23

WHAT A KING IS THIS: NARMER AND

THE CONCEPT OF THE RULER *
By TOBY A. H. WILKINSON

Narmer, the best-attested Egyptian king from the period of state formation, reigned at a time of great social and
political change, a time when the modes of self-expression and the mechanisms of rule employed by the govern-
ing elite were undergoing rapid and radical reformulation. In other words, Narmer presided over a crucial transition
in the concept of the ruler. His reign displays certain features characteristic of Egypt's prehistoric past, but also
some early examples of the new forms that were to distinguish pharaonic civilisation. A recognition of this di-
chotomy brings new insights into the meaning of Narmer's name, the artistic significance of his famous palette,
and the identification of the early royal tombs at Abydos.

ATthe heart of ancient Egyptian civilisation lies the institution of kingship. I The spectacu-
lar achievements of pharaonic Egypt would have been impossible, even unimaginable,
without the driving force of ideology; and that ideology centred on the role of the king. The
creation and promulgation of the institution of kingship, a concept so resonant that it sur-
vived for three thousand years, must rank as the supreme accomplishment of Egypt's early
rulers,"
Recent years have witnessed the publication of numerous studies concerning the forma-
tive period of Egyptian civilisation, the Predynastic to Early Dynastic transition, also known
as the era of state formation.' It has become increasingly apparent that the institution, ide-
ology and iconography of kingship were not invented overnight, at the beginning of the
First Dynasty. Rather, they evolved over a long period of time," beginning as early as the
Naqada I Period." At the end of the Predynastic Period, the concept of the ruler underwent
a radical reformulation. This was part of a broader phenomenon of social and political
change that accompanied the birth of the nation state. Among the various rulers attested
during this period, one stands out: Narmer, whom the Egyptians of the First Dynasty seem
to have regarded as a founder-figure," and whose famous ceremonial palette serves today as
an icon of early Egypt (fig. 1).
Because Narmer's reign is better attested than those of his immediate predecessors? (or,
indeed, his immediate successors), it provides a fascinating window on the world of the
ruling elite as they moved to consolidate their control of the embryonic Egyptian state.
Narmer's reign illustrates this moment of history particularly well. It displays features char-
* The author is grateful to Margaret Serpico and to the two lEA referees for suggesting improvements to this article.
ID. O'Connor and D. Silverman (eds), Ancient Egyptian Kingship (Probleme der Agyptologie 9; Leiden, 1995).
2 T. A. H. Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt (London, 1999),183-229.
3 E.g. A. Perez Largacha, El Nacimento del Estado en Egipto (Madrid, 1993); T. A. H. Wilkinson, State Formation in
Egypt. Chronology and Society (Oxford, 1996); B. Adams and K. M. Cialowicz, Protodynastic Egypt (Princes Risborough,
1997).
4 J. Baines, 'Origins of Egyptian Kingship', in O'Connor and Silverman (eds), Ancient Egyptian Kingship, 95-156.
5 See below, n. 38.
6 Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, 66.
7 Ibid. 69.
24 TOBY A. H. WILKINSON JEA86

FIG. 1. The Narmer Palette (after B. J. Kemp, Ancient Egypt. Anatomy of a Civilization
(London, 1989), fig. 12).

acteristic both of the prehistoric way of life from which Egypt was emerging, and of the
dynastic civilisation of Egypt's future. An examination of these features helps us to under-
stand the process by which the concept of the ruler was recast at the beginning of the First
Dynasty. The process is most clearly manifest in three aspects of elite culture: royal names,
royal art, and the royal tomb.

