Wadji

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the Senegalese football player, see Ibrahima Wadji .

Name of Wadji
Grave stele of Wadji from Abydos in the Louvre Paris
Horus name	Wadj (i) W3ḏ (j) snake Wadj (i) W3ḏ (j) The freshness, the revitalized
Royal Papyrus Turin (No. II./15)	(It) -tiu (Jt) -tjw (with the name ideogram for a king who represents the Horus falcon)
List of kings of Abydos (Seti I) (No. 4)	Ita Jt3
Greek Manetho variants:	Africanus : Ouenephes  Eusebius : Ouenephes Eusebius, AV : Vavenephis

Wadji (also Hor-wadji, Hor-djet, Horus "snake" ) is the name of an ancient Egyptian king ( pharaoh ) of the 1st dynasty ( early dynastic period ), who lived around 2960/30 BC. Ruled.

supporting documents

The name Ita in a cartouche on the Abydos list.

The name Wadjis is perhaps recorded in a rock inscription in the Schatt er-Rigal (south of Edfu ) and shows an unusual spelling of his name Horus : In addition to the conventional symbol of a snake, a papyrus stalk symbol ( M13 ) appears in Serech .

The inscription was first copied by the Egyptologist Flinders Petrie . Georges Legrain discussed the inscription again in: Annales du service des antiquités de l'Égypte and presented a slightly modified copy, which mainly shows the Horus falcon with a crown.

Jürgen von Beckerath , who also assigns the inscription to Wadji, is convinced, however, that the inscription was only added long after the ruler's death.

family

The regent was married to Queen Meritneith . Since she ascended the throne immediately after Wadji's death, Egyptologists assume that she had only become “ Royal Wife ” shortly before Wadji's death and ousted Wadji's previous wife, Queen Herneith . His successor Den is considered to be a possible son of Wadji .

government

Slate fragment K-5089 with the Horus names of the kings Djer and Wadji

Wadji ruled for about 10 years and two months. A calendar entry shows Djer's death date of 7th Peret III . The reign of his successor djet began on 22 Peret IV. As in the annals of rock otherwise in a change of government within the calendar year the reigns of two kings give 365 days, the reasons remain unclear for the difference of 45 days. In the pyramid texts of the Old Kingdom , an embalming period of 70 days is mentioned, which, however, could not be adhered to for mummification with only 45 days of reigning time difference. Siegfried Schott therefore assumes an interregnum of 1 year, 1 month and 15 days. In addition, the question remains whether the ancient Egyptian calendar with the associated change year was already in use or whether the dates refer to the 365-day Sothis calendar .

Finds of vessel fragments and clay seals prove a lively and successful trade with Syria and Palestine . Pottery from Palestine was discovered in graves near Tarchan and Saqqara from Wadji's reign. The " ivory comb of Wadji" from his grave is considered the oldest evidence of the Egyptian concept of heaven . In addition to the depiction of the name of Horus , it has a winged barque whose bird wings are spread out under the bow . The center of the bird's wings is scratched out. Wadji gained fame primarily for his grave stele from Abydos . This was excavated by Émile Amélineau around 1904 , today the exhibit is in the Louvre . How long Hor Wadji actually ruled is unknown. Since only one Sokar festival has been handed down on ivory labels so far , his reign is estimated at six to ten years.

Clay seals of the official Amka prove that he must have assumed his office as royal administrator during the reign of the Wadji, as Amka was already involved in the administration of the domain "Hor-sixenti-dju" during the reign of Djer. Amka continued the title "Heri-nechenu" received under Djer under Wadji. In the early years of the successor King Den , Amka died after he had been entrusted with regional tasks in the western Nile Delta at the end of his career . Other high officials under the ruler were Sedjesechemka and Setka .

Plan of the tomb of Djet in Abydos

Only two annual tablets of the ruler are known. Two copies of one of them have been preserved. Reading the events on it is highly problematic. Helck translates: "Year of planning the cellar (?) Of the double complex, birth of the lotus-bud sign, standing in the crown shrine of the two mistresses". Another annual tablet names a victory, the production ("birth") of a statue (broken away) and perhaps the foundation of a fortress. At Masra Alam in Lower Nubia there was the short inscription: "Hemka" (under) "Wadji", which documents the presence of an official of this king.

The grave

The grave of djet is in Abydos under the name of Tomb Z . It is a clay brick pit measuring 11.94 × 9.30 m, with a total of 19 storage chambers on 3 sides . A large valley district also belonged to this grave .

