Dynasty 0

 

Kingship 
Dynasty 0 
Narmer 
1st dynasty 
2nd dynasty 
Old Kingdom 
Middle Kigdom 
13th dynasty 
17th dynasty 
Ahmose 
18th dynasty 
19th dynasty 

 

The dynasty 0 would count several kings, whose authority spread presumably only on a part of Egypt. It spreads from the period Nagada IIIA1 (about 3300 A.D. ) to Nagada IIIB (about 3100 B.C.). The following kings have been identified: Scorpion, Iry-Hor, Ka (Sekhen), a king Scorpion II to whom it would be necessary to attribute the famous club and Narmer, the unifying king (cf. Gaelle Breand). All, except the king again debated Scorpion II, have their tombs in Abydos (Umm-el-Qab).

The tomb of king Scorpion

It is the first tomb of a big dimension constructed in bricks: it is a rectangle of 9,10 x 7, 3 m divided in 12 chambers. Pots to wavy shackles bear in the black ink the first hieroglyphic inscriptions: a plant stem and the picture of animals whose scorpion is the most frequent. Have been discovered more than 750 pots imported from  the South Levant South containing wine or fig sugar.  90 labels made of bone, wood or ivory with incised signs reveal the emergence of the writing. Other remarkable discovery: an ivory heka scepter , that will remain the mark of royalty. The king Scorpion reigned around 3300-3250 B.C.

Pots of the Museum of Louvre with inscriptions like those of the king Scorpion

The exchanges between Egypt and South Levant seem to have been precocious enough, to one time before the  dynasty 0. Discoveries of potteries belonging at the two regions along the north coast of Sinai constitute the testimony that a inshore road so-called road of Horus during the historic period was used then already. Pots of Levant  appear in the tomb U-k in small number and in big number in the one of the king Scorpion. An Egyptian colony in South Levant is attested at  this time. Did the Egyptians act in conquerors, leading some raids or in tradesmen interested by the products of the country (wine, olive oil, wax of bees)? The question is debated again.

click here for [mace  of  king Scorpion II]

 

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