Royal names

It is clear that royal names are of great importance for understanding the ideological con-
cerns and emphases of the Egyptian ruling elite. Names in ancient Egypt were full of meaning,
royal names especially so. We may assume that the primary name adopted by the king for
use on his monuments, his Horus name, carried great symbolic weight. It expressed the
power manifest in the king's person as the earthly incarnation of the supreme celestial deity.
Yet, when it comes to the name of Narmer, all attempts at reading or translation seem to
fail," The combination of catfish (which had the reading n'r = nar) + chisel (mr = mer;
Gardiner sign-list U23) makes no grammatical sense according to current understanding of
the Egyptian language. There are further problems concerning both elements of the name.
Although the word n'r is attested in Old Egyptian," there remains some uncertainty sur-

8 Cf. T. A. H. Wilkinson, 'A New King in the Western Desert', lEA 81 (1995),205-10, n. 38.
9 D. Wentworth Thompson, 'On Egyptian Fish-names Used by Greek Writers', lEA 14 (1928), 22-33, esp. 28.
2000 NARMER AND THE CONCEPT OF THE RULER 25

rounding the reading of the catfish sign in the very earliest stages of the Egyptian script. As
for the chisel sign, its more common phonetic value in hieroglyphic was sb rather than mr.
A further complication arises when one considers that this second element in the writing of
Narmer's name was more often than not omitted. Clearly, the catfish alone was deemed
adequate to write the king' sname, 10 If any conclusion can be drawn from a study of Narmer's
name, it is surely that the reading 'Narmer' is erroneous. What, then, does the name sig-
nify?
A royal name was nothing less than a concise theological statement, expressing the na-
ture of the relationship between the king and the gods. The primary source of the king's
authority was the ideology that cast him as god on earth. Hence, it is in the ideology of royal
power-and in the associated iconography-that we may find clues to the meaning of
Narmer's name. The aggressive, controlling power of wild animals is a common theme in
the elite art of the late Predynastic Period. Several famous examples of carved, ivory knife-
handles depict ordered registers of wild animals, 11 each line comprising animals of a distinct
species, dominated by a 'controlling' animal of a different species." Significantly, these
'controlling' animals include fish: on the bottom register of the Brooklyn knife-handle (flat·
side) an unidentified fish controls a line of oryx; 13 on the corresponding register of the Pitt-
Rivers knife-handle, a catfish controls a line of ratels." Within the belief-system of the late
Predynastic Period, the catfish was evidently viewed as a symbol of domination and con-
trol, an ideal motif with which to associate the king."
The direct association of controlling, wild animal and royal ruler is seen in other late
Predynastic contexts. One of the two rock-cut inscriptions at Gebel Sheikh Suleiman, in the
Second Cataract region of Lower Nubia, shows an outsize scorpion presiding over a scene
of military conquest." The scorpion clearly represents the victorious power of the (Egyp-
tian) ruler. A similar role may be attributed to the scorpion motif which appears in front of
the king on the Scorpion Macehead. Indeed, the scorpion in this context is perhaps more
likely to be an expression of royal power rather than a 'name' in the modem sense of that
term." The Scorpion Macehead may, in this way, provide a parallel for the 'name' of Narmer
(and there are good stylistic reasons for placing the Scorpion Macehead and the reign of
Narmer very close in time). Since attempts to 'read' the name of Narmer have proved fruitless,
it may well be that it is not a 'name' at all, but rather a symbolic association of the king with
the controlling animal force represented by the catfish. The 'name' of Narmer seems to
fit very well within the ideology and iconography of late Predynastic kingship, a stratum
of thought which identified the king with the dominant forces of the wild (see also
below).

10 S. Quirke, Who Were the Pharaohs? (London, 1990), photograph on p. 44.

11 K. M. Cialowicz, 'La composition, le sens et la symbolique des scenes zoomorphes predynastiques en relief. Les
manches de couteaux', in R. Friedman and B. Adams (eds), The Followers ofHorus. Studies Dedicated to Michael Allen
Hoffman (Oxford, 1992),247-58.
12 B. Kemp, 'The Colossi from the Early Shrine at Coptos in Egypt', CAl 10 (2000), fig. 14.
13 Cialowicz, in Friedman and Adams (eds), The Followers of Horus, fig. 1.
14 Ibid., fig. 3.
15 The catfish evidently survived into the early First Dynasty as a powerful cultic symbol, as it appears in a procession
ofcult objects being presented to King Djer on a wooden label from Saqqara: W. B. Emery, Archaic Egypt (Harmondsworth,
1961),59, fig. 21.
16 W. Needler, 'A Rock-drawing on Gebel Sheikh Suleiman (near Wadi Haifa) Showing a Scorpion and Human Fig-
ures', lARCE 6 (1967), 87-92.
17 Cf. the comments of J. Malek and W. Forman, In the Shadow ofthe Pyramids (Norman, 1986),29.
26 TOBY A. H. WILKINSON JEA86

