Narmer Palette
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The Narmer Palette, also known as the Great Hierakonpolis Palette or the Palette of Narmer, is a significant
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
ian archeological find, dating from about the 31st century BC, belonging, at least nominally, to the category of
cosmetic palette Cosmetic palettes are archaeological Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, originally used in predynastic Egypt, predynastic ancient Egypt, Egypt to grind and apply ingredients for facial or body cosmetics. The decorative palettes of the late 4th mill ...
s. It contains some of the earliest
hieroglyphic Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1,00 ...
inscriptions ever found. The tablet is thought by some to depict the unification of Upper and
Lower Egypt Lower Egypt ( ar, مصر السفلى '; ) is the northernmost region of Egypt, which consists of the fertile Nile Delta between Upper Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, from El Aiyat, south of modern-day Cairo, and Dahshur. Historically, ...
under the king
Narmer Narmer ( egy, Wiktionary:nꜥr-mr, nꜥr-mr, meaning "painful catfish," "stinging catfish," "harsh catfish," or "fierce catfish;" ) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period (Egypt), Early Dynastic Period. He was the successor ...
. Along with the
Scorpion Macehead The Scorpion macehead (also known as the ''Major Scorpion macehead'') is a decorated ancient Egyptian macehead found by British archeologists James E. Quibell and Frederick W. Green in what they called the main deposit in the temple of Horus ...
and the
Narmer Macehead The Narmer macehead is an ancient Egyptian decorative stone mace head. It was found in the “main deposit” in the temple area of the ancient Egyptian city of Nekhen ( Hierakonpolis) by James Quibell in 1898. It is dated to the Early Dynastic ...
s, also found together in the main deposit at
Nekhen Nekhen ( egy, nḫn, ); in grc, Ἱεράκων πόλις Hierakonpolis ( either: City of the Hawk, or City of the Falcon, a reference to Horus or ''Hierakōn polis'' "Hawk City" in arz, الكوم الأحمر, el-Kōm el-Aḥmar, lit=the ...
, the Narmer Palette provides one of the earliest known depictions of an Egyptian king. On one side, the king is depicted with the bulbed
White Crown Hedjet ( egy, ḥḏt "White One") is the formal name for the White Crown of pharaonic Upper Egypt. After the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, it was combined with the Deshret, the Red Crown of Lower Egypt, to form the Pschent, the double cro ...
of Upper (southern) Egypt, and the other side depicts the king wearing the level
Red Crown Deshret ( egy, dšrt "Red One") was the formal name for the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and for the desert Red Land on either side of Kemet (Black Land), the fertile Nile river basin. When combined with the Hedjet (White Crown) of Upper Egypt, it for ...
of Lower (northern) Egypt, which also makes it the earliest known example of a king wearing both types of headdress. The Palette shows many of the classic conventions of
Ancient Egyptian art Ancient Egyptian art refers to art produced in ancient Egypt between the 6th millennium BC and the 4th century AD, spanning from Prehistoric Egypt until the Christianization of Roman Egypt. It includes paintings, sculptu ...
, which must already have been formalized by the time of the Palette's creation. The Egyptologist
Bob Brier Robert Brier (; born December 13, 1943) is an American Egyptologist specializing in paleopathology. A senior research fellow at Long Island University/LIU Post, he has researched and published on mummies and the mummification process and has appea ...
has referred to the Narmer Palette as "the first historical document in the world". The Palette, which has survived five millennia in almost perfect condition, was discovered by
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
archeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts ...
s James E. Quibell and Frederick W. Green, in what they called the Main Deposit in the Temple of Horus at
Nekhen Nekhen ( egy, nḫn, ); in grc, Ἱεράκων πόλις Hierakonpolis ( either: City of the Hawk, or City of the Falcon, a reference to Horus or ''Hierakōn polis'' "Hawk City" in arz, الكوم الأحمر, el-Kōm el-Aḥmar, lit=the ...
, during the dig season of 1897–98. Also found at this dig were the Narmer Macehead and the Scorpion Macehead. The exact place and circumstances of these finds were not recorded very clearly by Quibell and Green. In fact, Green's report placed the Palette in a different layer one or two yards away from the deposit, which is considered to be more accurate on the basis of the original excavation notes. It has been suggested that these objects were royal donations made to the temple. Nekhen, or Hierakonpolis, was one of four power centers in
Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south. In ancient ...
that preceded the consolidation of Upper Egypt at the end of the Naqada III period. Hierakonpolis's religious importance continued long after its political role had declined. Palettes were typically used for grinding cosmetics, but this palette is too large and heavy (and elaborate) to have been created for personal use and was probably a ritual or votive object, specifically made for donation to, or use in, a temple. One theory is that it was used to grind cosmetics to adorn the statues of the deities. The Narmer Palette is part of the permanent collection of the
Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...
in
Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
.Shaw, Ian. ''Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction.'' p.4. Oxford Press, 2004. It is one of the initial exhibits which visitors have been able to see when entering the museum. It has the ''Journal d'Entrée'' number JE32169 and the ''Catalogue Général'' number CG14716.


