Nekhen
Encyclopedia
- Hieraconpolis redirects here; for the ancient fortress in Egypt called Hieracon, see HieraconHieraconHieracon or Hierakon or Theracon or Ancient Egyptian Pr-Nemty, was an ancient fortified city of Upper Egypt, situated on the right bank of the Nile, now the site of the modern-day village of al Atawla, Egypt. Here, in Roman times, was quartered the cohors prima of the Lusitanian auxiliaries...
Nekhen (Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
: 'city of hawks', Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
xvii. p. 817, transliterated as Hierakonpolis, Hieraconpolis, or Hieracompolis; Al-Kom Al-Aħmar) was the religious and political capital of Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt is the strip of land, on both sides of the Nile valley, that extends from the cataract boundaries of modern-day Aswan north to the area between El-Ayait and Zawyet Dahshur . The northern section of Upper Egypt, between El-Ayait and Sohag is sometimes known as Middle Egypt...
at the end of the Predynastic
Predynastic Egypt
The Prehistory of Egypt spans the period of earliest human settlement to the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt in ca. 3100 BC, starting with King Menes/Narmer....
period
(c. 3200–3100 BC) and probably, also during the Early Dynastic Period
Early Dynastic Period of Egypt
The Archaic or Early Dynastic Period of Egypt immediately follows the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt c. 3100 BC. It is generally taken to include the First and Second Dynasties, lasting from the Protodynastic Period of Egypt until about 2686 BC, or the beginning of the Old Kingdom...
(c. 3100–2686 BC). Some authors suggest occupation dates that should begin thousands of years earlier.
Horus cult center
Nekhen was the center of the cult of a hawk deity Horus of Nekhen, which raised in this city one of the most ancient temples in Egypt, and it retained its importance as the cult center of this divine patron of the kings long after it had otherwise declined.The original settlement on the Nekhen site dates from the culture known as Naqada I
Naqada
Naqada is a town on the west bank of the Nile in the Egyptian governorate of Qena. It was known in Ancient Egypt as Nubt and in classical antiquity as Ombos. Its name derives from ancient Egyptian nub, meaning gold, on account of the proximity of gold mines in the Eastern Desert.Naqada comprises...
of 4400 BC or the late Badarian culture that may date from 5000 BC. At its height from about 3400 BC Nekhen had at least 5,000 and possibly as many as 10,000 inhabitants.
The ruins of the city originally were excavated toward the end of the nineteenth century by the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
archaeologists James E. Quibell
James E. Quibell
James Edward Quibell was a British Egyptologist, born in Newport, Shropshire.He was educated at Adams' Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford...
and F. W. Green. In the "principal deposit
Main deposit (Nekhen)
The Main deposit was a foundation deposit of particular note in a temple in Nekhen. It was dug during the early Old Kingdom, and was excavated in 1894. The deposit is famous for having been the site where the Narmer Palette, Narmer Macehead, and Scorpion Macehead were discovered.The site was first...
" of the temple of Nekhen they found important ceremonial Protodynastic artifacts such as the Narmer Palette
Narmer Palette
The Narmer Palette, also known as the Great ierakonpolis Palette or the Palette of Narmer, is a significant Egyptian archeological find, dating from about the 31st century BC, containing some of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found. It is thought by some to depict the unification of...
and the famous macehead
Scorpion Macehead
The Scorpion macehead refers to a decorated ancient Egyptian macehead found by British archeologists James E. Quibell and Frederick W. Green in what they called the main deposit in the temple of Horus at Hierakonpolis during the dig season of 1897/1898...
bearing the name of King Scorpion
King Scorpion
Scorpion, or Selk, also King Scorpion or Scorpion II refers to the second of two kings so-named of Upper Egypt during the Protodynastic Period. Their names may refer to the scorpion goddess Serket...