The reign of Aha marks the beginning of a distinctively new tradition of royal names.
From this point onwards, the Horus-falcon atop the serekh becomes inextricably linked to
the overall meaning of the king's name. In the writing of Aha's name, the falcon grips the
shield-and-mace hieroglyph O;f; Gardiner sign-list D34) in its talons. Hence, the name is
more correctly rendered as Her-Aha," 'Horus the fighter'. Although the image of a falcon
grasping an offensive weapon recalls late Predynastic iconography,'? the name itself repre-
sents a much more theologically contrived expression of royal power. The king's authority
is now expressed, not in terms of the violent forces of nature, but by reference to the su-
preme celestial deity, Horus. The word or phrase within the serekh denotes a particular
aspect of Horus that is manifest in his earthly incarnation, the king." In the case of Aha, it
is the fighting qualities of the falcon that are emphasised. Subsequent royal names of the
First Dynasty emphasise other attributes: 'Horus endures' tHr-dr = Djer), 'Horus flour-
ishes' (Hr-wsd = Wadj/Djet), 'Horus spreads (his wings ready for flight)' (Hr-dwn =
Deiwe)n)."
This pattern of royal names clearly became firmly established-indeed, so firmly
established that the name of Narmer seems to have been reinterpreted by later generations
to conform to the new convention. This occurred as early as the middle of the First Dynasty.
By the reign of Den, just four generations after Narmer, the formulation of the king's name
as an epithet of the god Horus was standard. Older naming conventions seem to have been
misunderstood or disregarded. The scribes drawing up the list of kings for Den's necropolis
seal either could not understand Narmer's 'name' in its original form, or decided-follow-
ing the decorum of the time-to recast it in the accepted mould. Hence, on the impression
of the seal which has survived, the primary element of Narmer's 'name', the catfish, em-
blem of controlling power, has been transmuted into an animal pelt." In combination with
the chisel, used as a phonetic complement (with its more common value fb), the animal pelt
gives the reading sfb. Hence, following the suggestion of John Ray, the name as a whole
(.(Ir-sfb) has become 'Horus the dappled' ,23 expressing the belief that the firmament of
heaven was formed by the outspread wings of the celestial falcon, whose dappled feathers
were the dappled clouds at sunrise and sunset. This form of royal name was much more in
keeping with the cosmic, transcendent view of kingship current in the middle of the First
Dynasty. This reinterpretation of Narmer's name is also attested on the later necropolis
sealing of King Qaa, from the end of the First Dynasty. 24

Royal art

Royal authority was expressed not only in the king's name but also in works of art. As the
beginning of the First Dynasty marks a period of transition in the formulation of the royal
name, it should come as little surprise that royal iconography undergoes a simultaneous re-
18 Thus, W. B. Emery, Excavations at Saqqara 1937-1938. Her-Aha (Cairo, 1939); idem, Archaic Egypt, 49-56.
19 Kemp, CAl 10, fig. 10.
20 Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, 201-3.
21 For the last, see P. Kaplony, 'Sechs Konigsname der 1. Dynastie in neuer Deutung', Orientalia Suecana 7 (1958),
54-69.
22 G. Dreyer, 'Ein Siegel der friihzeitlichen Konigsnekropole von Abydos', MDAlK43 (1987), fig. 3.
23 This intepretation of the name was first suggested by John Ray in an unpublished article. The author is indebted to
him for a copy of the article and for permission to cite his interpretation here.
24 G. Dreyer et aI., 'Umm el-Qaab, Nachuntersuchungen im friihzeitlichen Konigsfriedhof 7.18. Vorbericht', MDAlK
52 (1996), fig. 26.
2000 NARMER AND THE CONCEPT OF THE RULER 27

codification. The transition from the late Predynastic Period to the First Dynasty-or, more
specifically, to the reign of Narmer-is characterised by the invention of the canonical style
of ancient Egyptian art," the rules of depiction that were to survive, largely unchanged, for
the best part of three millennia.

