Early Dynastic Egypt (72 page)

A-group
(n.)
The indigenous
Neolithic
culture of Lower Nubia which flourished in the second half of the fourth millennium BC.

amuletic
(adj.)
Possessing the magical, protective power of an amulet (a small object worn about the person to protect its wearer from malign forces).

Amuq
(n.) A
plain in coastal northern Syria; also used to describe the cultural sequence of this region during the fourth and early third millenniums BC.

annals
(n.)
Records of the reigns of the
Early Dynastic
period and early Old Kingdom, compiled at a later date and inscribed on blocks of stone which would originally have been set up in a temple context. Several fragments of ancient annals stones have survived, notably the
Palermo Stone
and the associated Cairo fragment. When complete, they would have recorded the major events of each king’s reign-from the beginning of the First Dynasty to the middle of the Fifth – in a year-by-year format.

apotropaic
(adj.)
Able to ward off evil.

Archaic
(adj.)
Term used to denote the first two dynasties as a period of Egyptian history; now often replaced by
Early Dynastic.

Asiatic
(n. and adj.)
An inhabitant of the lands to the north-east of Egypt (present-day Sinai, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria). Its pejo-rative tone accurately reflects the usage of the parallel ancient Egyptian term
3m.

bark
(n.)
The sacred or ritual boat of a king or deity.

breccia
(n.)
Technically ‘red and white limestone breccia’; a rock with white inclusions in an orange-red matrix, favoured for stone vessels and small sculptures in the
Early Dynastic
period.

cartouche
(n.)
In ancient Egyptian inscriptions, the elongated oval frame used to enclose certain royal names from the end of the Third Dynasty.

cenotaph
(n.)
A tomb or other monument built for purely symbolic purposes.

ceramic
(adj.)
Referring to pottery.

ceramicist
(n.)
A specialist who studies (ancient Egyptian) pottery.

Chalcolithic
(n. and adj.)
Literally ‘copper stone age’; an archaeological period applied to the Near East; the transitional stage between the end of the
Neolithic
and the beginning of the Early Bronze Age
(EBI)
when copper and stone tools were both in use; its dating varies from region to region, but in the Levant it roughly corresponds to

c.
4000–3600 BC, equivalent to the Badarian and Naqada I periods in Upper Egypt.

co-regency
(n.)
A constitutional practice whereby a king’s successor (usually his eldest surviving son) would be crowned during his predecessor’s (father’s) lifetime, and the two monarchs would reign jointly for a period. The practice was designed to ensure a smooth transition of power from one reign to the next.

corvée labour
(n.)
The administrative and economic system whereby agricultural workers (the bulk of the population in ancient Egypt) gave their labour to the state during the annual
inundation
in return for the use of the land—which in theory belonged to the king—the rest of the year; this system allowed the state to mobilise the huge resources of manpower needed to build royal monuments such as the pyramids.

cosmological
(adj.)
Referring to speculation about the composition and workings of the universe (cosmology).

cursive
(adj.)
Describing inscriptions written in ink with a running hand, the individual signs more hastily executed than monumental hieroglyphs.

cylinder seal
(n.)
A cylindrical piece of stone (or occasionally wood), carved with an inscription, often identifying ownership; to seal an item, the cylinder would be rolled over a sealing of wet clay, making an impression of the original inscription.

cylinder vessel
(n.)
A cylindrical jar, up to about 30 centimetres in height, usually made from
marl clay
pottery and fired to a pale cream colour, probably in imitation of stone. Cylinder vessels of stone, usually
travertine,
are also known. Pottery cylinder vessels were manufactured in large numbers during the late
Predynastic
to
Early Dynastic
transition. The pattern of the incised decorative band around the shoulder changed over time, making cylinder vessels a good chronological indicator.

demography
(n.) T
he study of population, especially its distribution.

diorite
(n.)
A hard, igneous rock, dark with lighter mottles, obtained principally from the western desert, and used for stone vessels and statuary.

djed-pillar
(n.)
An ancient
fetish
of unknown origin, associated with the god Ptah and, later, with Osiris, god of the dead; used as the hieroglyphic sign for ‘stability’, the symbol may represent a leafless tree or a notched stick; sometimes called the ‘backbone of Osiris’.

dolomite
(n.)
A variety of limestone composed of calcium and magnesium carbonate, used for stone vessels.

domain
(n.)
A royal foundation, comprising an area of agricultural land together with its livestock and workforce; established to provide income for a king’s mortuary cult.

double crown
(n.)
In Egyptian
iconography,
the crown formed by combining the separate
red crown
and
white crown.

