[136]The so-called Bull and Lion palettes. See Capart, Primitive Art in Egypt, 238, Fig. 177; 242, Fig. 181; or Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods, Figs. 27 and 28 and 91 ff.
[137]The evidence for the early date is linguistic. Junker’s view on the date of the text is ill-founded. See Frankfort, op. cit., 352, n. 1. In chapter ii of this work English renderings of the major part of the Memphite Theology are given.
[138]In recent excavations at Saqqara, W. B. Emery has discovered the tombs of high officials of the kings of the First Dynasty, but there is no evidence, as far as I can see, that there were royal tombs there.
[139]Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods, chapter ii.
[140]The reader conversant with the role of Osiris in the Egyptian theory of kingship may here be reminded of the fact that the “Interment of Osiris” was localized in the “Royal Castle” by the Memphite Theology, and that this interment, as well as the resurrection of Osiris in the Djed pillar, was annually performed at Memphis.
[141]Frankfort, op. cit., 19-23.
[142]See G. M. Morant, “Study of Egyptian Craniology from Prehistoric to Roman Times.” Biometrika, XVII (1925), 1-52.
[143]The rural character of the Egyptian commonwealth became apparent also in times of internal conflict. The wars between the Sumerian city-states find their Egyptian counterpart in struggles in which large parts of the Nile valley appear united under rival chiefs: a Theban family of Antefs and Mentuhoteps leading Upper Egypt against the royal house residing at Herakleopolis; or Kamose or Ahmose leading, first the Thebaid, then the whole Nile valley, against the foreign Hyksos in the Delta.
[144]We may note in passing that the rudiments of the official hierarchy were established in the First Dynasty. Cylinder seals of that period (Figs. [35], [36]) bear titles (and presumably names) of officials. The investiture with a cylinder seal confirmed the official in his function, and the term ś‘ḥw, which is usually translated “noble,” in reality means “he who owns a seal of office”—in other words, a high official.
[145]This may have been a contributory cause to the extreme scarcity of legal and administrative documents, the main cause being the perishable nature of the Egyptian writing materials—leather and papyrus; but when the king’s decision is the source of law, the need of codes and statutes is much reduced (see my Ancient Egyptian Religion, 43-6). In any case, the rarity of written documents obliged us to telescope in this chapter evidence much more widely spread through time than we used in our description of Mesopotamia. We have attempted to stress the features of society which we believe to have been present well-nigh from the first and which remained fairly permanent. But we are aware of the danger that we have distorted our sketch of conditions in the early part of the third millennium B.C.