was built in a similar style and size, and placed just 30 meters away. A small very realistic ivory statuette showing an anonymous old king might be a portrait of king Ka, but this is pure guesswork.

Menes
This pharaoh is the legendary king that came from the town of This (Tinis) in Upper Egypt and took over Lower Egypt (the North) by force. He then became the first king over the whole country and founded a new capital for the united Egypt - Memphis (egy. Menefer), just where the two states bordered on each other. According to archaeology this was supposed to have happened around 3200 BC. His name was Meni (or Mena) in later Egyptian king-lists and the historian Manetho (200s BC) called him by the Greek form Menes in his work on the Egyptian history. He only appears by this name in king lists made over 1000 years later (see below), and not at all in any monuments from his own time.

Menes (Meni) in red, as written in the Royal Canon of Turin. Many scholars have tried to point out who he was and the candidates have mostly been Narmer and Aha. Narmer because he portrayed himself as the ruler of both Upper and Lower Egypt on his famous green palette found within the temple area of the town of Hierakonpolis in Upper Egypt (as seen above in the chapter "Historical Records"). King Aha, likely Narmer's son, on the other hand, was the first pharaoh who had monuments of substance over the whole country, and his large tomb constructions (with buried retainers for the first time) were in

dimensions that far overshadowed his predecessors. He has also left a written sign interpreted by some as the word "men" (meaning: "established") written beside his ordinary name at one occasion. This once made him the favorite to be "Menes from Thinis" until the last decade of the 1900s when the old royal tombs in Abydos were re-excavated. Then came to light two remarkable seal impressions from the tombs of Den and Qaa, the fifth and eighth ruler of the first dynasty. The motif was a line of kings in a successive order, and both had Narmer as the founder of the first dynasty, followed by Aha. Analyzing the Egyptian tradition it looks like the deeds of Menes might be an amalgam of components from several chiefs and legends, and thus it may not be fruitful to identify him with a single historical person, though Narmer might have been the one to finished the job by uniting the to kingdoms. A linguistic possibility for Narmer being Menes is that the two sound elements Nar and Mer might have been read in reverse order (common in later Egyptian history), making: Mernar, which gives a similarity to the sounds of Mena - Meni.

The Nile Valley now took the step to be a united country under one divine king. This phase in Egyptian history is called:

The Early Dynastic Period

Crocodile

~ 3200 BC

An early ruler's cylinder seal.

In the centre is a serek (colours not genuine) in an old style with a hanging "roof". On top is a long horned bull, symbol of kingship, power and the pharaoh and by some here thought to mean the Faiyum region. It's possible that it held no name and that the broken line within is a part of the bottom pattern. On its right is a crocodile on a "platform" meaning the top of a standard (ID-mark) of a nome (pro-vince) while other animals stride along in symbols of water waves. The owner was possibly chief over that "Crocodile Province" and the only alike looking sign in later times came from Dendera 100 km north of Luxor. Crocodile main text.

Scorpion I

~ 3150 BC

Pharaoh Scorpion I was a ruler considered to have been buried in the oldest tomb known at the royal cemetery of Abydos (U-j). It was excavated in the early 1990s by a team of German Egyptologist under Gnter Dreyer. It might also be the case that this was the tomb for the only king wearing this "name". The picture above shows a rock carving in Nubia with a big scorpion attacking a man with his hands bound at his back. Two archers (the right one adjusted vertically) are watching the scene which probably shows an Egyptian punitive raid into the southern province. Scorpion I main text.

Scorpion II

Also: Sekhen? ~ 3150 BC

The first knowledge about Pharaoh Scorpion (II?) came to light in 1894 when his two big mace heads of stone were found in a cache later called the "Main Deposit" in an old temple yard on an island (during the flooding season) at Hierakonpolis in Upper Egypt. A scorpion is depicted by the king's face and this suggests his personal name (picture left). He wears the white crown of Upper Egypt and is working with a wooden hoe, obviously making a ceremonial digging (opening) of a canal for irrigation. A man with a basket is ready to transport the mud away while three others are working below beside a planted palm. In top right position is his standard bearer and behind king is a man protecting him from the sunshine. Scorpion ruled prior to the foundation of the United Egypt and probably prior to king Ka. His tomb has not yet been found and still awaits detection. He might be the same person as his namesake # 1. At Abydos a tomb registered as B 50 lacks remnants to identify the owner, and might possibly be his. Scorpion II main text.

Iryhor

~ 3100 BC

King Iryhor's tomb at Abydos had two chambers where the southern one (B 1) is believed to be the grave chamber, and the other one for offerings and supplies. The monument was well documented by the German Egyptologist Kaiser in 1984 (see main text for pictures). Iryhor's "name" is found (without a serek) on two jars as a Horus falcon (in Egyptian: Hor) sitting on the sign for mouth - iry, (se picture left with the two later hieroglyphs for comparison on top). This might be a clue to an interpretation like: "The voice of Hor", "Hor is my commander" and similar, but it's just guesswork. His depiction is also known from a find at Zawiyet-el-Aryan north of Sakkara, and indicating a possible influence over a greater part of the country than just the Thinis region (near Abydos). Disputes among Egyptologists if he was a "real" king or not started in the 1990s when the con- clutions from his excavated tomb was presented. Iryhor main text.

Ka

~ 3100 BC

The English archaeologist Flinders Petrie excavated the royal cemetery at Abydos in the year 1900 and found this the oldest royal "serek" indicating a king. The serek is a standing rectangle imitating the royal residence and its facade with the king's name written within. The sign shows two arms reaching for the sky and has always been the word "ka" in the Egyptian language, meaning - "soul" and inter- preted as the spirit of man, both in and after life on earth. Another sulotion is a bow (sometimes seen as an arch) which do occur with symbols from other kings, like "Scorpion". A paintig showing this sign can be seen on the Ka's main text through the link at the bottom of this page. Ka's name was painted and carved on lots of potsherds, and his tomb was identified as being placed between those of Narmer and Iry-Hor. He is believed to have reigned in the late dynasty "0", one generation prior to the final unification. Ka main text.

Meni

in Egyptian also Mena, Meni

Menes in Greek

Menes was the king from Upper Egypt who was the traditional founder of the united Egypt. He overthrew the government of the northern delta in about 3.200 BC and started the first dynasty. He came from Thinis (Egyptian: This) just north of Abydos. This story was told by the Egyptian histori- an Manetho living in 200 BC. The true name of Menes is still concealed because written remains give the names Mena,d Meni and Manetho used a Greek form. The illustration left (colours not genuine) gives his name from the Abydos king list made in dynasty 19, some 1800 years after this supposed event. Some scholars consider him the same ruler as Narmer Narmer and others promote Aha who has a single "Men" written beside his name on one occasion, and was the first king with substantial monuments from all over Egypt. Other theories are tht he is a pure fiction or an amalgam from deeds made by many early kings, leading to the unification. Menes main text.

The Early Dynastic Period

Dynasties 1-2
(~ 3.200 - 2.649 BC)

Birth of the Nation

By Ottar Vendel

Dynasty 1
Manetho's list

2920 - 2770 BC (150 years)

This dynasty is well known since the royal cemetery in Abydos was found in the 1890s. The tombs where all the pharaohs once were buried had all been robbed for most of their content, but the buildings were still standing almost intact under ground. Written remains left among the debris gave Egyptology the succession order for the rulers. The length of the dynasty is on the other hand a subject of discussion and the time span of reigns given seem for some kings very long and not entirely reliable. Dynasty one seems to have been a stable period with progress in every part of society until the reign of Anedjib. Disagreements between supporters of the gods Horus and Set came to surface and went on until the very end when a notable decline came at the break into the next dynasty.

In the archaeology column in the table below Narmer has been put in according to the traditional results from excavations and records, the latest being a couple of king lists on seals found in the cemetery in Abydos in the 1990s. Manetho's kings are followed by the figures of the duration of their reigns. The names in general are in some cases not quite corresponding, but the underlined ones (in black) seem to match quite well. Archaeology Manetho (Africanus) Abydos list Turin canon

1 Narmer 2 Aha 3 Djer 4 Djet, Wadji 5 Den, Semti, Udimu 6 Anedjib, Enezib, Merbap(en) 7 Semerkhet, Semsem 8 Qa (? Bird) (? Sneferka)

1 Menes 62 2 Athothis 57 3 Kenkenes 31 4 Uenephes 23 5 Usaphaidos 20 6 Miebidos 26 7 Semempses 18 8 Bieneches 26

1 Meni 2 Teti 3 Ateth 4 Ati 5 Hesepti 6 Merbap 7 Hu 8 Queb

1 Meni 2 Iteti 34 Itiui 5 Semti 6 Merbiapen 7 Semsem 8 (Ke-) behu

Meni - Teti - Iti - Ita - Septi - Merbiap - Semsu - Kebh The names of the dynasty one pharaohs from the Abydos king list.

Narmer

Pharaoh Narmer has for some reason always been put outside the dynasty scheme, but the Egyptians themselves from the very beginning recorded him as their very first king and there is no reason not to give him prime position in the line of rulers. His fame comes from a big ceremonial siltstone palettewhich was found in 1895 under ground in the temple yard of the old town Hierakonpolis. Scene from a mace head where Narmer It is nowadays a big attraction in the sits on his throne wearing the red crown Egyptian Museum in Cairo. In the first years of the 1900s his tomb of Lower Egypt and being offered a was excavated by the famous English bride? sitting in a canopy in front of him. Egyptologist Flinders Petrie at the cemetery in Abydos, the oldest royal burial ground known in Egypt. In the 1980s the site was once again by German Egyptologists, and another tablet depicting Narmer was found. Sereks with his name has been found throughout the country and a lot of them in Tarkhan slightly south of the first capital of the whole Egypt Memphis. A catfish (Nar) and a chisel (mer) made up his name, but there existed several variations, possibly the writers' way to make the readers pronounce the name correctly. He could well have been named Narbedjau or something similar. The picture left has his name in a serek, and he is seen as a catfish giving the enemies a hard time with a cudgel. His name does not appear in later king lists, though he had so many written remains during his lifetime. Many of them are found on jars in grave from Tarkhan, the possibly last stronghold for the southern kings of Thinis before the final push northwards to make the revolution complete by uniting the northern (Lower) part of the country to his home land in the south - Upper Egypt. This might indicate that his reign was prior to Menes, the legendary unifier of the two Egyptian lands accor- ding to the Egyptian historian Manetho, living in the 200s BC and writing in Greek.

There are on the other hand many things about Narmer pointing in the opposite direction - that he was Menes. His name was first in line of kings from seals during the first dynasty, and his name have been found from Syria in the north to Nubia in the south, but only on petty things like jars, potsherds and labels. The only monument left after him is his tomb with its massive walls at the cemetery B in Abydos (picture above right). The wall dividing the two chambers seems very thick in this drawing made a hundred years ago, but was rather a double-wall construction for a mini-chamber in between the big ones. One of these (B 17) was obviously an addition to this original single chamber tomb. A picture from the late 1980s gives a good view of it here. Narmer's first queen was named Neit-Hotep and her great Horus Narmer bigmastaba tomb at Nagada wich by far out-measured his own very modest monument. He is the presumed father of the next pharaoh to be - Aha, who had his large tomb complex built just a few meters away and probably was the builder of his mother's tomb as well. Why her monument was built far south in Nagada (100 km downstream the Nile) is a question not fully solved, but might indicate Narmer's place of residence.

Aha
Pharaoh Aha had the personal nomen Iti seen within the cartouche left taken from the Turin Canon. He is by tradition among archaeologists the pharaoh who founded the first dynasty and a long reign and monuments and other remains attested to him have been found all over Egypt. If he was the first king (by the historian Manetho called Menes) he was supposed to have been in office for 62 years. He was an active ruler who put forward the god Ptah from the new capital Memphis. This town (or actually a shrine within it) had the indigenous name "Hiku-Ptah" which later was corrupted by foreigners to "Egypt". All forms of craftsmanship and art was supported during his rule, and he was a reconciler between the two fractions in the country after the Upper (southern) part's taking over of the Lower (northern).

Iti

Manetho says that during this time the Egyptian people learned how to live in a civilized manner, and worship the gods in a proper way. The first great mastaba tomb at Sakkara (the royal cemetery of Memphis) is from Aha's reign (Nr 3357, c. 42x15 m), and was the first ever to have a boat buried beside. This custom with maritime connection was to continue for thousands of years. At the same site great mastabas were built for persons believed to have been high officials and probably close relatives to the king or his queen. Very few remains (if any) from king Aha are found outside Egypt and just a single find of foreign pottery is found from his reign. A big change is shown in his tomb complex at Abydos, so different from his predecessors' and presumed father Nar- mer's. The main buildings are three

chambers with very thick walls placed in a row (picture right). Like the other coming tombs they were lined inside with wood and roofed with wooden beams. Completing the row were 34 minor tombs for retainers who had followed their master into the next world. If they were sacrificed or buried over after their natural death, is not known. This indicates that Aha had a supreme and next to divine power, a heritage that should become the distinctive mark for the Egyptian state in the time to come. The first chamber was the burial place of the king himself and there was found written text of a cargo freight to the Delta with offering goods to a shrine, all carved in to a tiny little label of wood. The second chamber is believed to belong to his queen named Bernerib (meaning "Sweet of Hearts"). Her name was found in some side burials probably belonging to her servants. This means that the complex was extended over time and investigations from the 1990s confirms that many royal tombs at Abydos was altered several times.

Djer
King Djer had a long reign. Modern scientce says around 40 years partly based on the written records partly from the Palermo Stone and the Cairo Stone, (57 and 27 years acc- ording to two followers of the historian Manetho). His time on the throne was a period of great prosperity in all aspects of society like art, craftsmanship, science and medicine, and the king had a personal reputation as a great physician and his writings about treatment of com- mon diseases was in use for 3000 years after his death. The Cairo Stone tells about his campaign against a country named Setjet, probably Palestine or Sinai, which shows Egypt's increasing economical and political interests abroad. At Abydos his tomb (picture right) shows no big change compared to his predecessor Aha, but the general layout of the complex was altered and the number of subsidiary burials were over 300, a record for all pharaohs. Short inscriptions of titles in these tombs, have made it possible to reconstruct parts of the organization at the court. His grave chamber contained a dozen jars and pots imported from the region of Palestine and Syria. By a lucky strike a mummified arm wearing bracelets was found in his tomb at the excavation in 1901. The bones were unfortunately thrown away thereby making it impossible to detect if the remain was from a man, maybe from the king himself. At the same site he started a tradition by making a big funeral enclosure for the cult of his immortal soul. An area of similar size two hundred meters to the west is still anonymous and might even be from his predecessor and father - king Aha.

Human sacrifice?

At North Sakkara was found lots of copper tool like saws, chisels and axes of a very high quality placed as offerings and found in an undisturbed posi- tion after 4.900 years. Among other objects was also found a small wooden label depicting a human sacrifice (picture left). A dagger is stuck into the chest of a bearded man who has his hands bound behind his back. A bowl (here in red) is held to catch the blood from the victim. A similar scene is found on a fragment from an ivory label of pharaoh Aha found in Abydos. When looking at the motif on the label it seems to be a procession towards the serek with king Djer's name. In the top register men are carrying a ladder-looking object almost like those used to board fortified walls which have hooks atop. Thereafter comes a man holding an upright mummy-like figure and a man holding a catfish, which was the symbol of king Narmer, his supposed grandfather. Right over the fish is the hieroglyph for the sound M (like in Menes). Next in line is a man with a stork-like bird sitting on is left arm followed by a man carrying a standard looking object shaped like a gigantic arrow pointing to the sky. At the end comes she scene interpreted as a human sacrifice or possibly blood-letting. In the next row the hieroglyph M is at front and a man holding a bull standard, the symbol of the king as the strong poten bull Apis. He is followed by a musician playing on a square shaped harp and a juggler using four balls. Upon the most lofty one sits a bird. Finally comes two doll like sitting statues(?) with some signs above. Is this a depiction of a celebration with offerings in Narmer's mortuary cult? We do not know, but it is possible. Why is a mummy in the procession? Is it Narmer's mummified body being relocated from his original tomb to the more easy-to-guard royal cemetery at Abydos? If so this might explain why hi tomb there is so small and rather sloppy built, and not at all in the tandard of what is to be expected for a king of his magnitude. Relocations of at least grave offerings of his is known, like those found in the catch within the temple yard at Hierakonpolis and abviously brought there, like Narmer's famous palette and Scorpion's great mace head. They surely came from other tombs and the question is: where were those located? Other finds from king Djer is a headless statuette found in a small temple on the island of Elephantine at Aswan in the south. It might be the oldest sculpture of this kind so far. It's a tiny figurine sitting on a throne with a sign at the side which can be read as DR - the consonants from king Djer's name (vowels were not written). Other places where his name has been found (apart from his tomb in Abydos) are: Tura, Sakkara and Helwan. The two latter being situated at each river bank at the capital Memphis where Helwan was the burial ground for the nobility not related to the royal court. With his first queen Herneith he had the daughter Merneith (column left) who was married to the next king Djet and ruled after being a widow. King Djer's campaign into western Asia is attested for in domestic writing, but his name has not been found outside Egypt.

Djet
King Djet had variations of his name like Uadji and Zet, but Wadjet is probably the correct form. His personal nomen from the Abydos temple wall, Itiui, is shown within a cartouche in a picture at bottom right. His Horus-name was written by a single snake and has been his icon for historians in later times. Manetho gives a king called Kenkenes 31 years and one called Uenepes 23, and probably one of them is Djet, the latter one being the most likely. His tomb in Abydos (picture right) had a new feature - small rooms surrounding the grave chamber within the building itself, a feature similar to mastabas. From the same site he has left a masterpiece of Egyptian art from all times - a magnificent over two metre high stone stele found outside the tomb, now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. It was from the beginning erected at the spot marking the place where visitors cold give tribute to the memory of the dead pharaoh. The tomb itself had probably no visible part above ground in contrast to his ritual area by the Nile, with its high walls. A year-label (left) came to light, showing the king's name and symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt - the vulture and the red crown. Other monuments from Djet's reign are two large mastabas at Tarkhan and most of all a large mastaba from the capital's necropolis at Sakkara. It measures 20 by 50 meters and was excavated by English archaeologist Emery in 1953-56. It had over 400 bulls' heads sculptured with genuine horns all placed in straight rows around the walls, and beside it stood of over 60 side burials for retainers. The grave chamber was plundered shortly after the burial by robbers tunneling in from the side and setting fire to the wooden roof and lining. A carefully made restoration took place probably in the reign of king Qaa at the end of the dynasty, when new offering and goods were put in. This magnificent find made the excavator put forward the theory that this was the tomb of the king himself or at least an important member of his family since it was considerably wealthier, bigger and more artful built with colored masonry in absolute highest class. The general opinion today is that the Sakkara mastabas were made for high officials, and some of them were obviously mighty enough to have retainers in dozens to escort them into the next world.
Itiui

Mer-Neith
When English archaeologist Flinders Petrie re-excavated the tombs at the old

burial ground of Abydos during 1901 he unexpectedly found an unknown tomb whose owner bore the name Mer-Neith. The monument itself was a traditional building under ground with side chambers within like the mastaba tombs (picture left) accompanied with side burials of retainers outside. At first he thought that he had found an unknown king, but soon new fact came to light telling the unexpected truth that Mer-Neith was a woman. It became clear that she was the widow and queen of king Djet and held office during the childhood and youth of their son, the next ruler to be - king Den whose name appeared in the grave. A proof of her position in the sequence of leaders was later found on a seal impressionfrom the tomb of her son, where her name was put along with the ruling kings but without the king's insignia - the Horus falcon. In other lists from later times however, the Egyptians did not mention her, only her son. Above all, her name was found on a fine stele made of stone (picture right) that probably have had the same function as the one found from her husband - to mark the place of offering for the veneration of her immortal soul. A reconstruction of her tomb shows a possible position for these stelae. For later commemoration she also had a ritual area in Abydos, beside the ones from five other regents. Her name contains the old patroness and war goddess from Lower Egypt Neith and means: "beloved by Neith", whose regalia, (shield and arrows), are present on small labels from this time as well as her big stele. That the queen thus was a native of the Delta is a plausible guess, thereby making a sort of matrimonial alliance between the North and the South, but this is so far not confirmed. Few remains attested to her are found outside Abydos, probably because all official sign, marks of property etc were made in the name of her little son. An exception is a great mastaba (Nr 3503, 16x42 m) in Sakkara where her name has been found as inscriptions on stone vessels, jars and seal impressions. Mer-Neith is a unique figure in the long line of Egyptian rulers being a woman, and a theory why she reached this lofty position is that she was related to the old king Djer, possibly being his daughter. This would have given her a position respectable enough to run the country during the infancy of her son, the future king Den.

Den

When king Den was old enough to take care of office from his mother, he soon became a great leader. He had a substantial length of reign, probably much longer then the 20 years he is given by Manetho. Many things remaining of him are found from all over Egypt, and he is by far the best documented of all kings from the first dynasty. His name was hardly pronounced "Den" the way he is usually called, and other names were Semti, Udimu and in the cartou- che left - Itiui. Zemti was spelled by a the hiero- glyphic sign for "high desert, foreign land or enemy" (at the bottom left), possibly to comm- emorate his deeds making campaigns against people at the northeast border as well as the desert mountains east of the Nile Valley. One of these campaigns is depicted on a famous ivory label in British Museum. Den had a prosperous time on the throne and art and economy Semti seem to have flourished. Many innovations saw the daylight during his reign and he adopted the double crown to underline his dual kingship over the two countries. His tomb at the royal burial ground at Abydos was an ordinary square monument, but had a new feature in form of a very long broad staircase leading directly to the grave chamber. This new architectural design was quickly adopted in the private tomb sector as well as the following kings. In the 1980s it was investigated once again and was found in a very good condition. He is said to have improved the administration, and on the Palermo Stone is recorded that he had a census "of all people of the north, west and east" taking place in the country, obviously to see how many subjects he was ruling, and could make pay taxes. About 30 great mastabas from his reign were built by officials from Sakkara and up north to Abu Roash. This was far more than during the reigns of his predecessors who only had a few built during their time on the throne. A remarkable seal impression from Abydos shows the king as golden statues, when carrying out ritual activities like harpooning a hippopotamus (in picture left). A similar motif is found on a stone palette being hundreds of years older. This scene should last for thousands of years, even after that hippo was distinct from Egypt. It was probably made to tell that pharaoh was the protector of stability, and could through his strength successfully fight disorder.

Anedjib

Anedjib is a ruler that not so much is known about. His personal name was Enezib and Mer(i)biap(en) (in the cartouche left) and he ruled from Memphis. According to Manetho (Africanus) who called him Miebidos, his reign was 26 years. The Turin Canon has his age when he died: 74, but the notation telling about how many years ha had in office, is not readable. He may have come to power by marriage to queen Betrest of the Memphite royal family and in that case he was not son of king Den. A conflict between the Lower Egyptian high classes and those of the Soth seems to have been temporarily solved by Anedjib whose name is the first of all kings in the Sakkara list. Maybe he was the first Meribiap king not to be directly related to the Thinis line of pharaohs. However the theory that he was an usurper (or his successor was) and wasn't recognized by all aristocrats, has some substance, because his monuments were deliberately desecrated by his immediate follower on the throne. His name in a serek has been erased and the new king's put there instead in many stone vessels found at Sakkara. Besides there his name has only been found in two other places in Egypt: Abydos and Helwan, and outside its borders possibly at En Besor in southern Palestine. At Sakkara a great mastaba, probably for his prime mini- ster, revealed a new architectural construction within when it was dug out in the 1950s. In contrast his own tomb in Abydos was a crude small construction (picture right) and so were the rows of 64 satellite tombs. This high number tells that though is reign seems to have been a step backwards for the country as a whole (inter- nal struggle?) the king's power over the commoners was unbroken. The grave chamber still held parts of the wooden floor after 4.500 years. Possibly trying to establish himself as the true king over all Egypt he adopted a new title - "The Two Lords". He thereby probably underlined his task not put anyone in favor of the of the gods Horus and Set whose supporters obviously had divided the country spiritually and created more or less social disorder and political instability. This continued well in to, and even to the end of the next dynasty. His power over the south was challenged by local tribes and the northern nomes were often rebellious. Several stone objects have shown that the habit of making statues of the pharaoh had already began. They depict king Anedjib as a statue wearing various garments, and these probably stood in different temples.

