CHAPTER IV.

THE FIRST THREE DYNASTIES.

 

The writers of histories of Egypt and of summaries of Egyptian history before 1894 were compelled to begin their narratives by stating briefly or otherwise that our knowledge of the history of the 1st, IInd, and IIIrd Dynasties was limited to the names of the kings which were derived from the King Lists, and from a few monuments of the IInd and IIIrd Dynasties; of the 1st Dynasty no monument whatsoever was known. Since that year, however, a number of excavations have been made in Upper Egypt by Messrs. J. de Morgan, Amélineau, Petrie, Quibell, Garstang, and others, and these have resulted in the discovery of the tombs of several of the kings and officials of the 1st and IInd Dynasties, as well as of a large number of contemporaneous objects, i.e., stelae, vases and jars, sculptured slabs, ivory and ebony objects, etc. At Nakada, M. J. de Morgan excavated a very large tomb, which was clearly that of a king whose Horus name was a sign now read Aha, and at Abydos he was fortunate enough to secure objects inscribed with the Horus names of the new kings Tcha Ten or Den, Atchab, and Semerkha. At Abydos, M. Amélineau discovered the tomb of the early dynastic king Khent , and that of Per-ab-sen, a king of the IInd Dynasty, already well known, and also objects inscribed with the names of some of the above-mentioned kings. The next discovery in point of importance was that made at Hierakonpolis in 1897 by Mr. Quibell, who found there, in the lowest strata of the mound of the temple of the city, remains of objects inscribed with the Horus names of two kings, i.e., Narmer who is also distinguished on his monuments by the appellation of “Scorpion,” and Kha-Sekhem (or Kha-Sekhemui) , whose personal name was Besh. The name of the latter king was discovered by M. Amélineau, but it was misread TI. Later, Prof. Petrie excavated the tombs of several of the kings above-mentioned, and the tomb of a king whose personal name was Mer-Neit, but whose Horus name is unknown, and the tomb of a king whose Horus name was QA, and also the tomb of another king whose personal name was THESER. In 1901 he discovered relics of the predynastic kings Re and Ka, and of the early dynastic monarch called SMA; in the same year Mr. Garstang discovered the tombs of two kings of the IIIrd Dynasty. The clue to the position in which the above-mentioned kings had to be placed in the scheme of Egyptian chronology was indicated both by the extremely archaic character of the objects which were found in their tombs, and by the occurrence of the names Per-ab-sen, a kinf of the Second Dynasty, and Merpeba, whose Horus name is Atchab, and who is clearly to be identified with Merbap or Merbapen, a king of the 1st Dynasty, according to the King List of Abydos. A further important contribution to the identification of the other names was next made by Prof. Sethe, who succeeded in proving that the king whose name was written on the objects from Abydos with the signs was none other than the king whose name was “Hesepti”; it was at once clear that the scribes of the XIXth Dynasty had misread the hieratic signs and had transcribed them wrongly , and that the true reading of the king’s name was “Semti” and not “Hesepti.” The same scholar also was the first to identify a third king, who has since been shown to be the same as Semerkhat mentioned above, with the king of the Abydos List who has hitherto been called “Semen-Ptah,” and represents the Semenpshis of Manetho’s List. The identification of the fourth king QA with QEBEH has been shown by Prof. Petrie’s excavations to be correct, although Herr Sethe arrived at his result by a wrong deduction, and by a confusion of the sign khent on a monument of king Qa with the name of the king KHENT, who has already been  mentioned. It is true that the sign is composed of three libation vases, the reading of which is “ qebhu,” but the true explanation of the difficulty is that king Qa’s personal name was Sen, which the scribes of the XIXth Dynasty misread as “qebh”. We may now note that the names of four kings are thus identified. In the year 1897, Herr Borchardt read a paper in which he declared that Aha, the king who built the tomb at Nakada which was excavated by M. J. de Morgan, was none other than Mena, or Menes, the first historical king of Egypt. On an ivory plaque now preserved in the National Egyptian Museum at Cairo are figured a boat, birds, and other objects, and in the top right hand corner occur the Horus and personal names of the king who had it made. The Horus name, i.e., Aha, was already well known, but the personal name which follows after the signs was read by Herr Borchardt as “ Men”. Of the meaning of the signs there can be little doubt, for they must be equivalent to “Lord of the South, Lord of the North;” but it is not absolutely certain that the sign which follows them has been rightly transcribed as “Men.” That we are dealing with a royal name is probable, but that the sign which expresses this supposed royal name is the equivalent of “Men” or “Mena” is improbable; another explanation of the sign and its signification has been given by Wiedemann.

M. Naville in a learned paper has discussed the matter at great length, and he entirely rejects the idea that we have on the ivory plaque the name of Mena, and especially the identification of king with Mena. On the other hand, he thinks that the sign in question is “men”, but explains its signification in an entirely different manner.