Animal imagery

Prior to Narmer, elite and royal art, like the carved ivory knife-handles discussed above,
emphasises the wild realm of nature. This is particularly striking on the series of great,
ceremonial palettes from the late Predynastic Period." The Hunter's Palette," probably
one of the earliest in the series, shows a connection with still earlier incised palettes in its
emphasis on the hunt. (In origin, it is likely that palettes were used in a ritual setting to
prepare the face-paint worn by hunters.) At this stage, there is no explicit depiction of a
ruler figure. Rather, a more communal involvement is suggested by the group of hunters. A
slightly later artefact, the Oxford Palette," shows a similar emphasis on the hunt, although
in this case the wild animals are tamed by a 'controlling' figure, not another animal as on
the knife-handles, but a man wearing a dog mask and playing a reed flute." He is probably
to be equated with the man wearing an ostrich mask on the Ostrich Palette in the Manches-
ter Museum." It seems that preparations for a hunt involved rituals whereby the participants
(or one of their representatives) would don animal attributes in order to assume the control-
ling powers of nature thus represented. This, it was hoped, would ensure a successful outcome
to the hunting expedition.
Towards the end of the Predynastic Period, the scenes portrayed on carved palettes
shift from scenes of hunting to scenes of warfare. Controlling the untamed forces of nature
has now been replaced, in the ideology of royal authority, by defeating the anarchic forces
opposed to the king. However, the symbolism of the natural world has not yet been entirely
abandoned. On the Battlefield Palette," which predates the reign of Narmer by no more
than a couple of generations, the theme is warfare but the ruler is shown as a fierce lion. As
in the Gebel Sheikh Suleiman inscription, the figure of an aggressive wild animal is used as
a metaphor for the king himself. The king embodies the attributes of a lion (or scorpion),
and the use of explicit animal imagery emphasises this point. Hence, the art of the late
Predynastic Period echoes the contemporary convention applied to royal names.
The last example of this iconographic tradition, portraying the king as an animal, is found
on the last of the great ceremonial palettes, the Narmer Palette (fig. 1).32 This is undoubt-
edly the most famous artefact of Narmer's reign, yet its very nature (as an object associated
primarily with the hunt) harks back to Predynastic beliefs and practices. In the lowest reg-
ister of the obverse, the king is shown as a wild bull, tearing down his enemy's stronghold
and trampling him underfoot. The image is certainly a potent one, and the association of the
25 W. Davis, The Canonical Tradition in Ancient Egyptian Art (Cambridge, 1989).
26 These artefacts have been studied by many scholars, for example K. Cialowicz, Les Palettes egyptiennes aux motifs
zoomorphes et sans decoration. Etudes de I'art predynastique (Krakow, 1991). They may be compared most easily by
referring to the illustrations in Davis, The Canonical Tradition, 141-59.
27 Ibid., fig. 6.10.
28 Ibid., fig. 6.9.
29 Ibid. 142.
30 Ibid., fig. 6.8b.
31 Ibid., fig. 6.11.
32 Ibid., fig. 6.14.
28 TOBY A. H. WILKINSON JEA86

