Egypt

4 Pages 898 Words

As Egypt grew and flourished to a powerful and rich nation, it
left behind for today's historians, clues and artifacts of a once
distinctive, well established and structured society. Proof of
this is clearly depicted in king Narmer's Palette. This Palette
shows historians the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, which
signified the beginnings of a civilized era centred around the
Nile.
The unification of Egypt occurred around 3100 B.C., under the
First Dynasty of Menes(3100-2850 B.C.). This age is commonly know
as the Protodynastic era, which is known for the establishment of
a firm political structure of the land which was unified in the
hands of the king. The glorification of Lower and Upper Egypt
uniting was portrayed in Narmer's Palette, which was found in the
ancient southern capital of Hierakonpolis. The general function of
Narmer's Palette was to commemorate a victory over his human foes.
With Narmer's victory, the Palette also depicts his successful
claim and conquest of all of Egypt, thus establishing unification
of Lower and Upper Egypt under his rule. The dominant them
however, is the victory of the god incarnate over the forces of
evil and chaos.
The Narmer Palette, while depicting several social aspects and
tendencies of the Egyptian society, also reveals and emphasizes
their structured positions within a hierarchy of command. Both
sides of the Palette reveal, at the top, the name of king Narmer,
which first documents, in the written history of Egypt, that we now
are dealing with a civilized state. When the scribes wanted to
write king Narmer's name, they placed a small fish called a 'nar'
over a chisel, pronounced 'mer'. This combination of the words
gave them 'Narmer'. The Palette also depicts king Narmer(probably
the legendary Menes) wearing the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and the
White Crown of Aphroditopolis, which represented Upper Egypt.
Since Narmer had cla...