Semerkhet

King Semerkhet was the fifth regent in the first dynasty and his personal nomen was Semsem (in cartouche left). He had the shortest time on the throne - eight and a half years. We know this for a fact because his complete reign is documented on the Cairo Stone in the Egyptian Museum. Regrettably the entries from each year are only about ceremonies of different kinds and do not record any historical events. Nevertheless do we have a figure of his age when he died, from the Turin Canon: 72 years. Theories about his legitimacy to kingship suggesting that he was an usurper has been put forward by scholars because he had the habit of reusing his predecessor's goods. At the cemetery at Abydos objects from Anedjib's time (and tomb?) Semsem was found in Semerkhet's where he had erased the original name and replaced it with his own. In a seal from his successor his name is written in the line with the other kings, telling that he was recognized as a pharaoh at least by his follower, who was his son (according to Manetho). A so called year label from Semerkhet reign was found at Abydos in his follower's tomb at the re-excavation in the mid 1990s made by DAIK, the German Institute of Archaeology in Cairo. His tomb in Abydos (picture above right) shows a new feature: retainers' tombs attached directly to the walls of his own, and a door entrance rather then a staircase leading to the grave chamber. This means that the whole construction was covered by one superstructure, indicating that the retainers were buried at the same time, and thus probably sacrificed to the honour of their master. Among the offering goods were found 10 vessels imported from Palestine when it was excavated by English Egyptologist Petrie in 1901. The foreign trade was kept up during his reign, but never reached the height it had during the middle of the dynasty. The only object of substance to have survived from Semerkhet's reign is a black granite funeral stele found by his tomb in 1898 (picture left). It had originally belonged to a pair erected outside his monument, a tradition from the very beginning of the dynasty to mark the place for offerings. He is the first king who does not have a mastaba tomb from his reign at North Sakkara, and it's likely that his high officials survived his short reign and continued serving the next monarch. At least one of them is known by his name minister Henuka.

Qa
Pharaoh Qa had the personal nomen Qebeh as seen within a cartouche in the picture at bottom right. He was the last ruler of the dynasty and according to Manetho he reigned for about 26 years, and this is likely because several mastabas at Sakkara are dated to his reign. According to the Turin Canon his age when he died was 63 years and the length of his reign is not visible on the papyrus. In 1993 a German archaeological expedition re-excavated his tomb at Abydos and discovered that several alterations had been made to the structure and

undertaken over significant period of time. It is one of the most impressive at the Abydos cemetery and after 4.500 years the funeral chamber still held parts of the wooden floor and traces of the colorful patterns on the walls. A fine artifact was found by archaeologist Petrie in 1900 (shown in picture left). It's a gaming rod made of ivory showing a captive of war with his hands bound behind his back. A lot is pointing to that the depicted man is from a tribe in the east, and the sign above is head is a very unusual hieroglyph that in later times at least, stood for enemies from that direction. His large beard is a little too much to come from an Egyptian, they used to shave themselves at least on their cheeks. Other finds from his grave were three copper bowls with the king's name on them. The practice of subsidiary burial where retainers were killed in order to serve the ruler in the afterlife ceased after the reign of Qa. The beginning of his reign is recorded on the Cairo stone, telling about his ceremonial duties and founding of temples etc. Among the finds in his tomb in the 1990s was a seal impression with all the kings from the first dynasty up to Qa himself was written down. It is a remarkable piece with all pharaohs in a line omitting queen Neith-Hotep. The fact that Narmer is first in line points out him as the founder of the dynasty and unifier later maybe called Menes. A look into administration was brought to light when year labels from his tomb told about timber delivered to the royal workshops and festivals. Qa is attested to the south from rock carvings near the old town of Hierakonpolis, and also mentioned on jar sealings and two damaged stele. Until the reign of Den Egypt seems to have enjoyed stability and prosperity, but during Anedjib's reign order broke down when conflicting fractions (Horus versus Set) caused changes that ended the dynasty.
Qebeh

Bird
At the end of the first dynasty, there could have been (probably was) a number of ephemeral rulers. One of them might be the pharaoh with a bird within his serek, and known from only one single piece of evidence, coming from the galleries under the step pyramid from third dynasty king Djoser at Sakkara. The object (partly shown in picture right) is from a stone vessel made of schist with this king's name carved in. His position is far from certain, but he is considered to have had a short reign at the end of the second dynasty. This estimation is made by comparing his hieroglyphs' and serek's form to those of other rulers at the time. One of them is a crude serek found in king Qa's tomb at Abydos in 1902 and possibly showing a bird. But it's hard to tell, and it is shown as example number 5 (below right) within a serek. The bird looks like a stork with a long body and neck and a rather short nib, possibly a heron and the picture left shows a similar hieroglyph. His position in the sequence of kings during this rather unknown period is hard to establish with certainty. He must not be confused with the Horus Ba from dynasty 3 whose serek had a human bone, in one occasion together with a ram. (The sounds in Egyptian are similar in these two names).

The reason for placing him after Qa is mainly the epigraphically similarities (the form of the serek) and a seal from his tomb shows the seven first rulers from dynasty one in a successive line without mentioning a king called "Bird". Accompanying text from the scanty remains of the Bird Pharaoh is almost identical to some of Qa's, making it very likely to place him just in this era.
King Bird?

Sneferka
This is also (like king Bird above) a mysterious pharaoh belonging to the very end of the first dynasty, a period that obviously was a time of some instability in society. His name is only attested for twice - and both finds come from Sakkara. One is a fragment of schist (pictures below right) found by British archaeologist Walter Emery in the debris at the escarpment north of King Djoser's funeral complex, when he was excavating mastabas from the first dynasty. (see Emery: Great Tombs III, pl. 38.1). The serek (picture left) contains the hierogly- phic signs making up the king's name, but in a slightly different order than in the other remnant confirming his existence - a stone vessel found under the pyramid of king Djoser and published by Egyptologist Peter Kaplony in 1988 in MDAIK, which is the annual journal published by the German Archaeology Institute in Cairo. His name is not recorded in any of the kings' lists (both official and from private tombs) made during the further 2.500 years the Egyptian state should exist. This probably means that he was unknown to later generations due to the fact that his reign was a very brief and insignificant one and the remains from his time on the throne were very few. That's the main reason why his position (together with the likewise obscure king Bird above) cannot be established with certainty, just estimated on brittle grounds. The hieroglyphs building the phonetic sounds making his name Sneferka, might perhaps also be read as "Neferkaes" (the s-element being put last instead of first) and this would make it a female form of name. This possibility has recently (2006) been proposed by the Italian scholar Francesco Raffaele (xoomer.virgilio.it/francescoraf/), and if correct, this would make her the first female pharaoh presented within a serek with the Horus-name and a falcon atop (above left).

Dynasty 2
Manetho's list

2770 - 2649 BC (120 years)

The transition from first to second dynasty seems to have been smooth despite the disturbance noticed. The period is shadowy with social disorder and possibly civil war which might have split the nation in two halves for a time. The first 5 kings and the last one are documented and positioned with accuracy but some chiefs in the mid period probably ruled for short terms and maybe from different parts of the country. At the end the union was recovered and the power was centralized to Hierakonpolis in Upper Egypt. The table below gives the names from Manetho (re-writer Julius Africanus) and the three main Egyptian king lists: A temple wall in Abydos, a private tomb in Sakkara and the Royal Canon from the Papyrus of Turin. Manetho also gives the years in office. Notable: the Abydos list has just one king after Sened, the others have four.

Archaeology
1 Hotepsekhemwy 2 Nebre 3 Ninetjer 4 Weneg 5 Sened Nubnefer Neferkare Neferkaseker

Manetho (Af.)
1 Boethos 38 2 Kaiechos 39 3 Binothris 47 4 Tlas 17 5 Sethenes 41 6 Khaires 17

Abydos-Sakkara-Turin 1 Bezau, Neterbau, Baunetjer 2 Kakau, Kakau, Kakau 3 Baneteren, Baneteru, Banetjer 4 Uaznes, Uaznes, (unreadable) 5 Senedy, Sened, (Sendji?) (Sealing: king "Kara" occurs once) 6 -, Neferkara, Neterka

7 Nepherkeres 25 7 -, Neferkaseker, Neferkasekru 8 -, gap, gap

Peribsen (Sekhemib?) 8 Sesochris 48 10 Khasekhem(wy) 9 Kheneres 30

9 Zasai, Bebi, Bebti

The six cartouches of kings of dynasty 2 from the Abydos list: Hotepsekhemwy, Nebre, Ninetjer, Weneg, Sened, Khasekhemwy.

Hotepsekhemwy
Pharaoh Hotepsekhemwy came to power in an unknown way and it is possible that he reached office by marriage to a princess. Thus we don't know if he was related to the old Thinite line of rulers or not. He is not thought to be the son of king Qa, but possibly his son in law. Anyhow he made offerings and possibly took care of the old king's funeral, because sealings with his name have recently (1993) been found outside Qa's tomb at Abydos. His personal nomen (Bedjau) seen within a cartouche right as written in the Abydos temple list. His Horus-name (in the serek right) means "the two powers are at ease" meaning that the struggle between the Horus and Set fractions in society was at peace. But this was hardly more than a hope from his side, because this conflict Bedjau should be a burden for generations and nearly tore Egypt apart. He made a change in picking his place of burial left the traditional Abydos cemetery for a spot at the burial ground of the capital - in Sakkara. This was likely made as a political move, as a gesture of reconciliation in the internal political struggle, but to please whom, is not clear. Not only did he change the place of burial - he made a totally new type of tomb with a revolutionary new design for his last resting place. It was a huge complex of underground galleries hewn out in the bedrock, a gigantic work of a type that never had been done in Egypt or anywhere else on Earth before. Indeed this was a total change and break through in the technique of stone cutting and a milestone in human progress. It was found merely by accident in 1902 a bit south of the Djoser complex by the Italian archaeologist Barsanti. In the almost empty tomb numerous seals with the king's name could be rescued, and thereby identifying the owner (see picture below left). The monument seems to be in an unfinished stadium though the grave chamber and its side room were completed. Around 20 minor rooms around the king's bedroom just might have been made for his staff of servants, but this is very hypothetical. Above ground nothing is left of a superstructure (if there ever existed one) and later buildings have been built upon it perhaps unaware of its existence. After measuring the monument in 1902 it was closed and sealed, and it still awaits a real examination. The map drawn of its plan seem to be too symmetrical to be entirely correct. According to Manetho king Hotepsekhemwy had a reign of 38 years (he is named in a Greek form: Boethos) and the Egyptian king lists calls him Bezau and Neterbau. He is also attested by many inscriptions on stone vessels from the underground magazines under Djoser's pyramid. His name is also cut in to a granite statue of a long-lived priest and caretaker of his mortuary cult, who served under his two successors as well.

Nebre

Nothing much is known from archaeological remains of pharaoh Nebre who is another rather shadowy regent from the second dynasty. There is also a dispute about his name because he used to be called Nebre meaning: "Re is (my) lord". In the later years of the 1900s however scholars began to favor the reverse order Nebre meaning: "Lord of the son". Which version that is right is difficult to tell, but unimportant for his identification. In the Turin Canon of kings he is noted by his personal nomen Kakau, seen within a cartouche in the picture left, symbolizing strength and virility. In the Metropolitan Museum in New York is a fine stele made of red granite (in the picture to the right), and it is the most significant remain of him. Though found in the town of Mit Rahina in the flood plain (the place of the capital Memphis), the stele would have Kakau stood outside his tomb that obviously is to be found in the Sakkara area. A possible construction which can be the place of his last rest are the huge galleriescut out i the bedrock underneath the funeral complex of pharaoh Djoser. Another theory that has been put forward, is that he took over this big underground construction from his predecessor, and made it his own. In this case the galleries originally had to belong to someone else, who is up to now unknown to Egyptology. By integrating the sun and its god Re in his own name, Nebre started a tradition that should last for over 2000 years. An inscription on a black stone vessel (inverted picture below left) gives the correct position for the first two kings of the dynasty. Their sereks are put beside each other topped with the Horus falcon wearing the double crown and facing a goddess. Second in line after the founder of the dynasty is king Nebre. Manetho has a lot to say about him as a good complement to his rather sparse remains. He tells that Nebre started cults of different gods. In Memphis the emergence of worshipping the Apis bull is attested to him (but an inscription from first dynasty king Den tells that he was the one who started it 200 years earlier). In Mendes in the eastern delta he started the cult of the sacred goat and in the old solar cult center of Heliopolis 35 km north of the capital, he founded the worshipping of the bull Menvis. Manetho also states that Nebre's reign was 39 years long, and he calls him by a Greek form - Kaiechos, a name closely corre- sponding to the name he's got in Egyptian king lists: Kakau. His seal impressions have been found in the tomb of his predecessor Hotepsekhemwy and at the southernmost site - a rock carving from the desert east of Armant in Upper Egypt, just by the route to the big oases in the Western Desert.

Ninetjer
Historian Manetho gives Ninetjer a reign of 47 years and calls him in a Greek way - Binothris. The Turin Canon does not note the length of his reign, but has the figure 95 clearly visible, possibly his age. The change to a b-sound in his name was made in later times when an additional sign (a ram) with that value was put to the king's name. Writings from his own time only contain the flag and the weavy line (serek in picture right). Later Eygptian canons spell his name: Baneteren, Baneteru and Neteren. The

cartouche from the Abydos list in picture left says Banetjer, meaning "The Ram Of The God". He is the best known of all kings from this early part of the second dynasty. Sealings with his name have been found in various places in Lower Egypt and most of all in Sakkara where one "nobility class" mastaba at the north escarpment contained half a dozen. It probably belonged to one of his high officials. His name has also been found in a big mastaba from Giza, but only at one occasion in Upper Egypt - at Abydos. It was found on stone vessels from the tomb of the later king Peribsen who possibly had brought them down south from the Memphis area. Apart from all stone vessels his name only appears twice on other types of objects: a small ivory label and a famous statuette of stone. This fine cut little piece (picture below left) measuring 13,5 cm in height and 8,8 x 4,8 cm at the base, is made of a hard alabaster-like stone with a sheen towards greenish-yellow. It shows the king sitting on his throne wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt and at his chest he's holding the crook and the flail. He is dressed in a tight fitting robe and this garment is usually connected with the Sed-festival that took place every 20th year. He looks like a man in his older days. At both sides of the base his name is written in hieroglyphs not framed by a serek as shown in upper left corner of the picture. Most of the knowledge about his deeds comes from the Palermo stone where his name is written above the boxes with the annual events. These entries are from his 6th to his 20th year on the throne. Writing on stone vessels from Sakkara suggest that his reign was at least 35 years long since a notation says that the biennial census had just been executed for the 17th time. The notations about different celebrations are all except one referring to events from Lower Egypt. There are records of political events too, because in his 13th year in office he ordered his military forces to attack two unidentified towns (Sm-r and H). The name H can also be read "northern land" suggesting a rebellion from some places in the delta, or disorder at the northern frontier. Ninetjer's tomb has been found in Sakkara just south of Djoser's pyramid complex and about 150 m beside the tomb galleries of the founder of the dynasty Hotepsekhemwy. Comparing both structures gives at hand that Ninetjer's is considerably smaller and more irregular with corridors and rooms cut out almost randomly, maybe because bad quality in the bedrock in some parts. The galleries from older king are, as they are depicted from sketches made in the beginning of the 1900s, almost too symmetrical and probably not entirely correct. One thing the tombs have in common: unfinished corridors. Possibly the work went on as long as the pharaoh lived starting with the essential parts, and then finally ceased when he died.

Weneg
After Ninetjer something drastic happened to the Egyptian society which made many central functions collapse or decline for a short time. During this period of unrest a few names appear in fragmentary remains and among them a rather obscure king called Weneg, by some indentified as the ruler to come next, Sened.

He was probably preceding pharaoh Ninetjer, at least in Lower Egypt, because a division of the country for a period cannot be excluded. The Turin Canon has an entry with an illegible name possibly to be his with no figure for the length of the reign, but one for the age of this king when he died: 54 years. His Horus-name (in a serek) is not known, but can be written by a single branch (picture upper left). Other forms are found in a dozeninscriptions, most of them from Sakkara, with his name written by a single flower. Though his reign probably was a very short one (perhaps not more then a couple of years) his name is recorded in later king lists like from the temple in Abydos (picture upper right) and the Sakkara list (picture below left). This indicates that despite the lack of earthly remains he probably had a position in the legends for later generations, when they were commemorating the pharaohs from the past. The scribes at that time misread his flower-sign (to be read: WNG) and replaced it with a papyrus plant (picture left) giving the sound: Wadj-nes, meaning "fresh of tongue". This was translated Greek as "ougot-las" by the historian Manetho, who gave the king the name Tlas. In other words - a corruption on more than one occasion during the flow of time. Because he had a very short reign we can hardly expect that his tomb is a mass of underground galleries like some of his prede- cessors. If he hasn't taken over an older construction and made it his own we can look for a monument of more modest size, maybe a mastaba of substance. The area where to look for his tomb is probably around the other galleries east of the pyramid of king Sekhemhkhet. This monument lies where the topography is unsuitable. A good guess might be that the area to the east already was occupied by superstructures (mastaba-like?) from dynasty 2 tombs, and that these were removed in later times. The substructures should then still be detectable, but this place has not been properly investigated. There are candidates to be his tomb and in one mastaba (S3014) has even Weneg's name been found.

Sened (Sendji)
When pharaoh Sened was in power Egypt was probably divided once again into its southern and northern parts, with him as the king in North (Lower) Egypt from the capital Memphis. In the Turin Canon the length of his reign is lacking but a notation of (at least) 70 years indicates his age when he died. There are no contemporary remains of him, not even the smallest writing is found so far. A possible exception is a block of stone with his name on it, that was found and reused as building material in the mortuary temple of fourth dynasty king Khafre (Khefren) at Giza. This piece might just be of second dynasty origin and thus contemporary to Sened. Another remain with his name is from a private fourth dynasty tomb in Sakkara where a man called Shery has a title that tells that he is connected with the cult commemorating king Sened. This is a couple of hundred years after his death. The text also mentions king Peribsen who probably was Sened's counterpart in the southern part of the country at the same time. All other material sources science have about him are made in later times and one remarkable object is a statuette from 2000 years after his death made in the 800s BC. Though considered to be very insignificant by today's Egyptologists since

he has left no remains of substance anywhere in Egypt, he obviously had a strong position in the minds of later Egyptian generations. The reason for this is so far concealed to science. Another fact pointing in the same direc- tion is that he was put in to the king-lists among the much more famous colleagues of his. His name thus appears in the Abydos list (picture above right) and in the canon from a private tomb in Sakkara where he is depicted simply by a plucked goose (pic- ture left). He is mentioned in the Canon of Turin as well, also there as a plucked goose. Historian Manetho gives him a reign of 41 years and calls him Sethenes. If that name has something to do with the god Seth we don't know, but Egyptian records only call him Sened. His tomb has not been identified yet, but if his reign was that long he surely had the time to construct a monument of some dimen- sions. The man mentioned above working with his mortuary cult, probably had his tomb a bit north of Djoser's complex, and the galleries west of his pyramid are a possible monument of Sened's and of other kings as well. The answer might be given when the whole Sakkara necropolis is excavated some day, because many monuments are expected to be buried there.

Nubnefer
Pharaoh Nubnefer is a shadowy figure during this obscure part of the dynasty. His existence, presented by pharaoh's name and royal titles, has only been attested in a couple of stone fragments from two places in the galleries under the Step pyramid of Djoser in Sakkara. They both are incised parts of destroyed stone vessels and his name has by some scholars been read reverse - Nefernub (picture below, right part). His Horus-name (within a serek) has not been found but there might be a possibility though in the standing rectangle on the same fragment which gives the name Hewet Menet Ankh (left). If this is his Horus name or if his so called nesy-bity name Hewet Menet Ankh (Nubnefer) is from another ruler, known by another name or unknown, we do not know. Pharaoh Nebre is the one who has been put forward as a can- didate by some in this case of name riddle. The German Egyptologist Helck made careful estima- tions in the 1970s about Nubnefer's position, and came to the conclusion that he reigned very close to king Ninetjer, after or before. His time in office seems to have been a very short one, and nothing is mentioned about him after his death, not even indirectly. One theory among others is that Nubnefer was the nesy-bity name of king Nebre (the predecessor of Ninetjer), due to the fact that this name of his has never been found. If so, whose name is Hewet Menet Ankh written beside Nubnefer's? The king Khaires from Manetho's list fits the best to Nubnefer only by its place and the following names, but the reign of 17 years is hard to believe unless his remains were deliberately erased by his followers. Kaires can be of another mysterious king who came to light on a sealing in El-Kab found by the English Egyptologist Flinders Petrie. (Scarabs and Cylinders' pl. VIII; id. 'History' p.26). This name can also be read - Kara, (with the corresponding element KA and R to Kaires) and this single piece of clay is the only proof of his existence.

As to Nubnefer's tomb, it is probably to be found within the necropolis of Memphis at the Sakkara burial ground, where the so called "hot area" where Weneg, Sened and possibly other kings are expected to rest. Because of his (presumed) short reign it's likely to be a monument of modest size, if it still exists or ever was.

Neferkare
There are no contemporary remains from king Neferkare unless he is identical to king Nubnefer (above) and the two remains from him. Several rulers have had this name and the sound elements building up the name are very common. Archaeologists know him only from the two king lists from aka's tomb at Sakkara and the inscription in the papyrus from Turin known as the Royal Canon of Turin. In the third list of substance - the Abydos king list from a wall in the temple of king Seti I from the 19th dynasty, he does not exist and nor does his immediate successor. This temple is from 1200 years after the second dynasty and so are the other two lists. If the omission of him and his successor has to do with a tradition in Abydos (with hostility to the northern Memphis area during the second dynasty) we don't know. In both the Sakkara list and Turin canon he has the position between Sened and Neferkaseker and in Manetho's list he is in the same place under the Greek-formed name Nepherkheres which is the next king in line (se below) Neferkaseker. Since their names differ from one another with just a phonetic sign it's a theory that it is one and the same king with different spellings of his name. At the end of the Old Kingdom around dynasty 6 his name comes to light during several rulers. This shows that he and other more or less unknown kings from the same time, were far from forgotten by the generations that follow them. The picture to the right shows the cartouche with Neferkare's name as it appears in the Sakkara list. It contains the signs KA with the raised arms (meaning soul) and NEFER (a sign possibly showing a belly and a windpipe) meaning beautiful and the sun symbolizing the solar god Re. These signs are by far the most common in names from pharaohs. If Neferkare and his colleges Nubnefer above and Neferkaseker below, was ruling ahead or after the better known kings Weneg and Sened, is a question not solved by the scholars. Egypt might even have split up in two parts with these two ruling the north, since their names have only been found in the memphite area.

Neferkaseker
Three kings after Sened are not present on the Abydos temple wall, and one of them is Neferkaseker. In the Sakkara list (from the private tomb of a man called aka) and in the royal Canon from the Turin pa- pyrus he is shown by his Neswybity-name within a cartouche, but his Horus name within a serek is yet to be found.

His reign is noted for 8 years and three months, but a note of his age is lacking. A cylinder seal impression from him found in an unknown place in the Nile Valley shows good similarities in style and composition to the one of Peribsen from Milan, a piece that has been questioned. If this impression containing two cartouches with his name written in different ways (picture above right) is genuine and contemporary, it would be the second oldest known cartouche with a king's name found in Egypt so far. Being a pharaoh not so well known (i.e. more or less unknown), Egyptologists have recovered a remarkable papyrus fragment from the second century A.D. written by demotic hieroglyphs. It deals with prospecting a temple in the Faiyum area and has a visible though damaged text (picture left) which has been read:Na w-nfr-ka-skr by some scholars. The roll of the king in this text is not quite detectable, but the planning of the building can have been guided by a sketch or depiction from Neferkaseker's time as a prototype. If so, that means an impressive continuity in the archives from the Department of Royal Buildings, spanning for 3000 years! Up to now (year 2001) there has been no trace of this king what so ever from any kind of monument and this makes this papyrus fragment even more mysterious. An inscription rather similar to this has been found on one occasion though, with hieroglyphs making: Neferkaseker Nefer (shown in picture right). It was found at the beginning of the 1900s when Italian arch- aeologist Barsanti was clearing the remains of the supposed fourth dynasty pyramid at Zawiyet el Aryan, the very big so called "Unfinished Pyramid" (see king Bikka of dynsaty 4). Most fragmentary finds with names from this pyramid were written within or beside a cartouche, but these very signs have no such component and cannot be considered as a king's name with certainty.

Sekhemib
Sekhemib Perenmaat is an illusive ruler from the later part of this dynasty. He could either have been a separate king, or he may have not existed at all, just being another and earlier name of king Peribsen (see below). No monuments of any kind throughout Egypt can be attested to Sekhemib. At Saqqara eight fragments of stone have his name, and most prominent vessels from the Step Pyramid complex around the eastern galleries. The fact that many of his seal impressions are found in Peribsen's tomb suggests that it's a single king having two names. If so it would be a unique occasion in Egyptian history. Sekhemib thus changed his name to Peribsen and put the Set-animal on top of his serek. He thereby announced which side he was on in the domestic struggle going on between supporters of Horus and Set.

A seal impression bearing the name of Sekhemib Perenmaat shown within a royal serek. Many others are found at Peribsen's tomb (Abydos cemetery), eight pieces from Sakkara (under Djoser's step pyramid) and a single one from the town of Aswan.

