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*On the terms "Dynasty 0" and "Dynasty 00"* *

(Francesco Raffaele, Jan. 2003)

*I - Manetho and the Late Period King-list tradition*

The framework of thirty dynasties by which Egyptologists use to
divide the history of the Pharaonic civilization is more than two
thousand years old. It was Manetho, an Egyptian high priest of
Sebennytos (in Central Delta), who handed down to us this kind of
subdivision used in his /Aegyptiaca/, a three books account of the
history of Egypt written in Greek under (and for) Ptolemy II
Philadelphus (285-246 BC). Before the end of the Ptolemaic period,
the work of Manetho was epitomized, and this abridged version soon
became more diffuse than the original one, until entirely replacing
it. Although both the original and the epitome of the Aegyptiaca are
now lost, we have quotations of the latter one in the writings of
some Christian chronographers, namely Africanus (c. 160-240 AD),
Eusebius (c. 260-340 AD); important excerpts of some passages are
also provided by the Hebrew Josephus Flavius in his /Contra Apionem/
(c. 70 AD).

In its present state the work of Manetho*[1]* <#notes> is reduced to
a list of kings' names grouped into thirty dynasties, with regnal
years provided for each king and short glosses attached to some of
the reigns (for various critical periods of Egyptian History only
the total number of rulers and years is stated). Historians and
Egyptologists have devoted many efforts in discussing several
aspects of the Aegyptiaca original version (/'Vorlage'/): the weight
of the eventual influence of the classic writers (espec. Herodotus)
on Manetho's work; the differences between Africanus' and Eusebius'
versions; and above all, it has been tried to correlate Manetho's
graecized names of the Pharaohs with the corresponding Egyptian
royal names preserved on the kings-lists and monuments discovered
during the last two centuries.*[2]*

The "dynastic structure" was adopted since the dawn of Egyptology,
when there were mainly classic sources available; however it soon
became evident that a long series of important inconsistent
statements and mistakes affected Manetho's work: not only owing to
the omissions and copy errors which had (further) deformed the
'original' royal names and the regnal-years, but undoubtedly also
due to different factors proper to the mother-version itself.

First of all the purpose of Manetho's history (or of his
commissioner): the aim was historical more than annalistic or
calendarical, but nonetheless some pragmatism must have existed in
the need to know the kings and the main events of the long past of
Egyptian kingship. We ignore the sources that were used, but it's
sure that indigenous documents were employed (cf. Redford, op.
cit.); we mustn't nevertheless forget the amount of centuries
dividing the beginning of the dynastic period from Manetho's time:
nearly three Millennia; many royal names (or even whole dynasties)
are artificially duplicated as also are regnal years (duplicated or
modified on the basis of the number nine) to conceptually fit with
the principle of the Ennead; in various instances, especially with
regards to the obscure periods of turmoils, the listed kings and
dynasties were assembled in chronological succession, whereas we
know that they had been (wholly or in part) contemporary. Summing up
the regnal years handed down from Manetho's work, Champollion
obtained 5867 BC as the date of accession of Menes, the first ruler
of the First (human) Dynasty!

Scholars started to suspect that the original account or the copies
could have been heavily if not absolutely misleading and
consequently the work lost large part of its prestige and
authoritativeness.

Indeed the main problem with Manetho's work concerns the very
concept of "Dynasties".

A subdivision like that of Manetho is unknown in the Egyptian
sources of any period; we could argue that Manetho himself invented
this grouping-device (even if we don't know the reason why), but
this hypothesis would heavily depend on the large gap existing in
our knowledge of the king-lists tradition in the Millennium between
the Ramesside period and Manetho.