. More recently, the concession was excavated further by a multinational team of archaeologists, Egyptologists, geologists, and members of other sciences, which was coordinated by Michael Hoffman
Michael A. Hoffman
Michael Allen Hoffman, Ph.D. was an American archaeologist, Egyptologist, and author.Michael A. Hoffman was born in Washington D.C. on October 14, 1944 and was raised in Virginia although he spent a lot of vacation time in Ohio. In 1966, he graduated from the University of Kentucky with a B.A. He...
until his death in 1990, then by Barbara Adams of University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
and Dr. Renee Friedman representing the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
and the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
until Barbara Adams's death in 2001, and by Renee Friedman
Renee Friedman
Renee Friedman is an American Egyptologist, who studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where her thesis was on the Predynastic cemetery at Naga ed Der. She earned her PhD in 1994 ....
thereafter.
"Fort"
The structure at Nekhen with the misnomerMisnomer
A misnomer is a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue. Such incorrect terms sometimes derive their names because of the form, action, or origin of the subject becoming named popularly or widely referenced—long before their true natures were known.- Sources of misnomers...
, "fort", is a massive mud-brick enclosure, built by King Khasekhemwy
Khasekhemwy
Khasekhemwy was the fifth and final king of the Second dynasty of Egypt. Little is known of Khasekhemwy, other than that he led several significant military campaigns and built several monuments, still extant, mentioning war against the Northerners...
of the Second Dynasty. It appears to be similar in structure and purpose as the 'forts' constructed at Abydos
Abydos, Egypt
Abydos is one of the most ancient cities of Upper Egypt, and also of the eight Upper Nome, of which it was the capital city. It is located about 11 kilometres west of the Nile at latitude 26° 10' N, near the modern Egyptian towns of el-'Araba el Madfuna and al-Balyana...
, and has no apparent military function. The true function of these structures is unknown, but they seem to be related to the rituals of kingship and the culture.
The ritual structure was built on a Predynastic cemetery. The excavations there, as well as the work of later brick robbers, have seriously undermined the walls and led to the near collapse of the structure. For two years, during 2005 and 2006, the team led by Renee Friedman was attempting to stabilize the existing structure and support the endangered areas of the structure with new mud-bricks.
Oldest known Egyptian painted tomb
Other discoveries at Nekhen include the oldest tomb with painted decoration along its plasterPlaster
Plaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting,...
walls that contains presumed religious scenes and images that include figures that will appear in Egyptian culture for three thousand years—a funerary cortege of barques, possibly a goddess standing between two upright lionesses, a wheel of various horned quadrupeds, several examples of a staff that became associated with the deity of the earliest cattle culture and one being help up by a heavy-breasted goddess, asses or zebras, ibex, ostriches, lionesses, impala, gazelles, and cattle. It is thought to have been decorated in the Predynastic period of southern Egypt.
Oldest known zoo
The oldest known zoological collection was revealed during excavations at Hierakonpolis in 2009 of a menagerie that dates to ca. 3500 BC. The exotic animals included hippoHippo
A hippo or hippopotamus is either of two species of large African mammal which live mainly in and near water:* Hippopotamus* Pygmy HippopotamusHippo may also refer to:-Given names:...
s, hartebeest
Hartebeest
The hartebeest is a grassland antelope found in West Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa. It is one of the three species classified in the genus Alcelaphus....
, elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
s, baboon
Baboon
Baboons are African and Arabian Old World monkeys belonging to the genus Papio, part of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. There are five species, which are some of the largest non-hominoid members of the primate order; only the mandrill and the drill are larger...
s and wildcats.
Later activity
There are some later tombs at Nekhen, dating to the Middle Kingdom, Second Intermediate Period and New Kingdom. In the tomb of HoremkhaefHoremkhaef
Horemkhaef was an Ancient Egyptian local official who lived in the Second Intermediate Period. He had the titles first inspector of priests of Horus from Nekhen and overseer of fields. Therefore, he was most likely the main priest at the local temple at Hierakonpolis where Horus was worshipped.He...
was found a biographical inscription reporting Horemkhaef's journey to the capital of Egypt.