‘Dynasty 0’
(n.)
Term coined to describe the late
Predynastic
kings who ruled over part or all of Egypt before the beginning of the First Dynasty. The use of the word ‘dynasty’ is misleading since the rulers before Narmer probably belonged to a variety

of royal houses, some of them perhaps reigning concurrently in different parts of the country.

Early Dynastic
(adj.)
Term applied to the first major phase of Egyptian history, comprising the first two or (in this book) three dynasties; increasingly favoured as an alternative to the term
Archaic.

EBI
(n. and adj.)
Early Bronze Age I. An archaeological period (divided into an earlier phase EBIa and a later phase EBIb) applied to the Near East,
c.
3600–3000 BC; it follows the
Chalcolithic,
and corresponds to the Naqada II and Naqada III periods in Egypt.

EBII
(n. and adj.)
Early Bronze Age II. An archaeological period applied to the Near East,
c.
3000–2700 BC; it follows the EBI.

ennead
(n.)
A group of nine deities, particularly those associated with the creation myth of Heliopolis (Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys).

entrepôt
(n.)
A location which acts as a collection and processing centre for incoming commodities, especially trade goods.

epigraphy
(n.)
The study, style or technique of ancient inscriptions.

epithet
(n.)
A descriptive word or phrase, often applied to a god.

eponymous
(adj.)
Giving its name to something. (For example, in the royal
annals,
each year is designated by one or more particular eponymous events.)

fetish
(n.)
A symbol or totem associated with a deity and believed to contain or invoke the supernatural power associated with that deity.

flail
(n.)
A short rod with two or more pendant strips or strings of beads attached to it; perhaps originally a shepherd’s whip for goading his flock, the flail became part of the royal insignia from late
Predynastic
times.

funerary enclosure
(n.)
At Abydos, Hierakonpolis and Saqqara, a large, rectangular court, either surrounded by solid walls of mudbrick or masonry, or delineated by lines of graves; an enclosure was probably intended to serve as a focus for the mortuary cult of the king who built it (although other purposes have been suggested), and is likely to have been provided with additional structures inside, either temporary or permanent; funerary enclosures are sometimes called ‘funerary palaces’.

gezira
(n.)
Arabic name for a low, sandy hill, rising above the Nile floodplain; such features, also called ‘turtle-backs’, are particularly common in the eastern Nile Delta where they provided suitable locations for early settlement.

glazed composition
(n. and adj.)
A more accurate term than ‘faience’, used to describe the glassy material—composed of crushed quartz with small amounts of lime, plant ash or natron, and colouring agent -from which
votive
offerings and other small objects were made throughout Egyptian history.

Hamitic
(adj.)
Belonging to the grouping of north African languages or cultures which includes, amongst others, ancient Egyptian and Berber.

hierarchical scaling
(n.)
A system used in ancient Egyptian art to indicate the relative status of human figures, whereby the larger the figure, the greater its importance.

Horus
(n.)
An ancient sky god, depicted as a falcon (in later periods as a human figure with the head of a falcon). Horus was closely associated with kingship from the earliest period of recorded history; according to ancient Egyptian ideology, the king was the earthly incarnation of Horus; the image of Horus atop the king’s principal name
(serekh)
proclaimed this identity.

iconography
(n.)
A system of symbols and motifs used in a consistent way, above all to express notions of theology and ideology.

ideogram
(n.)
A hieroglyphic sign that stands for a concept or a whole word rather than a letter or syllable.

inundation
(n.)
Before the construction of the Aswan dams in modern times, the annual flooding of the River Nile which renewed the fertility of the land; the floodwaters rose in July and receded again in September.

ka
(n.)
Ancient Egyptian term for the creative life-force which survived the physical death of a person and required sustenance in the afterlife; the royal
ka
was the divine essence of kingship which passed at the death of a king directly to his successor, inhabiting his body and giving him the supernatural powers associated with the ruler.

king list
(n.)
A list compiled in ancient times recording the names and order of succession of Egyptian kings, sometimes with additional information about reign lengths and salient events; with the possible exception of the
Turin Canon,
king lists were not intended as objective historical documents, but were compiled to promote a particular view of kingship, stressing the unbroken line of rulers from the beginning of time; hence, foreign kings and others who were viewed by posterity as illegitimate were excluded from the king lists at Abydos, Karnak and Saqqara.

label
(n.)
A small rectangular piece of wood, bone or ivory, inscribed with characters and attached to an object by means of a piece of string threaded through a hole in one corner of the label. The inscription might denote the quantity, provenance, ownership or contents of the object. More elaborate
year labels
carried additional information about the date of the labelled object.

lappet
(n.)
A flap or pendulous side-piece of a wig.

Lower Egypt
(n.)
The northern part of the Egyptian Nile valley together with the Nile Delta, from the Fayum entrance in the south to the Mediterranean Sea; it includes the
Memphite
region.