Scorpio I.

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Names of Scorpio I.
Horus name
G5
Scorpio King.png
Srxtail2.svg
Weha (Selek / Selk)
Wḥˁ ( Srq )
Scorpio / ( Who ) lets breathe

Scorpio I was an ancient Egyptian king ( pharaoh ) from the pre-dynastic period , who lived around 3200 BC. Ruled.

Sphere of influence

Scorpio's sphere of influence included the areas of Abydos , Naqada , Hierakonpolis and Elephantine and was therefore limited to regions in Upper Egypt . The trade relations to more distant places were already well developed, with the trade route to Retjenu running via Buto and Minschat Abu Omar . A sub-sububian trade connection existed to the south via Elephantine .

The grave

In 1988, the archaeologists Werner Kaiser and Günter Dreyer from the DAI Department Cairo discovered the part of the excavation site of Abydos ( Umm el-Qaab ), which is called Cemetery U, the tomb of the king (Uj), which is part of the Naqada culture IIIa2 was dated.

The tomb has twelve chambers, it was relatively large with 8 m × 10 m. The burial chamber is approx. 2.9 × 4.7 m in size, to the east of the burial chamber there are nine storage rooms, which are divided into three rows of three chambers each. Presumably due to the increased space requirement, two somewhat larger storage rooms were added in a later construction phase. The grave is, for this time and in this size, an unprecedented find.

The grave contained the following finds: vessels for gifts, ivory rods and approx. 160 ivory tablets, king scepter, 400 wine jugs with a capacity of 4000 liters, which were imported from Retjenu and traces of a wooden shrine. The labeled jugs are the oldest known evidence of phonetically legible characters in writing in Egypt. This also made it possible to identify the owner of the grave, since the jugs with the inscription " Plantation of the (King) Scorpion" probably come from a domain called Scorpio I. . founded. King Falcon I is named as his successor .

The grave is of great scientific importance because Egyptian hieroglyphs were found there that are older than previous cuneiform finds. This would mean that the dependence of the two writing systems would be reversed as generally assumed. The hieroglyphs found there and, in the opinion of the German Egyptologist Günter Dreyers, fully developed, are on small tablets, which - attached to vessels - presumably denote their origin. Some of the early characters are similar to Sumerian cuneiform characters. Therefore, a dependency cannot be completely ruled out, but it is also possible in the opposite direction. These questions are controversial.

See also

literature

  • Werner Kaiser , Peter Grossmann, Günter Dreyer a . a .: Umm el-Qaab. Follow-up examinations in the early royal cemetery. (various preliminary reports) In: Communications from the German Archaeological Institute, Cairo Department. (MDAIK) Volumes 35, 38, 49, von Zabern, Mainz 1979–1993.
  • Günter Dreyer in: Edwin CN Van Den Brink (Ed.) The Nile Delta in Transition: 4th.-3rd. Millennium BC: proceedings of the seminar held in Cairo, 21.-24. October 1990, at the Netherlands Institute of Archeology and Arabic Studies. Israel Exploration Society, Tel Aviv 1992, ISBN 965-221-015-3 , pp. 293-299.
  • Günter Dreyer: Umm El-Quaab. Volume I: The predynastic royal tomb Uj and its early written documents. von Zabern, Mainz 1998, ISBN 3-8053-2486-3 .
  • Günter Dreyer u. a .: Umm el-Qaab. Follow-up examinations in the early royal cemetery. 7th / 8th Preliminary report. In: Communication from the German Archaeological Institute, Cairo Department. Volume 52, von Zabern, Mainz 1996, ISBN 3-8053-1861-8 .
  • Werner Kaiser: On the emergence of the entire Egyptian state. In: Communication from the German Archaeological Institute, Cairo Department. Volume 46, von Zabern, Mainz 1990, pp. 287-299.
  • Gabriele Höber-Kamel: Abydos - Religious center of the resurrection. In: Kemet, Heft 2, Berlin 2000, pp. 4-9. ISSN  0943-5972
  • William Matthew Flinders Petrie , Francis Llewellyn Griffith : The Royal Tombs of the first dynasty. 1900. Part I. (= Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund. Vol. 18, ISSN  0307-5109 ). Egypt Exploration Fund, London 1900, digitized .
  • Thomas Schneider : Lexicon of the Pharaohs . Patmos, Düsseldorf / Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-491-96053-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The name of a female scorpion is Wehat / Selket:Scorpio King.png
    X1
    ; according to Rainer Hannig : Large Concise Dictionary Egyptian-German: (2800 - 950 BC) . von Zabern, Mainz 2006, ISBN 3-8053-1771-9 , pp. 225 and 790.
  2. ^ Rainer Hannig: Large Concise Dictionary Egyptian-German: (2800 - 950 BC) . von Zabern, Mainz 2006, ISBN 3-8053-1771-9 , p. 1281.
  3. ↑ Gabriele Höber-Kamel: Abydos - Religious Center of Resurrection . In: Kemet, Heft 2, Berlin 2000, pp. 4-9
  4. ^ Hermann A. Schlögl : The ancient Egypt . Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 3-406-48005-5 , p. 59.
  5. ^ Günter Dreyer: Umm el-Qaab I, The predynastic royal grave Uj and his early written documents . Zabern, Mainz 1998, ISBN 3-8053-2486-3 .
  6. ^ Francis Amadeus Karl Breyer: The written testimonies of the predynastic royal tomb Uj in Umm el-Qaab: attempt at a new interpretation. In: The Journal of Egyptian Archeology. No. 88, 2002, pp. 53-65.
predecessor Office successor
unsure King of Egypt
before the 0th Dynasty 		unsure
personal data
SURNAME Scorpio I.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION ancient Egyptian king from the pre-dynastic period (around 3200 BC)
DATE OF BIRTH around 32nd century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH around 32nd century BC Chr.