It is perhaps more logical to rely on the theory that Manetho
adopted the subdivision after the sources available to him, hence
those of the (first three quarters of) First Millennium BC (cf below).
The (Greek) term /dynasty/ denotes a succession of regnants from the
same family ("house") generally reigning the same city, region or
state; in the Aegyptiaca it seems to have been used with more
emphasis on the geographical than on the genealogical bonds; the
numbered dynasties are in fact also labelled after the place from
which their rulers did originate or reign (and perhaps also after
their burial place; it could have been initially referred to the
city in which the royal palace and the administration were situated
or even to something else): thus we have Thinite, Memphite,
Heracleopolitan, Diospolite dynasties.

The "geographical connection" is therefore ambiguous, especially for
the Old Kingdom (see below); only since the First Intermediate
Period is the seat of Dynasties given by Manetho consistent with the
historical and terminological truth (blood-line/ royal family);
before this date, Manetho's dynasties show that the criterion of
family ties was not the basic one as it did for later periods.
Additionally, not all the dynasties have been shown to have been
effective; and not all the dynasties reigned on the whole Egypt, but
some had only a local power.

This distorted use of the term must be always present when we deal
with Egyptian "dynasties".

It's sure that Manetho's dynasties were in no way a product of the
ancient (e.g. earlier than Late Period) Royal Annals (/gnwt/) and
funerary or archivistic king-lists: the NK lists and the Turin Canon
(hereafter TC) never retain such a structure.*[3]*

Donald Redford has analyzed the Annals, King Lists and the
Aegyptiaca in a classic book (op. cit., 1986): he has shown the
correspondence between (Manetho's) dynastic framework and the change
of Royal residence in the Old Kingdom.

He has also attempted a reconstruction of the Aegyptiaca and of the
categories of books and literary genres which Manetho must have
found in the libraries of his time*[4]*; in Redford's opinion, the
further degree of compartmentation, which characterizes the
Aegyptiaca as against the NK lists, is tributary of the (Lower
Egyptian) 'annalistic' tradition of those centuries. It's however
very hard to guess where or what did this more complex
'architecture' in turn developed from.

Jaromir Malek hypothesized that Manetho (or the Late Period scribes)
could have quite interpreted as "dynastic changes" some particulars
of their sources: the eventual use of red ink (which would have been
misinterpreted as marking the foundator of a 'dynasty'), the
summation of years or other formulas which recur at different
intervals (/Ir.n.f m nsyt/ in the TC; or the subdivision columns of
a document similar to the one from which the TC was copied; Manetho
probably read papyri like the TC)*[5]*; indeed, as Malek explains,
columns, years subtotals and other formulas should have had nothing
to do with political or genealogical breaks, and the use of red ink
in the TC obviously intended only to signify that the colored line
corresponded to the beginning of a column in the original version
from which the TC was copied.

Michel Baud *[6]* has recently advanced a further possible solution:
the extent of the (earliest) dynasties could have depended on
calendaric rather than on administrative and geo-political reasons;
the changes in the method used to count the years (preserved on the
First Dynasty labels, on some ink inscribed vessels, on Annals and
other monuments) seem to bear a strict correspondence with the
'dynastic breaks' documented for the Old Kingdom period.*[7]*

This hypothesis is particularly convincing, although it is possible
that the calendaric reformations were a consequence of other
transformations introduced in the state administration and bureaucracy.

We have thus reviewed various possibilities, some tremendously
futile, proposed for the origin of the Egyptian "Dynasties".

Manetho's dynastic structure seems to agree with the seat of the
respective capitals of the country only since the FIP. But, perhaps
even more important, it mustn't be forgotten that whatever the
criterion to identify and group the dynasties was, probably it was
by no means /coherent/ all through the thirty dynasties.

