Menes

The name Menes is first mentioned in the temple of Queen Hatshepsut , where it is written next to her name ^[1] . After it appears in the temple of Seti I, in Abydos, where Mena (Menes) acts as the founder of Egypt, from which all the pharaohs lead. In the Turin list, his name pops up twice: first as the name of the ancestor of the pharaohs, then as the name of the deceased pharaoh. Menes appears even in the annals of Herodotus and Manetho, in Greco-Roman novels. Obviously Menes was indeed glorified, like Narmer.

Some scholars believe that Menes is the pharaoh of Narmer or Khor-Aha, since the terms of their reign coincide, moreover, in the annals of the Manetho, he is listed as the unifier of Upper and Lower Egypt, which Narmer is considered to be. Some scholars reject the fact of the existence of Menes.

The question of the historicity of Khor Akh, Menes, and Narmer remains open to this day. The myth of Menes entered the Greek, later Roman historical tradition, Herodotus , Diodorus , Manetho , Pliny the Elder , Plutarch and Elian have messages about it. He is credited with the foundation of Egyptian statehood by uniting the warring kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt, and in particular the foundation of Memphis , the establishment of cults, the invention of writing (Pliny).

According to the late Egyptian and ancient traditions, Menes was an experienced military leader and an energetic politician. Apparently, he subjugated Lower Egypt (although we do not have data on his war with him) and merged both kingdoms, thus completing the long process of centralization of Egypt. As a clear result of his wise policy to pacify Lower Egypt, one can consider the record of the construction of a temple in Sais , dedicated to the goddess Nate , who was a deity patronizing the North.

His hometown was Tin (Greek: Tinis ), in Upper Egypt (near Abydos ), but he did not lie close enough to the Delta to serve as his residence. Therefore, in this case, we can believe Herodotus , who claims that Menes carried out a large embankment, rejected the Nile, and built the Inebu hedge fortress (lit. “White Walls”, later Memphis ), which became the royal residence. A sanctuary was built south of the wall to the local god Ptah ("Ptah-to-south-from-his-wall"), which remained the patron god of this city throughout its ancient and long history. On the day of its discovery, Menes first performed the symbolic rites of the union of papyrus (symbol of the north) and lotus (symbol of the south). He crowned himself with white and red crowns, introduced the title “King of Upper and Lower Egypt” and in a solemn procession went around the White Wall. Until the end of Egyptian civilization, the pharaohs, including the Ptolemies bearing the corresponding title, repeated this ritual at their coronation.

One legend, drawn on a stone stele in the temple of Amon at Thebes at the order of Tefnaht , father of Bokhoris (XXIV dynasty), cursed Menes for changing the life of the Egyptians for the worse, surrounded himself with luxury and splendor. ^[2] According to another legend, Menes established the order of worship and temple rites. His name was also associated with the idea of ​​the first legislator, the installer of cults (especially Apis and crocodiles).

The historical tradition that tells of the first Egyptian pharaoh was retold by Diodorus , but his narrative is fabulous, and therefore has a very dubious value. According to this ancient author, the king, hunting in Fayyum (known to the ancient Greeks as Crocodilopolis ), was suddenly attacked by his own dogs and saved himself only because he rushed into the lake, where he was a Nile crocodile , which carried him to the opposite bank. In order to celebrate this supernatural salvation, he built a city in that place, and dedicated the lake to a crocodile. Diodorus also reports that the king built himself a pyramid (in fact, the vizier Imhotep invented the pyramidal architectural form four centuries later) in its vicinity and that the Egyptians first learned from this king how to worship the gods and live in a cultural manner; the latter, perhaps, is a peculiar echo of his activity to pacify the country after a long period of anarchy and bloodshed during the struggle for unification.

According to the Manetho , quoted by African , the great king died in the 63rd year of his reign from wounds inflicted by a hippopotamus during a hunt. This story no longer seems as incredible as the previous one, for we know that the hippo hunt was a popular entertainment that the ancient Egyptian kings allowed themselves. It is possible, however, that this story and the story of Diodorus are just two versions of the same legendary plot.

On Mina's modern monuments, under his personal name is mentioned only on the seal of King Narmer. In connection with the opening of Narmer’s palette in the 19th century, a number of theories have been put forward explaining the unification of Egypt. For a long time it was believed that Menes is identical to the historical Narmer .