Last of all the early dynastic kings now known to us is SMA, and it is possible that he was the immediate predecessor of Mena, for his name is mentioned on some objects of Nit-hetep, who was the wife of Mena. His tomb was discovered Prof. Petrie, who found in it some ivory pots and covers, a basalt slab, etc

 

FIRST DYNASTY. FROM THIS

1. MENA

MENA, or Menes, is the first dynastic king of Egypt known to us, and the title “king of the South [and] king of the North ” which is given to him in the King List of Abydos, shows that he was lord of all Egypt; whether he was the first to bring the originally independent kingdoms of the South and North under one sceptre cannot be said definitely, but it is very probable, for all tradition unites in making him the first king of Egypt. In the year 1897, M. J. de Morgan excavated a large and important tomb at Nakada, which, judging from the inscriptions found upon the objects therein, was built for a king whose Horus name was Aha, and whose personal name has been declared to be Men, i.e., Mena, or Menes. This tomb is rectangular in shape, and the larger sides make an angle with the magnetic north of 15° E. Its length is about 175 feet, and its width 88 feet; it contains twenty-one chambers, six at each side, two at each end, and five which occupy the middle portion of the tomb. The central one of the five probably formed the mummy-chamber; the walls are built of unburnt bricks, Nile mud having been used for mortar. On the floor of the chambers the remains of stone and clay jars, etc., were found in great abundance, and it seems that all the sepulchral vessels were broken either immediately before or at the time of burial, and it is clear that certain parts of the tomb had been set on fire. The objects found in this tomb 1onsisted of flakes of flint, flint knives and scrapers, a sandstone mortar, about eighty red earthenware vases, the mouths of which had been fastened by means of clay cones upon which the royal seal had been rolled, large numbers of vases, etc., in yellow clay, fragments of textile fabrics (burnt), a lion, dogs, fish, a needle, a kohlstick, fragment of a ring, statuettes, vases, bracelets, etc., in ivory, shells from the Red Sea, cylinder seals, beads made of green paste, and several vases and vessels made of hard stones of various kinds. Anion o- these objects was a fragment of an ivory plaque, on which were inscribed figures of birds, animals, men, a boat, etc. ; a general idea of the design upon it will be gathered from the following illustration which has been traced from that given in the Recherches of M. J. de Morgan. We have already discussed the reading of the Horus and personal names of the king which are given in the top right hand corner of the plaque, and have stated that the identification of Aha with Mena or Menes depends entirely upon the fact whether the hieroglyphic character which occurs beneath the signs is men and whether it is to be considered as a proper name or not; no final decision can, of course, be arrived at in the matter until further Information is forthcoming. It is, unfortunately, still extremely doubtful if any of the objects inscribed with the name of Men or Mena which exist in various collections are contemporaneous with the first dynastic king of Egypt: most of the scarabs which bear the name belong to a comparatively late period. The following extracts from the works of Herodotus, Manetho, and Diodorus are of interest:—

“After the dead demi-gods the First Dynasty consisted of eight kings. The first was Menes the Thinite; he reigned sixty-two years, and perished by “a wound received from an hippopotamus.” Manetho, in Cory, Ancient Fragments.

“To this they ad besides that the first king that ever reigned was named Menes, under whose governance all the lands of Egypt except the province of Thebes was wholly covered and overwhelmed with water, and that no part of the ground which lies above the pool called Myris was then to be sent: into which pool from the sea is 7 days sailing.” Herodotus,

“Menes the first King of Egypt (as the priests make report) by altering the course of the river, gained all that ground whereon the City Memphis is situated : the flood being wont before time to have his course fast by the sandy mountain which lies towards Libya. This Menes therefore damming up the bosom of the river towards the south Region avenge cast up a pile, or bulwark of Earth much after an hundred Furlonges above the City, by that means dried the old Chanell, causing the river to forsake and abandoned his natural course and run at ran dame amidst the hills. To which damme also the Persians that rule in Egypt even at this day have a diligent eye; yearly fortifying and repairing the same with new and fresh Earth. Through the which if by fortune the river striving to recover his olde course, should happily make a breach, the city Memphis were in danger to be overwhelmed with water. By the self same Menes first bearing rule and authority in Egypt (after that by turning ye stream of Nilus he had made dry ground of that where erst the river had his passage) in the same plot of land was the city itself founded and erected, which (as well may bee seen) stands in the straight and narrow places of the country. More than this, to the North and West (for Eastward Memphis is bounded by the course of the river) he caused to be drawn out of the river a large and wide pool: being also the founder of Vulcans temple in Memphis, one of the fairest buildings and of chiefest fame in all the country of Egypt.” Herodotus

“After the gods, (they say,) Menes was the first king of Egypt. He taught the people the adoration of the gods, and the manner of divine worship; how to adorn their beds and tables with rich cloths and coverings, and was the first that brought in a delicate andsumptuous way of living.” Diodorus

“One of the antient kings, called Menas, being set upon and pursued by his own dogs, was forced into the lake of Meris, where a crocodile (a wonder to be told) took him up and carried him over to the other side, where, in gratitude to the beast, he built a city, and called it Crocodile, and commanded crocodiles to be adored as gods, and dedicated the lake to them for a place to feed and breed in. Where he built a sepulchre for himself with a four-square pyramid, and a labyrinth greatly admired by everybody.” Diodorus

