First Dynastic Ruler of Egypt
Part One:
An era of biblico-historical luminaries
by
Damien F. Mackey
“In all likelihood Egypt used northern Sinai as a springboard for forcing her way into Canaan with the result that all of southern Canaan became an Egyptian domain”.
Dr. John Osgood
We customarily tend to refer to the early rulers of Egypt as “Pharaoh”, even though this is actually a Greek word (φαραώ), based on an Egyptian phrase: https://www.ancient.eu/pharaoh/
And the term was applied to the rulers of the great nation only at a late stage in Egypt’s dynastic history.
Tradition accredits “Menes” with being the unifying founder of Egyptian dynastic history, the first ruler of the First Dynasty.
And some suggest that Menes was the same as Hor-Aha, whose nebty name was Min, or Men. For instance: http://www.ancient-egypt.info/2012/02/hor-aha-and-founding-of-memphis.html
Hor-Aha … took the nebti name (the second royal name: p. 218) of Men, which means 'established', and this could be the origin of the later record of the first king as being called Menes. For present purposes we may look on Hor-Aha as the first king of the 1st Dynasty. An interesting piece of evidence is a small broken ivory label found in the tomb of Queen Nithotep at Naqada. Although schematically represented, the busy scene on this tiny piece seems to show two humans celebrating a ceremony called 'Receiving the South and the North' over an unidentified object (possibly the first representation of the later symbolic tying of papyrus and lotus stalks).
The king's name, meaning 'Fighting Hawk' - an allusion again to Horus - indicates his Upper Egyptian origin and rule. His adoption of Men as his nebti name for ruling over both parts is indicated on the ivory label by the fact that his Horus name (his first and principal name, p. 218) Hor-Aha, and his nebti name, Men, appear side by side. Other similar small labels from Early Dynastic tombs indicate that his was not an easy reign. There were campaigns to be fought and rebels to be subdued in Nubia, recorded on a wooden label from Abydos, and another label records his foundation of a temple to the goddess Neith at Sais in the Delta. Her warlike aspect was signified by a pair of crossed arrows and her worship continued into Roman times when she was identified with Athena at Sais. ….
For more on Neith (Athena), see my series:
Neith a goddess of greatest antiquity
That Menes and Hor-Aha were one and the same potentate is a view that I, too, favour, along with a tradition that Menes was the (somewhat ill-fated) pharaoh of Abram (= Abraham).
To that mix I have added that Menes/Hor-Aha was the biblical “Abimelech”.
An earlier article of mine on these biblico-historical correspondences has been picked up at: https://thepharaohofabraham.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/the-genealogy-of-israel-according-to-scripture/
…. Finally, whether the one whom Isaac calls “Abimelech” was still, in Isaac’s day, “Pharaoh” of Egypt, as he had been in former times, he was most definitely at least ruler over the Philistines at Gerar. Perhaps he ruled both lands, Egypt and Philistia. Be that as it may, the Holy Spirit has apparently provided the name of Abram’s “Pharaoh”. But one needs to respect His literary structures to discover that name. We now know his personal name: “Abimelech”.
In Hebrew it means “Father is King”.
Since Abimelech is not an Egyptian name, though (see discussion of this in 2. below), and since the other designation that we have for him is simply “Pharaoh”, that data, in itself, will not take us the next step of being able to identify this ruler in the Egyptian historical (or dynastic) records. But that our Abimelech may have – according to the progression of Ishmael’s and Isaac’s toledôt histories – ruled Egypt and then gone on
to rule Philistia, could well enable us to locate this ruler archaeologically.
to rule Philistia, could well enable us to locate this ruler archaeologically.
Dr. John Osgood has already done much of the ‘spade work’ for us here, firstly by nailing the archaeology of En-geddi at the time of Abram (in the context of Genesis 14) to the Late Chalcolithic period, corresponding to Ghassul IV in Palestine’s southern Jordan Valley; Stratum V at Arad; and the Gerzean period in Egypt (“The Times of Abraham”, Ex Nihilo TJ, Vol. 2, 1986, pp. 77-87); and secondly by showing that, immediately following this period, there was a migration out of Egypt into Philistia, bringing an entirely new culture (= Early Bronze I, Stratum IV at Arad).
P. 86: “In all likelihood Egypt used northern Sinai as a springboard for forcing her way into Canaan with the result that all of southern Canaan became an Egyptian domain”.
This new phase would seem to correspond very nicely with the time of Narmer,
since, at this very archaeological phase, according to Osgood (ibid., p. 85):
since, at this very archaeological phase, according to Osgood (ibid., p. 85):
Belonging to Stratum IV [at Arad] Amiram found a sherd with the name of Narmer …”. ….
[End of quote]
Without my claiming to be certain about it, I personally like the thought that Narmer may have been the Akkadian ruler, Naram-Sin:
Narmer a Contemporary of Patriarch Abraham. Part Two: Narmer as Naram Sin
What would strengthen this correspondence, at least chronologically, is W. F. Albright’s remarkable thesis that Naram-Sin had actually conquered Menes of Egypt:
Dr. W.F. Albright’s Game-Changing Chronological Shift
All of this, if correct, would mean that, around c. 1900 BC (a conventional dating for Abram) we have a veritable clash of titans: Naram-Sin of Akkad, Menes of Egypt, and Patriarch Abram. Not to mention Melchizedek of Salem and Chedorlaomer of Elam, and so on.
A glimpse of this remarkable age has even been projected into a false C6th AD time warp:
Chedorlaomer and Chlodomer
I suspect that there may be much, much more to Naram-Sin the Akkadian than meets the eye.
For one, Naram-Sin strikes me now as being the stand-out candidate for the enigmatic biblical “Amraphel … king of Shinar”, contemporary of Abram. (Genesis 14:1). See e.g. my article:
Narmer a Contemporary of Patriarch Abraham. Part Three: (Narmer) Naram Sin as Amraphel
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