Today this theory is less plausible than during the 1950s because new finds speak against it. Peribsen's name hasn't been found on contemporary monuments in Saqqara. If this is a fact based on deliberate exclusion of things coming from a "rebellious" ruler, or just a historical coincidence, we do not know for the moment (year 2004) and is anybody's guess. That he might have ruled in between Peribsen and Khasekhemwy is supported by the discovery of a fragmentary seal impression with his name in latter's tomb at Abydos. It was found by the German Archaeologists in the 1990s, and this fits with the lost name (Hudjefa, in menu left and below) from the Royal Canon of Turin, which might be him. Though he is likely to have ruled just for a brief period, his tomb should be among the others at the Royal cemetery at Abydos, but so far (year 2010) it hasn't turned up from under the sand - if it ever was there. The single pieces to establish his correct position are very few and hopefully new parts will appear to complete this jig-saw puzzle.

Peribsen
Peribsen was a ruler who had his roots in the South, and was probably ruling from there throughout his time on the throne. Not a single trace of him is found in Lower Egypt with an exception of a writing with his name found in Sakkara and brought there in later times. He was the first king to write his name within a cartouche as seen in the picture left where his personal nomen is written. He made a remarkable change in royal tra- dition by putting the god Set on top of his serek, (picture right) thereby disregarding the old southern Horus falcon that from ear- liest times had been the symbol of pharaoh. This move was obviously a political and religious statement and he thereby took side in the ongoing conflict between the supporters of these two gods which had divided an weakened the two united states. Thus he might have been a ruler just over the southern part of Peribsen the country (Upper Egypt), for a period estimated to have been for around seventeen years. A king called Sekhemib-Perenmaat (see above) might have been a separate ruler,

but most scholars take the view that this was the name of Peribsen before his "conversion". "King Sekhemib" thus has no tomb in Abydos but the name has been found on labels in the area inside and outside Peribsen's tomb. When he became king of Upper Egypt it might have been after civil war against Lower Egypt. His opponent might possibly have been king Sened and these two thus ruled each part of the Nile Valley. At some point Peribsen took over the whole country. We know this from inscriptions coming from his tomb in Abydos that tell about tribute (or conqueror?) concerning the town of Sethro in the delta. From a civil tomb in Sakkara a couple of hundred years later a caretaker from the cult of Sened also had the duty to oversee the veneration of Peribsen, though he was buried in the other part of the country. This can be seen as an act of reconciliation by the following generations thereby avoiding to split up the nation again. Peribsen's tomb (picture above left) is a traditional square building and it stands alone without any side burials. This means that by this time the tradition of sacrificing(?) (side burials) of retainers had ceased. Outside his monument twoinscribed stele were erected of which one has survived. He also followed the tradition from the other kings buried at Abydos by building an enclosure. These buildings had ritual purposes and were connected with the tombs and cult of the dead pharaohs.

A missing name
At the end of the second dynasty the Royal Canon of Turin has a notation of a king whose name is lost. Disorder and probably civil war was present in Egypt during this time and the fighting was possibly spread all over the country and ended in a north-agains-south manner with the religious/political tensions still present affter the open fighting. Anyhow accordig to this breef entry in the list of kings, this ruler seems to have entered office at the age of around 25 and after a reign of eight years and four months he died 34 years young. Maybe his name is known today from the scattered finds of otherwise unknown rulers, but Egyptologists do not know that just he's the missing name in the list.

Khasekhemwy

The most outstanding figure from the second dynasty and probably the whole Early Dynastic Time, was pharaoh Khasekhemwy. In the cartouche left is shown his personal nomen Beby, and he really should have the title "Unifier of the two countries". At the Turin Canon he is noted for a reign of 27 years, 2 months and 1 day and when he died he was at least 40 years of age. After winning the struggle against the North that had started during the reign of his predecessor, he chose Hierakonpolis in the far south to be his capital and it was the first and last time the united Egypt was ruled from Beby there. It took some effort to win the war and inscriptions from granite vessels found in his capital tell about his fights with the people from the north, described as "rebels". Being diplomatic he did not favor any of the main gods Horus and Set when the military struggle was over. He simply put them both atop of his serek (picture right), thereby hoping to make peace and order to the country. He also changed his name putting to it an additional -WY making it say - "The Two Powers Come Forward", instead of the single one (as Horus) that he had before. In consequence he also put another commander's staff to his serek thereby making his new political view visible. He also made a campaign in to Nubia and adopted a new title: "overseer of the foreign lands" which shows his interest to keep contact abroad. His names have thus been found all the way up to Byblos in Syria.

His tomb is founded a bit away from the others in Abydos is a remarkable construction (picture left) unlike any of the earlier monuments there. The design is a somewhat (diplomatic?) mixture between the northern style mastaba tombs and the traditional square buildings from the south. On top of all he placed it on "neutral" ground some 200 metres aside (south of) the old cemetery. He also kept the tradition from most of the earlier kings by making an enclosure 1,8 km towards the Nile from his tomb, probably for rituals of his mortal cult. The size was far bigger than his predecessors: 69 metrs in length and 10-17 meters wide made of walls a good 2 meters high. When it was excavated in 1900 it still contained half a dozen implements such as chisels and woodcutting tools made of copper. In the middle was the grave chamber built in stone, the first of its kind. The ability to handle this material was shown for the first time in Egyptian history by thestatues of Khasekhemwy which luckily have survived from a find in Hierakonpolis. If they are portraits more than idols images, the king seems to be a man with a deter- mined look on his face, and a firm mind, and this seems to have been the charac- teristics of the king. The most striking remain from him is the huge building he made at the capital Hierakonpolis. On the western side of the Nile a bit into the desert lies the oldest known monumental building of sun-dried bricks in Egypt. It is the so calledFortress with its gigantic structure. The purpose of it is somewhat disputable and varies from a fort to protect the capital from enemies to a ceremonial enclosure for different rituals connected to worshipping of gods or mortuary cults of the dead pharaohs.

Horus-Seth Khasekhemwy Hotep Netjerwy Imef. (Two powerful ones have risen and the two lords are at peace within him). The measurements are approximately 67 by 57 meters and though in a state of ruin - the massive walls are of dimensions not found in Egypt ever since - 5 meters thick and still today standing up to 11 meters high. The most remarkable remain thought to be his is the very large rectangular enclosure at West Sakkara and today called Gisr el-Mudir. Excavated in some places during the 1990s it turned out to hold a stone cut wall. In some places the height was 4,5 meters in 15 cores and the base width of 15 meters suggests a much greater height when it was finished. The monument measures about 600 x 340 meters with an entrance from the south side. There is no trace of any buildings within the walls which are constructed with a lining of hewn stones and a core made of rubble and sand. This filling has revealed remains from dynasty two, indicating that the building is older than Djoser's Step Pyramid nearby. The chief of the excavation estimates the age to be from the mid-dle to the late second dynasty. Gisr el-Mudir has a close resemblance to his ceremonial areas present at Abydos (see link earlier in the text), but these are built of sun baed mud bricks, and not stones. A connection to the coming king Djoser has been shown by findings outside the door of Khasekhemwy's tomb at Abydos where lots of seals bearing the name of this later ruler came to light in the 1990s, unearthed by German archaeologists. This shows that kings were firm on keeping the mortuary cults of their predecessors, since there seems to be a time gap for at least half a century between the two. Khasekhemwy's gifted politics made the different parts of society flourish and his work was a turning point in the development of Egyptian history. His name has been Serek showing Horus found as far away as in Syria in the north where his later and Set kissing! (-wy) name is seen on a bowl with Set and Horus atop (Montet 1928, page 84). He laid the ground to the golden days that were to come, and later generations were in great debt to him for their wealth. We do not know if he left a son to take over the throne after him and his connection to the following rulers is obscure. They started a new chapter in the history of mankind leading to a new type of tomb buildings later to be known by its Greek name and these were the Pyramids. This coming glorious period is called:

The Old Kingdom

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The Old Kingdom

Dynasties 3-5 2649 - 2134 BC
(515 years)

The Age of the Pyramids

By Ottar Vendel

Dynasty 3
Manetho's list

2649 - 2575 BC
During this dynasty Egyptian culture advanced rapidly. The beginning is dusky with more than one candidate to be the founder. The table of Nabil Swelim below is based on the opinion that the complex of Djoser was a cultural peak that had developed for a period of about 60-80 years of the dynasty. There is no general agreement among scholars on this table. Khaba and Sa are usually put at the end of the dynasty topped by Sanakht followed by his brother Djoser. This era is famous for a new type of tomb which gave Egypt fame through of all times - the great Pyramids.

Table of dynasty III

(after Nabil Swelim 1993)

Name (HORUS, others) 1 KHABA, Nebka, Hornub, Iretdjetef 2 SA, Sadjeser, Djeser 3 BA, Teti 4 SANAKHT, Yjehnwneb

Egyptian lists Nebka Teti -

Manetho (Africanus) Necheropes Tyreis Mesochris

Years Years Swelim Man. 19 19 7 17 28 29 7 17

Djeser, -sa Tosorthros

NETJERYKHET, Bity Sensen

- (Djoser)

Soyphis

30 16 3,5 2,5 24 138

16 19 42 30 26 203

6 SEKHEMKHETDjesertyankh Djeser -teti Tosortasis -ty 7 ?, Nebtawi Nebkare 8 QAHEDJET, Nebnubhedjet 9 ?, Huni Nebkare Neferka, re Huni Akhes Sephuris Kerpheris Total years =

The names from the Abydos list

At the temple of Seti I at Abydos (19th dynasty) five cartouches below hold the names of the pharaohs from the third dynasty. The Turin canon (on papyrus) made half a century later has also five names: Nebka, Djoser, Djosertety, (unknown name) and Huni. Over 1.000 years had passed since dynasty 3 and minor rulers were probably excluded and the positions and lengths of reigns for the others were probably uncertain.

Nebka

Sa Djeser

Tety

Sedjes

Neferkare

Khaba
The correct position of this pharaoh is probably at the end of the dynasty and likely where the

Turin Canon has the entry "Hudjefa" (see menu left). Though the name Khaba appears in second position (with a reign of 19 years) it is likely that the knowledge about him was wage when the list was made more than a thousands years after his death. He is attested for through archaeology at only four places where his name comes forward twelve times. These locations are Abusir (see illustration below) and Nagada plus Hierakonpolis and Elephantine (Aswan) where two sealings with his name have been found. Practically nothing is known about him with one great exception - a pyramid at Zawiyet-el-Aryan 7 kilometers north of Sakkara. Though his name has not been found in the monument itself it is thought to be his last resting place and it's generally referred to as the Layer Pyramid because it was built of thick leaning accretions with sloping courses of stone, a technique modified and improved at the beginning of the next dynasty. His name has been found inscribed on eight stone vessels found in a mastaba tomb a bit to the north. The pyramid itself has given no written remains at all, at least from the time it was built. The king probably died before the finishing of his monument and the work on the site was abandoned for all future. The construction is a square with a 78,5 m long side at the base, and placed on the highest partof the area overlooking the cultivated Nile valley. With only 200 metres to the flood plain in the valley it's the pyramid in Egypt that is placed nearest the cultivated land.

Small relief with Khaba's name twice (blackened). His name also occurs at a 5th dynasty pyramid and in tombs by his pyramid at Zawiyet el- Aryan.

With the intended five steps it would have been about 45 meters in height if it had been completed but today only 17 meters remain above the sand. Under ground huge galleries (very similar looking those from the pyramid of Sekhemkhet) were hewn out but the burial chamber did not contain anything, not even a sarcophagus, when it was entered in the late 1800s. Facts that indicate that it was built in the middle or at the end of the dynasty is the increasing ability of the Egyptians to manage to handle larger and larger stones, culminating during the end of the Old Kingdom. Khaba's monument is built with stones of bigger size (for the pyramid's core) than Djoser's, indicating it's younger. The construction has also an almost perfect orientation North-South that most older monuments (including substructures) don't have.

How the Layer Pyramid of Khaba looks today from the north side. Visible at the base (left in picture) is where the trench is going in. If king Khaba is the regent historian Manetho calls Necheropes he is by tradition in the second century BC said to have been in office for 28 years. This seems to be too long considering how much (or little) have been finished of his monument. If on the other hand he is the ruler referred to in Egyptian lists as Nebka, archaeological remains have made an estimation of 3 to 5 years on the throne as more likely. In the Royal Canon of Turin the name of the ruler noted before Huni is erased, but a reign of six years is readable. It's disputable to put Khaba as the founder of the third dynasty and the reigns of his and Sekhemkhet's were brief ones and generally estimated to be after king Djoser's. The traditional sequence of kings for the dynasty still is among most Egyptologists: SahnakhtDjoser-Sekhemkhet-Khaba-Huni added with those who are only known from names in king lists or fragments and have left no monuments to history. <="" a=""> <="" a="">

Sa

This obscure king is another example of the scanty remains that history has provided us with from parts of the third dynasty. If he was a separate king or just another name of someone better known we don't know for sure but a strong indication is that he is identical to a Djoser (not the king with the Step Pyramid) which in the Abydos list has the addition "za" to his name. His sereks contain a single bird facing right and this is a sign also seen from a king (simply called Bird) believed to have ruled for a short time during one of the dynasties prior to the third. Swelim puts king Sa as the second in the dynasty and gives him the other names Sadjeser and Djeser and identifies him with the ruler named Tosorthos from the list of Manetho (Africanus) or Sesorthos (by Eusebius). This may be correct, but far from all Egyptologists (probably not even a majority) will agree on this.

Serek from king Sa. One of three names inscribed on stone vessels from galleries under ground in Sakkara. A falcon facing right and a sasign below.

For a ruler being on the throne for 19 years (according to Swelim) remarkably little is left of his deeds as monuments and inscriptions are concerned. All remains are three sereks with is name marked on stone vessels found in the galleries under the step pyramid of King Djoser. When looking at these one thing is striking - the identification of the king - the Horus falcon, is put within the serek and not outside on top as all the other rulers had done in the past. This design did not appear again from any king in the future and can be an indication that this is secondary name (Sa) for another ruler better known. Candidates of some Egyptologists are king Ba (below) and Bird (see this king in table of dynasty 1) whose position is very uncertain and has been put in late dynasty 1 or in dynasty 2. In his book "Some problems on the history of the third dynasty" from 1983 page 224, Swelim suggest in a table that the tomb of pharaoh Sa might be found within the enclosure Gisr el Mudir at Sakkara. After some investigations the past years (up to 2007) nothing has been found to support this theory.

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Ba

Nobody knows for sure to which dynasty this obscure king belongs. His sereks were found already in the first half of the 1800s, but during the end of the 1900s scholars have taken up the question about when he had his reign. There is a lack of agreement in this question and Egyptologists' opinions are divided spanning between the later half of the second dynasty to the end of the third. In the second case he might fit in to a period not so well known, where historian Manetho has more names on his list than archaeology has been able to provide so far. The three known signs building up his Horus-name (within a serek) has a human leg in two cases and one of them (picture left) has no Horus falcon atop. The third inscription has an additional sign of a ramand this has confused some Egyptologists and it's not quite sure that it's an icon of the same pharaoh. The human leg stands for the letter (and sound value) B and the name of a ram is pronounced BA making it - BBA a confusing row of letters (possibly read Beba or Baba?). Some scholars identify this ruler with king Birddue to the fact that the hieroglyphs have more or less the same sound value. A majority of Egyptologists agree upon that he probably is to be put in during the third dynasty, likely at the end with a brief period in office. Nabil Swelim and Peter Kaplony take another view and put him in the first half of the period. Like in the case of pharao Sa above, Swelim has suggested a place for his tomb and has chosen the so called "Ptahhotep enclosure" in Sakkara. Nothing has been found (up to 2007) which can verify this theory. (See the table of Swelim at top at the start of dynasty 3).

Sanakht
This pharaoh has been considered to be the founder of the third dynasty, but in the last decades of the 1900s this has been questioned by Egyptologists. A fact is that Sanakht's tomb isn't found with certainty, but the big mastaba from Beit Kallahf near Abydos (see picture below), has very strong indicators to pointing out his final resting place. Since historian Manetho has stated that a ruler from this time was very tall and heavy built, the earthly remains from this mastaba-tomb makes it even more spectacular since it might be the oldest pharaoh preserved from this early state of Egyptian history. His stature (25 cm taller than an average Egyptian at the time) might tell that he had a light syndrome where an extra growth to the body is marked by expansion of the lower jaw-bone. His younger brother(?) Djoser was a heavy built too, but not so tall.

Skull from a big ruler (1.86 m) found in 1902 in the grave chamber (red) of a brick mastaba at Beit Khallaf. It might be the remains of king Sanakht whose name was found on many seals etc. The never used additional tomb (right) can if so, be the one of his first queen.

The 50 m long mastaba (light blue) was enlarged a bit with another (yellow). The skeleton remains were found in the chamber (red) and big stone stoppers (green) blocked the passage for robbers, to the owner's final resting place. The mastaba at Beit Khallaf is almost untouched since 1902 when it was investigated. What is left above ground today can be seen here in a couple of photos taken from a visit there in December 2006. Almost nothing is known of his reign and in the king lists he occurs as in the list of Manetho as Mesochris with a length of reign of seventeen years according to Swelim's list. Most other Egyptologists agree on that he is the king called Nebka (Khaba) and that follows the tradition that he was an elder brother of king Djoser. The Egyptian lists give no indication of him, at least with a name that can be interpreted as him. Among the very few remains of him are fragments from two depictions in stone found at the Sinai peninsula, telling that there was active mining there during his reign. These are the only(?) two depictions known of him up to now (April 2002). Some fragments with his name have been recovered from various places like Sakkara and Aswan, and a mud brick structure at Abw Rawash north of Giza has been connected to him on stylistic third dynasty grounds as a suggestion. Today only fragments are left of what seems to have been a quite large enclosed area (330x170m) with a 20 m square pyramid like massive structure in the center. This place has been suggested by Nabil Swelim (1984) to be his tomb, but no names or objects pointing towards the king have been found in the vicinity though.

A Sakkara tomb from a fourth dynasty official has left remains telling that the owner once had been working for the death cult of Sanakht, indicating that his memory was venerated in a mortuary shrine in that area long after his death.

Djoser
Djoser (Netjerykhet) actually meaning "King Ykhet" since Netjer was the Egyptian word for king, and written as hieroglyphic sign: a flag on a pole, as seen inside his serek to the right. He is one of the most outstanding rulers in the whole Egyptian and human history. The remains from his reign is of such a dignity that it turns a new chapter in the developing of mankind since the invention of writing half a century earlier. He was the first king to have the combination: supreme power - long reign, talent to pick officials to organize the manpower and use the skills of the whole Egyptian people. One of these officials was a man by the name of Imhotep (see him on Gods' list). He was of unknown origin and is of some scientists today considered to be the king's son though he was never mentioned as a prince. Under his supervision was made a gigantic enclosed area with a building in great size made of hewn stone for the first time in history. It was the great tomb of his master, the Step Pyramid, that he erected at the cemetery area of the capital Memphis. Today it's known as the mortuary complex at Sakkara (see below) and is still standing to a great extant and partly reconstructed. The monument has gone through many changes during its erection from being a quite modest mastaba at the beginning. The substructure has lots of chambers where finds from older kings as well have been found. It was obviously gathered here by orders from the king himself, possibly to prevent robbers from scattering the remains of his forefathers.

King Djoser's Complex at Sakkara

The area was originally intended to be smaller (green) with a single mastaba tomb (blue). It was extended to 530 by 270 m (24 soccer grounds) and enclosed by a thick 6 m high stonewall. Notably is the underground galleries (orange) which probably were at place when the pyramid complex was built. (See link below). The entrance hall was roofed with stone supported by pillars halfway built into the walls. To the right was a row of small buildings for ceremonial purposes and a stand for the canopy over the royal throne. The almost 400 meters long underground galleries (5) are of older date and the owner is unknown. They were probably built by a king during the dusky second dynasty. This burial ground for the royal family and nobility of the capital Memphis should be the prime cemetery for the next 2.500 years to come. Most of the structures were unique and had no precedent in Egypt or elsewhere in the world at the time with its vast quantity of architectural innovations. Stone cutting as such was by no means new to the Egyptians who had made huge tunneling jobs and walls earlier (see king Khasekhemwy of dynasty two), but making buildings in stone in such dimensions had never been made before. Chief architects, prime minister, pharaoh's physician and poet were among the many skills and titles of the genius behind this - Imhotep. Later in history he was the only human to be taken up among the gods in Egypt and he was venerated for thousands of years into the Roman era 2,5 millennia after his death. Stone scul- pturing and pillars imitating flowers from nature were among his inventions that the world now saw for the first time.

Two reliefs of the great pharaoh Djoser presenting him in impressive poses. At left it clearly shows his broad and heavy looks like his supposed brother Sanakht above. To the right he is sitting wearing a broad necklace and a long wig in the fashion of a priest. The artist has added an unique feature to a king though. Besides wearing his traditional false beard, here he seems to have a moustache or is it just his broad lips? Besides the step pyramid another monumental building was built during Djoser's reign. It is a

mastaba tomb at Beit Khallaf in Middle Upper Egypt, called K1 and made of sun dried mud-bricks. This spectacular monument is presented on this site in a big picture report from photos taken during an investigation of the monument made by the author Ottar Vendel, on Saturday the 9th of December, 2006. No investigation has been made and hardly any photographs have been taken here in the last hundred years, but now over twenty fresh ones can be seen in the exclusive Beit Khallaf Photo Odyssey 2006. Its huge size makes it outstanding in Egyptian brick architecture. It was the last great tomb erected in the south before going into the era of monumental buildings of stone in the north. Very close is the mastaba K2 made during the reign of Sanakht shown and mentioned above and in the vicinity is the abandoned old capital of This (Tinis), which possibly is today's Girga. As to foreign politics Djoser was concerned about protecting his country from outsiders and he took a firm grip of the southern province Nubia, permanently making it the outpost to black Africa upstream. One of the main reasons that made the country flourish under his command was the fact that no actual threat from outside seems to have been at hand, and during this period of peace the enormous progress in practically all sectors of society was made. His name Djoser first appears many hundreds of years after his death, in a New Kingdom stone stele on the island of Elefantine at Aswan. In his own time he was always referred to as (Horus) Netjerykhet on all monuments and inscriptions. From Djoser's reign and onwards the capital Memphis was the supreme center of the united country and the links to the old royal cemetery at Abydos in Upper Egypt were cut permanently. After his death there seem to have been some disorder in the sense that no heir of his could take over the throne, as far as is known today (2002). It is possible that sons (or sons-in-law) of his took over the crown, and if so they are presented below.

Sekhemkhet
King Sekhemket appears in the Turin Canon under the name of Djoser-Ti right after Djoser and in front of an erased entry. His age is not present but the length of his reign is - 6 years. He was totally unknown until 1951 when his monument was excavated at Sakkara, and after that few new remains of his have been found, the most recent a seal impression from the remote southern fortified island of Elefantine i Aswan, published in 2005. By looking at photographs taken from the air archaeologists knew that a long rectangular area was situated just a couple of hundred meters south west of Djoser's complex. This turned out to be the remains of the now called "Buried Pyramid". The name is from the title of the book written by the chief archaeologist who dug it out in the early 1950s. Unfortunately he died before he had publish a full report of his work. The pyramid was once intended to be enclosed by a wall, but the whole was abandoned after a few years of work, obviously because the owner had premature death. The first one and a half steps were still in place when it was found, and it had a height of eight meters. Probably it had been twice as high before the work was stopped, and the site had later been a stone quarry for building material. The base side was 132 meters and the final height would have been about 70 m, making the monument larger than Djoser's. Lots of work had been done to level the topography by a pattern of thick walls in squares filled with debris. Under ground in the bedrock was a long corridor on three sides of the pyramid, from which 132 store rooms were connected and exactly under the center was the king's burial chamber, which held a small sensation.

The south-west corner of Sekhemkhet's pyramid as found in 1953. On the way down into the inner constructions in the bedrock under the monument the floor in the corridor (made of soft clay that had been brought there) revealed a first class treasure. There were hundreds of stone bowls, many of them deliberately smashed, and above all - a group of 20 golden bracelets and armlets plus a little gold box made in form of a seashell. This is still (year 2002) the oldest finds of golden jewelry of its kind, from dynasty three and older, found in Egypt. In a couple of places on the way down masonry blocked the passage and it was clearly shown that the original work had been broken up and remade. Inscriptions on a group of bowls gave the name of the owner - a until then unknown king called Sekhemkhet, a name never seen before, and it was puzzling to science. When another name Djeserty, came up, the king could be identified from the list of Manetho as the successor of pharaoh Djoser (see Swelim's table). Now Egyptologists could reinterpret a stone relief from Wadi Maghara, a mining area in Sinai, as a remnant from Sekhemkhet. He is seen in the traditional poses striding wearing the two crowns of Egypt and slaying enemies with a mace.

Sekhemkhet's complex was intended to be 518 by 183 metres and the "white wall" made of lime stone masonry in recesses should have enclosed the whole area.

