S01 E04: Birth of the First Pharaohs

Hello everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode about Narmer, the first pharaoh of Egypt. So, as I mentioned during the episode, our source for this week was Manetho. He was a historian from Ptolemaic Egypt, and, as an indigenous Egyptian, spoke Egyptian and was familiar with the region's history. He wrote one of the most extensive histories about the early pharaohs of Egypt, but is also responsible for some of the confusion we face in Egyptology today, as he used many Greek names from ancient Egyptian pharaohs in his writing. For example, in this episode I state that Narmer had two nicknames, Scorpion and Menes. The name Menes is used by Manetho to identify the great pharaoh who united Egypt. Some scholars though argue that Aha, not Narmer, is the true Menes. I personally don't think this hypothesis holds much water, but it's interesting nonetheless so I figured I'd talk about it on the blog. 

As promised, here's the comparison image of Scorpion, as depicted on the macehead, and Narmer, as depicted on the palette. I whipped this up in photoshop to show some features of their depictions that make them look incredibly similar. Though, again, as noted in the podcast, this could potentially be due to artistic motifs when depicting ancient kings of Egypt, rather than an actual similarity of appearance between the two men.

Finally, as always here's the donation link to help support the show. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode, and I hope you'll enjoy next week's episode on Narmer.

To support the podcast and receive access to premium content, click here. This week's premium episode focuses on Neithhotep, the wife of Narmer, and the first female monarch in human history. Enjoy.