At present, Menes is most often identified with the first king of the 1st dynasty, whose throne ("choir") name is referred to as Narmer (literally "Khor-Som" c. 3007 - 2975 BC ). It was previously believed that the Chorus of Aha was that mythical Menes, thanks to the annual label from Nakada, on which the name Nebti-Ming appears, recent studies have shown that this is just the name of the Chapel or Chapel.

At the same time, a number of Egyptologists deny Menes historicity. The proximity of his image in ancient historiography with the images of other legendary rulers (for example, Romulus ) is noted. Some researchers believe that attributing the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt to Menes is not entirely legitimate, since in fact this process ended only in the reign of the pharaoh of the II Hasehemuy dynasty.

According to archaeological data, the reign of Narmer dates back to the ancient Egyptian annals, since the counting of years by years began (each year received a special name for remarkable events), which was reflected in the annals of Palermo stone .

Khor-Aha waged war in Nubia , the name of one of his years of reign sounds like “Beating Sati (Nubia)”. The remaining names of the years testify to the peaceful rule of Khor Akh and come down to festivities, exits, making idols of the gods, visiting temples. It is possible that this pharaoh also fought with the Libyans, as indicated by an ivory tablet depicting captive Libyans. However, reading the hieroglyphs placed here as the name "Mina" remains controversial.

If we agree that Khor-Aha was the son of Narmer and Neithotep , then his claims for power over both Upper and Lower Egypt rested on a solid foundation of the rights of the winner and heir, and although it seems that not all the inhabitants of the North agreed put up with his power, most of the country was still subordinate to him.

A tomb has been preserved in Nakad , which was probably built by Khor-Aha for his mother Neithotep (Nate-hatpi, lit. “Nate is happy” ), in favor of which the fact that in this tomb, along with the name of the pharaoh, she was also found name. In addition to the likely tomb of Neithothep , two more large structures of this king (in Abydos and Saqqara ) were preserved. Perhaps they were built as its northern and southern tombs and gave rise to the tradition of the pharaohs of the Early and especially the Ancient Kingdom to build double tombs, symbolizing the equality of Upper and Lower Egypt.

The Abydos tomb, the largest in the northwestern group of tombs, was attributed to Khor Aha based on objects found during excavations. Like all archaic tombs in Abydos, the aboveground part also almost completely collapsed, and only a large room was preserved, dug in the ground and lined with rows of bricks. Holes for wooden poles are traced in the floor of this underground room, which apparently supported the roof of the tomb. The overall dimensions of the monument, including thick retaining walls, are 11.7 × 9.4 m. A small gold plate was found in a small tomb adjacent to this tomb. The name of Hor-Akh is engraved on it, but its purpose remains incomprehensible.

The northern tomb in Saqqara is a much more extensive and pretentious structure; although in size it is inferior to the tomb of Queen Neithotep, it is similar to it in general design. It is more sophisticated and shows signs of further development mainly due to the underground tomb, which consists of a large rectangular pit, carved in packed gravel and rock, and is divided by cross walls into five separate rooms. These underground rooms were covered from above with a wooden roof, and above, already at the level of the soil, a large rectangular above-ground brick building was erected, hollow from the inside and divided into twenty-seven storage rooms or storage rooms for additional funeral accessories.

The exterior walls of the building were decorated with recessed panels. The entire structure was surrounded by two walls, and its dimensions reached 48.2 × 22 m. On the north side of the tomb was a number of building models and a large grave for a boat , finished with brickwork. The grave for the rook originally contained a wooden “sun rook” in which the spirit of the great king could travel with the heavenly gods, crossing the sky during the day, and at night floating in the underworld.

Both in Abydos and in Saqqara, objects were discovered with the name of Hor-Aha. These are mainly wooden labels and clay seals on vessels. As for the tomb in Saqqara, hundreds of pots were found there, on each of which stood the royal name and the contents were indicated.

From Abydos small ivory objects and labels with the name Ima-Ib , which may be translated as “To be Pleasant to the heart,” reached us. The tomb of this private person was found in the northwestern group of the tombs of the necropolis in Abydos near the structure attributed to Khor-Akh, and therefore it is possible that Ima-Ib was actually a woman, and even, possibly, the wife of this king.

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