Contrarily to what one might think, the discovery and publication of
the TC and of the king lists of Abydos, Saqqara and Karnak, the
Annals and other similar documents, did not contribute to the final
eclipsing of Manetho's list (and reigns lengths): in some way the
work resulted even re-evaluated as it is still nowadays. Despite the
listed faults and the presence of more useful sources, Manetho's
fragments remain of considerable importance and still attract
scholarly interest. For the most remote Early Dynastic kings, it has
been possible to ascertain the series of transformations which led
from the original Egyptian (Nebty/)Nesut-Bity royal names to the
Greek ones provided by Manetho.*[8]*

The persistency in the adoption and conforming to Manetho's system
is quite another matter of fact: its suitability undoubtedly also
depends on convenience purposes: /dynasties/ were and are a good way
to avoid precise chronological indications (which might result
wrong), or too large ones.*[9]*

They also provide a useful periodization for purpose of history,
arts and literature studies. The mentioned advantages in identifying
and grouping blocks of sovereigns and, not last, the long
Egyptological tradition, actually do play in favour of Manetho's
Dynasties.

*II - "Dynasty 0" and "Dynasty 00" *

The existence of predynastic kings and also of possible /predynastic
dynasties/, is a long known fact. Many studies have been devoted to
these subjects in relation to the names preserved on the Annals, on
the TC, in Manetho's and Herodotus' accounts and about the /Smsw-Hr/
(Followers of Horus).*[10]*

Late in the Nineteenth Century the knowledge of the Egyptian
predynastic period was going to move its first steps with the
excavations at Naqada, Abydos, Koptos, Hierakonpolis. Initially the
extremely old age of some finds had not even been suspected (except
for some happy intuitions of J. De Morgan); the slightly later
publications of Quibell - Green (Hierakonpolis site and cemeteries)
and Petrie (the Abydos, Umm el-Qaab Royal Tombs) were, beyond the
criticism that could be moved to them /now/, key-works for the
comprehension of the Late Predynastic and Early Dynastic Periods.

In 1900 Quibell introduced the comments to many of the objects shown
in the plates of his book *[11]* with the chronological-indicator
/"Dyn. 0"/ to account for the probable datation of several objects
found in the Horus temple of Hierakonpolis; this material was
reported in fact as belonging to the reigns of Scorpion and Narmer,
considered the last rulers of "the dynasty ? before Mena".*[12]*

After the excavations of Petrie in the B cemetery of Umm el-Qaab
Abydos, with few exceptions*[13]*, the history and the names of the
Dynasty 0 kings fell back into the oblivion for circa eighty years
only to be reexhumed by Kaiser in 1982 with the first new excavation
campaigns of DAIK at Abydos.*[14]*

It began to be clear that Abydos (Umm el-Qaab) was the effective
burial ground of the First Dynasty kings (and of two more rulers of
late Second Dynasty) accordingly to the opinion of Petrie and, much
later, of Kemp and contrarily to that of Emery; the latter's
excavations of impressively large tombs at North Saqqara had led him
and many other scholars to erroneously believe that the Memphite
cemetery had been the primary royal burial ground even in that early
period, while Abydos would have hosted nothing else than mere
cenotaphs.

The new Abydos finds of the German archaeologists now directed by G.
Dreyer (and additional reasons inherent to the North Saqqara
cemetery, tombs and gravegoods) have nowadays definitively
acknowledged Abydos as the site of the First Dynasty royal cemetery.

It must be stressed that Egyptologists are actually not much in
agreement about the significance and use of the term "Dynasty 0": it
seems that Quibell and later Kaiser meant to apply it to the line of
kings who reigned from This/Abydos before Menes (Aha or Narmer):
thus Narmer, Scorpion, Ka, Iry-Hor (Petrie's Ro); indeed the Abydos
tomb of Scorpion (II) hasn't been found yet and some scholars doubt
that he was a /Thinite/ (in the geographical sense) ruler.

Furthermore, despite important recent achievements, the process of
political unification of Egypt and the history of the very late
predynastic period are still rather obscure; the site (and the role)
of the Thinite capital during the First Dynasty is pratically unknown.
It seems that Memphis was already the capital centre of political
and administrative life of the early Egyptian state at least since
the reign of Horus Aha.*[15]*

According to this theory, 'Dynasty 0 kings' lived in Naqada IIIb2
period (in Kaiser's chronology, or also Horizont B), corresponding
to Petrie's latest Semainean, Sequence Dates 77 (last part) and 78.