 

2. TETÁ. Or A-TEHUTI

TETÁ, the AtHothis of Manetho, is generally admitted to have been the son and successor of Menes; under this name, however, no monument of him is known to us. According to Prof. Petrie1 we are to identify with Teta the king whom he calls Zeb, but whose name M. Amélineau rightly reads Khent. It may, however, be suggested that the king whose Horus name was Nar-Mer is to be identified with Teta; whether this identification be correct or not, it is quite certain that he lived in the early part of the period of the rule of the 1st Dynasty, and the work on the objects bearing his name, though more archaic than that of Semti, is not so archaic as that of Aha. All the known evidence points to the fact that he is a dynastic and not a predynastic king, and as on his monuments he wears the crown of the South and the crown of the North, he was certainly a successor and not a predecessor of Menes. The credit of finding the principal monuments of this king belongs to Mr. Quibell, who in the year 1898 excavated the site of the ancient temple of Hierakonpolis, and discovered a number of important early dynastic monuments. Among these must be specially mentioned the great mace-head, the sculptures of which he has figured on Plate XXVI b. of his work. Here we see the king, in the character of Osiris, within a shrine which rests on a flight of steps, seated on a throne, wearing the crown of the North, and holding the flail in his hand. This flight of steps, which is also depicted upon a plaque of Semti, is evidently intended for the staircase of the tomb of Osiris, which is mentioned in the Book of the Dead. By the side of the throne are two fan-bearers, and behind are a personage called Thet, the royal sandal-bearer, and three attendants bearing staves; in front are men bearing standards, cattle, goats, etc. On another mace-head we see the king, wearing the crown of the South, holding a plough in his hand, and followed by fan-bearers; he is here described (?) by the signs and, for which reason he has been called the “Scorpion King.” Of more importance, however, is the green slate object which is here illustrated; it forms the finest example of a class which has been much discussed and described during recent years. The use of such objects, which are peculiar to the period of the 1st Dynasty, is unknown, but many suggestions have been made concerning it. Mr. F. Legge has published reproductions of all the known examples in London, Oxford, Paris, and Cairo, and, after a very careful study, has come to the conclusion that in shape they may be a ceremonial survival of a special form of shield which was never used in actual warfare, and, like the “ancilia” of Rome, may have been preserved for ritual reasons. O11 the other hand, following Mr. Quibell, Professor Petrie maintains that they are highly ornamented ceremonial survivals of the slate palettes used in predynastic times on which to grind paint; another view that might be put forward is that they were libation vase stands, which were to be carried shoulder high. But all such statements can only be regarded at present as guesswork, and it is perhaps safest to describe such objects, as Mr. H. R. Hall has done, by the word “Reliefs.” The object may be thus described:—

Obverse.—Two Hathor heads and the name Narmer on the Horus standard. Below these we have the king, wearing the crown of Lower Egypt, followed by the sandal-bearer, and preceded by the personage Thet, already mentioned, and by four men bearing standards; in front of these are two rows of decapitated prisoners, and near them is a boat, and the signs “great door.” In the largest division are two lions with greatly elongated and intertwined necks being lassoed by two attendants. In the lowest register is a bull, symbolizing the king, which has broken into a fortified village, and having thrown down a foe is about to gore him. On the reverse, we have at the top the two Hathor heads and the king’s name as before. Below this, wearing the crown of the South, is a standing figure of the king, who is about to smite with his uplifted mace an enemy whom he is grasping by the hair; he is, as usual, accompanied by his sandal­bearer. Above the king’s enemy is a scene which is not easy to explain. A hawk drags the head of a prisoner, of the same Asiatic type as that of the man whom the king is about to smite, by a rope attached to his nose; behind the head is a group of flowers, which has been read as i.e., 6000, and the whole scene has been interpreted to mean that the god Horus is bringing to the king 6000 prisoners. In the lowest register are represented two men in terrified flight. Yet another important object of the reign of Narmer is the limestone vase with figures of hawks, scorpions, a bow, etc., upon it in relief.

According to Manetho, Athothis, the son of Mena, reigned fifty-seven years; he built the palaces at Memphis, and left the anatomical books, for he was a “physician.” This information seems to receive proof from a statement in the Ebers Papyrus that a pomatum, which was made from the claw of a dog, and the hoof of an ass, and some dates boiled together in oil in a saucepan, was made for Teta’s mother, who was called Shesh.

 

3. ATETH, or ATÁ

Ateth, or according to Manetjo, Kenkenes, was the son of Tetá, and he reigned thirty-one years. Under the name of Ateth no monuments of this king are known, but the result of recent excavations seems to prove that the king whose Horus name is TCHA is to be identified with him. His tomb at Abydos was partly excavated by M. Amélineau, who gave it the name of the Tomb of the  Serpent King”; J. de Morgan printed a plan of it in his last volume, and Prof. Petrie in 1900 continued the work which M. Amélineau had begun. It is described “as a large chamber twenty feet wide and thirty feet long, with smaller chambers around it at its level, the whole bounded by a thick brick wall which rises seven and a half feet to the roof, and then three and a half feet more to the top of the retaining wall.” M. Amélineau found in the tomb a beautifully cut calcareous stone stele inscribed with the name TCHA surmounted by a hawk, and two small ebony figures, the one representing a woman, and the other the head of a lion, of most exquisite workmanship. Prof. Petrie found fragments of ivory and ebony tablets inscribed with the king’s name, a portion of a relief in veined marble, and jar sealings with the king’s Horus name followed by Ath, which may be his personal name. It may be noted in passing that Kenkenes, the name which is given to the king by Manetho, must be a corruption of one of his names.