When the grave chamber was reached a sensation waited - a sarcophagus made of white half transparent alabaster and without a lid on top. Instead it had sliding panel at one of the gavels. It had been repaired from wounds made by bits of rocks falling from the ceiling in the crude hewn room that contained nothing else but this big coffin plus fragments of wood placed on it in a circular form, first thought to be flowers. The entry through the sliding panel was sealed wit gypsum and the expectations were high to find the mummy of the king inside. When the sliding panel was lifted in 1954 with the world press and prominent guest present, the stone coffin turned out to be totally empty. A good guess is that the tomb had been robbed a long time ago and the mummy and the offerings taken away. The burial place had thereafter been repaired in later times (probably during the New Kingdom) like other old monuments. By the south side of the pyramid was placed a minor so-called "south tomb" (see picture above), with remains of a mastaba construction above ground measuring circa 15x30 meters. The substructure was - like the one of the pyramid, not finished. It was a single shaft with a chamber 30 m below the surface. When entered in 1967 it contained nothing but the remains of a wooden coffin and the skeleton of a young boy of about 2-3 years of age. This can possibly be a son of the king but nothing is sure about Sekhemkhet and his brief reign. Stone vases and gold leaf fragments from jewelry were also found in this obviously looted tomb.

Nebkare
Archaeologist Swelim proposes that Nebkara was the IIIrd Dynasty king who began the huge Unfinished Pyramid of Zawyiet el Aryan. On a dozen pieces of wood and ivory names in hieratic writing within the cartouches have been found (picture right). They have been proposed to be read as Nefer-ka, Neb-ka plus half a dozen more including Ba-ka and Bik-ka which was a king probably from dynasty 4 (see him). Some scholars think he is identical to Neferkare below which shows the lack of agreement (and finds) regarding this period. The only signs readable for sure is the one without a royal cartouche (bottom) is Nefer-ka, and it's not sure that this name means the same king as the signs within the typical royal oval that are unique (beside the clearly ka-sign) and have only been found at this site. Swelim points out that bones found by the archaeologist Wain- wright in the burial chamber of the very large Mastaba #17 at Meidum (in map at king Huni below), could be those of Nebkare.

Mastaba 17 at Meidum contains one of the oldest royal sarcophaguses in Egypt. Under the lid of the pink granite coffin someone (the robbers?) have left a mal- let. King Nebkare has been suggested as the owner of this big mastaba tomb. The find was rare because the body appeared to have been defleshed and the eyes torn out and replaced by paste balls. The limbs (including the penis) had been cut off(?) and wrapped in bandages separately. Wooden models of the royal insignia (mace and crook) were also found in the chamber (Wainwright: Meidum p. 13 ff and plate XI). The scenario looks like a restoration after damage made by grave robbers, and the royal insignia is a remarkable piece of evidence that indicates a burial of a king. The fact that the big sarcophagus still is in place is due to the fact that it was built into the grave chamber during the erection of the tomb and impossible to remove without making a huge tunnel from outside.

Neferkare - Qa-Hedjet
This pharaoh was unknown to Egyptologists as depicted by the name of Qa-Hedjet until the late 1960s when a stele came forward after being hidden for 5.600 years. Instead of hieroglyphs within the serek with his Horus-name, this pharaoh had a picture of the white royal crown of Upper Egypt - the Hedjet, (picture below right). He is embraced by the god Horus, the incarnation of the king's person. The unusual name can be some sort of expression from the monarch that he descended from that part of the country. In 1983 Swelim "identified" him with king Huni. By the artistic style scientists could place the stele as being a work from time of the third dynasty and today most of Egyptologists think that this is the Horus- name of pharaoh Neferka(re) known from several king lists. The three parts Nefer (beautiful), Ka (soul) and Re (the solar god) were very common at the time and so were Nub (gold) and Neb. When these parts plus the name of the crown showed up in writing as "Nebnubhedjet" it could be recognized as probably another form of the name due to the unique crown. As for the earthly remains from this ruler, the pages in the history books are blank, or maybe dusky. No building has yet been classified as his with certainty. Swelim has stated that Neferka "seems to have completed the burial chamber of Mastaba 17 at Meidum for the reburial of Nebkare and filled the trench and pit of the Unfinished Pyramid in the style of architecture that would have

pleased Nebkare". (See text on Nebkare above and picture at Snofru below). Looking at the brief reign he had, (Manetho's 30 years seems incorrect), it's quite possible that someone else overtook the grave he probably had started to build for himself wherever it was located. Egyptologists still are waiting to find something of substance left from his reign and for the time being he's a ruler known only from his name written in later times. But the magnificent stele of his so recently discovered (on the antiques market) hopefully points to the fact that there still are remains of him to be revealed from this period not so well known. His tomb has not been found.

Hudjefa
the lost pharaohs
When the Royal Canon of Turin was made during the 1200s BC, a couple of names in the origi- nal list that it was copied from were illegible. To mark this fact the working scribe wrote "hudjefa" (erased) inside the cartouche. Egyptologists in the early times wrongly took it for a name of a pharaoh. The entries give the kings' so called "newsy-bity" name starting with the title: "He of the sedge and the bee". These were the symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt and the title thus means "king over the two countries".

Second last king of dynasty 2.

Second last king of dynasty 3.

Next is the cartouche with the king's name, and a seated falcon marking the end of the name. Then it's a crooked stick for "time" and the circle and half-circle for "rule", followed by the years of his reign in years and months. The figures after the second black point tell the age of the king when he died. In the second entry most of the hudjefa mark is unreadable, but the two birds tell what was inscribed. Thus we have two anonymous kings and some facts about them. The one from dynasty two might be king Khaba (see him) who started a pyramid at Zawiyet el Aryan. Here he is put in dynasty two instead of three. The one from dynasty three can possibly be one of two named Akhes and Sephuris by Manetho. At least the position and duration of their reign according to Swelim (table at top of the page) are rather well fitting. 1) Second last king of dynasty 2: reign - 8 years and 4 months, age: 34 years. 2) Second last king of dynasty 3: reign - 6 years. The rest of the entry is lost. The Sakkara list is from a private tomb made during the same era. It has just one hudjefa-notation like the one from the second dynasty above. It's written in the same position replacing the lost name of an unknown ruler who died in his early thirties. It is quite possible that we today know his name without knowing that he should be placed where a Hudjefa sign was put. Some of the single or rarely occurring names of kings found from the

dusky second dynasty period might be his.

Huni
Huni was the last Egyptian King of the 3rd Dynasty. His Horus-name, usually written within a serek, is not known, and unfortunately not so much of his deeds are known despite the fact that he obviously had a reign of about a quarter of a century. His name is present at the royal canons of Sakkara and Turin, but not in the Abydos-list. An inscription with the name Nswth or Nswth Hun(i) is known from Aswan in Upper Egypt. Another form of the name - Swtenh, Nisuteh or Nswt H(w), is carved on the Palermo Stone by fifth dynasty king Neuserre, who dedicated a monument to him. Not a single depiction of him in stone or on papyrus has survived, and no sculpture can be connected to him with certainty. A red granite head of a king wearing the crown of Upper Egypt has by some been said to be a portrait of him, but this is pure speculation. A look at the looks of the face in it rather gives it a similarity to Snofru and his son Khufu with their fleshy cheeks. It's today to be seen at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

The pyramid at Meidum Huni's great monument has a characteristic silhouette at the horizon. The inner core of three steps is what remains and practically all the white lime stones from the casing are gone. The debris along the sides is possibly from ramps when the place served as a quarry.

He built a pyramid at Meidum close to the northern edge of the Faiyum basin. The identifi-cation of him as the owner has been made indirectly since his name doesn't appear in the monument itself. It is very likely that it was finished by his successor Snofru who was either his son or son-in-law. This pyramid was the first to have straight and smooth sides instead of a number of steps that was the case of the similar monuments from the earlier period. Some of the casing of lime stones is still in its original place on one side. The technique also improved and from now on the stones in the masonry were always placed horizontally whether the construction was leaning or not. The general assumption up to recently was that the smooth casing stones put there by Snofru had collapsed a long time ago leaving what is visible today - the inner core in threes steps looking like a broad tower. However all the debris surrounding the building are hardly a part of the original construction and thus brought

there later. A guess is that it was a ramp for mining the fine smooth limestone when it was taken away already in ancient times for use in other building projects.

The complex at Meidum contains many mastaba tombs north of the pyramid (not shown here). A) The pyramid. B) A small mortuary chapel. C) Ceremonial path from the valley temple (not excavated). D) "Mastaba 17", over 100 m long, and from an unknown owner. E) Pyramid of Huni's queen.

The grave chamber does not contain a sarcophagus (today) and there is no trace of a burial, but this does not mean that Huni didn't have his final resting place here. The geographical location of the pyramid shows a break of tradition, because he moved the royal cemetery 90 kilometers to the south from the Sakkara area. North of the pyramid lots of tombs from his son Snofru's court are placed. Two of them are the largest mastabas in Egypt and one (number 16) measures 60 x 120 meters and is a double tomb of Snofru's son Nefermaat and a high ranked official. Number 17 is situated right by the north-east side of the Huni's pyramid enclosure (marked D in picture above) and is 100 meters long. The owner's name is not known. The Egyptologist Nabil Swelim suggests that Huni possibly is the builder of a very small and not so well known brick pyramid within a large enclosure at Abu Roash 8 km north of Giza. It is placed in the plain a couple of hundred meters south of the pyramid of Djedefre. Built around a rather large rock formation it has an ascending corridor from the north side and a grave chamber made in a way typical for the early fourth dynasty. Though built of mud bricks (unique for the period if dated correctly) Swelim suggests it might be the work of king Huni.

Dynasty 4
Manetho's list

2575 - 2465 BC (110 years)

Dynasty four started the most famous of all epochs in Egyptian history with the construction of the great pyramids. All kings were related (father-son-uncle-cousin-nephew) except the last one. In a dim period a king (or two) had brief reigns. Bika was probably one of them. Ratoitis can be Djedefre, and if so misplaced and with a too long reign. The numbers are from Egyptolgy and the order is Manetho's. Nothing has jet been found which can identify his last pharaoh - Thamphthis.

Table of dynasty IV
Name 1 Snofru 2 Khufu 3 Djedefre 4 Khafre 6 Menkaure Manetho Soris Sophis I Sophis II Mykerinos Ratoisis Reign Manetho 24 23 8 26 18 4 7 111 29 63 66 62 25 22 7 9 243 Pyramid Dashur Giza Abu Roash Giza Giza Zawiyet elAryan Sakkara South -

5 Bikka (Baka) Bicheris 7 Shespeskaf Severkeris Thamphitis Total years =

Snofru
Snofru was the founder of the 4th dynasty and most likely the son of his predecessor king Huni and one of his secondary wives - Meresankh I. His Horus name Neb Maat "Lord Of The Harmony" is seen within the serek in picture left and his personal namn Snofru within the cartouche to the right. By marrying one of his half-sisters Hetepheres I, Snofru became the pharaoh over the two countries. His queen seems to have given him only one surviving child - Khufu, but with two secondary consorts he had: Nefermaat, Rahotep, Ranofer, Kanofer and Ankh-haf plus one whose name is unknown. The first two were buried at Meidum. His internal policy seems to have been focused on maintaining centralized power and prevent it to spread among high-placed officials and nobilities. He therefore rearranged the land- ownership nation wide, probably to prevent these classes from becoming too powerful. Snofru completed the big pyramid at Meidum, a monument presumed to have been built by his father Huni (see above). Then he for some unknown reason, moved the location of the royal burial grounds from the remote southern Meidum to Dashur a trip of 90 km to the north just 10 km south of the old royal cemetery of the capital at Sakkara. At his newly founded cemetery he erected two huge pyramids.

Snofu

At the southern, believed to be the oldest, the leaning of the sides were changed from an angle of ~54 to ~43 halfway to the (final) top. The result gave a unique silhouette and it's today called the "Bent Pyramid" that was called "The South Shining Pyramid" (picture below left). The alternation was made to reduce the weight and pressure on the bedrock since the construction was cracking due to settlings in the foundation and probably also within the monument itself. It's unique in having two entrances, from the east and north sides leading to three chambers in which no sarcophagus was found. It's believed that the grave chamber still might be in there skillfully hidden by the architects and awaiting to be found.

Detail (upper part) from a stele found in a small chapel by the south side of Snofru's Broken Pyramid at Dashur. The pharaoh sits on his throne seemingly content and almost smiling. He is holding a flail in right hand and the left is unusually empty. Upon his head is seen the double crown and in front of him is the cobra and the vulture - the patrons of Lower and Upper Egypt. This carving in high relief (to be seen in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo) is one of few depictions of him.

The inner design was of similar architectural type in both pyramids - sloping corridors ending with grave chambers and a couple of rooms. Most chambers had corbelled roofs making it look like an inverted pyramid from inside. The impressive northern pyramid became the first "real" pyramid with straight sides and is also called the "Red Pyramid". Its low angle of ~43 is just like the upper part of its bent neighbor 2 kilometers to the south. It was called "The Shining Pyramid" (picture below left). No cracks disturbed the project and the inner core of local stone was hewn to fit more accurately than in the Bent Pyramid. All the casing stones have been removed a long time ago with exception of an area at the bottom of the east side where it still is in place. Evidence in writing from a stone in the Northern Pyramid tells that it was started on before the other one was finished and thus they were built partly simultaneously. Snofru was considered to have been a good and wise pharaoh by the after living (his son Khufu was not), and his cult was still going on well into the Middle Kingdom half a millennium after his death.

Khufu
Pharaoh Khufu was the son of his predecessor Snofru and is today best known by the name Kheops. His Horus name within the serek left means: (He who) strikes (i.e. crushes the enemies). Old Greek historians gave him a reign of 50 and 65 years, but these figures are far too high. The Egyptian Royal canon of Turin gives him 23 years and modern Egyptologists estimate his reign to be just about that - a quarter of a century. He had at least four wives, with whom he had several children. Queen Henutsen gave him the son Khafre (a king to be) and another and probably the oldest son was Djedefre who also was the very next king to take office. He continued the expansionist policies of his father Snofru by extending the Egyptian borders to the north-east to Khufu Medjedu include Sinai and Upper Egypt maintaining mili-tary presence to protect economic resources like mines. He held economic links with Syria in the north and Nubia in the south. Khufu built his funerary monument away from his father's and moved from Dashur 40 km northwards to the limestone plateau at Giza. There he erected the Great Pyramid, a monument that has made him one of the most famous kings of the Ancient Egyptian history. It got the poetic name: "The pyramid which is the place of sunrise and sunset" (shown in picture left). An old misunderstanding is that slaves built the pyramids, but this is not true. The bulk of the working force toiling on the pyramids were common citizens who had nothing to do during the flooding of the Nile when the cultivated land was under water. Recent discoveries (year 2000) from the Giza plateau have shown that they were housed and paid, at least some of them. They were even buried near the pyramid, and could thus be a part of the king's eternal life and cult after death.

A mountain of stone The 2,3 million blocks of stone of which the pyramid is built are of a huge size and having an average weight is about 2,5 tons at the base decreasing for every layer going upwards. The inner core now visible was neatly hewn and no empty space was allowed between the blocks. If the accuracy has the same high standard deeper inside the construction we don't know, but it's likely. The casing of white smooth lime stone has been stripped off long ago to be used for building mosques in Cairo on the other side of the Nile. The pyramid's inner construction.

A Middle Kingdom story from the Westcar Papyrus, describes Khufu as a cruel tyrant with no respect for life. Right or wrong we don't know, but a fact is that portraits in any form of Khufu seem to have vanished and only on tiny statuette made of ivory remains, it was found in Abydos in Upper Egypt. This is a strong indication that his memory for some reason was delibe-rately erased after his death. Like his father before him he had a reign relatively free from threats from outside the country. He took measures to maintain the positions by military force in economically important regions like the Sinai Peninsula for its valuable minerals and Nubia for its treasures of fine stone, preferably red granite used for buildings. His aftermath is dark and he was said to have ignored the gods (!), an accusation that looks like being a political statement by someone trying to strengthen his own position at the moment. Anyhow Khufu has gone to history as the builder of the single most impressive monument of all times.

Djedefre
Khufu was succeeded by his oldest son Djedefre (his Horus name "Hor-Kheper" seen within a serek in picture right). He married his half sister Hetepheres II, probably to get a claim to the throne since his mother was one of his father's secondary wives whose name is not known.

Beside his half sister Djedefre also had other wives, and with one of them, Khentet-en-ka, he had at least three sons, Setka, Baka and Hernet and one daughter, Neferhetepes. The Turin King-list credits him with a rule of 8 years which is in line with the estimations made by the Egyptologists today. Little to nothing is known about his political deeds as to trade and security towards Egypt's neighbors in the Mediterranean region to the north and Nubia in the south. He was the first king to use the title "Son of Re" among his others, which is seen as an indication of the growing popularity of the cult of the solar god Re from Heliopolis. This god had occurred in a king's name already in the second dynasty (Nebre/Reneb), and should do so in this new form for 2,500 years to come. He moved north to build his pyramid to Abu Rawash, some 8 km to the north of Giza, and the reason can be that there was no proper area left at the site. He named his tomb monument "The pyramid is a Sehedu-star" (picture below left) and the tomb was unfinished when he died. Today (2006) it's substructure is open for visitors who can walk down into his grave chamber. The pyramid area was enclosed by a wall and at the south west corner a smaller satellite pyramid was built, probably for the king's first queen. The work stopped when about 20 courses were in place, and some casing of granite is still on the spot. What kind of pyramid it was supposed to be was not clear for many years and the reconstructed angle obtained by putting casing blocks in place (in theory) said that it was to be far steeper than the pyramids at Giza. This theory told that he possibly had a step pyramid in mind, or a mastaba, but examinations in the 1990s has given the final answer to the question. A shifting angle of the inner core from one corner (a construction detail of unknown purpose known from other pyramids) has bewildered earlier scholars and today (2002) the original angle is set to around 52 degrees, just like the pyramids at Giza. This makes a height of 67 meters calculated from a base side that was 106 m, which gives a result very similar to the monument of a king to be - Menkaure, who was his nephew.

After being used as a quarry Djedefre's pyramid is today reduced to a dozen layers of cut stone and nothing of the original casing is left in its original place.

A causeway leading down to the Nile, a stretch of 1.700 meters, is going in the direction north-east by the monument due to the topography. It's still intact in some sections and partly hewn out directly from the rock and rising 10-12 meters above the surroundings. His mortuary temple lay at the east side of the pyramid and was a structure of brick possibly abandoned when the king died, and not meant as a shrine from the looks of it. An open space in the yard to the north (striped in the picture left) might have been the intended place for the permanent structure which possibly never came to be. South of the temple remains is a pit for a funeral boat cut deep into the bedrock, just like his father had at Giza. It's 35 m long and has a depth of 9,5 m. The breadth is not great: just around 4 m. The question why he moved from Giza has been debated and one theory is that he came closer to Heliopolis on the other side of the Nile. A feud within the family about the succession has also been put forward, but this has not been proved in any way. Looking at his face (if it's a portrait) he has similar looks as his younger brother Khafre who became the next pharaoh.

Khafre
Khafre was the son of king Khufu and queen Henutsen, and followed his elder half-brother as pharaoh. He was married with his (half?) sister with whom he had the son, Menkaure, the king to be. At least six more off springs of his are known by name. It's not known why he succeeded by his half-brother on the throne, but it is possible that none of his former king's sons had survived and that Khafre thus was the oldest surviving male descendant of their father Khufu. The Turin canon records a rule for him of more than 20 years and according to Manetho and Herodotos it was 66. (The two Greek historians took out "maximum" of years for most of the pyramid builders to help them to finish their monuments). Today it's generally accepted however, that he ruled for about 26 years, possibly a few more. In the picture upper left his Horus name is shown within a serek, meaning "Strong of Heart". During his reign the solar-religion grew in importance and Weserib like his brother before him he adopted the title "Son of Re", a tradition that lasted for over a millennium. He built his pyramid at Giza a bit south of his father's great monument and in a loftier position making it look bigger, but it's a bit smaller in all directions. The humble name it was given was "The Great Pyramid" (hieroglyphs in picture left). The interior is much simpler than the structures shown within his father's monument. Down at the Nile he erected an impressive Valley Temple of red granite that's still standing to a great extent. Just outside alongside the ceremonial path up to the pyramid he had cut out the famous Sphinx out of the rock. This gigantic lime stone sculpture is still very well preserved as far as the head is concerned, but the stone layers of the body is of poorer quality and heavily eroded.

The Great Ruler

This magnificent statue of king Khafre is exposed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The material is the very hard stone diorite and it was found by his great Valley temple where recesses show that lots of statues once were erected of the pharaoh. The king sits on his throne with a slightly dreamy look in his eyes. In his right hand he once had a flail, the symbol of the harvests coming from the soil of the Nile valley. In his left hand was once a herdsman's crook, the symbol of cattle breeding.
(photo: Jon Bodsworth gizaview)

In front of its paws are the remains of a contemporary building called the "Sphinx Temple" where 10 colossus statues of the king once had stood. It was probably never finished and has a court yard similar to that in the Mortuary Temple a bit uphill by the pyramid. The present state of this construction is poorer than his Valley Temple. Khafre had a reign similar to his father with great prosperity in Egypt and almost no disturb- ance from the outside. The central power was maintained and stability and continuity were factors that were put forward. Despite the seemingly conservative society, progress in all sectors were constantly going on.

Bikka (Nebka)
An unknown pharaoh with a great unfinished monument Pharaoh Bikka is a shadowy ruler though he is placed right in the middle of the most famous of all dynasties in Egyptian history - the fourth. His brief reign is the reason to his anonymity among archaeologists but he is named Bakare (like in the cartouche below right) in later king lists by his countrymen, and put between Khafre and Menkaure (see picture below). Theories about his kinship to the other kings have put forward suggestions of feud and rebellion, but his way to office can also be explained in more peaceful and not so dramatic way. If the oldest living male of the family inherited the throne it all fits. Khufu was followed by his son Djedefre succeeded by his brother Khafre who was followed by his nephew (Djedefre's son) Bikka who was a mature man by then. After his death his younger cousin Menkaure (Khafre's son) became the new king in his middle age. The tricky reading of the hieratic name in the cartouches found at the remains of his pyramid (see the picture below left) has been read as Ba-ka or Bik-ka and thus it fits with the son of Djedefre's -

Baka and Manetho has a king in his list by the Greek name Bicheris. Other suggestions are: Ba-Ka-R (Canon of Turin and a tonb at Sakkara), Neb-Ka (Kurt Sethe, J. Cerny) Baef-R, SchenaKa (Kaplony), Nefer-Ka (Maspero) and Hor-Ka (Mller) In any case he has left a remnant that surely has the traditional grandeur and size for a monument from the fourth dynasty. It is situated at Zawiyet el-Aryan 4 km south of the royal cemetery at Giza and is today called the "Unfinished Pyramid". It was planned to be a pyramid of great size begun by a ruler confident in a long reign ahead of him, but due to the king's premature death all that was made were parts of the foundation and enclosing walls. It was excavated in the first years of the 1900s by the Italian Barsanti and revealed both interesting and confusing finds. To be a very obscure ruler like Bikka an irony is that the sole remnant of his is of such huge proportions. There are still remains from the great enclosure but none from a ceremonial road to the Nile. A rounded sarcophagus made of red granite was found sunken into the floor paved with huge stones at the bottom of a big shaft reached by a steep ascending corridor with stairs. Big blocks of granite were stored around it, obviously meant to be building material for the free standing grave chamber over the stone coffin. The lid was intact and sealed with gypsum, but when it was opened it turned out to be totally empty. The parallel to the white alabaster coffin of Sekhemkeht from the third dynasty is striking and a very likely explanation is that this The sign BA (the leg) have tomb also was robbed already during the disorderly days after the made Egyptologists read collapse of the Old Kingdom. It was then restored in later times and the name Ba-ka. Reading projects like this were carried out in the New Kingdom when one of of second sign within the the sons of Ramses II was a dedicated restorer of older temples, cartouche is very difficult. tombs and artifacts. An architectural likeness was that it was built exactly like king Djoser's last resting place under his pyramid at Sakkara and the tomb of Djedefre at Abu Roash - a free standing granite grave chamber at the bottom of an open shaft.

Menkaure
King Menkaure entered office as a mature man after the death of his older cousin Baka. His name is cut in to the Abydos king-list (see picture right) where his cousin was omitted for some reason. His Horus name Kau khet (the bull with divine power) is seen within a serek in picture left. He did not want to repeat his cousin's mistake by starting the work of a big tomb and not live to see it be completed. He thus built a pyramid beside his father's and grandfather's on the Giza plateau and named it: "The Divine Pyramid" (picture below left). Though it was considerably smaller and Menkaure's reign has been estimated to at least 25 years, he was unfortunate not to see the final state of it - he died shortly before. His tomb is the most technically advanced of the Giza group and its interior is more elaborated and was altered from an original structure of more moderate size. It's not known if only the lowest part of the building was Khau khet intended to be cased by granite and today rests of seven layers remain. Around today's entrance on the north side some are cut in the right angle and smooth, while the others are in their original crude state. At the west side his large Mortuary Temple was erected and it was also planned to be cased by granite. Some of it is still in place but the construction was incomplete when his reign terminated, and finished rather hastily by his successor. From here a straight causeway leads down to the Valley Temple of which almost nothing is left today.

In the first decade of the 20th century a group of statues were found in a trench of the temple ruins and they are among the most perfectly made sculptures ever seen in world art. They are today on display in Egypt and the USA and two of them can be seen in the pictures below. The King and his women Menkaure is shown as a healthy well built and rather young man as he poses with the goddess Hathor (left) and a deity guarding a province. It is today in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. In picture right he is seen with his supposed first queen, but more likely a godess since she is a bit taller. This masterpiece is today to be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, USA.