To complicate the question, in the last 15 years some scholars have
occasionally labelled as /'Dynasty 0'/ the whole group of
predynastic sovereigns whose serekhs have been found in many sites
of the Egyptian Nile Valley and Delta (Double Falcon, Hat-Hor,
Nj-Hor, Pe-Hor, Crocodile and others; cf. notes 13 and 21).

This acceptation of the term corresponds to T. Wilkinson's *[16]*
"Late Predynastic kings": it means that any link with a
circumscribed time (Naqada IIIb2, or eventually Naqada IIIb1-2) and
space (Abydos) has been lost.

The earliest known serekhs date in fact to Naqada IIIb1 *[17]*;
royal names written without the serekhs are dated to Naqada IIIa2
(Scorpion I, the owner of tomb U-j at Abydos); even the oldest
attestations of kingship in Egypt are sometimes included within this
fictitious Dynasty: the owner of the Hierakonpolis painted tomb 100
and the chief who was buried at Gebelein with the painted cloth (now
kept in Turin Museum): they are dated to Naqada IIc and IIb
respectively, thus circa 3400-3500 BC.

Therefore Dynasty 0 often identifies a period corresponding to
either Kaiser's Naqada IIIb1-2, or Naqada IIIa1-b2, or to the whole
phases and subphases from Naqada IIb/c to N. IIIb2! In the latter
two instances, despite the uncertainties about the number of kings
and generations involved in this lapses of time, the use of the word
/dynasty/ conveys a misleading idea of a single ruling line of a
certain place and period, which is not the case at all.

In my opinion we should either consider Dynasty 0 only the
sovereigns buried in Abydos cemetery B, or, for convenience, use the
term as a synonym of (Hendrickx's) Naqada IIIB phase (Kaiser's
IIIb1-2): this period is characterized by the use of anonymous,
plain or personalized serekhs as probable indicators of kingship or
of particular kings (names); it corresponds to a somewhat marked
cultural break (but mainly in pottery types and assemblages) with
the previous phase IIIA(2).*[18]*

Following the first criterion, "Dynasty 00" (see below) would
designate in turn the predecessors of the (Abydos) Dynasty 0 kings,
therefore those buried in cemetery U during Naqada IIIA(1-2).

Another problem connected with this deformed meaning of "Dynasty 0"
concerns the /space/, thus the geopolitical status of early Naqada
III Egypt and its/ kings/.

We actually ignore the precise period and modality by which Egypt
achieved the Unification: since Kaiser's studies it has been assumed
that the process of Unification lasted more than hundred years and
was certainly not limited to the reign of Narmer (as the
interpretations of the scenes on his palette from Hierakonpolis
initially had led to believe).

The Abydos royal line is the best one known of predynastic Egypt
owing to Petrie's and Dreyer/Kaiser's excavations there; but the
Naqada IIIB period has even produced more evidence of royal
presence, especially pottery incised serekhs, from other sites in
the Nile Valley and Delta.*[19]*

However we don't know if many of these rulers must be considered
chiefs of independent polities (eventually /Gegenkönige/, 'rebels')
or instead further Abydene kings whose tombs haven't been located yet.

The predynastic serekhs found in Egypt outside of Abydos were not
from royal burials*[20]*; and this is quite another problem: were
there other royal cemeteries early in Naqada III? When did Egypt
become a Unified state? Was Hierakonpolis the site of a parallel
dynasty during Naqada IIIA/B and in which relations were its
sovereigns with the contemporary ones of This/Abydos and of other
regional polities (if any)?

