CONQUEST OF EGYPT. The conquest of Egypt spread down from the south to the north. The earliest centres were Abydos and Hierakonpolis. Probably Edfu was as important, or more so; but the great Ptolemaic temple there being still complete, the remains of the earliest kingdom are sealed beneath its pavements. The conquest must have been a gradual process; it is described as such in the myth, many times and in many successive places was Set defeated and repelled. And the probability is that tribal war of such a kind would only gradually transfer district after district from one holder to the next. We know how in England the conquest occupied three centuries, from the Saxon landing to the first Saxon king of all the land. So it may well have been in Egypt.
Kings Before History
We read in Manetho of ten kings of Thinis (Abydos) who ruled for 350 years before the first dynasty of kings of all Egypt. And we know, from the fragment of the Palermo Stone, that at least thirteen kings of Lower Egypt were recorded before the first dynasty. It is obvious from this, and from the probabilities of the conquest, that there were Kings of Upper Egypt before the first dynasty; and there is no reason for not accepting this statement of Manetho as being equally correct with his account of the first dynasty, which we can verify. Of the actual course of the conquest, one fragment of carved slate has preserved the record. Seven towns are represented upon it, each attacked by one animal of the standards of the allies. These towns may be tolerably identified by comparing the hieroglyphics placed within them with the names known in historic times. The upper row of four towns seem to be Mem in the Fayum, Hipponon, Pa-rehehui, and possibly Abydos; and the lower three towns were probably in the delta, though there are the uncertainties of two northern similar names.
Graves of Unknown Kings
DYNASTY O. The contemporary remains that appear to belong to this age of the Kings of Abydos (which we may call Dynasty O) are the tomb chambers and funeral objects in the royal cemetery at Abydos. The plan of that cemetery shows a sequence of each later tomb being placed next to the previous tomb, and generally a receding further back into the desert as time went on. Now, in front of the tomb of Zer, the second king of the first dynasty, there are three large tombs alike, and four lesser ones. As objects of Mena, the first king, were found here, the other tombs are presumably those of six kings before the first dynasty, by their position. The actual objects found in these tombs are all of a more archaic style than those of Mena or any later king. The tombs themselves are all lesser and simpler than those of Zer and later kings. And the names of kings found here are all without the vulture and uræus title, but with only neb neb, the double lordship of Egypt. The whole of the evidence, therefore, goes to show that we have six tombs of the Thinite kings before Menes.
The names of these earlier kings, so far as we trace them, are Ka, Ro, Zeser, Zar, Nar, and Sma. Of these, Nar, or Narmer, has the most important remains—part of an ebony tablet, and an alabaster jar from his tomb, and the great slate palette, a great mace head, with scene of a festival, and an ivory cylinder, from Hierakonpolis. The next in importance is Zar, or the “Scorpion King,” of whom there is a great carved mace head, and also some vases. The objects of the carvings appear to be celebrations of the sed festival; this appears originally to have been the slaying of the king every thirty years, making him Osiris, one with the god, while his daughter was married to the new king. By the time of these carvings, it appears that the king took the place of Osiris in the ceremonials, and his successor masqueraded as the new king, and was henceforth the crown prince—the heir to the kingdom.
A FESTIVAL SCENE OVER 7,000 YEARS AGO, IN THE REIGN OF KING NARMER, 5,500 B.C.
A record of the festival of Narmer, a king of Abydos, who reigned before the first dynasty of kings of all Egypt. It indicates that when the festival of his own death was celebrated, in accordance with the ancient custom of killing the king every thirty years to make him one with Osiris the god, no fewer than 120,000 captives, 400,000 oxen, and 1,422,000 goats were offered. The numerical system is here seen to be complete up to millions.
Planting and Building