Menkaure is the king from the Old Kingdom that Egyptologists have the best knowledge about as far as his physical appearance is concerned. This is due to a lucky strike made by American archaeologist Reisner in 1910 when he found half a dozen undestroyed statues of the king together with goddesses or his queen (see picture above). These depictions have made science able to reconstruct his looks since they seem to be portraits rather than idealistic depictions. The body was made in an athletic way though he was in his middle age when he came into office. When his days were over the fourth dynasty in reality came to an end. For some reason none of his sons ever reached the throne, and his follower was a man from outside. If this break was due to intrigues within the palace or even a rebellion is not known, but the royal bloodline on the male side was hereby broken.

Shepseskaf

Shepseskaf was probably not of royal stock and if so had to marry in to the royal family to get hold of the throne. When he came to power there are indi- cations of some disorder in Egypt. His first years seem to have been quite difficult with confron- tations with various groups of priests and probably parts of the nobility as well. The most serious was when provinces rebelled against his authority. If the conflict escalated beyond civil obedience we don't know, but it probably did not. He restored order in the country and could to some degree complete his predecessor Menkaure's monument at Giza. His Horus name meaning "Horus whose Body Is Noble" is seen within a serek in the picture left. The only depiction possibly to be of him is a head of white alabaster (above right), but its identification is very disputable since it was found in the Valley Temple of Menkaure whose characteristics it seems to have. Shepseskaf is unique in Egyptian history by making an invention of his own for his grave monument, today called "Mastabat el-Faran" - Pharaoh's Shepseskhet Mastaba. It was called "the Purified Pyramid" though the hieroglyph in the name (in picture left) was of another shape. This construction was formed as a sarcophaguslike mastaba with a slightly vaulted roof, and placed 20 km south of Giza 3 km south of the old cemetery of Sakkara. If this new design (never to be repeated) was a sign of some shifting religious beliefs is uncertain, but by this he broke the building tradition accepted by the pharaohs in the past. The superstructure was of simple design with the grave chamber placed asymmetric to the geometrical center of the construction.

The original tomb of Shepseskaf was a mastaba-like structure.

An overview of the building shows its great size (100x74x19 m) and it was once cased with white limestone now long since gone. The whole area was enclosed with two stonewalls in a rectangular shape as the monument itself. Much of it has been quarried away a long time ago. The stone blocks in the construction were generally larger than those used in the pyramids at Giza showing that the Egyptians gradually learned to handle block of greater size. Nothing much is known of his deeds and when his brief reign of about seven years came to an end, it closed the dynasty. Never again should the glory like dynasty four repeat itself and no king should have the means to make similar monuments in the future. When Egypt once again became a mighty power in the Middle East a great deal of the recourses were put outside its borders to maintain this strength. The time of divine ruling and gigantic project made in a religious belief of a living god was ended for good.

Dynasty 5
Manetho's list

2465 - 2323 BC (142 years)

Under this dynasty the art and craftsmanship reached its peak. Eight pyramids from nine rulers are known up to now and most of them are placed at the new royal burial ground at Abusir. The faith in the country took a new path with the solar cult as dominant. The real power was slowly going over from the kings to influential classes in society.

Table of dynasty V
Name 1 Userkaf 2 Sahure 4 Shepsekare 5 Neferefre 6 Niuserre 8 Djedkare 9 Unas Manetho Reign Manetho Ogserkeris 7 Sehpris Sesiris Chaires Rathoris Tankeris Jaunnos Years = 12 7 3 24 8 32 33 146 28 13 20 7 20 44 9 44 33 218 Pyramid Sakkara Abusir Abusir Abusir? Abusir Abusir ? Sakkara South Sakkara

3 Nefererkare Neferkeris 20

7 Menkauhor Menkeris

Userkaf

King Userkaf was related to the royal house from more than one side. He was the grandson of king Djedefre and he married a daughter of king Menkaure. His Horus name Userkaf (within the serek left) means "Horus, Who Does What Is Right", and his personal nomen Userkaf (within the cartouche right) means "His Ka Is Strong". He moved to the very heart of the Sakkara cemetery for his tomb and had the nerve to erect his tomb monument only fifty meters from the enclosure wall of the mortuary complex of Djoser, then over 200 years old and probably with his cult still in action. Beside the planning of his tomb, Userkaf began a totally new type of building project at Abusir a couple of kilo- meters to the north, where most of his followers should erect their Irimaat pyramids. This was something quite unique - a construction Userkaf of a Sun Temple separated from is tomb. This cult center of the sun god Re, had a gigantic stone obelisk as the totem, symbolizing the sun. An altar was placed for offerings and the Palermo stone (made later in this dynasty) states that two oxen were sacrificed here every day. This faith had by now grown to a national cult and from now on the king had as one of his titles: "Son of Re". When this site was excavated in the 1950s it turned out to be in a severe state of ruin since it had been a stone quarry in ancient times. The ground plan and different stages of construction was able to measure out though, and the conclusion was that more than one pharaoh had contributed to the building over the years. It is presumed that king Neuserre (100 years later) added the inner enclosure wall and chambers of limestone. At the end of the causeway down by the Nile was a Valley Temple, and the whole concept was similar to the pyramids of the pharaohs, with the difference that the tomb was changed for a shrine to the solar god Re. Written sources tell that six sun temples were built during the fifth dynasty, but only four have been found. A black stone head of the king (picture left) was found at the site. Some doubts about if it really is the king have been put forward since he is looking so young considering he became pharaoh as a middle aged man. Nonetheless this is an example of how sculpturing and art in general stood at its peak in Egyptian history at this point. Thereafter a general decline was clearly visible and never again in Egyptian history did it reach the standard of dynasty five. Userkaf's tomb was built at Sakkara as a pyramid. Its name was "The Pyramid Which is Pure in Places" (picture below left). The temple by the pyramid had a floor made of black basalt stone and so was the foundations of the walls. The rest was made of white limestone from Tura and carved with relief scenes of offerings, decorations of animals etc. Foundations for six statues of the king were found in a recess behind four pillars to the south in the courtyard (red in picture below) and this design was copied by his followers. In the vicinity was found a colossal head of the king, made of red granite, the oldest of its kind. The pyramid itself was of inferior quality compared to the Giza constructions. Never again should the ruler of Egypt have the power and ability to make such monuments. The inner core was crudely hewn and gaps in-between stone blocks were filled with rubble and mortar.

Userkaf's pyramid at Sakkara The complex had an unusual solution with the Mortuary Temple and two small satellite pyramids at the southside, (perhaps due to a weak bedrock). The pyramid once was74 m square and 49 min height. To the east was an offering chapel. The effort taken on the inner construction was high and huge blocks were used with great precision for the grave chambers throughout the dynasty. When the fine casing blocks were taken away many years later, parts of the core collapsed leaving all the Abusir pyramids in a state of ruin. The causeway entered the enclosure wall at the southeast corner, but today nothing is left of it. Its destination by the Nile - the Valley Temple, is also yet to be found. Userkaf was a great inventor with his sun temple and great obelisk that became standard for the rest of the dynasty. This has given him a special position in the Egyptian history though his reign was only about seven years.

Sahure
The second pharaoh of dynasty five was Sahure and his deeds are rather well known from his well preserved pyramid complex at the new royal burial ground at Abusir. His name (within the cartouche right) means "He who is close to Re". When the remains of his tomb was exca- vated in the first years of the 1900s a great amount of fine reliefs were found to an extent and quality superior to those from the dynasty before. Some of the low relief-cuttings in red granite are masterpieces of its kind and still in place at the site. Among the scenes we see boats coming with big trees, probably cedars from Lebanon where his name has been found. The crew was mixed with also Asians sailors onboard. His dozen of years in office seem to have been concenNebkhau trating upon peaceful trade rather than military actions, Sahure though a raid into Libya capturing livestock is recorded. He worked the turquoise quarries in the Sinai as well as mining diorite in the southern Nubia. And some of these events do occur on the Palermo stone made half a century after his death. Inscription tell that he built a sun temple named Sekhet-Re, "the Field of Re", as well as a palace, called Uetjesneferusahure "Sahure's splendor goes up to heaven" but these monum- ents are still to be found. His pyramid complex on the other hand shows a decline in both size and quality as were the rest of the pyramids from this dynasty. They had an inner core of roughly hewn stones in a step construction held together in many sections with mortar of mud.

While this was under construction a corridor was left into the shaft where the grave chamber was erected separately and later covered by left over stone blocks and debris. This working strategy is clearly visible from two unfinished pyramids and was the old style from the Ruler for stability and life: Sahure third dynasty now coming back after being temporarily abandoned by the builders of the five great pyramids at Dashur and Giza during dynasty four. His Horus name Nebkhau (within the serek in picture upper left) means "Horus, The Lord Of Apparitions", and his own personal nomen Sahure (within the cartouche in picture upper right) means "He Who is Close to Re". Few depictions of the king are known, but in a sculpture he is shown sitting on his throne with a local nome (province) deity by his side. The picture above left shows his throne name within the cartouche (in order: hu-sa-re) made in relief taken from a red granite column outside hispyramid which had the name "The pyramid where the Ba-spirit rises" as shown in hieroglyphic writing in the picture right. Today only the inner construction remains partly visible in a pile of rubble originating from the crude filling of debris and mortar behind the casing stones taken away a thousand years ago. The whole inner construction is badly damaged and not possible to access today (year 2002). The entrance at the north side is a short descending corridor lined with red granite followed by a passageway ending at the burial chamber. It has a gabled roof made of big limestone layers and fragments of the sarcophagus were found here when it was entered in the early 1800s.

Nefererkare Kakai
Nefererkare Kakai was probably the son of Userkaf, the first king of the 5th Dynasty and thus younger (half-?) brother to his predecessor king Sahure. His Horus name Weserchau (The Force That Has Appeared) is seen with- in a serek left. He was the first king to employ both a prenomen and nomen (he had two names and two cartouches), a cus- tom that later kings would follow. In the picture right is shown one of thhem Nefererkere, meaning "Beautiful is the Soul of Re". His pyramid complex at Abusir was unfinished during his lifetime, but obviously finished by his successors. About fifteen years after his death king Neuserre incorp-orated both his valley temple and causeway into his own complex (as seen in view over Abusir). Somewhere in the vicinity he built a solar temple, because the written historical texts say so, but nothing of this shrine has so far been found and still waits to be dug out from the sand. Egyptologists do not agree on the length of his reign and figures between fourteen and twentyfour years have been suggested. Nefererkara is notable for an innovation in the long row of royal names (titles). He was the first ruler to give himself two names within a cartouche - one as the son of Re and one as his personal name. All his followers in Egyptian history took up this custom. At his pyramid complex hundreds of fragments of papyrus were found in the late 1800s and the writing was in a new "shorthand" type of hieroglyphs, the so-called hieratic type of signs used for practical reasons rather than decorative.

Today four of the original six steps of the core are visible in Nefererkare's pyramid when the casing stones are gone. The design was later altered and the sides were made straight.

This first example of this sort of text surely had a long time of development and is this king's most notable contribution to Egyptology. When decrypted and published in the 1960s it turned out to be parts of the royal archive at the site. It contained details of the administration for guarding the temples, taking care of the daily offerings like bread, beer, meat, fowl, corn and fruit. It also showed tables for regular inspections and records of the equipment in the cult of the dead pharaohs.

The name of his pyramid was:

"The pyramid of the Ba-spirit".

Documenting the deeds of king Neferirkara Kakai is tricky, and one of his officials named Ty is more known about. Thus we do not know anything about his political affairs within the country and abroad, nor do we know how he held the borders against nomad tribes. He is likely to have followed the "scheme" made by his predecessors, and the general impression is that his reign was a peaceful period.

Shepseskare
Little to nothing is known about king Shepseskare apart from his name. Almost all Egyptologists agree on that he ruled for a short period between Neferirkare and Neferefre, but a few think he ruled after these two. His kinship (if any) to the other kings of the 5th Dynasty is not known. The Royal Canon of Turin and Manetho (who calls him Sesiris) notes him for a reign of seven years, and this seems to be a plausible figure. In the Abydos list he is omitted but his name is present in the Sakkara list. His Horus-name within a serek (seen in picture right) is "Sekhemkhau" meaning "The Power Has Appeared" where the club stand for power and the rising sun for appearance. This was found in the mortuary temple of king Neferefre. Very few remains from his time have been found at Abusir. It's seal impressions dated to his reign and these are almost the only contem- porary finds from his brief time on the throne so far (2004).

There is a large remnant at Abusir that probably is from him though - what is left of a big pyramid. It is situated north of the complex of Sahure and was found as late as in the 1980s. The work on the monument was hardly begun before it was stopped and consists only of earthwork. The area had been leveled and a foundation was made for the lowest part of the construction - the burial chamber. It's possible that the pyramid was intended to be the biggest of all at Abusir, with a base side measuring just over 100 meters, similar in length to king Nefererkere's pyramid. His title (nomen) in his roll as "Son of Re" is seen within the cartouche left. The duck is a homonym for the word "son" and the sun disc symbolizes his "father" - the solar god Re. His name is put together of the components: flag on a pole (or axe), quail, staff, folded cloth and a mouth and maybe it makes "Netjer-weserw". Since the kings of dynasty five were completing the buildings of their predecessors (if they were almost finished) it's likely that Shepseskare just had started on his own monuments when he passed away and sailed to "the land in the west". The planned size of his pyramid indicates that he wasn't an old man when he reached office hoping for a long reign, but obviously he had not.

Neferefre (Raneferef)
Until the 1970s practically nothing more than his name was known to science, but then excavations were begun in 1976 on an anonymous ruin in the southernmost part of the royal necropolis at Abusir. This monument turned out to be the unfinished pyramid of king Neferefre (Horus-name: Nefer-khawand in picture right). At the east side an elaborated mortuary temple was dug out. It was constructed of mud bricks and obviously made in haste shortly after the death of the king. Here archaeologists found parts of the temple archive on papyrus, stone vessels, mud seals, and faience inlays. Small statuettes of the king also came to light in the temple ruins and one showing the ruler seated on a throne without the traditional nemes headdress. He is shown to be a very young man, hardly more than twenty years of age and with fleshy cheeks giving a childish impression to his face. Other statuettes (made in a crude more nonportray- ing form) were also found as well as glazed ceramics making the king's name. After the excavation of the mortuary temple the archaeologists turned to the pyramid itself and the central construction with the burial chamber. It had been robbed already at the collapse of the Old Kingdom but was not totally empty of finds. A lot of interesting objects were found and frag-ments of pharaoh's red granite sarcophagus came to light plus pieces of mummy wrappings and bones, and parts of canopy jars. This indicated that the king (or at least someone) once had been buried here sometime in history. Huge portcullises (stoppers) of granite was intended to block the corridor leading to the grave chamber, but everything was found as it once had been abandoned - in an unfinished state. The mummy material was examined and probably was from a young man in his early twenties, which fits well to what has been known of the king. Only the first step of a pyramid was completed and it was covered by pebbles and mud mortar on the surface before the dead king was installed in the funerary apartments. He would have rested in his sarcophagus for about 300 years before chaos broke out in Egypt and many royal tombs were ransacked for their goods. His name within a cartouche is seen in picture above left and his unfinished pyramid also had the name in hiero- glyphs: It means: "The Pyramid which is Devine of the Ba-spirits", and the spirits are symbolized by three storks.

Neuserre Izi
King Neuserre was the sixth king of the 5th Dynasty. His name had the meaning "Possessed by the Power of Re" (picture below left). His Horus name was probably pronounced Setibtawy (seen within a serek in picture right). It's not known exactly how long he ruled Egypt because the Turin Canon is damaged at this very place, but an asumption for around 24 years is general among scholars. Manetho's 44 years looks far too long. There are indications of a more than 30-year reign from his solar temple at Abu Gurab (northern Abusir) where a Sed-fetival is mentioned. Egyptologists have figures between 11 and 31 years. A fragment from a statue in his valley temple states that his first queen had the name Reput-Nebu. Though written remains are scarce we have reason to believe that he was active in all the fields as the other kings from this period. That is - mining in the Sinai, making military campaigns against Libyans and Nubians, trading with Punt for malachite, myrrh, spices etc. The last expedition of trade to the area around the southern part of the Red Sea is attested for and remains with his name have also been found in Byblos in Double statue Syria as well on the island of Elefantine in Aswan at the southern border of the of king Neuserre country facing Nubia. Neuserre built his pyramid complex at Abusir and added a great solar temple 1.500 meters to the north at a place today called Abu Gurab. The construction was totally made of stone and was a masterpiece in Egyptian architecture. In front of a huge obelisk a big altar stone was placed for offerings and it's still in place today after almost 4.500 years. Fine reliefs were made showing the solar god Re creating the world and being venerated by his son - the king. This was the time in Egyptian history when the cult of Re was at its peak. All kinds of craftsmanship reached its climax at this point of Egyptian history, never to be achieved again. The picture above left shows the king's throne name within a cartouche - Izi, a short name like some others kings of the time picked for practical reasons. His pyramid also had a name and in hieroglyphic writing it looks like: It was called: "The Pyramid which is Established of Places" and the three green objects are thrones.

Menkauhor
Pharaoh Menkauhor ("Eternal are the Souls of Hous") had a similar Horus-name Menkhawu, shown within a serek right. He has left very few remains from his brief reign and efforts have been made to identify his pyramid which is known from written documents. One candidate is situated in north Sakkara 800 meters north west of Djosers pyramid complex and 200 east of the sixth dynasty pharaoh Teti's pyramid. Due to its ruined state it's known as the "Headless Pyramid". Some scholars think it's from the First Inter- mediate Period built by a king named Merykare, who ruled in dynasty 10. A priest from Menkauhor's funerary cult who lived in the 12th dynasty has been found interred in this pyramid, but the significance of this in not clear. This monument has been examined many times during the 20th century with diverted conclutions from the archaeologists about its age and owner. Menkhawu

Similarities to the pyramid of Teti do exist both in the building and the surrounding structures. Observations also seem to connect the Teti complex with the cult of Menkauhor and a final solution to the question who the owner is, may come from an investigation which started in the early months of 2008. The entrance corridor descends from the north side and is not on a north-south axis. Two granite portcullises were used as stoppers and were found in "locked" position, indicating that a burial once had occurred. The path leads to an antechamber and then to the burial chamber in which a broken lid of a sarcophagus was found. No pyramid texts were discovered and this can point to a period prior to king Unas (who came into office a couple of decades later) and was the first to make such texts at the very end of dynasty five. Kaiu In the cartouche above left we can read Menkauhor's short prenomen Kaiu and the name of his pyramid is known from hieroglyphic text with the meaning (in the picture below) "Divine are the (cult) places of king Menkauhor" and the pharaoh himself is sitting in front of his tomb. Nothing is found outside Egypt that has any conn- ection to him but from text we know that he built a sun temple just like some of the earlier kings of this dynasty had done at Abusir. Its name was Akhet-Re (The horizon of Re) but its location is not mentioned and no remains of it has been found to date (year 2008). A small statuette in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo is showing him, and his best depiction is from a private stele from an official named Tjutju, where the king is seen wearing the traditional royal head cloth, Nemes, instead of a crown (link through his name in menu left). This piece is among the possessions of the Louvre Museum in Paris. Though we today consider Menkauhor a minor and insignificant pharaoh the Ancient Egyptians might have thought otherwise because his memory cult was still going on in the New Kingdom at least 800 years after his death. He was probably a man in his middle age when he died and he obviously left no son to take his place as the ruler of Egypt.

Djedkare Isesi
Djedkare, was the eighth ruler of dynasty five and there are no signs that make him a relative of any kind to his predecessor Menkauhor. His Horus-name Djedkhawu (meaning "Horus Firm Of Apparitions") is shown in picture right and the prenom- en Isesi (written with the hieroglyphs I-S-S-I) to the left. He had a son and heir named Remkuy who unfortuna- tely died before him. Though he had a long reign of about 30 years, surprisingly few facts about him has come forward. Like the pharaoh before him he probably did not build a sun temple and chose his tomb to be placed in the traditional royal burial ground in Sakkara. Two expeditions are recorded going to Sinai and one expedition to the mystical country Punt is also noted for in graffiti. He kept both the commercial and diplomatic contacts with the important trade centres in Syria. A few officials from his time are known and he is mentioned in contemporary letters as well as royal ones from the next dynasty. The papyri records found in the funerary temple of the older king Neferirkare are dated to his time. Djedkare's pyramid is situated at South Sakkara and today it's called "The Sentinel Pyramid". A mummy found within it is believed to be Djedkare himself, and estimated to be from a man about fifty years old, which corresponds well to scientific calculations.

Djedkare's pyramid complex had two big massive pylons at the entrance (green). The valley temple still awaits a real investigation. At upper right corner (outside picture) was the Oueen's pyramid. After several more or less professional diggings over the years the pyramid was examined in the 1980s and found very damaged and difficult to excavate. The valley temple has had just a few brief investigations and some remains of walls with reliefs from the causeway have been found. At the Nile side the topography is a heavy slope and great efforts have been taken to make the foundation to the mortuary temple. Flanking the entrance were two square massive, tower-like pylons. The entrance hall had very massive walls, perhaps to support a vaulted roof. The entrance was once paved in alabaster all the way into the temple courtyard. The name of his pyramid was: "The Beautiful Pyramid" (picture left) sometimes written with the king's name in front, to spread a little beauty over the owner too. The hieroglyph for "beautiful" (nefer) was by tradition an image of a animal's belly and windpipe (the blue sign).

Unas

King Unas is in many ways a shadowy ruler in Egyptian history. His Horus name (picture right) was Wadj-tawy, meaning: "Horus, the flourishing one of the Two Lands". Science has not obtained much of the activities during his long reign and his death seems to have started some sort of confusion and instability at the tran- sition into the next dynasty. This might be due to an estimation that he left no heir to take over his throne, but his two first queens are known by name - Khenut and Nebit. The knowledge about Unas comes to a great extant from his pyramid at Sakkara, which he built just outside the south enclosure wall of Djoser's pyramid complex. It is the smallest but most technically advanced of all from the Old Kingdom. Its grave chamber is decorated with religious spells cut into the walls, the so-called Pyramid Texts, and it was the first royal tomb to contain such hieroglyphic writing. From the well preserved causeway down to his valley temples reliefs have been found from the walls of this once roofed pathway. Boats are coming with granite columns from the south quarries, people working in markets places, nomad hunters at the edge of the desert etc.
One of few depictions of Unas when he is breast fed by goddess Isis.

The pyramid complex of Unas was built in a traditional way but the building was the smallest of those from the fifth dynasty, 43 m high. Some reliefs show the effect of famine with poor people looking like skin and bone. Asiatic traders are seen arriving in Egypt by boat and nomad living at desert edge is illustrated by naturalistic hunting scenes. Unas probably maintained Egypt's policy of diplomatic contacts with both Syria in the north and Nubia beyond the southern border. Findings at the island of Elephantine at Aswan show exotic animals apparently brought to Egypt during his reign. A vase from the same location is deco- rated with battle scenes, though the reign of Unas seems to have been a peaceful period. He obviously reached a level of high respect among the Egyptians, because the cult of his memory was going on in the Sakkara region for a long time after his death. The name of his pyramid (seen in picture left) was: "The Pyramid which is Beautiful in Places", or "The places of Unas are beautiful". Parts of what is believed to be Unas' mummy was found in the late 1800s and are now pre- served and stored in the Egyptian museum in Cairo.

After these three dynasties lasting for half a millenium the Old Kingdom ended and was followed by a period of decline.

Dynasties 6-11

The Middle Kingdom

Dynasties 12-14 By Ottar Vendel
c. 1991 - 1640 BC (c. 470 years)

Dynasty 12
Manetho's list

1991 - 1783 BC (208 years)

This dynasty should bring back the values from the Old Kingdom with divine kingship, but all in the minds of the pharaohs themselves. Its glory lies in the fact that the rulers were able leaders developing agricultural methods and exploiting the Faiyum. They all tried to imitate the great pharaohs from the passed. Egypt was prosperous and the era saw at least seven more pyramids.

Amenemhet I

Amenemhet (meaning: "Amon is at the Head") was vizier and first military commander under king Mentuhotep III whom he probably overthrew in a peaceful coup to access power. Thus he was not of royal stock, and this had effect on the historical documents he and his offspring produced for the next couple of hundreds years to come, where reaching royal status was an com- mon objective in texts. As pharaoh he took the odd Horus name Wehemmesut (in the serek right) meaning "Repeated of Births" probably hoping for a row of ruling periods in the afterlife. His ancestry is dusky and surely non royal. An inscription at Thebes tells Amenemhet that he probably was the son of the woman Nofret from Elephantine, and the priest Senwosret, a Wehemmesut name he gave his son, who was Egypt's first co-regent as pharaoh and was given practice in military matters and other duties, like getting a grip of the prieshood and local leaders. He restored the broken diplomatic contacts with big trade center of Byblos in today's Lebanon, reintroduced conscription to the armed forces and reorganized the admin-istration of the country to a centralized ruled state with himself at the rodder. A remarkable event was that he abandoned his home town and capital Thebes in the south and built a new one at the edge of the Fayum in the north to get better control of the country by ruling from its center. It was named "Itj-tawy", meaning "Seizer of the Two lands", meaning himself. Its exact location has not been found but it's probably to be found in the area of the modern town of el Lisht between tha Faijum and the Nile.