Description

The Narmer Palette is a , shield-shaped, ceremonial palette, carved from a single piece of flat, soft dark gray-green
siltstone Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility.Blatt ''et al.'' 1980, p ...
. The stone has often been wrongly identified, in the past, as being
slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
or
schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes o ...
. Slate is layered and prone to flaking, and schist is a
metamorphic rock Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock (protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, causin ...
containing large, randomly distributed mineral grains. Both are unlike the finely grained, hard, flake-resistant siltstone, whose source is from a well-attested quarry that has been used since pre-dynastic times at
Wadi Hammamat Wadi Hammamat ( en, Valley of Many Baths, ''India way; gateway to India'') is a dry river bed in Egypt's Eastern Desert, about halfway between Al-Qusayr and Qena. It was a major mining region and trade route east from the Nile Valley in ancien ...
.Shaw, Ian. ''Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction''. pp.44–45. Oxford University Press, 2004. This material was used extensively during the pre-dynastic period for creating such palettes and also was used as a source for
Old Kingdom In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning c. 2700–2200 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourth ...
statuary. A statue of the 2nd dynasty pharaoh
Khasekhemwy Khasekhemwy (ca. 2690 BC; ', also rendered ''Kha-sekhemui'') was the last Pharaoh of the Second Dynasty of Egypt. Little is known about him, other than that he led several significant military campaigns and built the mudbrick fort known as Shune ...
, found in the same complex as the Narmer Palette at Hierakonpolis, also was made of this material. The Palette is carved in low
relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...
. At the top of both sides is an identical royal insignia called a
serekh In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a serekh is a rectangular enclosure representing the niched or gated façade of a palace surmounted by (usually) the Horus falcon, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The serekh was the earliest conven ...
, which is "a composite hieroglyphic symbol standing for the king/crown/state and the state's property." The serekhs bear the
rebus A rebus () is a puzzle device that combines the use of illustrated pictures with individual letters to depict words or phrases. For example: the word "been" might be depicted by a rebus showing an illustrated bumblebee next to a plus sign (+) ...
symbols ''n'r'' (catfish) and ''mr'' (chisel) inside, being the phonetic representation of Narmer's name.
Wengrow, David David Wengrow (born 25 July 1972) is a British archaeologist and Professor of Comparative Archaeology at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology, University College London. He co-authored the international bestseller ''The Da ...
,
The Archaeology of Ancient Egypt
' Cambridge University Press, p.207
Both serekhs are flanked by a pair of bovine heads with highly curved horns, thought to represent the cow goddess
Bat Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most bi ...
. She was the patron deity of the seventh nome of Upper Egypt, and was also the
deification Apotheosis (, ), also called divinization or deification (), is the glorification of a subject to divine levels and, commonly, the treatment of a human being, any other living thing, or an abstract idea in the likeness of a deity. The term has ...
of the cosmos within Egyptian mythology during the pre-dynastic and Old Kingdom periods of Ancient Egyptian history.