king with a wild bull did not disappear entirely from the ideology of Egyptian kingship.
The bull's tail remained a standard element of the royal regalia throughout the dynastic
period." Moreover, the Horus-name of Thutmose III in the Eighteenth Dynasty expressed
the identity of the king as a 'strong bull arisen in Thebes'. Yet, after the reign and monu-
ments of Narmer, the king was never again represented in purely animal form. (In later
periods, the king is occasionally shown as a human-headed griffin, but this is a hybrid
form.) Hence, on a label ofAha, it is the king's serekh which smites a Nubian foe." In the
new decorum which stressed the divinity of the king, it appears to have become inappropri-
ate to depict him directly as a wild beast. The imagery was retained, but was used in a more
subtle fashion.
The reign of Narmer illustrates the transition between old and new systems of royal
iconography. On an ivory cylinder from Hierakonpolis, it is the catfish element of the king's
'name' that smites rows of bound, Libyan captives." On the obverse of the Narmer Palette,
at the right hand side of the topmost register, the victorious king is represented as a falcon
atop a harpoon. But when we tum the palette over, we find the new convention writ large:
the king is shown in human form (although wearing a bull's tail) as a huge, towering figure,
smiting his enemy with a mace. This, the quintessential icon of Egyptian kingship, with its
origins far back in the early Predynastic Period, was to become the primary symbol of royal
power from the reign of Narmer onwards. The Narmer Palette is thus a striking amalgam of
earlier and later conventions of royal iconography. While the imagery of the obverse is
rooted in the Predynastic Period, that on the reverse stands at the head of the dynastic,
canonical tradition. Narmer's reign marked a defining transition in the concept of rule;
nowhere is this better exemplified than on his palette, the most famous artefact of early
Egypt.

Mesopotamian motifs, xenophobic iconography

In another way, too, the Narmer Palette represents an important turning point in Egyptian
art history. The obverse bears the last significant example of a Mesopotamian motif used in
royal art, the intertwined serpopards whose necks frame the central well. The use of Meso-
potamian iconography in the elite art of the late Predynastic Period is a well-known and
much discussed phenomenon." From the comb-winged griffin seen on the Gebel Tarif
knife-handle and the Two Dogs Palette to the 'master of the beasts' in the Hierakonpolis
Painted Tomb and on the Gebel el-Arak knife-handle." symbols of control and authority
were borrowed from contemporary Mesopotamian iconography by Egyptian rulers anxious
to develop and promote an ideology of power. The intertwined serpopards were perhaps
symbolic of the opposing forces of nature which it was the king's duty to keep in check.
33 Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, 190-1.
34 W. M. F. Petrie, Royal Tombs ofthe Earliest Dynasties, II (MEES 21; London, 1901), pI. xLI.
35 J. E. Quibell, Hierakonpolis, I (ERA 5; London, 1900), pI. xv.5; for a clearer illustration, see: P. Kap1ony, Die
Inschriften der iigyptischen Friihzeit, III (Wiesbaden, 1963), pI. 5, fig. 5.
36 Recent contributions to the debate include: B. Teissier, 'Glyptic Evidence for a Connection between Iran, Syro-
Palestine and Egypt in the Fourth and Third Millennia', Iran 25 (1987), 27-53; H. Smith, 'The Making of Egypt: a
Review of the Influence of Susa and Sumer on Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia in the 4th Millennium.BC', in Friedman
and Adams (eds), The Followers ofHorus, 235-46; H. Pittman, 'Constructing Context. The Gebel el-Arak Knife. Greater
Mesopotamia and Egyptian Interaction in the Late Fourth Millennium BCE', in J. S. Cooper and G. M. Schwartz (eds),
The Study ofthe Ancient Near East in the Twenty-First Century (Winona Lake, 1996), 9-32.
37 Cf. U. Sievertsen, 'Das Messer von Gebel el Arak', Baghdader Mitteilungen 23 (1992), 1-75.
2000 NARMER AND THE CONCEPT OF THE RULER 29