 

4- ATA

Ata, the fourth king of the 1st Dynasty, is not known to us from the monuments under this name; recently, however, a theory has been put forward according to which he is to be identified with the king whose tomb at Abydos was excavated by Prof. Petrie, and who is known by his personal name of Mer-Nit.

The central chamber of the tomb is about twenty-one feet wide and thirty feet long, and around it are walls which vary in thickness from four feet to four feet four inches; it seems to have had a wooden floor, the remains of which show signs of having been burnt. The large stele which bears the name of Mer- Nit was found “lying near the east side of the central chamber.” The name Mer-Nit, i.e., “loved one of Neith,” or “loving Neith,” is of considerable interest, for it shows that the cult of this famous goddess held a position of great importance in Egypt in the early part of the period of the 1st Dynasty; it is, however, unfortunate that it occurs without any of the ordinary titles which were applied to Egyptian kings at that time. According to Manetho, “Uenephes reigned twenty-three years. In his time a great plague raged through Egypt. He raised the pyramids near Cochome.” Cochomeis the Greek transcription of the name of the great cemetery of Memphis which was situated in the desert of Sakkara, and was called by the Egyptians Ka-qam. It has often been declared that the famous Step Pyramid at Sakkara was included among the buildings which Ata is said to have built, but it is now known that this pyramid was built by Tcheser, a king of the IIIrd Dynasty.

 

5. TEN-SEMTI, OR HESEPTI

Semti, the fifth king of the 1st Dynasty, has been long known under the name of Hesepti, which occurs in the Tablet of Abydos and it is clear that the documents from which Manetho compiled his King List were drawn up by scribes who thought that this was the correct way of reading one of his names, for his transcription Usathais was certainly based upon it. It has, however, now been satisfactorily shown that the signs are incorrect transcriptions of the old cursive forms, and that the true reading of the name is “Semti.” On the ebony tablet, of which a drawing is here given, we have the Horus name of a king Ten or Den, and in another part of it occurs the title “King of the South, and king of the North, Semti”; these facts indicate that TEN is the Horus name of Semti, and we may therefore consider TEN and Semti as one and the same person. The tomb of Semti was discovered by M. Amélineau, who found that the massive walls of the large chamber in it had been covered with wooden panels, and that the pavement consisted of large slabs of red granite; it was finally excavated by Prof. Petrie, who found in it, and in the rubbish which M. Amélineau’s workmen had thrown out of it, a large number of important objects, fragments of ivory and ebony plaques, etc. Ten, the Horus name of the king, was also found impressed by means of cylinder seals upon the clay sealings of vases, and inscribed upon fragments of vases, etc. Of all the objects found in this tomb the most important seems to be the ebony tablet which has been already referred to, and which is now in the British Museum. The inscriptions and scenes upon it are divided into two groups by means of a vertical line; on the left we have the Horus name Ten side by side with the name of the “royal chancellor” HEMAKA, and a number of hieroglyphic signs, the meanings of which cannot, at present, be said to have been satisfactorily explained. To the extreme right is the sign for “year”, and in the uppermost register we see the figure of a god, who is, no doubt, Osiris, wearing the crown of the South, and holding a flail in his hands, seated upon a throne within a shrine which is set at the top of a staircase or flight of steps. Before the god is the figure of King Semti, who wears the crowns of the South and North united, and who is dancing; his back is towards the god, and in his left hand he holds the paddle, and in the right the flail. On each side of the king is inscribed thrice the sign equivalent to which is the determinative for the word for “dancing” (ab); in other words, King Semti is performing an act of worship before his god by dancing before him. It was no uncommon thing for kings to dance before their gods, and as examples of the kings who observed this custom we may mention Usertsen I., who danced before the god Amsu or Min, and Seti I., who danced before the goddess Nekbebet; and a still earlier allusion to the custom will be found in the text of Pepi I, where it is said, “He who (i.e., Pepi) is between the thighs of Nut is the pygmy who il danceth for the god, and who maketh glad the heart 11 before his great throne.” We know that the early dynastic kings sometimes sent officials to the land of the pygmies to bring back examples of the little people that they might enjoy themselves by seeing them dance before them, and in early times, at least, kings attempted io gain the favour of the gods whom they worshipped by dancing before them. To the left of the second register is what appears to be an early form of the Hennu boat, and it is difficult to see why this should occur on the tablet below the representation of a religious ceremony of dancing, if the king Semti was not in some way connected with the ceremonies in which we know the Hennu boat played a most prominent part. Under the name of Semti and Hesepti the king is mentioned in various passages of the Book of the Dead, and in one place the occurrence of his name is of special significance. In the Rubric to the shorter version of the LXIVth Chapter we are told that the composition was “found in the foundations of the shrine of Hennu by the chief mason during the reign of Hesepti,” and though we have no exact idea of what the word “found” here means, it is clear that in the reign of this king an important revision or discovery in connection with the literary history of the Book of the Dead took place. As parallel may perhaps be quoted the narrative of II. Kings, 22, where we are told that in the reign of the good king Josiah the high priest Hilkiah said unto Shaphan the Scribe, “I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.” We must note that the shorter version of the LXIVth Chapter is entitled “The Chapter of knowing the Chapters of Coming Forth by Day in a single Chapter,” and we are no doubt correct in assuming with Chabas that even at that early period the Book of the Dead was so lengthy a series of compositions, that a short chapter, which should comprise all the essential parts of the whole work, was felt to be a want. To meet this want the LXIVth Chapter in its shortened form was drawn up by the priests, probably under the royal command and supervision; in any case there must have been some good reason for mentioning Hesepti’s name in connection with the chapter in the Rubric, and we may assume that certain important religious ceremonies were either first established or confirmed during his reign. Now, the Egyptians ascribed not only certain portions of the Book of the Dead to the reign of Hesepti, but also books of Medicine. Thus in the Ebers Papyrus the copy of a prescription for driving “out the ukhedu disease from the limbs of a man is given according to a book which was found under the feet of the god Anubis in the city of Letopolis, and was brought to the king of the South and North Hesepti.” And in a medical papyrus at Berlin further information is added to the effect that after Hesepti was dead the book was taken to his Majesty Sent; now Sent was the fifth king of the IInd Dynasty and reigned many years after Semti, and we must therefore understand that Sent came into the possession of a medical work which had once belonged to his great predecessor Semti. According to Manetho, Usaphais (Hesepti) was the son of Uenephes, and he reigned twenty years.

