The pharaohs ruled Egypt for over three thousand years , and the story of the very last pharaoh – you might know her as Cleopatra – is famous to this mean solar day . But what about the very first pharaohs ?
It ’s hard to embrace just how long - live the Egyptian res publica really was . It will be another thousand years before we ’re as far removed from Cleopatra as she was from her earliest predecessors , and so it ’s understandable that the earliest Egyptian rulers stay shrouded in legends and conjecture , known only from a handful of frustratingly incomplete informant .
Here ’s what we have it away : around 3050 BCE , the northern realm of Lower Egypt and the southerly kingdom of Upper Egypt ( so nominate because of where they were locate along the north - flowing Nile ) were united into a individual entity . This was symbolized by the first pharaoh of the united Egypt – who was have intercourse as Narmer or Menes , depending on which source you go by – compound the white crown ( “ hedjet ” ) of Upper Egypt and the red pennant ( “ deshret ” ) of Lower Egypt .
Whether Narmer ’s herald , the rulers of Upper Egypt right before that unification , should also be considered Pharaoh of Egypt is a topic of some argument , but new research by Yale archaeologists add together some weight to their regal credentials . They have worked fastidiously to fix and interpret a find first made fifty years ago at the Upper Egypt land site of Nag el - Hamdulab .
John Coleman Darnell , the director of the Yale Egyptological Institute , explains the import of the discovery :
“ The Nag el - Hamdulab scenes are unparalleled , and bridge the earth of the ritual Predynastic Jubilee in which mental image of power - predominately gravy boat and animal - are the chief element , and the human beings of the royal pharaonic Jubilee , in which the look-alike of the human ruler dominate the events . The Nag el - Hamdulab cycle of image reveal the emergence of the ruler as supreme human non-Christian priest and incarnate manifestation of human and divine office . ”
So what does the carving predict , precisely ? According to Darnell , the hieroglyphical inscription designate that this may in reality have been a record of tax collection by the rule over Upper Egypt ’s territory , being essentially a platter of ancient economical restraint .
ViaYale University .
ArchaeologyEgyptologyHistoryScience
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