After the reign of Narmer, such artistic borrowings were abandoned in favour of indi-
genous Egyptian motifs, some of which (notably the king smiting his enemies) had their
roots in the Predynastic repertoire." The rosette, a symbol of control borrowed from Uruk
iconography, had been used widely in Egyptian royal art of the late Predynastic Period:"
examples include the Brooklyn, Carnarvon and Gebel Tarif knife-handles, and the Scor-
pion Macehead. It could easily have been adopted into Egyptian hieroglyphs, but it, too,
was rejected in the recodification that occurred at the beginning of the First Dynasty. The
last appearances of the rosette, as a symbol of the ruler, are on objects from the reign of
Narmer, on his macehead and palette.
As Egypt's rulers rejected foreign iconography and turned instead to indigenous motifs,
so too the official ideology towards the outside world underwent a profound change at the
beginning of the First Dynasty. From the reign of Narmer onwards, Egypt's collective sense
of itself-as encouraged, nay, dictated by the royal court-was defined and demarcated by
reference to a 'collective other': Egypt's foreign neighbours." State ideology henceforth
characterised non-Egyptians as the human equivalents of untamed wild beasts, standing
outside the Egyptian realm and therefore hostile to Egypt, its king, its people, and its way of
life. The power of xenophobia to unite a country's population behind its ruler has been
appreciated by despots and politicians since the beginning of human history. The ancient
Egyptians were perhaps the first to recognise the instinctive force of this particular brand of
ideology. Explicitly xenophobic iconography is first met in the reign of Narmer. The afore-
mentioned ivory cylinder from Hierakonpolis names the rows of bound captives as Tjehenu
(Libyans). Both the Narmer Palette and a newly-discovered year label of the same king
from Abydos" show defeated captives that have been identified by at least one scholar as
Asiatics," perhaps inhabitants of the eastern Delta fringes or northern Sinai. The choice of
subject matter for the Narmer Palette loudly proclaims the new propaganda of the post-
unification Egyptian royal court. Now that a unified country had been forged, it was important
to consolidate the boundaries of the state and match these political boundaries with ideo-
logical ones. For the next three thousand years, there followed an assault on the hearts and
minds of the Egyptian people, to convince them that their security and well-being lay in the
hands of the king, without whom Egypt's enemies would triumph and all would be lost. It
appears that the credit is due to Narmer for laying this particular cornerstone of ancient
Egyptian civilisation.
Royal tombs '

The beginning of the First Dynasty marks a transition in the concept and outward manifes-
tation of royal authority in a third sphere: the tombs of the ruling elite. Egyptologists have
always regarded it as significant that the earliest tomb of a high official at North Saqqara,
mastaba S3357, dates to the reign of Aha. The tomb clearly belonged to a close relative of
38 A painted vessel from grave U-239 at Abydos, dated to late Naqada I, carries the earliest known example of this
motif: G. Dreyer et aI., 'Nachuntersuchungen im friihzeitlichen Konigsfriedhof, 9.110. Vorbericht', MDAIK 54 (1998),
77-167, esp. figs 12.1 and 13.
39 Smith, in Friedman and Adams (eds), The Followers of Horus, 241-4.
40 E. C. Kohler, 'History or Ideology? New Reflections on the Narmer Palette and the Nature of "Foreign" Relations in
Predynastic Egypt', in E. C. M. van den Brink and T. E. Levy (eds), Egyptian-Canaanite Relations During the 4th
Through Early 3rd Millennia, BCE, forthcoming.
41 Dreyer et al., MDAIK 54, fig. 29 and pI. S.c.
42 Kohler, in van den Brink and Levy (eds), Egyptian-Canaanite Relations.
30 TOBY A. H. WILKINSON JEA86

the king, as indicated by the use of royal, 'palace-facade' architecture for the external faces
of the superstructure. The owner was probably Aha's younger brother or son, and must have
held the most senior position in the Memphite administration, equivalent to the vizier in
later periods." It is likely that the highest offices of state were reserved for members of the
royal family in the Early Dynastic Period. The importance of such individuals can be gauged
by the scene on the obverse of the Narmer Palette (top register), where the king is preceded
by an official (perhaps his eldest son) designated by the signs tt (probably an abbreviated
writing of w!tw, 'offspring')." The dating of S3357 to the reign ofAha has led some scholars
to argue that Aha founded Memphis, or was at least the first king to reside there. This is
unlikely for two reasons. First, the earliest burials in the necropolis of HelwanJel-Maasara,
the principal cemetery serving Memphis in the Early Dynastic Period, predate the reign of
Aha. 45 Second, recent soundings by the Egypt Exploration Society Survey of Memphis,"
reinforced by earlier, isolated finds from nearby Abusir," indicate that the city of Memphis
was probably already in existence in the late Predynastic Period. The establishment of an
elite cemetery at North Saqqara for the highest officials of the administration was almost
certainly an innovation of Aha's reign (unless an earlier tomb remains to be discovered),"
but it need not correlate with the date of the foundation of Memphis.
Aha's own burial complex at Abydos (fig. 2) offers further evidence that his reign was a
period of innovation in mortuary provision. The chambers reserved for the king and his
funerary equipment (B10, B 15, and B19) are accompanied by rows of subsidiary burials for
his retainers (B16). In this, Aha set a new precedent. In death as in life, the king would
henceforth be surrounded by his attendants. This pattern was to remain standard throughout
much of Egyptian history, from the Old Kingdom court cemeteries at Maidum and Giza to

