1 jan 2835 ano antes da era comum - Narmer Palette

Descrição:

DID NIMROD BUILD THE TOWER OF BABEL ? by Gerard Gertoux

The Narmer Palette is misleading, it does not illustrate a conquest of Lower Egypt by an army to unify Egypt, since the country was at peace, but the slaughter of the Libyans who had threatened the security of Lower Egypt by their incursions. The hieroglyph tḥn.w “Libyans” appears on the Narmer Cylinder (Heagy: 2014, 68). He thus became the protector, symbolised by a vulture on the Narmer Cylinder, of the Two Lands, Upper and Lower Egypt, and the symbol for the following kings of the slaughter of the enemies of Egypt. With this memorable action, Narmer became the first king of Thinis, with his white crown, which became the symbol of Upper Egypt, to also become king of Memphis, with his red crown, which became the symbol of Lower Egypt. Narmer was not the unifier of the Two Lands (Allan: 2014, 106- 108), Upper and Lower Egypt, but was his protector.

The Palette of Narmer is the first document with a few words written in hieroglyphs, which thus differs from earlier writings with proto-hieroglyphs without phonograms. This document represents in a pictographic way the main actions of Narmer's reign. At the very top of the Palette and on each side, there are two huge cattle heads surrounding the name of Narmer written with two phonograms na’r “catfish” and mer “chisel” (the name “Catfish-chisel” does not mean anything but allows the new name of Horus to be read and pronounced for illiterate people). Narmer was the first to organise a national livestock census, an action that was considered the most important of the reign, so much so that all subsequent kings counted their reign actions not by the number of years but by the number of censuses... The census was a huge operation, for example,
on a Narmer mace-head (below) it is even stated that there was a census of 1,422,000
goats (Millet: 1990, 53-59)... This figure is still
considerable and presupposes an administration capable of registering tens of thousands of head of livestock, which implies having a city hall to match.

King Narmer's name of Horus appears distinctly in a serekh behind and above his head, Narmer wearing the crown of the king of Memphis. In front of the king stands an unnamed figure in a sedan chair with a canopy who stands before three servants, themselves above a huge census of cattle and captives (shown at far right). Above the three servants four small figures carry standards, symbols of the nomes (Egyptian provinces). The anonymous figure in front of Narmer can only be the king of Memphis who pays him homage. To avoid that this former king is perceived as a co-regent, several logograms and phonograms were added to indicate the hierarchical relationships of this new royal court. Behind Narmer there are two figures, one directly behind him with the phonograms t[t] above his head and a second one below, a young boy wearing sandals with a rosette and an anointing vessel in front of his head. The word t[t] is written tt on the Narmer Palette (below left), which is a defective writing of the word t3ty meaning vizier. Narmer's name appears in front of the king, who wears the crown of the king of Memphis, without the falcon. The four standard-bearers are led by the vizier, this time in front of the king, and the young sandal-wearer is surmounted by a hieroglyphic sign representing a floater, a word that reads db3 and means “to exchange, to replace”. As the word db3(w) means “crowning”, the young boy with the rosette, sign of agricultural prosperity, and the anointing vessel, sign of crowning, must be the crown prince chosen by Narmer (his son the future king Aha). The Narmer Palette is the first Egyptian document written with hieroglyphs that are not only logograms (like those of Abydos), since several logograms were used as phonograms, two to read the name of Narmer and specify the title of the vizier and one to specify the title of the crown prince. However, all these logograms can be read according to their pictorial representation and the Narmer Palette (below), like most First Dynasty royal inscriptions, can be read like a cartoon page.

The main purpose of the Palette is to show clearly that Narmer combines the white and the red crowns, which was not the case before since the kings of Thinis: Iry-Hor and Ka-Hor, had ruled Egypt with the white crown but in parallel with the kings of Memphis who had ruled their city with the red crown. As the mace head of Narmer shows, the anonymous king of Memphis pays him homage and collaborates with him in the general census of the cattle. Several elements of the Palette show that Narmer annexed the city of Memphis to use his powerful administration to manage his huge cattle census. For example, at the bottom of each side of the Palette figures are shown bowing to Narmer (powerful as a bull), but they are not defeated enemies. The annexed city is represented either by a mastaba (O194) surrounded by a fortified semi-enclosure, or by a rectangular palace with notched walls. At that time the only city surrounded by a fortified wall is Habura Kabira in Syria or Memphis with its “white walls” and the only city that has a rectangular city hall with notched walls is Memphis (mastaba S.3357 which was transformed into a burial vault after the death of king Aha, the son of Narmer). The second element confirming the annexation of Memphis, derives from the serekh representing the façade of the city hall with notched walls like the Mesopotamian city hall temples. The Abydos city hall (tomb U-j) is rectangular, but its walls are smooth, whereas the Memphis city hall (mastaba S.3357) is rectangular but has notched walls identical to those of Mesopotamian city hall temples. Although Narmer annexed Memphis he did not merge it into the kingdom of Thinis but kept its territorial integrity but associated it with his kingship and chose it as administrative and economic capital, Thinis/Abydos remaining the political capital of Egypt. This original conception of kingship is reflected in the following elements of the Palette: 1) Narmer wears alternately the white crown (Upper Egypt) and the red crown (Lower Egypt), 2) the representative of Lower Egypt is no longer the king of Memphis but a vizier148 under Narmer's orders, 3) the city hall of Memphis, represented by a rectangle with notched walls, is linked to Narmer's feet by a knot, 4) the two powerful lands are represented by two felines with monstrous necks but intimately intertwined, this symbolism is of Mesopotamian origin150, as can be seen on a cylinder seal found at Uruk.

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