G. Dreyer was the first Egyptologist to informally talk about a
"Dynasty 00"; his playful expression was first used in a publication
by E. van den Brink but it has been never as widely used as "Dynasty
0". In van den Brink's intention the term should have designated the
"members of the ruling class buried in cemetery U at Abydos, Umm
el-Qaab"*[21]*, thus the predecessors of the /(Abydos)/ Dynasty 0
kings; Dynasty 00, 0 and 1 would respectively coincide with Kaiser's
stufen Naqada IIIa, IIIb, IIIc. With such a meaning and the
acceptation of a periodical designation, the definition would only
entail a readjustment according to Hendrickx chronology, which
refines Kaiser's one and whose phases fit better with the "cultural"
breaks*[22]*: modifying van den Brink's proposal, we would
eventually relate Dynasties 00 and 0 to Hendrickx's Naqada IIIA(1-2)
and IIIB respectively (but see also below).

The terms 'Dynasty 0' and especially 'Dynasty 00' have been object
of various criticism; the former one is somewhat frequently
employed; to recapitulate, I generally find it used as referring 1)
to the period before Narmer (or before Aha), therefore not to the
king's succession; 2) to the late predynastic Abydos royal line, the
kings buried in late Naqada IIIB in cemetery B at Umm el-Qaab; 3) to
all the Naqada IIIB (IIIb1-2) rulers of Egypt (and eventually Nubia).

These latter kings were the successors of the chiefs buried during
late Naqada II-early Naqada III in cemetery U, at short distance
North of the B cemetery.

"Dynasty 00" should have been used to identify the kings earlier
than the /period/ of Dynasty 0 (in the same way as the latter term
was coniated for the kings before Dynasty 1); however I have
recently discussed about this topic with some Egyptologists*[23]*,
who all agree, for various reasons, in rejecting this misleading
terminology, especially with regards of the younger and even more
misleading term "Dynasty 00" which is not yet rooted in the lexicon
of Egyptologists and historians. I think that the diffidence for the
term also depends on the different meaning with which it is
alternatively used by Egyptologists.

*III - Conclusions *

For the above mentioned reasons I would completely agree about the
necessity to arginate the term "Dynasty 00", particularly when
occurring without any explanation or clarification about its sense.
But such a rejection should be, in part, also extended to all the
Dynasties (cf. above) and certainly to the 'Dynasty 0'.

Even if we don't know whether the Naqada IIIB Abydos-Dynasty 0 did
reign on the whole Egypt or not, there are various instances in
which Manetho's Dynasties indicate local rulers. Hence the fact that
late predynastic kings were or not chiefs of a Unified Egypt mustn't
be a deterrent to the use of the term 'dynasty' for the period of
the protostate(s).*[24]*

As I have explained, the difficulty to find good designations for
these predynastic polities also depends on the fact that several
uncertainties exist about the political situation in Egypt during
Naqada IIIA-B.

Our prime objective must be that to investigate more in depth (and
more aspects of) the earliest phases of the Egyptian State
formation*[25]* and the related questions of the creation and
development of a peculiar ideology (especially concerning the
institution of kingship), of élites and of a complexly organized and
highly specialized state apparatus (administration, bureaucracy,
economy, technology); obviously the availability of more data is
fundamental not to make debates rest in the pure speculation; thus
the new fieldwork is the primary source and base for any analysis,
synthesis and reinterpretation.

When these traits of the oldest phases of the Egyptian culture as a
proto- and early-state have become more clear, it will be certainly
easier to device a proper terminology*[26]*; already since now we
could more properly indicate the late predynastic kings with the
Naqada phase (and eventually subphases) during which they are
supposed to have lived and the geographical sphere of their
influence (whether known): e.g. "Naqada IIIA1 Abydos sovereign".
Yet 'Dynasty 0' could still be a convenient way to group them all
up, independently from their period and regional collocation.

I myself have used the two terms discussed here in my website*[27]*
and not only to facilitate Internet-search; admittedly in a somewhat
arbitrary way I have distinguished a /period/ of "Dynasty 00" (or,
less misleadingly 'Dynasties 00') e.g. phases Naqada IIIA1-A2 (true
serekhs not yet used for royal designations*[28]*), from the Dynasty
0 period, covering Naqada IIIB (early anonymous serekhs as in Abydos
U-s, U-t, plain serekhs, Double Falcon up to the time of Narmer or
Aha excluded).