 

6. MERPEBA

Merpeba or Merbapen, the sixth king of the 1st Dynasty, seems to have occupied an important place in the historical traditions known to the scribes of the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties, for the Tablet of Sakkara begins with his name. His Horus name is Atchab, and side by side with it he styles himself on his jar-sealings, “king of the South, king of the North.” The tomb of this king at Abydos seems to have been partly excavated by M. Amélineau, but it was finally cleared out by Professor Petrie, who discovered numbers of fragments of vases, jar-sealings, plaques of ivory for inlaying, etc., inscribed with his Horus and personal names. The tomb is a plain chamber, with rather sloping sides, about twenty-two feet long and fourteen feet wide; the surrounding wall is nearly five feet thick; .the entrance to the I tomb was by a stairway descending from the east. The chamber was floored with planks of wood, and the roof was supported by wooden posts. According to Manetho, Merpeba, or Miebis, reigned twenty-six years. The fact that Merpeba succeeded Semti or Hesepti was proved by Prof. Sethe from the inscription on which his name is made to follow that of the latter king in the manner here indicated, as well as by other considerations which are duly set forth in his article entitled Die älteste geschichtlichen Denkmäler der Aegypter.

 

1. HU or NEKHT. SEMSU,

In the Tablet of Abydos the royal name which follows that of Merpeba is represented by a divine, bearded figure, who wears a garment which reaches down to his ankles, and holds in his hands the sceptre ; now the Greek transcription of this sign attributed to Manetho is Semempses and there is no reason to doubt that it represents nearly its reading by the Egyptian priests of his day. The modern reading of the sign proposed by Lieblein is “ Sem-en-Ptah” i.e., “Sem priest of Ptah,” which is based upon the view that the figure in the cartouche at the head of this paragraph has some connection with the god Ptah. But this can hardly be correct, and we have reason for assuming that the priests who drew up the King List for Seti I. were puzzled by the sign, which they found in the documents from which they compiled the List, and that they caused the mason to cut on the wall the hieroglyphic which they thought represented the ancient sign. It is possible that they connected it with the word “Semsu” or “Semsem”, a word meaning chief, eldest, first­born, and the like, from which Manetho’s “Semempses” could easily be derived, and the sign given in the King List will bear this reading very well. The view of Mr. H. R. Hall is that the scribes of the XIXth Dynasty understood the sign in the old documents as being equivalent to the reading of which is “Shemsu,” and that this word is the base of the form “Semempses” given by Manetho; in any case, Manetho’s form rests on a misreading of a sign, and that sign must represent the Horus name of the king who succeeded Merpeba. But what was that sign? According to Mr. Hall, the sign which the scribes of the XIXth Dynasty read “Shemsu” was nothing more nor less than an archaic form of the hieroglyphic which may be read either “Hu” or “Nekht,” a view which was based upon an examination of the inscribed ivory tablet, the text of which is here reproduced. To the right is the sign for year, and close by are figures of the Sektet and Atet boats, which call to mind the forms of them as given in the Pyramid Text of Unas, between them is an ape of Thoth. To the left of the vertical line we have the names and titles of a king, followed by ta sign evidently an archaic form of “Nekht,” that is to say, the king’s name, which was, by the scribes of the XIXth and later Dynasties, read, i.e., “Semsu” or “ Semsem.” From the jar-sealings, etc., we learn that the Horus name of king Hu or SEMERKHA.

