Notes

The Palette of King Narmer :-
Narmer or Menes was the first king of the first dynasty so he was the founder of the archaic period It dates back to the early-dynastic period. It is made out of schist.
It was discovered by James Quibell in 1894 in the temple of Horus at Hierakonplois.
The Narmer palette has two sides: the recto (front side) and the verso (back side).
Each of them is divided into several registers and all the scenes commemorate the victory of Narmer The monuments of King Narmer depict two distinct phases during his reign: a phase during which he continued his ancestors’ struggle to annex the Delta to the control of Upper Egypt, and another phase in which he enjoyed the results of his efforts and the efforts of his ancestors after he achieved complete unity of the country under his rule. One of the inscriptions of his first stage remained, in which his name replaced his image. It is the first known name written in two syllables, in the form of an image of a fish and an image of a chisel. The fish depicted “Nar, which is the first syllable of his name,” with two human hands holding a huge stick and landing with it on the heads of a group of prisoners bound with ropes. The artist recorded above the name of his king the symbol of the deity Set, the lord of ancient Upper Egypt, the symbol of the deity Hor, the lord of the existing state, and the symbol of the deity Nekhaba, the lord of the Cape1. To confirm the closeness between the three deities and their support for the king in his struggle.

Narmer's prayer recorded the last stages of his struggle and its results. It is one of the rare complete prayers. It was found in the Temple of Nekhen2. The engravings on her face and back were similar in certain scenes and different in other scenes. So he appeared On the upper part of each of them is the name Narmer within a rectangular frame that symbolizes the facade of his palace. It is usually called by its ancient Egyptian name “Serekh.” On both sides of the name “on both sides” appear two heads of the goddess Hathor, similar to her with the face of Lady Mleiha and the horns and ears of the cow. This was one of the first times that the Egyptians depicted their goddesses. In a way that combines humanity and animals.

The face and back of the prayer differed in the rest of the scenes, but the views of the first one paved the way for the views of the other. The facial engravings topped the image of Narmer, with a magnificent stature and a large size that exceeded the sizes of the photographers around him, confirming his majesty and the greatness of his destiny. It showed him in the crown of Upper Egypt, holding the forelock of the leader of his opponents, and intending to attack his oppressor. The king faced a great falcon, symbolizing the deity Poplar, holding in his right human hand with the muzzle of a large head emerging from a land where sedge stems grow, and symbolizing, as he has been taken so far, the land of Lower Egypt, as if he was offering it to him and smoothing its leadership for him and completing the unity of his kingdom with it. Below the king appeared two dead men, with each of them recorded by the artist, and behind the king appeared a man from his courtiers wearing a wide necklace, carrying his sandals and a pot containing water for washing or purification.

The artist achieved great success in showing the details of his images, especially Hathor’s gentle face, her full, white lips, her ears with fine details, the feathers of the majestic falcon, the muscles of the king’s forearms and legs, the bones of his knees, and the details of his robe, which is a short robe that covers one shoulder and reaches just before the knee, tied to the sides. Its waist has a wide, mottled belt, from which hang ornaments in the form of Hathor's heads - with long linen fringes - and a long tail hangs behind it. The artist’s competence in these images is distinguished from the limited competence that preceded his era.

The inscriptions on the back of the prayer completed the story of the king with Lower Egypt. It depicted him crowned with the crown of the Delta, walking in his procession with his funnel and flail, indicating the combination of the spirit of war and the spirit of peace in him, and one of the greats of his court preceded him. Four brigade-bearers in his army marched in front of him. He walked with him and behind him, carrying his sandals as much as he could. The king went out barefoot despite his crown and scepter, indicating the holiness of the party he was attending. In front of the procession, the artist expressed his goal, which he intended, with small pictures that might symbolize the king’s trip on his boat to the city of “Bah,” and he recorded other strange pictures representing ten people tied to the mountains whose heads were cut off, and the head of each of them was placed between his legs, and it seems that he symbolized with them the occasion of the visit. It is the celebration of the anniversary of an ancient victory in which the king or one of his predecessors defeated ten leaders or alliances who opposed him.

The artist took advantage of the middle of the prayer to implement a design that his ancestors loved, which is a depiction of two mythical animals whose necks are hugging around the center of the circular prayer and whose heads are touching above it. He executed his design with a skilled and experienced hand and showed each animal with the body of a lion, a neck resembling a snake's neck, and the head of a leopard. He showed them as plump and strong, raising their tails in tremendous anger. But he added something new. He depicted two men on either side of the two animals, each pulling the neck of his animal with a rope.
Thick to keep him from fighting the other, which often symbolizes the clash between two powerful groups and the attempt to restrain them at the hands of the men of the New Testament.

At the bottom of the prayer, the artist engraved the figure of a fierce stallion demolishing the wall of a fortified city with its horns, and trampling with its hoof on the arm of its leader, who lay surrendering on the ground. The stallion symbolized the king, and there was nothing new in depicting him in the form of a stallion, but what was new here was reducing his brutality in killing his enemy and depicting him with some calm, as if he wanted to control the people of the city he conquered without killing them, and that was apparently a symbol of the last roles. The armed struggle to achieve the complete and stable political unity with which historical eras began.

The recto side:-
This side is divided into three registers.
In the upper register we can see the king’s name nar-mr is written between two bovine heads (a womn ’s face with two horns of a cow),
they either represent the goddess “HATHOR” goddess of love, or Goddess “BAT” .
king’s name “Serekh” is written by the hieroglyphic sign of the catfish “nCr” and “mr” is the chisel.
The second register represents the king’s victory over his enemies. He
wears the royal kilt, a false royal beard ,an animal’s tail (sign of power) and the white crown of Upper Egypt.
He is represented while he is about to beat an enemy with a mace in his right hands, The king’s enemy is kneeling before him.
Behind him, the king’s sandals who holds in his left hand and a pot of water for purification in his right hand. .
In front of the king is the falcon God Hours with a human arms, the falcon is coming here to support the victories of the king, it is holding a rope binding prisoner ’s head, which is emerging from a march.
Symbol of delta.
In the lower register we can see two prisoners were running from the power of the king.
The verso side:-
This side is divided into four registers.
The upper one is an exact copy of the upper register of the recto (two bovine heads flanking the “Serekh” of the king).
In the second Register shows the king in a triumphal procession, we can see in this register Narmer with a sandal bearer behind him, wearing
the red crown of Lower Egypt, a bull tail and a kilt, The king is preceded
also by a man which is headed by the vizier.
The vizier is preceded by four persons are holding standard known as
standard bearers carrying divine symbols.
At the right there are 10 killed enemies, each one with a cut- head between his legs.
This scene can be interpreted as king Narmer wanted to present his victory as a kind of gift to god Horus who is in his own temple.
The 3rd register represents two men/servants trying to control the stretched necks of two mythological animals.
Between the animal’s necks, a circular lower area that indicates the place where the kohl was to be ground So this palette was a cosmetic tablet.
The 4th register represented the king as a strong bull destroying the walls of a city.