The key point is, in my opinion, to conform to only one meaning of
the discussed terms, so as to avoid equivocal statements; thus to
use these 'dynasties' /only/ in the periodical or in the
geographical/genealogical (as far as can be ascertained from the
funerary structures) sense. But, beyond this, I think that the real
problems with Predynastic Egypt are quite other ones, and more in
the field of concepts and facts than in that of "labels", in
particular when considering the antiquated character of the
currently adopted Dynastic subdivision.*[29]*

Presently, a good number of archaeological missions are working on
Egyptian sites of late predynastic period; reports, syntheses and
new studies are being prepared or will be published within the next
years; I cannot doubt that more light is going to be shed on the
causes, modalities and effects of the origin of the state in Egypt,
which will in turn result in a more adequate terminology; the
ambiguity of the terms here discussed reflects our uncertainties
about the questions expressed above: time and research will surely
make our ideas and expressions clearer.

Finally, after having reviewed the origin of Manetho's Dynasties and
having outlined the weakness of the system, I do not consider its
use in predynastic ambit a negative trend.

Obviously it results paradoxal to deal with dynasties in a period
which we call 'predynastic'; but I don't see it as an obstacle, and
I guess that it is the term 'predynastic' which is outdated (or to
be shifted farther back in time). Because /now/ we know that the
Ancient Egyptian State and many of its features originated before
the First Dynasty: regional or super-regional entities existed long
before Narmer and these socio-political units (proto-states) bore a
culture which passed into and through the Dynastic period; this
continuity is even more evident than the transformations,
differences and breaks; and the extended use of the
/dynasty/-concept to the 'Late Predynastic' period by means of the
terms Dynasty '00' and '0', does justice to this newer perception of
the origin of the Dynastic Egypt tradition. For in the light of the
last decades discoveries, in cultural and perhaps also in political
terms, it was what we call /Late Predynastic/ to have been the
/Early Dynastic/ period indeed.

*NOTES <#notes>* - (click the link to open a new window/page for the
notes)

*[1]* W.G. Waddell, Manetho, 1940.

*[2]* D. Redford, Pharaonic King-lists, Annals and Day-books, 1986,
chapt. 6-9; see also note 8.

*[3]* Indeed the TC preserves traces of geographical arrangement of
rulers, yet within a less compartmented assemblage than Manetho's
one: even if only for summation purpose, there is a grouping of the
first five dynasties' kings; some kind of break between the Fifth
and Sixth Dynasty seems also evident from the contents of the South
Saqqara stone (Baud - Dobrev, in: BIFAO 95, 1995): in fact these
Annals concern only Manetho's Sixth Dynasty!

It has been much debated about the Abydos Umm el-Qaab necropolis
seal-impressions with the names of First Dynasty kings from Narmer
to Den (tomb T, cf. G. Dreyer, in: MDAIK 43, 1987, 33ff.) and from
Narmer to Qa'a (tomb Q: Dreyer et. al., in: MDAIK 52, 1996, 72, fig.
26): the latter specimen precisely spans Manetho's First Dynasty.

These door seal-impressions testify the existence of funerary cult
of the royal ancestors in the necropolis and the effective (?)
succession of the eight Thinite kings. Ancient Egyptians of that
period certainly considered the rulers from Narmer to Qa'a as
forming a group owing to both their common origin (Thinis) and their
'final destination' (the sacred burial ground of the Umm el-Qaab).