Recto side

As on the other side, two human-faced bovine heads, thought to represent the patron cow goddess
Bat Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most bi ...
, flank the serekhs. The goddess Bat is, as she often was, shown in portrait, rather than in profile as is traditional in Egyptian relief carving.
Hathor Hathor ( egy, ḥwt-ḥr, lit=House of Horus, grc, Ἁθώρ , cop, ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ, Meroitic: ) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky ...
, who shared many of Bat's characteristics, is often depicted in a similar manner. Some authors suggest that the images represent the vigor of the king as a pair of bulls. The largest relief on this side depicts Narmer, who lifts a royal mace in his right hand while with his left he pulls up a kneeling captive by the hair. In contrast to the verso depiction of Narmer, where he is shown with the
Red Crown Deshret ( egy, dšrt "Red One") was the formal name for the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and for the desert Red Land on either side of Kemet (Black Land), the fertile Nile river basin. When combined with the Hedjet (White Crown) of Upper Egypt, it for ...
of Lower Egypt, on this side he wears the
White Crown Hedjet ( egy, ḥḏt "White One") is the formal name for the White Crown of pharaonic Upper Egypt. After the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, it was combined with the Deshret, the Red Crown of Lower Egypt, to form the Pschent, the double cro ...
of Upper Egypt. His pose reflects the Ancient Egyptian convention of showing an important figure from multiple perspectives at once. His feet, legs and head are shown in profile, while the
torso The torso or trunk is an anatomical term for the central part, or the core, of the body of many animals (including humans), from which the head, neck, limbs, tail and other appendages extend. The tetrapod torso — including that of a human ...
and hips turn slightly and his shoulders face the front. One eye, even though it would normally not be seen if this were an actual profile head, is also shown from the front. The purpose was to provide the most complete information possible about a person on a flat surface. The Palette also shows the Egyptian canon of body proportions. Based on an established unit correlating to the distance across the knuckles of human fist, this conventional form of measurement was a means of standardizing the proportions of important figures in Egyptian art. The standard measurement, which is already apparent in the Palette, was 18 fists from the ground to the hairline on the forehead. Both artistic conventions remained in use until at least the conquest by
Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...
over 3,000 years later. The minor figures in active poses, such as the king's captive, the corpses and the handlers of the
serpopard The serpopard is a mythical animal known from ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian art. The word "serpopard" is a modern coinage. It is a portmanteau of "serpent" and "leopard", derived from the interpretation that the creature represents an anim ...
beasts, are much more freely depicted. Attached to the belt worn by Narmer are four beaded tassels, each capped with an ornament in the shape of the head of the goddess
Hathor Hathor ( egy, ḥwt-ḥr, lit=House of Horus, grc, Ἁθώρ , cop, ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ, Meroitic: ) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky ...
. They also are the same heads as those that adorn the top of each side of the palette. At the back of the belt is attached a long fringe representing a lion's tail. On the left of the king is a man bearing the king's sandals, flanked by a rosette symbol. To the right of the king is a kneeling prisoner, who is about to be struck by the king. A pair of symbols appear next to his head perhaps indicating his name (
Wash WASH (or Watsan, WaSH) is an acronym that stands for "water, sanitation and hygiene". It is used widely by non-governmental organizations and aid agencies in developing countries. The purposes of providing access to WASH services include achievin ...
) or indicating the region where he was from. Above the prisoner is a falcon, representing
Horus Horus or Heru, Hor, Har in Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as god of kingship and the sky. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the P ...
, perched above a set of papyrus flowers, the symbol of Lower Egypt. In his talons, he holds a rope-like object which appears to be attached to the nose of a man's head that also emerges from the papyrus flowers.


Verso side

Below the bovine heads is what appears to be a procession. Narmer is significantly larger than anyone else on that register, an artistic convention known variously as
hierarchical proportion Hierarchical proportion is a technique used in art, mostly in sculpture and painting, in which the artist uses unnatural proportion or scale to depict the relative importance of the figures in the artwork. For example, in Egyptian times, people o ...
, hierarchic scale or hierarchy of scale. As on the recto, his disproportionate size reinforces the ideas of conquest and political power as a god-like leader. He wears a
Red Crown Deshret ( egy, dšrt "Red One") was the formal name for the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and for the desert Red Land on either side of Kemet (Black Land), the fertile Nile river basin. When combined with the Hedjet (White Crown) of Upper Egypt, it for ...
of Lower Egypt, symbolized by a papyrus. He holds a mace and a flail, two traditional symbols of kingship. To his right are the hieroglyphic symbols for his name, though not contained within a
serekh In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a serekh is a rectangular enclosure representing the niched or gated façade of a palace surmounted by (usually) the Horus falcon, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The serekh was the earliest conven ...
. Behind him is his
sandal-bearer A sandal-bearer is a person who bears the sandals of his superior. The role existed in various cultures and epochs, being first documented in Egypt's Early Dynastic Period (c. 31st century BC). In Antiquity In Ancient Egypt the role of sand ...
, whose name may be represented by the rosette appearing adjacent to his head, and a second rectangular symbol that has no clear interpretation, but which has been suggested may represent a town or citadel. Immediately in front of the pharaoh is a long-haired man, accompanied by a pair of hieroglyphs that have been interpreted as his name: ''Tshet'' (this assumes that these symbols had the same phonetic value used in later hieroglyphic writing). Before this man are four standard bearers, holding aloft an animal skin, a dog, and two falcons. At the far right of this scene are ten decapitated corpses with their heads at their feet and their severed genitals protruding from their mouths. These figures are generally understood to be victims of Narmer's conquest. Above them are the symbols for a ship, a falcon, and a harpoon, which may indicate the names of the towns that were conquered. Below the procession, two men are holding ropes tied to the outstretched, intertwining necks of two
serpopard The serpopard is a mythical animal known from ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian art. The word "serpopard" is a modern coinage. It is a portmanteau of "serpent" and "leopard", derived from the interpretation that the creature represents an anim ...
s confronting each other. The serpopard is a mythological creature, a mix of serpent and leopard. The circle formed by their curving necks is the central part of the Palette, which is the area where the cosmetics would have been ground. Upper and Lower Egypt each worshipped lioness war goddesses as protectors; the intertwined necks of the serpopards may thus represent the unification of the state. Similar images of such mythical animals are known from other contemporaneous cultures, and there are other examples of late-predynastic objects (including other palettes and knife handles such as the
Gebel el-Arak Knife The Gebel el-Arak Knife, also Jebel el-Arak Knife, is an ivory and flint knife dating from the Naqada II period of Egyptian prehistory (3500—3200 BC), showing Mesopotamian influence. The knife was purchased in 1914 in Cairo by Georges Aaron B ...
) which borrow similar elements from
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
n
iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...
, suggesting Egypt-Mesopotamia relations. At the bottom of the verso, a bull is seen knocking down the walls of a city while trampling on a fallen foe. Head lowered, Narmer is shown here as a stylized, two-dimensional beast who will vanquish his enemies. Bulls had an ideological connection to Egyptian kingship. "Bull of his Mother," for example, was a common epithet given to an Egyptian king as the son of the patron cow goddess. This posture of a bovine has the meaning of "force" in later hieroglyphics.