x
FIG. 2. Cemetery B, the early royal burial-ground on the Umm el-Qaab at Abydos
(after G. Dreyer et al., MDAIK 52 (1996), fig. 1).

43 Cf. Baines, in O'Connor and Silverman (eds), Ancient Egyptian Kingship, 138; Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt,
139.
44 It is even possible that the title of the vizier, Illy, is derived from the same root.
45 T. A. H. Wilkinson, 'A Re-examination of the Early Dynastic Necropolis at Helwan', MDAIK 52 (1996), 337-54.
46 Idem, Early Dynastic Egypt, 359.
47 W. Kaiser, 'Einige Bemerkungen zur agyptischen Friihzeit. III', zAS 91 (1964),36-125, esp. 106-8.
48 The existence of an earlier, undiscovered tomb cannot be discounted, given that a previously unknown and massive
mastaba tomb of the First Dynasty was only recently excavated by the Supreme Council for Antiquities in the area
adjacent to the Antiquities Inspectorate at North Saqqara.
2000 NARMER AND THE CONCEPT OF THE RULER 31

the tombs of high officials in the Third Intermediate Period royal cemetery at Tanis. The
skeletal material from Aha's subsidiary burials indicates that the average age of death of the
occupants was under 25 years." This strongly suggests that the king's retainers were killed
(or committed suicide) at the death of their royal master, to accompany him into the here-
after. Hence, the subsidiary burials in Aha's mortuary complex represent a new expression
of royal authority, an authority which could now command the life and death of the king's
subjects. By contrast with this totalitarian model of rule, the evidence from the preceding
period suggests a rather humbler exercise of power. Certainly, Narmer's tomb at Abydos
has no accompanying subsidiary burials. In this respect, his burial complex has more in
common with its Predynastic forerunners than with the tombs of the First Dynasty kings.
This contrast may likewise be reflected in the chambers built for Narmer himself. The
tomb of Narmer is generally identified as comprising the adjoining chambers B17 and B18.
Even taken together, these constitute a very small interment compared with the mortuary
complexes of Narmer's successors. There have been suggestions that B17/18 do not repre-
sent Narmer's tomb at all, and that his actual burial chamber remains to be discovered in an
unexcavated portion of the Umm el-Qaab." This is a possibility, but there are two other
plausible explanations for the small scale of B17/18.
First, these twin chambers may be only one component of a tripartite royal tomb com-
plex. It is noteworthy that Aha's mortuary complex 'comprises three almost identical
chambers. There are indications that these may represent different stages of a long building
programme." Yet the final form of the complex, with three adjacent chambers of equal
size, seems to have been deliberate. It is possible that Aha's tomb complex is not an aber-
rant form of royal burial but a direct copy of his predecessor's. Could Narmer's tomb also
have comprised three equal elements? A striking feature of this part of Cemetery B is the
close proximity of three sets of twin chambers: BI7/18, attributed to Narmer; B7/9, attrib-
uted to the late Predynastic king 'Ka'; and B 1/2, with its adjacent offering pit BO,52 attributed
by some to a late Predynastic king Iry-Hor," They differ markedly from the single cham-
bers of Predynastic Cemetery U. Chambers B17/18 are the only two built within a single
pit, but otherwise the similarity among the three sets is striking. Notable, too, is the orienta-
tion of all three sets: they are strung out in a line running N-E-S-W, an arrangement
followed by Aha's three chambers. One possible theory is that all three sets of twin cham-
bers belong to one and the same mortuary complex, and thus to one and the same king. In
this case, the only real candidate would be Narmer himself." The discovery of inscriptions
naming Narmer in both Bl/2 and B7/9 would certainly support such a theory." Chambers
B7/9, attributed to a king 'Ka', could be seen instead as a tomb for the king's kai" a fore-