The tomb of Hu, or Semerkha, at Abydos, is, according to Prof. Petrie, about forty-four feet long and twenty-five feet wide, and is surrounded by a wall over five feet thick; it was floored with planks of wood, which M. Amélineau found to be charred, and he thought that the whole tomb had been burnt. Among the stelae found in this tomb were two of dwarfs, and the bones of dwarfs were found in two chambers; the copper bowl which was found in another chamber is the only large piece of metal-work that has been preserved. Prof. Petrie notes that the space near the entrance to the tomb was filled to the depth of three feet with sand saturated with ointment, and that the scent of it was so strong that when cutting away the sand it could be smelt over the whole tomb. According to Manetho, Merpeba’s son “Semempses reigned eighteen years. In his reign a terrible pestilence afflicted Egypt.” (

 

B.C. 4166]

8. SEM, QEBH OR QEBHU

Under the name of Qebh, the last king of the 1st Dynasty, no monuments are known, but recent excavations have resulted in the discovery of a considerable number of objects which are inscribed with the Horus and personal names of a king who must be identified with him. M. Amélineau, in the course of his work at Abydos, excavated a tomb in which he found a stele inscribed with the name Qa, i.e., the Horus name of a king at that time unknown; later, in or near the tomb Prof. Petrie found an ivory tablet inscribed with the same Horus name, but side by side with it were the signs , which are to be translated “King of the South, king of the North, Sen.” Thus we learn that Sen was the personal name of the king whose Horus name was Qa. In the second cartouche given at the top of this paragraph it will be noticed that the sign which is read “Qebh,” occurs, and as we know that king Qa succeeded Hu, or Semempses, on the throne of Egypt, it is pretty clear that Sen and Qebh are one and the same king. It seems as if the scribes of the XIXth Dynasty who drew up the King List for Seti I were as much puzzled by the archaic or cursive sign which they read Qebh as they were by the sign which they probably read Semsem or Shemsu, and that, having no exact knowledge of the history of the old period to guide them, they wrongly transcribed the archaic signs. According to Manetho, Bieneches, the son of Semempses, reigned twenty-six years.

 

SECOND DYNASTY. FROM THIS.

1.    BESH. Neter-baiu (Sakkara), Betchau (Abydos)

KHASEKHEMUI-BESH

Neter-baiu, the first king of the IInd Dynasty, was buried at Abydos, and his tomb was excavated in 1896-97 by M. Amelineau, who found it to be a building about two hundred and sixty feet long, and to contain at least fifty-seven chambers; the tomb had neither been burnt nor plundered, and therefore many objects of great archaeological value were found in it. The earthenware vases in it contained wheat, figs, dried grapes, etc.; they were not closed by means of conical stoppers, but by pieces of clay of irregular shapes which were laid over their mouths and impressed with cylinder seals bearing the king’s name upon them. From the impressions upon them we see that the name in the first cartouche at the head of this paragraph is the equivalent of the signs which are enclosed within a plain oval. On each side of this oval we have the Horus (and Set?) name of the king given in the form here represented, and it is clear, in spite of what was first said on the subject, that this name is to be read Kha Sekhemui. We have now recovered the Horus name of the first king of the IInd Dynasty, and also the name which he adopted as king of the South and North, but neither of them in any way represents the name “Betchau” which is given in the second cartouche, or the Greek form of the name supplied by Manetho. Thanks, however, to the very successful excavations made at Hierakonpolis by Mr. Quibell, it is now pos­sible to give the ancient form of the name Betchau. In the course of his excavations on the site of the old temple at Kom-al-Akhmar Mr. Quibell found a considerable number of objects, vases, pottery, flints, etc., and among them were some fine stone vases which were inscribed with the name and titles of the king. In the accompanying drawing we see on the right the usual emblem for “year” which, taken together with the three signs to the left of it, has been thought to mean, “year of the fighting with the northerners.” Next we see the vulture goddess, the dweller in Nekheb, with one claw resting upon the sign Q, and the other upon the stalks of the two plants, the lotus and papyrus, where they are tied together and represent the union of the two countries, South and North. Inside the sign Shen, which represents a seal, and in later times typifies the sun’s path, or orbit, are the signs “Besh” r-which can be nothing else than the king’s personal name, i.e., Betchau; to the left is his Horus name Khasekhem, which becomes Khasekhemui when figures of Horus and Set appear above the standard. Thus we see that in very early times the king had certainly three names, viz., Neter-baiu, Kha-sekhemui, and Besh.

Among the objects found at Kom-al-Akhmar worthy of special note are the granite doorjamb, which is inscribed with the Horus name, and the limestone and slate seated statues of the king ; these are, of course, the earliest statues known. Upon the bases of both statues, in front of the feet, is the Horus name, and around them we see a line of “slain enemies in various distorted attitudes, and oil the front is the register of northern enemies 47,209. ” The features and general treatment of the statues by the sculptor shows that his art had, at that early period, arrived at a very high state of perfection. As far as we now know, Neter-baiu, or Besh, was the first king who caused his name to be enclosed either in an oval or in a ring, and it is easy to see that the oval grew out of the ring, when the names became too long to be enclosed in it. According to Manetho, “Boethos reigned thirty-eight years. During his reign a chasm of the earth opened near Bubastus, and many persons perished.”

