Serekh
Encyclopedia
In Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...
, a serekh is a rectangular enclosure representing the niched or gated façade of a palace surmounted by (usually) the Horus
Horus
Horus is one of the oldest and most significant deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion, who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...
falcon
Falcon
A falcon is any species of raptor in the genus Falco. The genus contains 37 species, widely distributed throughout Europe, Asia, and North America....
, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The serekh was the earliest convention used to set apart the royal name in ancient Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian iconography, predating the later and better known cartouche
Cartouche
In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an ellipse with a horizontal line at one end, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name, coming into use during the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty under Pharaoh Sneferu, replacing the earlier serekh...
by four dynasties and five to seven hundred years.
History
One of the most important elements of royal display and identity in ancient EgyptEgypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
was the king’s name, important as pharaohs were concerned that future generations remain aware of their reigns. These were first seen from rulers as early as those of Dynasty 0 and continued to be used by kings throughout the history of ancient Egypt. For example, a serekh of Senusret I
Senusret I
Senusret I was the second pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt. He ruled from 1971 BC to 1926 BC, and was one of the most powerful kings of this Dynasty. He was the son of Amenemhat I and his wife Nefertitanen. His wife and sister was Neferu. She was also the mother of the successor Amenemhat II...
, who was a king during the Twelfth Dynasty, has been found and is now displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
City. The serekhs of kings from the 30th Dynasty can also be seen. The serekh represented the king’s palace shown in a combination of plan and elevation. The rectangular enclosure represented the plan while the patterned area represented the elevation of the façade. A serekh incised or painted in ink on a vessel denoted that the contents were the produce and/or property of the royal court. The serekh containing the king’s name was used on a variety of objects and made a fundamental statement of royal ideology. The king’s name was written in hieroglyphs and the Horus falcon, in reference to the sky god Horus
Horus
Horus is one of the oldest and most significant deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion, who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...
, usually surmounted it.
The Horus name is the first of five royal titles that were in use by the Fifth Dynasty. The second title is the (He of the) Two Ladies, representing the king as manifesting, and under the protection of, the goddesses Nekhbet of Elkab and Hierakonpolis in Upper Egypt, and Wadjet of Buto in Lower Egypt. The third title is the Horus of Gold, with the Horus falcon above the hieroglyphic sign for gold
Gold (hieroglyph)
The ancient Egyptian Gold hieroglyph is a member of the crowns, dress, staves hieroglyphs. Its major importance is as one of the Fivefold Titulary names of the Egyptian pharaoh, the Horus of Gold name....
. The fourth title is often translated as “He of the Sedge and Bee,” with the sedge plant symbolic of Upper Egypt and the bee symbolic of Lower Egypt. This is also known as nswt-bìty, a title which expressed the many dualities over which the king exercised rule: Upper and Lower Egypt, the Black Land of cultivation and the Red Land of desert, the realms of day and night, and the natural and the supernatural. The fifth title is Son of Ra. This name claims a direct solar origin for the king as child of the sun-god. The Horus name was commonly written in the serekhs of ancient Egypt. There are a couple of cases in which the Horus name appears without serekhs, and only Peribsen and 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...
have serekhs without the Horus name.
Horus
Hor-Aha
Hor-Aha is considered the second pharaoh of the first dynasty of ancient Egypt in current Egyptology. He lived around the thirty-first century BC.- Name :...
), ‘Horus the strong’ (Djer
Djer
Djer was the second or third pharaoh of the first dynasty of Egypt, which dates from approximately 3100 BC. Some scholars, however, debate whether the first pharaoh, Menes or Narmer, and Hor-Aha might have been different rulers. If they were separate rulers, this would make Djer the third pharaoh...
), and ‘arm-raising Horus’ (Qa'a
Qa'a
-Legacy:Qa'a had a fairly large tomb in Abydos which measures 98.5 X 75.5 feet or 30 X 23 meters. Manetho gives him a reign of 26 years in his Epitome if this ruler was a certain Biechenes. A long reign is supported by the large size of this ruler's burial site at Abydos...