The pyramid complex of Amenemhet I at Lisht also has five mastabas (brown), underground galleries and 22 burial shafts (left) for royal women. Pharaoh's grave chamber (red) was placed at the bottom of a

vertical shaft (green) in the very center deep under the monument. Few monuments of his are located at Thebes and he abandoned his completed tomb there for a pyramid at the new capital. The reason for this is a mystery to Egyptologists and would later in history have a partial parallel during the New Kngdom. His pyramid (name: Amenemhet is high and pleasant) imitated the architecture from the ones of the Old Kingdom, but his means were far from those of the great pyramid builders. Thus his monument was a construction with a core of rough cut stone with filling in between of rubble and then cased with smooth limestone. To some extent the material was taken from older ruined monuments in Giza and Sakkara. Only the inner core is left today. After campaigning the people in the Middle East in his first years, he built the so called "Walls-of-the-Ruler", as series of fortifications along Egypt's north-eastern frontier. But as late as in his 24th year of rule, inscriptions tell of his protective expeditions to the north against the "sanddwellers" in southern Palestine.

Amenemhet I shown on a relief from his mortuary temple. He is wearing a short wig, false beard and carrying a flail.

In his 29th year in office he strengthened trading and quarrying in Nubia to get raw materials and metals and drove his army possibly as far south as the second cataract. He founded a fortress at Semna in the same region. Amenemhet started several building projects. Besides the fortresses he also built or restored religious monuments at Babastis, el-Khatana, Tanis, Karnak, Koptos, Abydos, Dendera and at the old capital Memphis, where he built a temple to the local god Ptah. He appears to have been a wise leader, though hard, eager to protect Egypt's borders from intruders. A literary work from the time of his successor tells that he was brutally murdered in a harem plot. If ths is a tale without any connection to real history, is not known. Anyhow, this way to depart from earthly life was unique for Egyptian pharaohs and he must have been a rather old man by then, at least in his sixties.

Senwosret I
King Senwosret took office by the Horus name Ankh-mesut meaning "Living Of Births", as seen in the serek in picture right, He went to swift action right after his father's assassination by executing the plotters and making his will public for every- one to see, an unusual way of addressing ordinary people. It was called "Instructions of Amenemhet" and is a classic piece in Egyptian literature. He captured Lower Nubia and built over a dozen fortresses as far south as the second cat-aract like the large stronghold at Buhen whose remains now are forever lost under the water of Lake Nasser. The economic importance of the region lay in its Senwosret Ankhmesut mineral mines with quarrying of gold, amethyst and gneiss. Expeditions were also sent through the path Wadi Hammamat to the Red Sea during his reign which was a time of stability and development. From surviving letters we know that a famine took place during his reign and along with this news we also are got increased insight into the life of the common Egyptians. He expanded the cult of Osiris making him the god of the people. He set up a program to build monuments in every main cult city in Egypt and remnants are stated from over thirty sites from the Mediterr- anean Sea in the north to Lower Nubia in the far south. He remodelled the temple of Khentiamentiu and Osiris at Abydos and constructed two new shrines at Karnak and Heliopolis. In the latter he erected two 20 meter (121 tons) red granite obelisks for the jubilee of his 30th year in office and one is still standing as the oldest obelisk in Egypt (see also drawing left). He built his pyramid at Lisht close to the Fayum basin (name: "Senwosret Looks Down on the Two Lands") and today it's just a ruin. Local lime- stone was used in the core and it was built as a framework of walls radiating from all corners and filled with stone debris, sand and waste material. The valley temple is not exactly located and the long causeway, now hidden under the sand, still (year 2010) awaits a proper investigation. The inner enclosure wall was built of limestone and had panels every five meters decorated with reliefs. A total of 150 were originally pre-sent topped with the king's names. The mortuary temple was almost completely ruined when excavated in 1894. Its court yard had 24 pillars and there was found a granite altar with inscriptions and reliefs. In its rear came to light the feet of a statue that originally had shown the king about 2.7 meters tall. Eight standing large statues, and a catch with ten more than life-size statues of pharaoh sitting on a square block, have been found here. The entrance to the pyramid's interior is located below the pavement of a little chapel on the north side where a corridor made of granite goes down to the grave chamber passing a barrier of huge blocks weighing 20 tons a piece. This construction is today below ground water level and has never been entered by modern archaeologists. In parallel corridor made by robbers, some items were found in the 1880s including parts of wooden boxes, alabaster containers, a gold dagger sheath etc.

The complex of Senwosret I at Itj-tawy (Lisht) was built within two enclosed areas with ten minor pyramids of which nine were tombs of his consorts. The interior was simple and the single burial chamber was entered from the north side by a corridor starting from a little chapel. The mortuary temple was constructed very close, a style from the fifth dynasty.

All subsidiary pyramids did not receive burials because some lack a grave chamber. These tombs probably all belong to members of the royal family and some cases the owner has been identified. One of these - Nofret I, the king's first queen and sister, had her name written within a cartouche. This was the first time in Egyptian history that another person but the pharaoh had this privilege.

Amenemhet II
Amenemhet II started his reign by taking the Horus name Hekenenmaat, meaning "The One Who is Praised By Maat" seen in the serek in picture right. He chose to build his pyramid at Dahshur in a lonely pyramid field from the 4th Dynasty. His monument was called "The Mighty Pyramid" and was placed east of the Red Pyramid of Snofru. Today it's called "The White Pyramid" and is in a ruined state and the side is estimated to have had a length Amenemhet of about 53 meters. The broad causeway is probably not investigated at all and the valley temple is yet to be found at the old bank of the Nile just 250 meters from the complex. The mortuary temple is almost completely de- stroyed and has not been properly examined. Hekenenmaat Two tower-like structures like pylons are visible in the temple's east facade (see picture below). The core of the pyramid was built much like that of his father's but here the filling in-between the rough blocks was only sand.

The construction is a mixture of Old Kingdom archi- tectural design and contemporary fashion. The inner- most rooms are built in different levels and at the west wall of the burial chamber was found a sarcophagus made of quartzite. West of the pyramid were found tombs of the king's children, one son and four daughters. In two tombs of the females were found magnificent jewelry in 1895 by the French archaeologist De Morgan and today this treasure can be seen in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Great phinx of Amenemhet II No military campaigns are recorded from Amenem- het's reign, but he sent an expedition to length: 4,8 m. (The Louvre). the Red Sea thru the east mountains and from there southbound to the land Punt, a tradition held by many kings. He was also a pioneer in developing the Faiyum marshlands to something more productive, a task which many of his predecessors would continue work on.

The pyramid of Amenemhet II at Dahshur was built within a narrow rectangular enclosure wall of third dynasty style. The massive pylons (green) were of fifth dynasty fashion and west of the building are underground tombs for his wifes and children (grey i the picture above and all plundered long ago). His trade with foreign countries reach all over the known parts of the Wadj-wer (Great Green) as the Egyptians called the Mediterranean Sea. Pottery and commodities coming all the way from Crete and the Minoan islands are thus found from his time in tombs and temples. Though he wasn't making any military actions northwards, he kept his army in shape and had a good watch for potential hostilities from Mesopotamia. Lucky for him the Babylonian state in the south was engaged in a prolonged conflict to the north with a growing tribe later to be a real threat to Egypt - The Assyrians.

Senwosret II

King Senwosret II called himself Seshemutaui, which means ("Horus) Who Leads The Two Lands", seen in the serek in the picture right. The reign of is considered to have been a peaceful period of slightly over a dozen years. A main task of his was to keep the balance of power between the regional leaders (governors) and the central government. If loyal to him these provincial leaders could gain a consider- able wealth and political Senwosret influence. He was interested in carrying out practical matters within Egypt and used diplomacy rather than war-making whe dealing with matters concerning his neighbors. In short - he was a peacful ruler concentrating on wealth for Egypt rather than expanding its borders. In the Faiyum basin his projects of development turned large areas Seshemutaui of marshes into land for cultivation by building dams and digging canals. These vast commitments spent over generations and became a tradition for the kings, in which he paricipaded with great interest. He built his pyramid at Lahun (Illahun) close to the Faiyum and it differed in some ways compared to similar monu-ments. Its innermost core is an adjusted natural limestone rock which was completed with masonry of mud brick. The entrance was not at the traditional north side (see picture below), but hidden under the pavement to the south. At the same side are four shaft tombs belonging to members of the king's family. Three of them were found robbed when excavated in 1914, but the fourth revealed a first class sensation. When digging down the vertical shaft a recess came to light at one side. It was one meter high, going in to the bedrock and sealed with mud. When this was removed it was found to be a treasury of unexpected wealth. It belonged to the king's daughter princess Sit-Hathor-Unut and this was the intact storage of her personal jewelry of bracelets necklaces and finger rings. In total the archaeologists found: 9.500 beads of different stone material, 110 rings of gold, bracelets and anklets of gold, a golden crown and her toilet razor of copper.

Pyramid of Senwosret II at Lahun

Eight mastabas (brown) and a minor pyramid was situated by the north side and instead of a mortuary temple to the east a small chapel was placed there. Causeway and valley temple have not been found so far (2002) but may have once been there and was later dismantled for reusing, like the pyramid's casing of fine smooth white limestone.

Another unique find was made when a place by the river bank 1 km east of the pyramid was excavated. It turned out to be the location of an ancient so called pyra- midtown just north of the kings mortuary temple by the Nile shore. These sites were built during the construction and were communities of workmen, craftsmen, administrators etc. who were involved in the ongoing pyramid project. Its name was Hetepsenwosret (Senwosret is at ease) and was the first of its kind to be found and it was not abandoned when the work was done, but flourished for another almost two centuries hosting a mayor and the priesthood working in the cult of the dead pharaoh. Today it's known as Kahun. The place had remarkably many objects left in the houses and seems to have been abandoned in a haste. Science was here provided with a lot of information about daily life and housing conditions of different classes.

Senwosret III

Senwosret

Senwosret III took office with the Horus name which means "Horus Divine of Shape", seen in the serek in picture right. He had a long and prosperous time on the throne and he was military active during most of his reign. He is well attested for in many surviving statues that during the Middle Kingdom were realistic how the king should be portrayed. Thus we can se the pharaoh like he really was - a mature man with an introvert and somewhat arrogant look on his face seeming almost tired of all the responsibility his high position has put on his shoulders (picture below left). He initiated a series of five campaigns into Nubia and protected the trading routes and mineral resources and to make transport-ation easy he extended an Old Kingdom bypass canal around the first cataract at Aswan. In Semna he erected a stele bragging about how he killed the male population, enslaved their women and children, burnt their crops and poisoned their wells. Neterikheperu He personally lead a campaign into Syria, described on a private stele by a participant as an invasion of plunder. Senwosret III built a temple to the old Theban war god Mentu north of Karnak and divided the country into three adminis- trative regions. This was to weaken the power of the local governors who were a constant threat to central power during most all the Middle Kingdom. As a side effect of this the middle class grew larger and more politically influential. He built his pyramid at Dahshur. It was the largest of the 12th dynasty pyramids and had a mud brick core cased by limestone. The entrance was hidden under the courtyard pavement west of the pyramid and the burial chamber does not lie close to the vertical axes (see illustration below). Due to its position (like the one in his father's pyramid) there is a slight possibility that the found chamber was for the first queen and the king's is yet to be found. When entered in the 1890s it contained a big empty granite sarcophagus by its west wall and the only objects found were a few vases and pieces of a bronze dagger with an ivory handle. The location of the valley temple has never been retrieved and the causeway approaching from the southeast, has not yet been investigated (year 2002).

The pyramid of Senwosret III at Dahshur. At first a mortuary temple was built by the east side (top) later to be replaced by a new and bigger within the expanded enclosured area to the south. Its plan has not been reconstructed. In the lower galleries under the small pyramids to the north 300 pieces of jewelry were found belonging to princess Sit-Hathor, probably the king's sister and possibly also his wife. From the western most of the tombs at the south side a tunnel leads to a burial chamber with a granite sarcophagus under the corner of the king's pyramid (see illu- stration above). This was found in 1994 and belonged to his mother Weret. If Senwosret ever was buried in his pyramid is doubtful because he also had a tomb at Abydos with a similar layout as a pyramid complex. From a valley temple a 900 metre long causeway leads to the mortuary temple within an enclosure area. The huge underground tomb was once considered the largest in Egypt. To the south a town was built to support this huge funerary complex.

Amenemhet III

Amenemhet

Amenemhet took the Horus name Aabau, meaning (Horus) Great Of Power, seen within the serek in the picture right. He continued the irrigation program of the Faiyum by building dams and canalling water from the Nile to Egypt's only real lake Qarun. An estimated area of 620 square km (153.000 acres) of new fertile land was reclaimed in this way. He erected two colossal 12 metre high statues of himself at today's Biyahmu and statues of Sobek, Hathor and an unusual palm goddess have also come to light. His long 44-year reign was peaceful and perhaps the peak of the Middle Kingdom with growing wealth and quarrying for minerals and metals all over the country. Three major construction works of his, besides two pyramids were, in the Fayum: a Temple to Sobek at Shedet and a chapel to Ernutet (the goddess of harvest) at Medinet Madi. In the Nile Valley: an expansion of the temple of Ptah at Memphis. Aabau He kept good foreign relations without too much military force and was said to be praised by commoners from Nubia in the south to Syria in the north. This might be true because he welcomed many foreign workers, peasants, soldiers and craftsmen to Egypt and once he provided the Nubians with food to appease the effects of a famine. However, by possibly a series of low Nile floods the fragile economic back-bone was damaged and standard fell rapidly by the end of his reign. Amenemhet III built two pyramids and the first one at Dahshur was a disaster. Today it's sometimes called the "Black Pyramid" and it's surely a dark chapter in the history of pyramid building. For some reason his architects built it on the hard subsoil, not the bedrock and furthermore in a low spot that made the groundwater leak in and Amenemhet III damage the structure. as a young man Soon after the pyramid was completed (after about fifteen years of work) cracks appeared in the chambers and corridors. Its inner architecture is very elaborated and differs totally from earlier pyramids of the Middle Kingdom (picture below). Besides the king's burial chamber are others and one them was for the burial of his first queen. The now destroyed mortuary temple was relatively small and its original layout is hard to establish. A broad causeway flanked by two brick walls led to the valley temple that was a simple construction, with two open courts built in terraces. At the north side of the causeway just outside the pyramid was found mud brick settlements for priests participating in the cult of the dead pharaoh.

The Dahshur pyramid has two entrances. The grave chamber (red) was never used for a burial and held the king's empty pink granite coffin. Two queens were buried within the pyramid (blue) and the other family members had tombs by the north side. One of them (green) was later used by king Hor from the 13th dynasty. The king decided to build another pyramid to replace the cracked one, and chose the location Hawara just at the entrance to great Faiyum basin. It was also built in typical 12th Dynasty fashion with a mud brick core and a casing of white limestone but was technically different to the one at Dahshur. The whole complex was oriented north-south and surrounded by an enclosure wall covering some 28,000 square meters, the largest from the Middle Kingdom. The valley temple and the causeway, have not been investigated seriously. The huge mortuary complex (now gone) was once called "the Labyrinth" and well known to tourists during the Greco-Roman era and is said to have been the prototype for its namesake later built for king Minos in Crete. Historian Strabo tells the halls were as many as the provinces in Egypt (42), each honoring its main god. Underground galleries for the local crocodile deity Sobek is also mentioned, but they have never been found.

Pyramid at Hawara
After the dismantling of the fine white casing stones the whole Hawara pyramid has decayed to a pile of mud brick rubble. Under the sand are the scanty remains of the attraction that brought tourists here already in Roman times - The Labyrinth. This was the mortuary temple.

In 1889 the burial chamber was entered, but was found only to contain an empty

sarcophagus. Within the nearby antechamber was found duck shaped bowls, a wooden coffin and an alabaster offering table inscribed with the name of a princess. Slabs of quartzite were placed to prevent intrusion to the king's mummy and could be put in position by the first known sand lowering device. The construction has great similarities to those of two later pyramids at Mazghuna.

Amenemhet IV
Amenemhet IV had the Horus name Kheperkheperu which means "Horus (is) the Multiple Transformer", seen within the serek in picture right. He was probably a son of his predecessor and had a brief period as pharaoh of about ten years at the most. He was married to his half sister (below) and possibly built a pyramid at Mazghuna. No name of his has been found at the site and the estimated age of the Amenemhet monu- ment has been made by looking at the architectural and technical details. We do not know anything about his relatives like the names of his mother, sisters and brothers, or for that matter the true confirmation of the identity of his father. There is a possibility that his preKheperkheperu decessor on the throne was his uncle or even his grandfather. He is known to have completed several temples and other buildings which were under construction when he entered office. In Nubia rock inscriptions confirm that he was able to hold the territory that was captured by the Egyptian army almost a hundred years earlier, during the reign of king Senwosret III. Nothing is known of a heir of his (if there was one) and the fact that he was succeeded by his widow indicates that he had no son to put on the throne. An example from the sparse remains of his is a magnificent piece of jewelry shown in the illustration below.

A small golden plaque of unknown provenance showing Amenemhet IV (to the right in the picture) offering to the creator god Atum. It is a so called openwork cutting made from a single sheet of gold. It measures only 3 by 2,8 cm and the details are made with a brilliant technique showing even the tiny feathers of the owl sitting in the center. Its purpose is not known but it was likely for decoration on a small jar containing ointment or perfumed oil or on the lid to a jewelry box.

Up to now (year 2002) no depictions in paintings and reliefs etc. has been found showing the looks of Amenemhet IV. Nor is there any statue or statuette that can be attested to him with certainty. His tomb has not been found but it's possible that a pyramid at Mazghuna South (one of a pair) is a monument of his. The location is 100 km north of the Faiyum and 15 km south of Sakkara.

Sobeknefrure
Sobeknefrure (sometimes Neferusobek) had the Horus name Merire which means "Horus, [who is] Beloved by Re", seen in the serek in picture right. Her throne name (seen within the cartouche left) means "Three times Beautiful is Sobek", by this praising the crocodile god from the Faiyum. The two hieroglyphs at the bottom mark that this is a name of a woman. She was most likely a daughter of Amenemhet III and is mentioned in Manetho's text, in the Karnak and Sakkara lists but not noted in the canon from Abydos temple wall. She was probably the sister or half sister to her husband Amenemhet IV whose title and occuMeritre pation she took over shortly after his death. Often Sobeknefrure her name app- ears with the addition Shedty, meaning "from Shedet" and this might indicate that she was involved in a religious movement in this town in Faiyum. This cult praised the crocodile god Sobek and it's possible, though not confirmed, that priests of this old local deity were the ones who backed her up as a national leader though their power (and hers) obviously was limited. This would also explain her break of tradition by taking the name aof the crocodile god Sobek as pharaoh for the first time in Egyptian history. After her a row of kings did so due to the upraise of this animal from the swamps of Faiyum where it was more common than along the shores of the Nile itself.

The economic importance of Faiyum had been increased since much land for cultivation had been reclaimed from the marshes during the reigns of several kings. Physical evidence from her reign are scant but inscriptions at the second cataract, a cylinder seal with her names and texts associating her with her father, have survived. She completed her father's mortuary temple where her name appears many times (and that of Amenemhet IV not at all). An apparent remain are three fragmentary lifesize basalt statues of her found at the site Tell el Dab'a (former Avaris) in the eastern delta. One of them is shown in the picture left with a fictive addition giving an impression of what it once might have looked like. Note that the statue fragment has breasts and does not have a false beard and thus once clearly showed Sobeknefru as a real female pharaoh. Her tomb has not yet been found, but there is a hardly begun pyramid at Mazghuna North that might be a remnant of hers. If this is the case she seems to have left the Faiyum area for the more traditional administraSobeknefru reconstructed tive and religious centres up north like Memphis and Heliopolis. Where she actually had her residence is not known. So far (year 2002) no depiction of her has appeared in paintings or 3D form. A possible exception is a small statue from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York mentioned in an article edited by C.J. Eyre published in: Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, nr. 82 (p 227-236). It is an intact depiction of a female pharaoh with an unusual crown on her head and wearing a Hebsed cloak. The assumption that it is of her is made purely on stylistic grounds and without written (hieroglyphic) backup. Her reign concluded the 12th dynasty, a prosperous period in Egyptian history. She was one of very few women (probably one of two in 3000 years) to achieve the rank of pharaoh over Egypt.

Post Scriptum to dynasty 12

The kings of the 12th dynasty tried to bring back the old values from the times of the great pyramid builders. They could not reach the status of gods like the old pharaohs, but in some fields they were successful, like in arts, where the quality in paintings and sculpture became just as good as during the Old Kingdom, or almost. With time their pyramids became technically more advanced and showed a great variety in their substructures like positions of the grave chambers, entrances etc. The written language reached its peak and the "Middle Kingdom language" was to set standard for all future and fine pieces of literature have survived.

Dynasty 13
1802 - 1649 BC (Ryholt) (c. 140 years)
Dynasty 13 started the Second Intermediate Period (SIP) (some makes the start at dynasty 15) and this era bears many unsolved problems. The first two kings were sons of the last male monarch of dynasty 12 and Upper Egypt was under control at least through the reign of Sobekhotep IV some 120 lyears later. The capital was Itj-tawy and a traditional belief is that after half the dynasty they kings were forced to move south, but no evidence confirms this. The territory reached north to Bubastis and the borders does not seem to have been changed over the years to the parallel dynasty 14 which controlled the rest of the delta. In the south dynasty 13 seems to have control as far as the second cataract thoughout its existence. Dynasties 13 and 14 seem to have been getting along quite well but a big question is how all entries for dynasty 13 in the Turin Canon should be explained (around 60 kings) making an average reign of 1,5 years for the first couple of dozen rulers. One of many theories is that the ruling class apointed marionettekings and sacked them when they felt like it. Turin Canon has 57 rows with names and fragment of 50 rulers plus 12 possibly to be put in the rows 15-19 and 49-55. The duration for the dynasty is estimated to c. 150 years (1802 to 1649 BC) making an average rule for all kings of about three years. This curious fact goes for dynasty 14 as well with around 56 kings over 150 years. Known only from Upper Egypt and NOT present in the Turin Canon are: Mentuhotep VI, Djehuty, Neferhotep III, Nebiryraw I, Smenre, Bebiankh, Snaaib, Monthemsaf, Senwosret IV, Nebmaatre, Dedumose I-II, Wepwawemsaf, Pantjeny. Based upon the Canon of Turin and other sources the Danish Egyptologist Kim Ryholt has in 1997 published a suggestion for a

chronology.

Sobekhotep I
The founder of the dynasty is well attested for and he was the first (male) pharaoh to include Faiyum's crocodile god into his name. He was the son of king Amenemhet IV of dynasty 12 and is incorrectly noted as king number 19 in the Turin Canon, obvious interchanged with king Wegaf in position #21 who was ruling in about forty years later. The duration of his reign is not to be seen in the damaged list, but a probable figure is estimated for at least three a period of years around 18001797 BC. His prenomen (seen within the cartouche in picture right) means: "Life of Re is Appearing", made thru the three hieroglyphs: sunrise (mean- ing "appear"), ankh ("life") and the Sobekhotep Khaankhre sun, standing for the solar god Re. His name occurs on at least a dozen remnants from buildings of stone plus some papyrus

inscriptions and an axe blade of unknown provenance.

Sekhemkare Sonbef
King Sekhemkare Sonbef was a son of Amenemhet III and by some considered identical to Amenemhet V (see below) and confusion is at hand ordering these insignificant rulers correctly with one thing in common: short periods in high office.

Amenemhet Sonbef This king is listed as number two in the Royal Canon of Turin, where he possibly succeeded his paternal brother Sobekhotep I. He thus was the son of the king Amenemhet IV of the dynasty before. His nomen was Sonbef, as written by the last three hieroglyphs at right in the cartouche above. His throne name was "Mighty is the soul of Re", (within a cartouche left), and his Horus-name in the serek right means: "Horus, the one who makes the Two Lands live". Another find is a stele (below) with his names (center and left) and at right the Nile god Hapi kneeling with offerings on a plate. A cylinders seal with his name (right) was used during his short reign of about 3 years around 1795 BC.