 

B.C. 4100] HETEP-SEKHEMUI AND RA-NEB

2. HETEP-SEKHEMUI

The existence of this king is made known to us by statue No. 1 at Cairo, and his Horus name, which is given above, has been found upon fragments of stone bowls, etc., discovered at Abydos. His name has been read Hetep-ahaui, but this is an impossible form which has no meaning. His name as king of the South and North is, as yet, unknown to us.

3Ra-neb. Ka-kau,

The Horus name of this king, Ra-neb, is made known to us by the statue No. 1 in the Cairo Museum, and his name as king of the South and North by the Tablets of Abydos and Sakkara. According to Manetho, Kaiechos “reigned thirty-nine years, and under him the bulls Apis in Memphis, and Mnevis in Heliopolis, and the Mendesian goat, were appointed to “be gods”. Wiedemann has already referred to the statement of Aelian that the worship of Apis was established by Mena, or Menes, but it seems pretty certain from Manetho that some development of the worship of Apis, and perhaps of Mnevis also, must have taken place during the reign of Ka-kau. The Mendesian goat, or ram, is of course which was connected in very ancient times with the worship of Osiris.

4. ENNETER, BA-EN-NETER

The Horus name of this king is made known to us by the statue No. 1 in the Cairo Museum, and his name as king of the South and North by the Tablets of Abydos and Sakkara. The position of this king as the successor of Ka-kau is indicated by the statue at Cairo, and is confirmed by the fact that En-neter inscribed his name over that of Ra-neb (Ka-kau) on a stone bowl found at Abydos, a fragment of which is now in the British Museum. According to Manetho, “Binothris reigned forty-seven years, and in his time it was determined that women might hold the imperial government.”

 

B.C. 4033] UATCHNES AND PER-AB-SEN

5. UATCHNES

Of this king, whose name is supplied by the Tablets of Abydos and Sakkara, nothing is known except that, according to Manetho, “he reigned seventeen years.”

6. PER-AB-SEN

The tomb of Per-ab-sen was discovered at Abydos by M. Amélineau, and it is tolerably certain that the king for whom it was made is to be identified with the Per-ab-sen whose name is given by the priest Sheri on the door of his tomb. The recently discovered inscriptions show that his Horus name was Sekhem-ab, and that Per-ab-sen, the name by which he is generally known, is his Set name. They occur side by side, thus:—This king is commonly known by his Set name, and it seems as if in later times the Set name of a king was made into his prenomen. A massive sepulchral stele bearing his Set name is in the British Museum.

 

7. SENTA OR SENT

This king’s name is found on the Tablets of Abydos and Sakkara, and also on contemporaneous monuments. The priest Sherimentions the name both of king Sent and of his successor on the door of his tomb, and slabs from it now preserved at Oxford and in the British Museum also record his name. SENT  is also said in the Berlin Medical Papyrus to have revised a certain medical papyrus, which had been found first of all under the feet of a statue of the god Anubis in the city of Sekhem (Letopolis) during the reign of Semti, or Hesepti. According to Manetho, “Sethenes reigned “forty-one years.”

 

8. KA-RA

The name of the king is furnished by a green steatite cylinder. According to Manetho, “ Chaires “reigned seventeen years.”

9. NEFER-KA-RA

The name of this king is supplied by the Tablet of Sakkara, and that he is identical with the Nephereheres of Manetho there can be little doubt; but, under this name at least, no monuments of him are known, and no details of the reign are forthcoming. According to Manetho, he reigned “twenty-five years. In his time it is said the Nile flowed with honey during eleven days.”

 

10. NEFER-KA-SEKER

The name of this king is supplied by the Tablet of Sakkara, and as the latter part of the Greek name, is clearly the equivalent of Seker we may assume that the king Nefer-ka-Seker is to be identified with the Sesochris of Manetho’s List. According to Manetho, Sesochris reigned “forty-eight years. His height was five cubits, and his breadth three cubits.” The better, and probably correct, reading of the latter statement is given by the Armenian version of Eusebius, where it is said that the king’s height was “five cubits and three hand breadths.”

[B C. 3966

11.HETCHEFA

Traces of this king’s name are found on the Tablet of Sakkara, and the full name is given by Brugscli and Bouriant from the Royal Papyrus at Turin, but whether Hetchefa is to be identified with the Xeneris of Manetho cannot at present be said.

 

12. Tchatchai, or Bebi.

For this king, whether we read his name Tchatchai, according to the Tablet of Abydos, or Bebi, according to the Tablet of Sakkara, the King List of Manetho has no equivalent whatsoever in this place; no contemporaneous monument is known.

 

THIRD DYNASTY. FROM MEMPHIS.