Scholarly debate

The Palette has raised considerable scholarly debate over the years. In general, the arguments fall into one of two camps: scholars who believe that the Palette is a record of an important event, and other academics who argue that it is an object designed to establish the mythology of united rule over Upper and Lower Egypt by the king. It had been thought that the Palette either depicted the unification of
Lower Egypt Lower Egypt ( ar, مصر السفلى '; ) is the northernmost region of Egypt, which consists of the fertile Nile Delta between Upper Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, from El Aiyat, south of modern-day Cairo, and Dahshur. Historically, ...
by the king of
Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south. In ancient ...
, or recorded a recent military success over the Libyans, or the last stronghold of a Lower Egyptian dynasty based in
Buto Buto ( grc, Βουτώ, ar, بوتو, ''Butu''), Bouto, Butus ( grc, links=no, Βοῦτος, ''Boutos'')Herodotus ii. 59, 63, 155. or Butosus was a city that the Ancient Egyptians called Per-Wadjet. It was located 95 km east of Alexandri ...
. More recently, scholars such as
Nicholas Millet Dr. Nicholas Byram Millet (June 28, 1934 – 2004) was an Egyptologist affiliated with the Royal Ontario Museum and the University of Toronto. An archaeologist, art historian, linguist, museum curator, administrator, and celebrated teacher, Mi ...
have argued that the Palette does not represent a historical event (such as the unification of Egypt), but instead represents the events of the year in which the object was dedicated to the temple. Whitney Davis has suggested that the iconography on this and other pre-dynastic palettes has more to do with establishing the king as a visual metaphor of the conquering hunter, caught in the moment of delivering a mortal blow to his enemies. John Baines has suggested that the events portrayed are "tokens of royal achievement" from the past and that "the chief purpose of the piece is not to record an event but to assert that the king dominates the ordered world in the name of the gods and has defeated internal, and especially external, forces of disorder".Baines, John "Communication and display: the integration of early Egyptian art and writing" ''Antiquity'', vol. 63:240, 1989, pp. 471–482.