Sekhemkare

Seankhtawy

Amenemhet V
King Amenemhet V had a reign of about three years at least and possibly identical to king Sekhemkare Sonbef above. His reign would have started around 1783 BC. and according to the Turin Canon he was the third king of the dynasty and is noted for a reign of 5-6 years. His throne name was "Sekhem-ka-Re" in the cartouche to the right and means: "Powerful is the Soul of Re", which was a quite common name. His Horus name is seen in the serek to the left and it means: (Horus is) the one who makes the two lands live". There are no mon-uuments found from his reign, nor are there any scarab-seals or cylinder seals with his name. The only remain of him is his name written on papyrus and a statue Mesh-eb-tawi Sekhemkare (3/4 of man size) divided into two parts. They are today (year 2002) on exhibition in Das Kunsthistorische Museum (The Art History Museum) in Vienna, which holds fragments

from the body, and the Nubian Museum at Aswan (in the picture left). In the latter place this statue, made of hard grey-green stone, was once found in the temple area on the old fortified island of Elephantine in the modern town of Aswan. A positive identification was made as late as in the 1990s when his name was found written on some of half a dozen fragments from the body which were found fitting the upper part. The artistic style adopted during dynasty twelve is clearly visible in this fragmentary statue (with the exception of the normally big ears). His expression seems also to be more joyful than the grim faces of some of the giants from the dynasty before. Excluding the reconstructed part (in brown) the measures are - height: 35 cm and width: 17,5 cm.

Amenyqemau
King Amenyqemau had a brief reign of a few years around 1790 BC. By coincident he was rediscovered and came to be known better some 3,750 years later - in 1957. While working at South Dashur an American expedition tried their luck by excavating a low structure of mud brick rubble never worked on before. Soon they discovered a substructure that made them determine that this was a true pyramid, until then unknown to science. The owner was soon identified as king Ameny Kemau (usualy today written Amenyqemau), a little known ruler from the 13th dynasty, and hard to place in the long line of minor regents from this dusky period. In the Turin Canon appears a pharaoh called Se-hotep-ib-Re with a noted reign of just one year, which may be him. Another Ameni Kemau Nefer-netjer suggestion is that he was the son of (and neb-tauy perhaps predecessor to) pharaoh Amenemhet V, but this has not been confirmed, but it might be possible. His name (in the picture right) clearly confirms his status by the signs at the very bottom (the goose and the sun) which says: "Son of Re", meaning nobody but the king. And in the picture left his personal name is seen within a royal cartouche. Today (year 2002) the place of his pyramid is hard to determine as man made, and looks more like natural formation in the landscape. The details of the superstructure have almost totally vanished, but it likely was a construction made of a mud brick core cased by limestone. The complex probably didn't have an enclosure wall and any subsidiary tombs has not been found. The remains below surface have been preserved in a better way and are well documented from a second investigation made in the late 1960s.

Pyramid of Amenyqemau
The entrance to the substructure was made in a fashion well known from the mid dynasty 13. A huge block of stone (green) was a stopper at the threshold of the buri- al chamber (red). Nothing was found of any mortuary temple, causeway or valley temple. It's doubtful if there ever were any built and if the pyramid itself was ever finished. The base side was originally about 52 meters and the height about 35.

The entrance corridor (picture above) was at the east side, and had two stairways before entering the large antechamber outside the grave chamber holding a huge block of quartzite stone. Into this craftsmen had cut two niches for the storage of the king's mummy coffin and the chest containing four jars with his embalmed inner organs. After the burial a big stone slab outside the door was put into place blocking the entrance to pharaoh's final resting place. Despite these precautions taken by the architect, the monument was entered by grave robbers who ransacked it of its valuable things leaving only fragments of the canopy chest behind. Luckily for the afterworld it was on these pieces of stone that the king's name was found some 3,700 years later (the serek-pictures above left). The pyramid of Amenyqemau was one of the last monumental pyramid for a king's final resting place to be built in Egypt, and as such it is a valuable object for studying the long development of this famous type of tomb.

Sobekhotep II

Sekhemre suadj-taui

King Sobekhotep II was possibly the pharaoh in office just before the brief reign of king Hor and may have been the son of his namesake Sobekhotep I who had ruled about a dozen years earlier. He was the second in a row of at least seven kings to bear this crocodile name with the meaning: "Sobek is Beautiful and Pleasing". The duration of his time in office is today generally agreed on to have been two to four years around 1778 BC. and he is identified in the Turin Canon as listed between the little known about king Amenemhet VII (Sedjefkare) and the far better known king Khendjer. At Deir el Bahri (western Thebes) and Medamud eight km northeast of Luxor, he made additions to the old temples of Mentuhotep I, which were built almost two centuries earlier. A statue (picture right) made of red granite, shows him sitting on his throne and this piece is today (year 2002) at exhibition in the British Museum. His throne name (within the cartouche in picture upper left) means: "The Powerful Re Rules and Protects the Two Countries". His name has also been found on a block of stone from a chapel and an altar from Abydos. At Karnak a fundament from a statue of his is known and in the Petrie Museum in London his name is present on a fragment from a column. Where and in what sort of tomb (pyramids were on their way out) he was buried is yet (year 2008) to be found.

Hor I

King Hor I has been very well known and his throne name is shown here written within a cartouche in the illustration right. It means: "Re Succours the Heart". At Hawara by the north side of the pyramid of Amnemhet III a small tomb was found to be his last resting place. Among other things it also contained a wooden statue of him. This life size (1.7 m) sculpture is today a masterpiece of its kind in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (picture left). The statue is depicting the king's Ka (an invisible follower) which walked beside every human being in life as well as after death. Au-bri-Re It was thought to take possession of the mummified body and was symbolized and shown in hieroglyphic writing as two up-reached arms, and now placed upon his head. The eyes are made of white and blue glass, a rare color of the eyes of the Egyptians. The tomb was untouched by robbers and also contained his mummy within a wooden coffin plus some items of the funerary equipment including a wooden chest. Some indications in the tomb may point to the fact that a later king - Khendjer, took part in his funeral, but opinions among Egyptologists are divided in this matter. Pharaoh Hor had a brief reign (7 months to 2-3 years) around 1776 BC. King Hor

Wegaf
Pharaoh Wegaf (also spelt Ugaf) is in most lists put in first position of the dynasty with a reign of about a good two years around 1765 BC. The Turin Canon gives him - two years, three months and twenty-seven days on the throne. He is likely to have ruled from the capital Itj-tawy as the first in a row of about ten kings who had rather stable rules. His throne name (within cartouche right) means: "Re Protects the Two Lands", and sometimes the signs at row three and at the bottom are left out. At left his per-sonal name Wegaf is seen written with phonetic hieroglyphs. His remains are rather few (7) and just a single scarab-seal is documented from his time as the Wegaf senior commander of Egypt's military forces before he became pharaoh.

Khwitawyre

He is also known from two stelae in Karnak and Lower Nubia in the vicinity of the second cataract (drawing in picture left) and from a statuette in the Museum of Khartoum in Sudan. In the early 1980s a former anonymous statuette on display in the Egyptian Museum was reattributed and determined as being his. A find of an Ostracon (single piece with temporary drawing/writing) from the island of Elephantine in Aswan shows his name together with the nomen of king Senwosret, (which one is unclear). In total half a dozen physical remnants of his are known including a statue (a the Egyptian Museum in Cairo) plus a stele and a statuette (stele seen in drawing left), now both in the museum in Khartum, Sudan.

Khendjer
Nothing is known of the deeds of this pharaoh. His fame comes from his mortuary complex with his pyramid which was discovered at far south in the burial ground of Sakkara in 1929, and was identified as his two years later. His name was known before, from a stele, but here another throne name was used. For some time the question was if there were two kings called Khendjer, but soon scientists agreed on that it was one and the same pharaoh from the stele found at Sakkara and the one possibly mentioned in the Canon of Turin. His Horus name "Djed Kheperu" (firm is Kheper) is seen within a serek right, and his reign would have lasted circa 4 years around 1750 BC. Khendjer The whole pyramid area of his had once been enclosed by two walls, the outer made of mud brick. The inner one was of limestone and had niches and panels and remains indicated it apparently had replaced an unusual wavy wall, just like the one surrounding the pyramid at Mazghuna South from king Amenemhet IV around half a century earlier (see above). The mortuary temple was located on the east side between the walls and the only remains were bits of reliefs and parts of the pavement from the court yard. Luckily fragments from columns were inscribed with his name, and thereby identifying the constructions as his. Investigations of the fragmentary pyramid lead to the conclusion that it once had a base side of 53 meters and a height of about 37. After having been quarried away over the years it is considerably reduced in height today (2002). Compared to what it once had looked like in its prime. Many fragments of the black granite pyramidon (capstone) have been found in a rather well preserved condition at the east side and is now reconstructed (put together). It's inscribed with the king's throne name - Userkare. A chapel to the north was built against the pyramid's facade. It stood on a platform and was reached by two stairways.

The pyramid complex of Khendjer once had two enclosure walls and the mortuary temple was placed in between (striped area). Huge stoppers (green) blocked the way to the grave chamber (red).

Fragments of reliefs that once adorned the walls have been found, depicting scenes of offerings and other well known motifs. The entrance was at the west side (picture above) with a stairway leading down to a portcullis that never was engaged and 39 steps further down was a room with stopper number two. Prior to the superstructure the grave chamber was built in a shaft cut out in the bedrock. Huge blocks were sealing it from the top and lowered to their final position by a devise making them fall into place when the sand they temporary lay on was drained out from below through small channels. This technically advanced method is also known from the pyramid remains at Mazghuna South attributed to Amenemhet IV (see above). Just outside the inner wall at the north west corner are the underground remains of a small (c. 20 m square) subsidiary pyramid possibly built for his first queen. Within the area are also shaft tombs most likely belonging to other family members. All of it was found in an unfinished state when it was discovered in the late 1920s, and possibly never used for burials. An inscription on the sarcophagus in the grave chamber below the queen's pyramid, gives an indication of the duration of the king's short reign - four years. Apart from his tomb all remains left of pharaoh Khendjer are three statuettes of him, three cylinder seals with his name, a few scarab seals and a stele. If Khendjer was coming from outside Egypt (and his Semitic name indicates this) he may have been the first recognised Pharaoh of non-Egyptian origin.

Sobekhotep III

Pharaoh Sobekhotep III is placed in The Royal canon of Turin as number 19 in the long row of rulers. His reign is noted to have been three years and two months, but the two marks for "years" are so separated that another in the middle is likely to once have been written there. His reign was thus possibly 3-4 years starting around 1749 BC. His throne name Sekhemre (right) have the sign for divine power "sekhem" as a staff of a commander on top under the solar symbol of the god Re. The whole meaning of the name is: "Powerful is Re, Who Makes Two Lands Flourish". He was not of royal stock and his parents (noted in a temple inscription) were commoners. Despite Sobekhotep I his quite short reign a lot artifacts from his reign are know and among them over 30 scarab seals, but regretably no statues.

Sekhemre Sewadjtawy

His (none royal) family is well attested for and the names of two of his queens are known - Senebhenas and Neni. From the latter he fathered the daughter Jewetibaw whose name has been found within a cartouche, an honour given a princess just once before in Egyptian history. If this Scarab seal indicate that she was to come after him as of Sobekhotep he had no son to be the next king, we do not know. Remnents of monuments of his are found in el Kab (a small chapel) and Lisht. A few cylinder seals are known and many scarab seals (see picture right). An altar on Sebekhotep III in low relief. Sehel Island at Aswan bears his name, and so does an axe handle and a small gold ball, possibly from a necklace. He can be seen as a stone sphinx (Egyptian Museum) and has a statue dedicated to the creator god Khnum exhibited in the Medelhavsmuset in Stockholm Sweden.

Neferhotep I

Neferhotep is the first king in a row of several bearing this rather odd name meaning "Beauty and satisfaction" and he was an elder brother to the next king: Sobekhotep IV. The hieroglyph for satisfaction is a loaf of bread on a reed mat (cartouche left) indicating the serious- ness the Egyptians had in their relation to food. He is listed as number 27 in the Turin Canon and noted to have been in office almost a dozen years around 1742-1731 BC. His throne name (within the cartouche in the picture right) means: "Mighty is the Appear- ance of Re". Neferhotep I came from a military family of none royal stock (at least on his father's side) and Neferhotep Khasekhemre possibly from Thebes. The name of his first queen is known as Senebsen and they likely resided in the main capital from witch the king ruled the country - Itjtawy, situated near Lisht by the Fayum basin in Middle Egypt.

Statuette and statue of pharaoh Neferhotep I from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (pictures 1-2). Pictures 3-4 shows a newly discovered well preserved statue from Western Thebes in 2006.

Knowledge about his deeds could be better but artifacts from his reign are many and on Sehel island at Aswan his name is cut into the rocks in seven occasions. He has left two stelae from Abydos made in his second and forth year in office and another has been found at Byblos in Lebanon. His scarab-seals are more than 60 and two cylinders seals are known. Three statues of him have survived - one at Elefantine in Aswan and two from the Karnak temple area at Thebes. His successor was his younger brother Sobek- hotep IV (below) and they might also have ruled together because many monument have both their names inscribed.

Sobekhotep IV

In the Turin Canon Sobekhotep IV is listed in position 21. His throne name (within the cartouche in the picture right) was Kha- ineferre meaning: "The Beautiful Appearance of Re". He was one of the most powerful kings of the dynasty and is known to have secured the southern frontier by sending troops down into Nubia, i.e. below the Egyptian south border. His reign (and his brother's before him) can be considered as the peak of the 13th dynasty, which was a rather shaky and politically troublesome period. Luckily there is a fine unbroken statue left of him showing his looks (picture left). He is sitting on his Khaineferre throne and his face is made in typical Middle Kingdom style with big ears pointing out. This unique piece is today to be seen at the Louvre Museum in Paris. He was a younger brother to Neferhotep I whom he succeeded on the throne. Their father was a priest and their mother was possibly of royal stock and if so possibly a (grand?) grandchild of Amenemhet III from dynasty 12. His queen was called Tjan and has left an inscription (probably made after her husbands death) where she tells how he went to Heliopolis and studied the old scripts and took a statue of the god Osiris in a procession. It ended in the old capital down at Abydos in the so called "Osiris' Tomb", where the priests performed the well known story of his deeds. The duration of his reign is not noted in the Turin Canon, but is estimated to have been a dozen years around 1732-1720 BC. During his reign the Hyksos made their first appearance, and took control of the town of Avaris in the Delta around 1720 BC, and started their conquest of the week and split up Egypt.

Sobekhotep VI
Pharaoh Sokbekhotep VI had the throne name Khahotep Re (within the cartouche right), with the meaning: Perfect In Appearence is Re". He was a ruler from Thebes and probably the son of his predecessor with the same name (and number 5) who is known to have a son bearing this name. His time in office was not very long and his reign as ruler number 25 of this dynasty is estimated to a period of about five years (the Turin Canon says four) around the period 1720-1715 BC. Little to nothing is known about his deeds and the only remnant of substance left from his time on the throne besides some (10) scarab seals, (including impressions and a cylinder ditto), is a Khahotepre statuette found in Kerma in Nubia, now in the Museum in Berlin (seen in picture left). This find indicates that Egypt though week, had influence

possibly next to control over this remote region known for its own identity and struggle for independence throughout the long Egyptian history.

Wahibre
Pharaoh Wahibre (meaning "Re Is Strong Of Heart") had the personal nomen Iaib (also Ib- iaw) as seen in the cartouche right. He is noted in the Turin Canon as the 29th ruler and with a possible additional four king in a damage part of the papyrus earlier in the dynasty, he may have entered the throne as number 33 in suc-cession. With his successor Aya he is ending a line of kings with well attested rather long reigns and the followers all are estimated for very short periods on the throne. From his almost eleven years in office (10 years, 8 months and 29 days in Turin Canon) around the years 1712-1701 BC. some remains are left that confirms his existence and they are: 1) Nine Wahibre scarab-seals of which one was found in Byblos (Lebanon). 2) Three cylinder-seals. 3) A bead and stamp seal(?) with his name found at Lisht. 4) A cup from Kahun. 5) A stele of unknown provenance now in the British Museum.

Iaib (Ibiaw)

Seal of Wahibre

Aya (Ay, Ai)

The throne name of king Aya was Merneferre (seen within the cartouche right) meaning: "Beautiful is the Desire of Re". The Turin Canon has Aya in position 33 and he is the king from the dynasty with the longest reign noted - almost 24 years. One theory says that the Hyksos rulers expanded southwards and had captured Memphis by then, making Aya flee to the south from his capital Itj-twy, (which hasn't been found for sure by modern archaeology). Ryholt claims 1997 that nothing of this scenario can be proven by substantial evidence and on the contrary the border between the two neighboring dynasties 13 and 14 seems to have been quite stable throughout the times. His reign was for 23 and 3/4 of a year (according

Aya (Ay)

Merneferre

to the Royal Canon of Turin) and it likely occurred during the years around 1701-1677 B.C. He has left a lot of remains, among them over 60 scarab-seals (one of them shown in picture left), one cylinder seal, a stone jar with his name and the capstone (top) from his pyramid, found at Khatana (in the north east delta). It's likely to have come from Sakkara where this tomb probably was situated, but today it's not identified with certainty. A candidate for his last resting place might be an unfinished rather biganonymous pyramid (today in a ruined state) situated south west of Khendjer's tomb in South Seal of king Aya Sakkara. No hard evidence are found for a clear identification of its owner, but it's no doubt one of the last pyramids to be built. Traces of a mortuary temple or a procession road to a valley temple are lacking.

Dedumes I (Dedumose I)
Pharaoh Dedumose I had the throne name: Djedhotep-Re (seen within the cartouche left) meaning "The One Bringing Lasting Peace". He is known from Manetho's historical work as the king who had to give up his country to the attacking Hyksos people. In this chronicle he is given his Greek name Totemaios. For some unknown reason he is not present in the Turin Canon and is only attested for by remains from Upper Egypt, but this doesn't mean that the invasion scenario told about him (starting in Lower Egypt) is not a fact. Another king with the same name and given the number II has initiated a discussion about his true position in the 13th dynasty. Djedhotepre Dedumes The Egyptologist Kim Ryholt has (1997) in his work about this period put him in the 16th dynasty in a place not to be determined in the sequence of names. This lack of agreement among the experts is due to the fact that at least three (by some scholars up to five) dynasties were operating at the same time in the split up Egypt. (See textlink "Second Intermediate Period" at dynasty 13 above). One possibility might be that Dedumose had to capitulate to the foreign enemies and his followers were marionette rulers, but this is just a suggestion of many from this politically very complicated period. Remnants of his are scant and apart from his names and titles found in single inscriptions, a remarkable stele has been found at Edfu made by an unnamed official giving himself the title "the king's son", and tells Dedumose's all titles and names and among them his Horus-name within a serek (left). It was Wadj-chau, meaning "Fresh at feature" un-derlining his physical fitness necessary to do his job properly in the eyes of the people. This stele is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Dynasty 14
1750 - c. 1670 BC. (c. 85 years) Egypt was now split up and dynasty 14 (parallel at least to the mid 13th) was ruling from Xois in the north eastern delta and was (at least indicated by some names) of Asiatic (Hyksos) origin. The Canon of Turin note 32 names in a list which has space (rows) for about 60. Several lists and theories are at hand, like suggestions that they were province leaders, vassals, made up, or ancestors(!) to the living pharaohs. Schloars of today (year 2002) distribute some names among all dynasties 13-15. Manetho (through Africanus) writes that 76 kings ruled for 184 years. The duration of their reigns indicate about two years each on the throne in average, and these unlikely figures still awaits an explanation. Based upon the Canon of Turin and other sources the Danish Egyptologist Kim Ryholt has in 1997 published a suggestion for a

chronology.
Just a few kings from dynasty 14 are known from seals in shapes of scarabs (see picture), and besides Nehesy's below the only remain of substance is a stone stele.

Nehesy
From Nehesy's reign are left documents where he states that he is the son of a pharaoh, but curi-ously he doesn't say who his father was, which possibly indicates that his statement isn't true. One theory advocates that his father might have been an Egyptian civil servant or a military commander who usurped royal rule in the delta. The throne name of his - Aa-seh-Re (the cartouche in picture right) means: "Great in Council is Re". Nehesy has left a row of remnants from his reign: 1) An obelisk at the temple of Seth at Raahu (in the north east delta). 2) Two stelae at Tell Habwe. 3) A column at Tanis holding his mother's name: Peret. 4) Aasehre Nehesy At least 23 seals mostly being scarab amulets with his name carved into the flat bottom. In the Turin Canon he is listed as the first pharaoh of dynasty fourteen, but a great gap in the papyrus indicates a row of about five kings (see list above) who probably ruled before him. Estimations have been made indicating that these had rather long periods in office compared to most later kings, which makes the time when Nehesy was in charge to have possibly occurred around the year 1705 BC. The damage Turin papyrus cannot give him more than half a year in office, at most. His name Nehesy means "Nubian" in the Egyptian language and may indicate his origin and background, since soldiers from the south by tradition were a great part of the Egyptian military forces. Despite this he seems to have belonged to the extreme opposit part of Egypt - the Delta in the far north.

The next dynasty (15) started the so called

Hyksos Period

Second Intermediate Period (SIP)

Dynasties 15 - 17
c. 1655 - 1547 BC (108 years)

By Ottar Vendel
A century of foreign rule
At the end of dynasty twelve a people, later to be known as the "Hyksos," settled down in the eastern delta. The name originates from the Egyptian "heqa-khase", which means "rulers of foreign lands". They were basically living on cattle breeding and in Egypt they had to be used to the annual inundations which made them adopt agriculture. After a good hundred years another Hyksos wave came from the coast areas of Palestine and established themselves in a more organized way and founded the 15th dynasty. They made the fortified town of Avaris (Egyptian: Hatuaret) their capital (see map right). The Egyptian dynasties 13 from Xois and 14 from Itj-tawy (se map) were now ended and the new rulers of Avaris were acting in a more expansive and military way and met just weak recistance from the Egyptians. A big advantage in combat was the Hyksos introduction of horses, which was a new animal to the Egyptians. At most the Hyksos had full control down to the town of Hermopolis (exept for a very short military raid reaching down to Thebes) and thus divided the country into two parts with the Egyptian dynasties 16 and 17 ruling the south. They brought their own gods but never imposed these on the indigenous people and the language in the administration continued to be Egyptian. The only Egyptian god they took in to their religion was Set, who they identified as their own god of storms. They seem to have adopted Egyptian manners and laws, and had trade relations with the Minoans and Babylonians. They were recognized by later Egyptians and listed as legitimate kings, but no tombs from these half a dozen rulers have been found and their names were all non-Egyptian. The few remains of graves from Hyksos-people have revealed their custom of the dead be followed by parts from cattle (bones and horns) in a crude shaft with no visible signs above ground. The six kings claimed themselves pharaohs with all the tradition attached to that title and for one hundred years they ruled in peace and prosperity. No open hostility seems to have occured between the two parts of the country until the last 20 years of a century when the Egyptian kings from Thebes started a liberation war and drove out the Hyksos from the Nile Valley.

Dynasty 15
Six Hyksos kings ruled for 108 years c. 1655 - 1547 BC.
This is the pure Hyksos dynasty also called "The Great". Turin Canon has six lines with only fragments of figures from their reigns and a summation of 108 years. Manetho (Africanus) has also six names: Saites, Bnon, Pachnan, Staan, Archles and Aphophis. They are noted for very long reigns and a duration for the dynasty for 250 years, but today a figure around 100 years is generally agreed on. One theory states that at least 3 of the first kings ruled for almost 30 years and were followed by Khyan and Apepi who hade reigns of about 40 years each. At the very end Khamudi should have been just a year on the throne before he was defeated by the Egyptian army and driven out of the country. The text below is a general proposal based upon conclusions from scholars over the years. In 1997 the Danish Egyptologist Kim Ryholt suggested a short chronology for the dynasty.

A small amulet of ivory showing an unnamed Hyksos(?) king with a hooked nose holding a small lying figure by the head. This has been interpreted by some as meaning the occupants holding the Egyptians in slavery.

Salitis
Manetho writes that king Salitis (also called Saites) conquered Egypt when it was ruled by pharaoh Tutimaios, that is Dedumose I of dynasty 13. A king with the name amu- qenu appears in the Canon of Turin and he might be the same ruler, possibly. When they founded the first Hyksos dynasty it is clear that this Asian people had been nomading in the country (the Delta) for a good many years. He resided in Memphis and is credited for making Avaris the new capital and fortified stronghold. This event was at hand at the ver middle of the 1600s BC, when he had been in office for about five years. The northern part of Egypt was now to be ruled by Sark (Salk) Sehaenre Hyksos until the end of their era some 110 years later. His reign is estimated to have been about 8 years around 1655-1647 BC. Manetho gives him 19 years on the throne and he is usually identified with a king called Sark (or Salk) mentioned only once in a list made by priests from Memphis (cartouche above left). An attached throne name, Se-ha-en-Re (cartouche above right), means - "The one introduced by Re", might be his. Remnants from his

reign are few, only his name written on three occasions on blocks of stone taken from larger monuments. Where these originally stood is not known.

Sheshi
Obscure king mentioned by Manetho and also called Beon, Baion and Bnon. His throne name Maa-ib-re (seen within a cartouche in picture right) and meaning "Seeing in the Heart of Re". Hundreds of physical evidence of his existence have been found throughout the Middle East: 394 scarab seals and 2 seal impressions. He is noted in Manetho's list as the second king of dynasty 15 and for a reign of 44 years, a duration that has been rejected by modern scholars. Today these figures are adjusted to a period in rule of 3 to 14 years depen- ding on who has come up with the theory. A suggestion is around: 1646-1635 BC.