Another grave from the time of Wadji was discovered in Saqqara ( No. 3504 ) in the palace facade style , with 300 embedded bull heads made of clay with real horns. Some Egyptologists suspect that this tomb was the resting place of the dignitary Sedjesechemka. In Giza is another great place Mastaba , which dates to his reign.

literature

• Jürgen von Beckerath : Handbook of Egyptian King Names (= Munich Egyptological Studies. (MÄS) Heft 20). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-422-00832-2 .
• IES Edwards : The early Dynastic Period in Egypt. University Press, Cambridge 1964.
• Walter B. Emery : Egypt, History and Culture of the Early Period, 3200–2800 BC Chr. Munich 1964.
• Gérard Godron : Études sur l'Horus Den et quelquesproblemèmes de l'Égypte archaïque (= Cahiers d'orientalisme. Vol. 19). P. Cramer, Geneva 1990.
• Wolfgang Helck : Investigations on the Thinite Age (= Ägyptologische Abhandlungen. (ÄA) Vol. 45). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1987, ISBN 3-447-02677-4 .
• Jochem Kahl : Inscriptional Evidence for the Relative Chronology of Dyn. 0-2. In: Erik Hornung, Rolf Krauss, David A. Warburton (eds.): Ancient Egyptian Chronology (= Handbook of Oriental studies. Section One. The Near and Middle East. Volume 83). Brill, Leiden / Boston 2006, ISBN 978-90-04-11385-5 , pp. 94-115 ( online ).
• Peter Kaplony: Inscriptions of the early Egyptian period. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1963, ISBN 3-447-00052-X .
• Thomas Schneider : Lexicon of the Pharaohs. Albatros, Düsseldorf 2002, ISBN 3-491-96053-3 .
• Toby AH Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt - Strategy, Security and Society. Routledge, London 1999, ISBN 0-415-18633-1 .

Web links

Commons : Djet  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Djet on Digital Egypt (English)
• The Ancient Egypt Site (English)
• Francesco Raffaele: Inscriptions of the Wadji (Djet)
• Ivory ridge of Wadji ( Memento from October 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

Remarks

1. ↑ Term of office: 23 years.
2. ↑ ^{a b Length of} government: 42 years.
3. ↑ Manetho derived "Ouenephes" from the Greek term ΟννωΦρις, which is a synonym for the tomb of Osiris .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ According to a rock inscription near Edfu -Süd; See Georges Legrain: Annales du service des antiquités de l'Égypte. Le Service, Caire 1900, p. 221; Fig. 7 online .
2. ^ Alan H. Gardiner: The royal canon of Turin. Griffith Institute, Oxford 1997, ISBN 0-900416-48-3 , illustration 1.
3. ↑ Year numbers according to Schneider: Lexicon of the Pharaohs. Düsseldorf 2002.
4. ^ WM Flinders Petrie : A Season in Egyptt. Field & Tuer, London 1888, panel XIV, 414 ( online ).
5. ↑ Georges Legrain: Annales du service des antiquités de l'Égypte. Le Service, Caire 1900, p. 221, Fig. 7 ( online ).
6. ^ Jürgen von Beckerath: Handbook of the Egyptian king names. Munich 1984, ISBN 978-3-422-00832-8 , p. 38, note 7.
7. ^ ^{A b c} Toby AH Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt - Strategy, Security and Society. London 1999, pp. 73-75.
8. ↑ Peter Kaplony: New fragments from Tomb Z at Abydos. In: Communications of the German Archaeological Institute, Cairo Department (MDAIK) No. 56, edition 2000, p. 10.
9. ↑ Wolfgang Helck: Investigations on the thinite age. Wiesbaden 1987, p. 124.
10. ↑ 7. Peret III to 22. Peret IV.
11. ^ Siegfried Schott: Ancient Egyptian festival dates. Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz 1950, p. 54.
12. ^ Toby AH Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt - Strategy, Society and Security. London 1999, p. 146.
13. ↑ W. Helck: Investigations on the Thinite Age. Wiesbaden 1987, pp. 155-56.
14. ^ Günter Dreyer, Rita Hartmann, Ulrich Hartung u. a .: Follow-up examinations in the early royal cemetery: 13./14./15. Preliminary report. In: Communications from the German Archaeological Institute, Cairo Department. (MDAIK) No. 59, Mainz 2003, p. 93, plate 18f
15. ^ Fritz Hintze, Miroslav Verner, Zbyněk Žába: The Rock Inscriptions of Lower Nubia (= Publications / Czechoslovak institute of Egyptology in Prague and in Cairo, Charles university of Prague. Volume 1). Charles University, Prague 1974, pp. 239–41, No. A30.
16. ^ 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 , pp. 8-11, panel LXI.
17. ↑ WM Flinders Petrie, with chapters by Alan Gardiner, Hilda Petrie , MA Murray: Tombs of the Courtiers and Oxyrhinkhos. In: British School of Archeology in Egypt. (BSAE) XXVIII. London 1925, panel XVII.
18. ^ Walter B. Emery: The Great Tombs of the First Dynasty. Vol. II, London 1954, pp. 5-127.
19. ^ Toby AH Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt - Strategy, Security and Society. London 1999, pp. 146-147.
20. ^ WM Flinders Petrie: Gizeh and Rifeh (= Publications of British School of Archeology in Egypt. ). School of Archeology, London 1907, pp. 2-7, plate. VI.

predecessor	Office	successor
Djer	King of Egypt 1st Dynasty	The