). All of these names reveal the warlike iconography of the earliest royal monuments from the period of state formation. They emphasize an authority based upon military strength and the power of life and death. The emphasis in the Second Dynasty, however, began to change possibly due to the periods of instability that the kings faced, though the exact reason is still disputed. This led to a slight alteration in the structure of the serekh, solely during the reigns of Peribsen and Khasekhemwy. Since this alteration only occurred during these two reigns, it is seen as an exception, as the succeeding kings returned to the previous iconography.
Progression
The earliest serekhs were empty because the symbol alone relayed the necessary message of royal power. Over time, the king began to write an epithet within the serekh. These serekhs were dominated by the symbol of Horus. During the Second Dynasty only, changes in the formulation of the Horus name to a Seth-name and then a Horus-and-Seth name were seen. These changes occurred merely during the Second Dynasty and are viewed as an exception to the typical use of the Horus name as is evidenced by the continued use of Horus in the serekhs of the Egyptian kings before and after Peribsen and Khasekhemwy. Many propositions have been made as to why this change occurred, though the exact reason is still disputed.Peribsen and Khasekhemwy
For reasons which remain unclear, SethSet (mythology)
Set was in Ancient Egyptian religion, a god of the desert, storms, and foreigners. In later myths he was also the god of darkness, and chaos...
attained particular prominence in the late Second Dynasty, temporarily replacing, then joining, Horus as the god atop the royal serekh. When the name Peribsen, who was the penultimate king of the Second Dynasty, was written in a serekh, it was surmounted, not by the usual Horus falcon, but by the Seth animal, a hound or jackal-like creature with a wide, straight tail. Peribsen thus made a visual statement that he was the earthly embodiment of Seth. The importance of Seth in the reign of Peribsen was also reflected in a sealing of the king from 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...
. It referred to a god named ‘the golden one’ or, perhaps more likely, ‘he of Nubt (Naqada)’, the usual epithet of Seth in historic times. It appears as though Seth was adopted by Peribsen as his personal deity. This is emphasized by the wording of the inscription: ‘He of Nubt has handed over the Two Lands to his son, the dual king Peribsen’. One interpretation of this dramatic change in the format of the royal name is that it represented a rebellion of some kind that was quashed or reconciled by the last king of the dynasty, Khasekhemwy, whose name appeared in serekhs surmounted by both the Horus falcon and the Seth animal. Originally known as Khasekhem, which means ‘The One who Arises in respect of the Power,’ his name eventually came to be known as Khasekhemwy which means ‘The One who Arises in respect of the Two Powers.’ The ‘Two Powers’ have been interpreted by some as the Horus falcon and the Seth animal. The addition to Khasekhem’s name is further evidence that he was trying to merge the ideas of both Horus and Seth. While the validity of this proposal is debatable, Khasekhemwy’s epithet from seal impressions supports this notion. It is interpreted as ‘the Two Lords are at peace in him’ which can be viewed as though he resolved some internal conflict, especially if ‘Two Lords’ are seen as referring to Horus and Seth and their followers respectively. Others have viewed this evidence as a way of proclaiming national renewal under Khasekhemwy as he was able to reunite Upper and Lower Egypt. This remains speculative, however, due to the lack of hard evidence to support this notion. Nonetheless, it seems likely that foreign relations reached a new level under Khasekhemwy since a seal-impression of his reign showed the first occurrence of the title ìmì-r3 h3st
Hill-country (hieroglyph)
The ancient Egyptian hill-country hieroglyph is a member of the sky, earth, and water hieroglyphs. A form of the hieroglyph in color, has a green line- at the base of the hieroglyph...
which means ‘overseer of foreign land(s).’ It strongly suggests the imposition of Egyptian hegemony on foreign territory. The change of the deity image on a serekh was significant because while the king’s name sometimes appeared in a serekh without an image of a deity above, no deity other than Horus was so far known to occur on the serekh until the reign of Peribsen. Due to evidence that Peribsen’s stelae were exposed to erasure of the Seth animals, it has been inferred that whatever reasons Peribsen had for substituting his falcon failed to win acceptance among future generations after Khasekhemwy.