 

1.    NEB-KA. NEB-KA RA

The name of the first king of the IIIrd Dynasty, according to Manetho, is Necherophis, and we are probably right in assuming that this king is to be identified with the Neb-ka of the Tablet of Abydos, i.e., Neb-ka-Ra. According to Manetho, the dynasty which was begun by Necherophes consisted of nine kings; Necherophes “reigned twenty-eight years. In his time the Libyans revolted from the Egyptians, but on account of an unexpected increase of the moon they submitted through fear.”

 

2.               Tcheser, or Tchesersa

The first form of this king’s name is given by the Tablet of Abydos, and the second by the Tablet of Sakkara; what is, apparently, his Horus name is given by the now famous Stele of the Famine, which was discovered on the Island of Sahal by the late Mr. Wilbour in 1889, and by the objects which were found in the tomb of the king, discovered in 1901, at Bet-Khallaf in the province of Girga in Upper Egypt. In the Famine Stele following we have the signs which are to be read Neter kha, and after the next title, “golden Horus,” comes the cartouche Tcheser; the Horus name of the king is also found on the his tomb now preserved in the Royal Berlin, and also in the inscriptions on at Wadi Maghara, which have been copied by M. Benedite. Of Tcheser Manetho says, “Tosorthrus reigned twenty-nine years. He is called Asclepius by the Egyptians, for his medical knowledge. He built a house of hewn stones, and greatly patronized literature.” The inscriptions tell us nothing about Tcheser’s skill as a physician or as a lover of literature, but Manetho’s statement that “he built a house of hewn stones received remarkable confirmation from the excavations which were carried out by the Prussian General Minutoli, in 1819, in the “Step Pyramid” at Sakkara. This pyramid was built by Tcheser to serve as his tomb, and it is certainly the oldest of all the large buildings which have successfully resisted the action of wind and weather, and destruction by the hand of man. The steps of the pyramid are six in number, and are about 38, 36, 341, 32, 31, and 29 feet in height; the width of each step is from six to seven feet. The lengths of the sides at the base are: north and south, 352 feet; east and west, 396 feet; and the actual height is about 197 feet. In shape this pyramid is oblong, and its sides do not exactly face the cardinal points. The arrangement of the chambers inside the pyramid is quite peculiar to itself, and the remains of the walls, doors, etc., of some of the chambers prove that they must have formed fine examples of the art and skill of the decorator of funeral buildings. As Mr. Garstang has discovered at Khallaf a tomb which must be that of the king, it seems that his body can never have been buried in this pyramid. Tcheser must have been an able and a mighty king, and from the fact that the Royal Papyrus of Turin, as both Wiedemann and Krall have noticed, begins a new paragraph with his name, it seems as if his reign inaugurated a new era; in any case, he was esteemed worthy of divine honours in the XIIth Dynasty. Tcheser is mentioned in the Westcar Papyrus with other kings, e.g., Khufu (Cheops), Nebka, Seneferu, etc.

 

In Manetho;s King List Tosorthrus is followed by the names (3) Tyreis, (4) Mesochris, and (5) Soyphis, who are said to have reigned seven, seventeen, and sixteen years respectively, but of these kings no details whatsoever are narrated, and up to the present the monuments have supplied no information in respect of them. In the Tablet of Abydos the king who is made to follow Tcheser-sa is Teta, and in the Tablet of Sakkara we find Tcheser-Teta, which name seems to be a fuller form of the Teta of the Tablet of Abydos.

3.    TETA , Tcheser-Teta.

In the form of the name given in the second cartouche we have, no doubt, the base of the Greek transcription of the name of the king whom Manetho calls Tosertasis, and of whom we know nothing, except that he is said to have reigned nineteen years. It is interesting to note that Eusebius, in the Armenian version, says that the six (not seven) other kings who followed Tosorthrus did nothing worthy of mention, and it is quite conceivable that when chronographers found nothing to say about kings they quietly omitted their names from the King Lists which they were compiling. Following the name of Tosertasis in Manetho’s List comes that of Aches, who is said to have reigned forty-two years, and it is possible that he is to be identified with the king whose name is given from the Palermo Stele by Brugsch and Bouriant in their Livre des Rois under the form of :

 

4. AHTES

The name of the next king which occurs in the Tablet of Abydos is Setches, and it is probable that the king who reigned thirty years, and is called Sephouris by Manetho, is to be identified with him.

5. SETCHES

6.NEFER-KA-RA, HUNI

The name which follows Setches in the Tablet of Abydos, and which precedes Seneferu, is Nefer-ka-Ra, which is, clearly, the basis of the name of the king who reigned twenty-six years, and who is called by Manetho Kerpheres; in the Tablet of Sakkara, however, the name which precedes Seneferu is Huni. Now in the Prisse Papyrus the two names are mentioned, and it is also said there that Huni died, and that Seneferu became the ruler of all the land; we may therefore assume that Huni and Nefer-ka-Ra are one and the same person, and it is in any case clear from Manetho’s King List that Seneferu was the first king of a new dynasty. The total of the years of the reigns of the kings of the IIIrd Dynasty is, according to Manetho, 214 years.