In popular culture

The Narmer Palette is featured in the 2009 film ''
Watchmen ''Watchmen'' is an American comic book Limited series (comics), maxiseries by the British creative team of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins (comics), John Higgins. It was published monthly by DC Comics in 1986 a ...
'' as one of the Egyptian objects that are present in Ozymandias's office. The Australian author Jackie French used the Palette, and recent research into Sumerian trade routes, to create her historical novel ''Pharaoh'' (2007). The Palette is featured in
manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...
artist
Yukinobu Hoshino is a Japanese manga artist. Life He was born in Kushiro, Hokkaidō and dropped out of Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music after two years of studying mid-semester from the fine arts department. He moved to Tokyo in order to pu ...
's short story " The temple of El Alamein". The Palette is also featured in ''
The Kane Chronicles ''The Kane Chronicles'' is a trilogy of Adventure novel, adventure and Egyptian mythology, Egyptian Mythic fiction, mythological fiction books written by American author Rick Riordan. The series is set in the same universe as Riordan's other fra ...
'' by
Rick Riordan Richard Russell Riordan Junior (; born June 5, 1964) is an American author, best known for writing the ''Percy Jackson & the Olympians'' series. Riordan's books have been translated into forty-two languages and sold more than thirty million co ...
where the palette is fetched by a magical
shawabti The ushabti (also called shabti or shawabti, with a number of variant spellings) was a funerary figurine used in ancient Egyptian funerary practices. The Egyptological term is derived from , which replaced earlier , perhaps the nisba of "'' ...
servant. In Ubisoft's 2017 game ''
Assassin's Creed Origins ''Assassin's Creed Origins'' is a 2017 action role-playing video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the tenth major installment in the ''Assassin's Creed'' series, following 2015's ''Assassin's Creed Syndicate''. ...
'', the Palette is a quest item and minor plot point toward the end of the main quest's storyline. The Narmer Palette is a main plot point in
Lincoln Child Lincoln Child (13 October 1957) is an American author of techno-thriller and horror novels. Though he is most well known for his collaborations with Douglas Preston (including the Agent Pendergast series and the Gideon Crew series, among other ...
’s '' The Third Gate'' novel, in which they attempt to find the tomb of king
Narmer Narmer ( egy, Wiktionary:nꜥr-mr, nꜥr-mr, meaning "painful catfish," "stinging catfish," "harsh catfish," or "fierce catfish;" ) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period (Egypt), Early Dynastic Period. He was the successor ...
in the
Sudd The Sudd (' or ', Dinka language, Dinka: Toc) is a vast swamp in South Sudan, formed by the White Nile's ''Mountain Nile, Baḥr al-Jabal'' section. The Arabic language, Arabic word ' is derived from ' (), meaning "barrier" or "obstruction". The ...
.


See also

*
List of ancient Egyptian palettes A list of a small subset of ancient Egyptian palettes, ranging in the Naqada periods, 4th millennium BC, probably mostly from ~3500 to 3000 BC; some palettes may be from the later period of the earliest 3rd millennium BC. These cosmetic pale ...
* Libyan Palette (another well-known Predynastic Egyptian palette) *
Warka Vase The Warka Vase or Uruk vase is a slim carved alabaster vessel found in the temple complex of the Sumerian goddess Inanna in the ruins of the ancient city of Uruk, located in the modern Al Muthanna Governorate, in southern Iraq. Like the Uruk Tro ...
(a comparable contemporaneous work of narrative relief sculpture from the
Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of c ...
ian civilisation) *
Kish tablet The Kish tablet is a limestone tablet found at the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Kish in modern-day Tell al-Uhaymir, Babil Governorate, Iraq. A plaster-cast of the artifact is today in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum. The origina ...


References


Bibliography

* * . * . * * * * * .


Further reading

*Bard, Kathryn A., ed. ''Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt''. London: Routledge, 1999. *Brewer, Douglas J. ''Ancient Egypt: Foundations of a Civilization''. Harlow, UK: Pearson, 2005. *Davis, Whitney. ''Masking the Blow: The Scene of Representation In Late Prehistoric Egyptian Art''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. *Lloyd, Alan B., ed. ''A Companion to Ancient Egypt''. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. *Málek, Jaromír. ''In the Shadow of the Pyramids: Egypt during the Old Kingdom''. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986. *Redford, Donald B., ed. ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt''. 3 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. *Shaw, Ian. ''Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. *Shaw, Ian, and Paul Nicholson. ''The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt''. Rev. ed. London: British Museum, 2008. *Wengrow, David. ''The Archaeology of Early Egypt: Social Transformation in North-East Africa, 10,000 to 2650 BC''. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. *Wenke, Robert J. ''The Ancient Egyptian State: The Origins of Egyptian Culture (c 8000–2000 BC)''. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. *Wilkinson, Toby. ''Early Dynastic Egypt''. London: Routledge, 2001.


External links


Good images of Narmer Palette
Scroll down to the drawing of the Palette and take the link to the photographs published by Francesco Rafaele.







Images of more than fifty such palettes with various motifs
''Narmer Catalog'' (Narmer Palette)
{{Authority control Ancient Egyptian literature Ancient Egyptian palettes Egyptian Museum Narmer War art Horus