Sheshi

Maa-ib-re

He is also put among the first kings of the14th dynasty together with Ahotepre and Quare (Ryholt 1997). These two latter are also well attested for and have left dozens of scarab amulets from their reigns. Despite all remains none of the three rulers can be put in place with a hundred percent accuracy.

Seal of Sheshi

Yakub-Her

King Yakub-Her's throne name (seen within a cartouche in picture to the right) means "Strong is the Love of Re". Practically nothing is known from the reign of this king (sometimes called Yakobner) and it's doubtful if he has left any remain beside being mentioned in king list written 1500 years after his time on the throne. His Aramean name is related to the biblical Jacob, and has made some groups see this as "evidence" that the Hyksos people were the Israelites. This theory has of course no scientific value. He is by some thought to fit into one of the gaps in the 14th dynasty along with some 11 other rulers with Hyksos names Meruserre Yakub-Her not present in the Canon of Turin. He seems in that case to place at the end of that dynasty, and if he is from dynasty 15 his reign might be 8 years around 1634-1626 BC. His remains are from scarab-seals only (about two dozens) found mostly in Egypt, but also a few from Palestine and a single one from Nubia in the south.

Khyan
King Khyan's throne name (within the cartouche in the picture right) means - "[I am] Powerful Like Re", a self confident name. His influence reached beyond the kingdom in Northern Egypt and his name is known from a wide area in the eastern part of the Mediterranean region. Greek name forms were: Yannas, Jannis, Iannes, Joannis etc. His reign: 25 years around 1625-1601 BC. Manetho ascribes him a 50 year period. His name (in his own Hyksos language) means "Born in (the month of) Khiyar" and other forms are: Khiyaran, Khajran, Khayan.
Khyan
Seuserenre

His name with the title "Ruler over the foreign lands" has be- en found on at least 38 seals from scarabs plus some pieces of artefacts from remote places like Knossos in Crete, Bagdad in the great flood plain of Mesopotamia and Bogazkoy (capital of the Hittite people) in the mountains of Anatolia in today's southern Turkey.

Lion statuette and seal with Khyan's name.

Apepy (Apophis)
This ruler is well attested for and he was probably the one who had the longest reign of all Hyksos kings. Manetho (by Flavius) gives him a reign of a good 36 years and today's Egyptologist up to 42 around 1600-1559 BC. His personal nomen Apepy (Greek: Apopis) was possibly taken from the wicked Egyptian god Apep (a gigantic mean ser-pent) and his throne name (seen within a cartouche in the picture right) can be read - [I am] "Great and Powerful Like Re". Apepi is mentioned in two papyri, a list from priests in Memphis and many pieces of architecture which give the names of his sisters Tani and Tcharydjet and daughter Auserre Harta. There is strong indications pointing to Apepy the fact that he was an usurper with no relation to the rulig line of Hyksos kings (his name was Egyptian) or domestic royalty. He is believed to have been a well educated ruler who got into war in his older days, possibly tricked by forces within his own government. He didn't improve his relationship

with his southern neighbor the Egyptian king Tao II in Thebes by sending him a very provocative letter (today in the British Museum) where he has a complaint which was, so say the least, really odd. He wrote that he couldn't sleep at night because he was disturbed by the snoring and roaring from pharaoh Tao's hippopotami in Thebes 800 km to the south! After this message king Tao is believed to have taken up arms against him in a small scale and if the letter was intend as a provocation - it worked. Thereby the hostility was Seal of Apepy initiated and later escalated (when Apepy was dead) to a massive confrontation. During his reign a change to the worse was probably at hand for the Egyptian public and the peaceful times ended. There are evidence that he (Ryholt 1997, pp. 145-148) looted pyramid tombs from the 12th and 13th dynasty and took the goods to Avaris. Furthermore, when retreating downstream his troops seem to have practiced the tactics of "the scorched earth" and by this turning the Egyptian population against the Hyksos for good. It's possible that his power at the late state of his reign had shifted over to others and the rebellious attitude was a product of their will rather than his own. For some unknown reason he changed all his titles three times during his long reign. Thus it's believed that he also is the ruler behind the name Neb-khepesh-re "Re is the lord of strength" (in the cartouche left), be-lieved to be from his first period in office, and (right) Aqenenre "The strength of Re is great" as being taken later during his reign. This made some scholars think some of these titles was from another Apepy (they called the 2nd), but it was the same ruler. Aqenenre Nebkepeshre

Khamudy
Khamudy was the king who concluded the Hyksos period in Egypt. Manetho calls him Assis (Aseth) or Archles, and gives him a rule of 49 years but today (2006) his reign is estimated to have been a period of 10-12 years around1558-1547 BC. He was militarily defeated and eventually had to withdraw his people from the Nile Valley after living there for generations. His possible throne name was Ib-Hetep-Re, (as seen within a cartouche in picture left) and is not connected to him with certainty. The Egyptian king Ahmose from Thebes started a full scale war against him in year 11 of his reign and after that the big town of Heliopolis was captured. He then saw the

Ib-hetep-re

Khamudy

beginning of the end to the long Hyksos rule. In the year after Khamudy negotiated with the Egyptians about the withdrawal of the Hyksos army from his capital Avaris and most of the Delta, but the determined Egyptians didn't take his terms and concurred the town after a siege and three attacks. Khamudy had foreseen what was coming and had moved his people along the coast up to southern Palestine in advance and the Egyptian military forces raided that area for several years afterwards to prevent a Hyksos comeback. Many details from this dramatic scenario are found in contemporary documents and many of them (not to say all) were probably written under supervision of the victorious Egyptian king himself. Therefore a dose of skepticism is handy when valuing them. Few large remains are left from Khamudy's reign, but an exception is an obelisk which he erected near Avaris where it was discovered under the sand.

Dynasty 16
1663 - 1555 BC (108 years) alt. 1660 - 1580 BC (80 years)
This dynasty is either thought to have been ruling as vassals to the Hyksos dyna-sty 15 and then located around the town of Pelusium in the eastern Delta (the traditional theory), or being an independent line of Egyptian kings ruling from Thebes in the far south and finally taken over by the Hyksos for a short period, (the more recent theory). The latter point of view combined with a parallel dyn-asty at the neighboring Abydos makes it possible to deal with more known kings as possible candidates. If the latest theory is correct the two rulers with foreign sounding names presented below should be put in another dynasty. In 1997 the Danish scientist Kim Ryholt suggested a choronology for dynasty 16. The Canon of Turin has 15 lines for this dynasty with 7 names partly visible and large gaps. Those readable are considered to be, in sequence: Sekhemresementawy Djehuty, Sekhemresewosretawy Sobekhotep III, Sekhemresankhtawy Neferhotep III, Sankhenre Menthotepi, Sewadjenre Nebiryraw I, Nebiryraw II, Semenre, Sewoserenre Bebiankh, Sekhemreshedwaset. Then follow five rows with lost names and in this position fits a group of kings well known but not placed. These are (according to the Abydos theory): Dedumose I-II, Mentuemsaf, Mentuhotep VI, Senwosret IV. These five names are pressed into the last less than ten years of the dynasty thought to have been around the 1560s BC. Manetho writes that the Hyksos invaded Egypt when king Tutimaios (Dedumose I) sat on the throne. When he studied the old files, 1 300 years had passed since the Hyksos era.

Kings with mixed names difficult to put in a curtain dynasty:

User-anat, Semqen, Zaket, Wasa, Qar, Pepi III, Nebmaatre, Nikare II, Aahotepre, Aaneterire, Nubankhre, Nubuserre, Khauserre, Khamure, Yoam, Amu and possibly others. Two rulers are presented below and they both have hyksos names.

Anat-Her
The text in square right says: Heqa Khaswt Anat-Her, meaning "Ruler of the foreign (desert) lands - Anat-Her, (also Anat-Har). The staff is the sign for rule and the threetopped mountains were for foreign (desert) countries. The two hieroglyphs at the far right in picture above mean "moun-tain" ("harru") in the Canaanite language transcribed to "her". It was common in Canaanite names in Egypt from the 12th dynasty through the first Intermediate period. It had a divine significance in the aspect of "great". This inscription has only been found once on a scarab and his reign has been estimated as a short period perhaps 1585-1580 BC. It's not quite sure if dynasty 16 is right place he should be put in to, because the title was used by kings in both the 14th and 15th dynasties. Possibly he can place into the gap in the Turin Canon right at the beginning of dynasty 14, where four rulers with similar name forms (among them Yakbim below) are thought to fit in. One name found has a similarity to his - Aper-Anati, possibly from the early dyna-sty 15 (Ryholt 1997).

Yakbim (Yacobaam)
This king had a West Semitic (Ammorite) name like his predecessor and there are different ways to transcribe the sounds. Two other suggestions: Yakbemu and Jacbaam. His name has not been found on bigger artifacts like stelae or rests of buildings, only on small scarab-seals. On the other hand they are as many as at least 112 with his name written on them and found in a wide geographical area from deep down in Lower Nubia in the south (2) to Palestine in the north (7). The remaining 103 are all of unknown provenance like the only cylinder seal known of him. A fair guess might be that the bulk of them have their origin in Egypt itself. He's not on Manetho's list and has been identified, with rather fair accuracy, by the throne name (prenomen) Sekhaenre. His reign was of unknown duration in around 1560-1565 BC. According to the modern theory that dynasty 16 was an Egyptian line of kings from Thebes, Yakbim with his foreign name must be placed elsewhere, maybe among the first five kings in the 14th dynasty where the Turin Papyrus seems to have a large piece missing.

The Abydos Dynasty

c. 1650-1630 (1575) BC.

This dynasty is suggested by the Danish Egyptologist Kim Ryholt in his study of SIP from 1997. When the Hyksos captured Memphis around 1650s BC. and founded the 15th dynasty, the regions of Abydos and Thebes had their own (Abydos dynasty and 16). After 20 years records tell about clashes between Hyksos and Thebes indicating that the Abydos was conquered by the Hyksos just as Thebes later was, for a brief period. Marionette kings might still have been in office there when Thebes (now as the 17th dynasty) started the liberation war against the Hyksos in about 1575 BC. This would have given the 16 presumed rulers short reigns just like indicated in the Turin Canon below. Earlier works have usually ignored these kings, finding no proper place to put them, but three have left crude stelae in the Abydos area and their names clearly point to a local connection. None of their tombs has been found so far (year 2002).

Abydos kings from the Turin Canon. (line - name - reign) 1 2 3-10 11 12-14 15 16 Woser(...)re Woser(...)re Names lost. (...)hebre Names lost. (...)hebre? (...)webenre ... ... ... ... 2, 2, 4 years 3-4 years 3-4 years

Kings known from archaeology in the Abydos region. 1) Wepwawemsaf Sekhemreneferkhaw 2) Pantjeny Skhemrekhutawy 3) Snaaib Menkhawre

Dynasty 17
c. 1660-1560 BC. or c. 1580-1550 BC. Dynasty 17 from Thebes probably started at the collapse of dynasties 13 and 14 when the Hyksos established their dynasty 15 in the delta and captured most parts of northern Egypt. Manetho's (Eusebius) has 104 years and 4 kings: Saitis 19, Bnon 40, Archles 30

and Aphophis 14. Accordng to Africanus the time was 151 years and 43(!) kings, probably taking up rulers from other dynasties by mistake. From Thebes the kings controlled southern Egypt independent of the Hyksos in the north. Between them might have been another line of rulers for some time (the Abydos Dynasty). It seems to have been peaceful period for most of a century until a 17th dynasty king started a war to "liberate" the rest of the country. This was achieved after campaigns in periods over about 20 years. The pharaohs had new designed so called saff- or row-tombs in the hillside at Dra Abu el-Naga in Western Thebes, possibly with small (8-15 meters square) sharp agled pyramids built in the enclosed yards. Today (2001) almost nothing is left but crude remains of their grave chambers in the hillside. In 1997 the Danish Egyptologist Kim Ryholt suggested a chronology for dynasty 17. The nine kings below written in blue text are the ones most known. Rahotep, Sobekemsaf I, Skehemre Sementowy Thuty, Sankhenre, Djehuti, Mentuhotep VII, Nebiryerawet I-II, Mentuhotep VI, Nebirau I-II, Semenenre, Suserenre, Shedwast, Antefs VI-VIII, Sobekemsaf II, Tao I, Tao II, Kamose.

Rahotep
Rahotep (his throne name is seen within the cartouche left) was likely the one who found- ed the seventeenth dynasty at Thebes, when Egypt was ruled by multiple kings and dyna-sties governing different areas. The political situation was (simplified) that different weak Egyptian kings tried to maneuver against the recently invaded Hyksos. At the far south the area controlled by Thebes stood firm while the others gradually were overrun. Rahotep is well known in this respect as the one who restored the damaged walls of the Temple of Abydos to increase the city's capa-bility to Rahotep Sekhemrewahkhaw repel the expect attacks from the Hyksos advancing upstream from the north. A stele from Koptos tells that he also made restorations of the local Min temple. A private stele bears his name as do some scarab amulets. Historians have agreed on that this period, though its unstable politically situation, was a peaceful and rather flourishing period de- spite what some kings may have stated. This is probably following the tradition to make themselves great leaders (and bold warriors) like the kings from the past.

Sobekemsaf I

King Sobekemsaf the first (his throne name within a cartouche left) was one of the first kings of the 17th dynasty and likely to have ruled a good fifteen years around 1570 BC. He was the father of two kings to be the Antefs VI-VII and grandfather to Antef VIII, a son of his daughter (whose name is not known). Besides the truly great red granite statue at right from the British Museum, a Sekhemenre finestatue of him is also at Shedtawy ex- hibition in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. In addition a fine stele from Karnak in Thebes and two private ones from Thebes are from his reign and bears his name, and so does a relief from Abydos. In all a dozen remnants. These objects are by far the most prominent finds of any king from this period which mostly has left questions intended for those studying this dusky part of Egyptian history. Pharaoh Sobekemsaf was buried at Dra abu el-Naga in Western Thebes in a saff-tomb (see the Antefs of dynasty 11) and by coincidence we know a lot about it though it was empty (and with time reused by others) when it was entered in the late 1880s. A papyrus referring to a trail in court concerning the Egyptian state against tomb robbers a good 450 years(!) after the king had died, gives a statement from one of the accused. He tells the court how he and a friend tunnelled through the bedrock with their copper tools and finally reached the grave chamber where they robbed the king's and queen's mummies for gold items weighing 14.5 kg (32 lbs).The text with the verdict is regrettably lost, but the robbers were likely to have been decapitated.

Antef VI (the Great)

Antef VI was a son of Sobekemsaf I and reigned under the name Sekhemre Wep-maat (at bottom right) for probably just a few number of years around 1565 BC. The brothers Antefs VI and VII both had small pyramids made at the west bank of the Nile right across the Karnak temple The capstone from the pyramid of Antef at Thebes. Judging from the VI from Dra Abu el-Naga in Western Thebes. very steep angle from the found capstone (in the picture above right) the monuments would have had a base of just eight to nine meters. They were placed in the yard of their saffAntef the Great tombs going into the mountain side, where a handful of kings were buried at the end of the 17th dynasty, a tradition originating at the end of the 11th dynasty 400 years earlier. None of these small pyramids had any sub-structure since the tombs with the burial chambers of the kings were cut into the rock at the end of the yard, where the rest of the royal family also had their tombs in a Sekhemre Wepmaat rather si- milar size as the pharaoh's. This tradition of chambers in the bedrock was passed on to the next dynasty when royalties made their tombs hidden in uninhabited valleys in the wilderness. Though very few remains (around six) of Antef's have survived, half of them are quite substantial. Besides his pyramid capstone (above), both his sarcophagus and canopy chest are today at the Louvre Museum in Paris. He may have been just the second oldest son to Sobekemsaf I since his follower (and brother) on the throne called himself (or was called by others) "The Elder".

Antef VII (the Elder)

Antef VII was a son of king Sobekemsaf I and brother to Antef VI. The mummy coffin of his from the Luovre Museum in Paris France is shown in the picture left. His throne name Nubkhep-erre (seen within the car-touche right) says: "Golden is the Manifesta-tion of Re". The middle sign is a neck-lace, meaning gold and the scarab at the bottom (cre-ator god Kheper) was to be very popular and used by almost Nubkheperre every king in the dynasty to come next. Using the throne name is the best way to separate all Antefs since there are different ways of numbering them. His burial coffin is today seen in the British Museum transported from his saff-tomb at Dra Antef VII's mummy coffin. Abu el-Naga in West Thebes, where he also had a small pyramid for decoration in the courtyard. His reign would have been five years around 1571-1566 BC. His name has been found on several architectural elements in Abydos cut in as reliefs in columns, stelae, and blocks. Two obelisks from a small pyramid outside his tomb were lost in the Nile while transported, but his sarcophagus was saved and is now in the British Museum. During this short period of time the royal family included Sobekemsaf I and his sons Antefs VI-VII plus Antef VIII who was a son of a sister to those whose name isn't known. The Egyptologist Beckerath suggest that Antef VII could have been murdered, but by whom and or for what reason we do not know. If a struggle for the throne was the motif we can expect his namesake below (a son of his sister's) to be among the suspected, but this is pure speculation.

Antef VIII

Pharaoh Antef VIII is attested for just twice, and one of them is his well preserved rather simple made mummy coffin which today is on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris France (see picture left). His long throne name Sekhemre Herwhor Maat, meaning The Powerful Re Who Is Satisfied, Maat", is seen within the cartouche right. This was added to the coffin text in an different hand writing after the personal no-men, indicating that the box original-ly had belonged to another Antef. He might thus have been buried in a rock cut tomb made for someone else at Dra Abu el-Naga in west Thebes. Antef VIII? Knowledge about his reign is almost nothing except that he clearly had a short period of around a year on the throne. The Danish Egyptologist Kim Ryholt has put forward that he possibly was a co-regent to his predecessor (and uncle) Antef VII since an inscription on a block of stone from Koptos seems to contain both their names in a pharaohnic fashion. The Egyptologist Beckerath tells that he might have been murdered, if so a rare way of death for a pharaoh. In short: he was an insignificant ruler and the brief remains of his are subject for a debate among scholars and interpreted in diff-erent ways.

Sobekemsaf II

Sekhemre Shedtawy

This king's birth name Sobekemsaf (in the picture right) means: "His Protection is Sobek". It can also spelt with ending -zaf and the beginnings Sebek- or Sobk-. His throne name, Sekh-em-re Shed-tawy (seen within a cartouche in the picture right) means: "Powerful is Re, rescuer of the Two Lands". When he sat on the throne is uncertain, but an estimation from scholars of today points to a period in office of about six to seven years around 1566-1559 BC. He is very well attested for from around twenty remnants and among others is a fine small statue(tte) of him (headless but reconstructed in picture left). A relief at the base of a temple in Karnak is depicting him paying tribute ny making offerings to the war god Mentu-Re. He has several rock inscriptions at the Wadi Hammamat passage in the Eastern Mountains, plus scarabs and two small obelisks of which one has an unknown location today (year 2002) and the other one is at exhibition in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. At the same place can also be seen a small statue of the king with his small son (having Sobekemsaf II his father's first name) (head reconstructed) standing between his legs. There is a possibility though that it is Sobekemsaf his namesake (# 1) who is depicted here, because no text for true identification (like his Horus name) is present on the sculpture.

Tao I (Siamun?)
The birth name of king Tao (in picture left) is by some scholars questioned to be his, but his throne name Sa-nakht-en-re (within the cartouche in the right picture) is clearly established. It means: "[I am] Perpetuated like Re". The name form Ta is used by Egyptolo-gists since the 1980s but if it's proper for this king is far from sure, but the name sound-ing like Siamun plus his name to the right is clear. Thus it's quite possible that there never was a Tao the 1st and the only pha- raoh who held this name is the well att- ested follower below. If this ruler was re- lated (some say father) to the king Tao II coming next, is anybody's Senakhtenre Tao I guess. Those in favor have a queen to him called Tetisheri who then would be the mother to a new ruling family, unrelated to the Antefs. Not very much (i.e. nothing) is known from his rule but three remnants are known

where two are giving his name: 1) A stamp seal found at Abu el-Naga. 2) His throne name Senakhtenre within a cartouche written on an offering table from Thebes and now exhibited in the Archaeological Museum in Marseilles. 3) A depiction of him within a tomb at Thebes and probably from after his time. The duration of his reign is not clear, but his time in office is likely to have taken place around the years 1559-1558 BC and possibly lasted for about a year.

Tao II (the Brave)

Tao II is a well known king from the late 17th dynasty. His throne name right, Seqen-en-re, [He] Who Strikes Like Re" is well found as he was a warrior king who started a rebellion against the Hyksos in Avaris. Maybe he was provoked by a letter from their old king Apepy who complained and stated that his sleep was disturbed by the snoring from king Tao's hippopotami down in Thebes 800 km to the south(!). He was foolish enough to take this bate (if it was meant to be) and thus started a military campaign northwards up the Nile, though it seems that he was not at all prepared for such a bold task. He was just ruling a short strip of Sekhenenre Tao II the Nile north and south of Thebes, and the rest of the country was under the administration from Avaris in the delta, and in the south Nubia was indepen-dent. The Egyptians have had a prosperous time for generations back with no wars, and the cities had military garrisons loyal to the government up north. Thus Tao's military ambitions to be the pharaoh over the whole of Egypt wasn't a success and he obviously was killed during a battle within the first two years of this struggle. He (or more likely his son) had put the additional "the brave" to his name, and he surely was in a way, with a big dose of presumption. His mummy was found at Thebes and shows that he had a violent dead in some way. King Tao's about four years in office are rather well known and positioned in time around the years 1558-1554 BC. The military struggle was continued by his son who became the next pharaoh. Remnants from his own life time are about a dozen and the best known are his sarcophagus from Thebes and a statue of him, now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. From after his death his name has been found on stelae and literary remains which all tell about his (in reality very modest) deeds as supreme commander in the start of the war against the Hyksos.

Kamose

King Kamose's throne name Wadj-kheper-re (the picture right) means: "Flourishing is the Manifestation of Re". He picked up the battle axe from his supposed father Tao's war against the Hyksos king residing in the delta up north as the Nubians had power south of Aswan. Motivating the people to break this condition was a hard task and the fighting spirit was low among the Egyptians who did not clearly see the "re- pression" they were to be liberated from and had gradually adopted the Hyksos rule. The old Hyksos king Apepy tried to make an alliance with the Nubians in the south and Wadjkheperre engage Kamose in a two-front war but it didn't work out as planned since his letter was picked up by the Egyptians. By this time there were Hyksos military garnisons in towns south of Thebes, and these were probably captured by the Theban liberation forces before advancing nortbound. Khamose's progress in his military maneuvers was substantial as territory was concerned, and he reach as far north in the Nile Valley as the Faijum after three years. There he halted and sent the snatched letter back to the Hyksos king, and withdraw back to Thebes for some reason. Maybe his own health was the reason, because he died the next year in about 1550 BC after just four years in power. He was buried in a simple tomb at Thebes and the course of his death is not known. The war of "liberation" was hard to fulfill since the Egyptians in general north of the Theban territory, above the modern town of Quena, were satisfied (or at least accepted) there life under the Hyksos king far up north. This might explain why it took at least a further 12 years before it all was over during the next pharaoh, and "partly civil war" may be a better term for this twenty year long atrocity.
Kamose

A valuable historical record for understanding this period is the fact that Kamose made several stelae telling about his victories on the battlefield and is attested for by items in his secondary tomb at Dra Abu el-Naga. Among the objects are a famous ceremonial axe head, scarabs seals, pedants and jewelry. His follower on the throne was his brother (or possibly nephew) Ahmose I who "liberated" Egypt after an additional dozen years of combat. This ruler was the founder of a new dynasty (the 18th), and he would start the golden era in Egyptian history called - The New Kingdom but that's another story.

Comments on dynasties 13-17

This period is by far the most dusky in Egyptian history and many attempts have been made to stow all kings (names) from dynasties 13-14 into the limited space of time available. It's tempting to suggest more parallel dynasties to swallow them all up like Ryholt in 1997 suggesting an Abydos dynasty. But he claims dynasties 16 and 17 to have been in succession and no exra space is thus given. Many names are still (year 2008) not possible to put in sequence or dynasty, and various king lists made by scholars have their own solutions. Suggestions (mostly from early Egyptology in the late 1800s) have tried to eliminate many

kings by claiming them to be fictional, or dead ancestors(!) to the invading Hyksos. Notable is that later Egyptians (even in he very next 18th to follow) for some reason accepted these names as real kings alongside the great pharaohs of the past and put them into the official king lists. In the dynasties 13 and 14 put together, the last 45 years are shared by 50(!) kings, making their reigns an average 10 months. This is of course not believable, and no theory has so far given an explanation to this odd fact. A plausible explanation to this (among many) might be that when a central power wasnt at hand local leaders (Egyptian or/and Hyksos) could call them - selves pharaohs. They were obviously ruling simultaneously (presumably in the middle and west Delta) and therefore the numbers were high. An additional component might be that Hyksos tradition made them list ancestors too in the king lists. Hopefully coming archaeology, computerized calculations etc. will spread more light over this shadowy period which didn't span over more than a good century at the most.

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