Similarly, we often find the Nswt-Bity names of the last four kings
of the First Dynasty incised on stone vessels, although for
different purpose (celebrative or administrative inscriptions) and
in a different modality (royal names added nearby -or over- those of
the earlier kings) than that of seals; another close parallel can be
drawn with the royal names incised on the shoulder of the statuette
(Cairo CG 1) of /Redjit/ (formerly erroneously named 'Hotepdief'):
this priest served the funerary cult of the first three kings of the
Second Dynasty, whose tombs were at Saqqara (only Hotepsekhemwy's
and Ninetjer's tombs -A and B- are actually known).

The important movement of the Royal Necropolis from Abydos to
Saqqara could have also influenced the layout of Manetho's Dynasty
(cf. text below). But the royal names on the sealings are not
king-lists and in my opinion any further speculation about the
coincidence of the names on the Narmer-to-Qa'a sealing with what we
call "First Dynasty" is extremely dangerous and potentially
misleading. The seal impressions do not prove that OK Egyptians
thought in term of "dynasties" in the same way as Manetho and
ourselves do.

The fact that Narmer is the earliest king mentioned on both the
quoted sealings is clearly a relevant matter, as also is the
omission of Merneith's name on the later sealing, but the
implications of these two particulars cannot be analyzed here; I
only want to remark that Horus Narmer must have been a true pivotal
figure of Egyptian History, perhaps really the author of the
definitive Unification, and to be considered in some way both the
last king of "Dynasty 0" and the foundator of "Dynasty 1", recalling
in this the two entries of /Menes/ in the Turin Canon (verso, col.
II, lines 10-11).

*[4] *The author appeared very skeptical about the possibility that
Manetho might have used both Egyptian monumental inscriptions and
any kind of non-Egyptian sources to compile his work.

*[5] *Malek, in JEA 68, 1982, 93ff. (espec. the conclusions at p.
105-106).

*[6]* Menes, la memoire monarchique et la chronologie du IIIe
millénaire, in: Archéo-Nil 9, 1999, 109-147; id., Les frontières des
quatre premières dynasties. Annales royales et historiographie
égyptienne, in: BSFE 149, 2000, 32-46; id., Djéser et la IIIe
dynastie, 2002, 53ff.

*[7]* The first kings of the first four dynasties (Narmer,
Hotepsekhemwy, Djoser and Snofru) apparently introduced important
transformations in the method of counting and reporting years/dates;
the numerical count used during the Second and Fourth Dynasty (and
on) replaced the evenemential designation (by important cerimonies
or other 'events' happened during each year) which seems to have
been precisely adopted all along the First and Third Dynasties.

On the fifth line of the Palermo Stone recto we can plainly observe
the two different methods at work: numerical counts on the reign to
the right (Khasekhemwy, last king of the Second Dynasty), while in
the following one (to the left, Netjerykhet/Djoser) the events-based
system already used in the First Dynasty is re-introduced in the Third.

*[8]* R. Weill, Les IIe et IIIe Dynasties Egyptiennes, 1908, 26-64;
Helck, Untersuchungen zu Manetho und den ägyptischen Königslisten,
1956; id., Untersuchungen zur Thinitenzeit, 1987; Godron, Etudes sur
l'Horus Den et quelques problèmes de l'Egypte archaïque, 1990; id.,
Les rois de la Ire dynastie chez Manéthon, in: Berger-Mathieu,
Etudes sur l'Ancien Empire et la nécropole de Saqqâra dédiées à
Jean-Philippe Lauer, 1997, 199-211; also cf. Barta, in: ZAS 108, 1981.

*[9]* Similar criticism of artificial degree of grouping and
incoherent principle of subdivision could be made also in respect of
the terminology of the Intermediate periods and that of the Old-,
Middle- and New- Kingdom. However the peculiar acceptation of all
these terms in Egyptological ambit is often remarked and well known.

*[10]* Redford, op. cit, 1986, 231ff.; Von Beckerath, in: MDAIK 14,
1956, 1-10; Kaiser, in: ZAS 84, 1959, 119ff; id., in: ZAS 85, 1960,
118ff; id., in: ZAS 86, 1961, 39ff.; id., in: ZAS 91, 1964, 86ff.;
Helck, op. cit., 1987, 90-99.