49 A. J. Spencer, Early Egypt (London, 1993),79.

50 E. C. Kohler, personal communication.
5l W. Kaiser and G. Dreyer, 'Umm el-Qaab, Nachuntersuchungen im frtihzeitlichen Konigsfriedhof, 2. Vorbericht',
MDAIK38 (1982), 211-69, esp. 219.
52 G. Dreyer et aI., MDAIK 52,49.
53 Kaiser and Dreyer, MDAIK 38,212; Spencer, Early Egypt, 76-7. Doubts about this attribution have been raised by
T. A. H. Wilkinson, 'The Identification of Tomb BI at Abydos: Refuting the Existence of a King *Ro/*Iry-Hor', lEA 79
(1993),241-3; and A. O'Brien, 'The Serekh as an Aspect of the Iconography of Early Kingship' ,lARCE33 (1996),123-
38, esp. 131-2.
54 Cf. Quirke, Who Were the Pharaohs?, 21.
55 Wilkinson, lEA 79, 242, nn. 14 and 19.
56 B. Adams, Ancient Nekhen. Garstang in the City of Hierakonpolis (New Malden, 1995),49.
32 TOBY A. H. WILKINSON JEA86

runner ofthe separate ka annex seen in the tomb of Den,57 in the south tomb of Netjerikhet's
and Sekhemkhet's step pyramid complexes, and in the subsidiary pyramids of the Fourth
Dynasty. Chambers B1I2, attributed to a king 'Iry-Hor' on the basis of pottery inscribed
with the combination of a falcon and a mouth could have served as storage chambers to
provide food and drink for the 'mouth of Horus (i.e. the king)' (r-lfr).58 The recent discov-
ery of an adjacent offering pit (BO), originally filled with wine jars and other pottery, may
support this interpretation.
Second, if the traditional attribution of BOl1l2 and B7/9 to predecessors of Narmer is
maintained, an alternative explanation for the small scale ofB17118 may be that Narmer's
tomb complex represents the last gasp of an earlier, essentially Predynastic model of king-
ship, one that did not express itself through grandiose architecture (like the palace-facade
tombs of royal relatives buried at North Saqqara and Naqada during Aha's reign) or the
extravagant display of coercive royal power (the retainer sacrifice attested in Aha's subsidi-
ary burials), but through the association of the king with the forces of nature. As we have
seen, the reign of Narmer represents the end of an older ideology with its roots in the
Predynastic Period. With the unification of Egypt, this older stratum of belief was evidently
discarded, no longer considered sufficient for holding together the new state, nor appropri-
ate for an all-powerful king at its head.

Conclusion

The beginning of the First Dynasty witnessed highly significant innovations in the spheres
of titulary, iconography, and mortuary architecture. However, they are but manifestations of
a wider phenomenon: the reformulation of the concept of rule during the period of state
formation. This process succeeded in establishing the court-directed styles which were to
be promoted vigorously by Egypt's kings until they had effectively snuffed out all traces of
earlier, Predynastic cultural traditions. The reign of Narmer, in particular, marks an impor-
tant transition between older, Predynastic and new, pharaonic brands of kingship. The
surviving evidence from this brief period allows us to look back into the past and forward to
the future civilisation of dynastic Egypt.

57 G. Dreyer, 'Umm el-Qaab. Nachuntersuchungen im friihzeitlichen Konigsfriedhof. 3.14. Vorbericht', MDAIK 46

(1990),53-90, esp. 76-9.
58 Adams, Ancient Nekhen, 49.