*[11]* Hierakonpolis, pt. I, 1900, 5ff.

*[12]* Loc. cit., 5; Menes was equated with Hor-Aha owing to the
interpretation of an inscribed label discovered by J. de Morgan in
the niched Mastaba of Naqada in 1897.

*[13]* Serekhs of late predynastic kings were found in those years
at Turah, El Beda, Tarkhan and Helwan in tombs of the local élite;
cf. F. Raffaele, in: Aegyptiaca Helvetica 17, 2003 in press.

*[14]* The term 'Dynasty 0' wasn't used in the 1982 massive report
(Kaiser-Dreyer, in: MDAIK 38): only since a 1985 paper by Kaiser
(in: MDAIK 41, p. 71) it started to reacquire popularity in the
Egyptological publications.
Also cf. one earlier mention of 'Dynasty 0' (Narmer) in M. Hoffman's
/Egypt before the Pharaohs/, 1979, 270, table XI.

*[15]* As shown by the serekhs with names of Dynasty 0 kings from
the Helwan cemetery (Nj-Neith, Ka, Narmer) and tomb S3357 at North
Saqqara (reign of Aha). For a recent synthesis of the Dynasty 0 cf.
F. Raffaele, op. cit., in press.

*[16]* Early Dynastic Egypt, 1999, 53.

*[17]* Kaiser - Dreyer, in: MDAIK 38, 1982; van den Brink, in:
Archeo-Nil 11, in press; F. Raffaele, op. cit.; also cf. n. 18.

*[18]* S. Hendrickx, in: A.J. Spencer (ed.), Aspects of Early Egypt,
1996, 36-69; also see below.

*[19]* Cf. notes 13, 17.

*[20]* It could even be doubted that some of the (non personalized)
serekhs were royal marks at all.

*[21]* In: E.C.M. van den Brink (ed.), Nile Delta in Transition,
1992, vi, n. 1. But cf. G. Dreyer, ibid., 295: "?W-ware with painted
net pattern datable to Naqada IIIa2-IIIb (Dynasty 0)".

*[22]* Cf. op. cit. in note 18; also see S. Hendrickx, in:
Archaéo-Nil 9, 1999, 13-107.

*[23]* J.J. Castillos, S. Hendrickx, J. Van Wetering, in pers.
communications via e-mail or via the *EEF Internet forum*
<http://showcase.netins.net/web/ankh/eefmain.html> (cf. the archive
of October 2002, txt-file: "Periodisation in AE history").

*[24]* On the other hand, it is true that the two terms only add
more confusion to Manetho's system: to consider "00" and "0" by the
same meter as "1-30" generates a further unknown, especially when
/dynasty/ comes to coincide with a period.

*[25]* Cf. K. M. Cialowicz, M. Chlodnicki, S. Hendrickx (eds.),
Origin of the State. Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt, Abstract
of Papers, to: http://members.xoom.it/francescoraf/*Cracow.htm*
<../Cracow.htm> (publication of the proceedings in preparation).

*[26]* Certainly it will be much harder, if not impossible, to
re-elaborate or replace Manetho's thirty dynasties.

*[27]* Early Dynastic Egypt, at :
*http://members.xoom.it/francescoraf/* <../index.htm>

*[28]* Some bone tags from the Scorpion I's tomb U-j at Abydos (G.
Dreyer, Umm el-Qaab I, 1998, fig. 80, nr. 127-129) show
representations of a bird perched atop a niched building which might
be interpreted as a forerunner of serekhs.

*[29]* Yet this doesn't obviously mean that we are authorized to be
superficial and imprecise in this respect only because of the basic
faults.

*
© Francesco Raffaele
*** This article is published in: _BASADE, February 2003_
(both in Spanish translation by Mrs. Teresa Soria and in my English
original)*

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EARLY DYNASTIC EGYPT <../index.htm>
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