Scorpion I was a ruler 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 E ...

during

Naqada III Naqada III is the last phase of the Naqada culture of ancient Egyptian prehistory, dating from approximately 3200 to 3000 BC. It is the period during which the process of state formation, which began in Naqada II, became highly visible, w ...

. His name may refer to the

scorpion Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the order Scorpiones. They have eight legs, and are easily recognized by a pair of grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back and always en ...

goddess Serket, though evidence suggests Serket's rise in popularity to be in the

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 ...

, bringing doubt to whether Scorpion actually took his name from her. He was one of the first rulers of Ancient Egypt, and a graffiti of him depicts a battle with an unidentified predynastic ruler. His tomb is known for the evidence of early examples of wine consumption in Ancient Egypt.

Tombs

Scorpion is believed to have lived in Thinis one or two centuries before the rule of the better-known

Scorpion II Scorpion II ( Ancient Egyptian: possibly Selk or Weha), also known as King Scorpion, was a ruler during the Protodynastic Period of Upper Egypt (c. ). Identity Name King Scorpion's name and title are of great dispute in modern Egyptol ...

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 ...

and is presumably the first true king of Upper Egypt. To him belongs the

U-j Umm El Qaʻāb (sometimes romanised Umm El Gaʻab, ar, أم القعاب) is a necropolis of the Early Dynastic Period kings at Abydos, Egypt. Its modern name means "Mother of Pots" as the whole area is littered with the broken pot shards of of ...

tomb found in the royal cemetery of Abydos, where Thinite kings were buried. That tomb was plundered in antiquity, but in it were found many small ivory plaques, each with a hole for tying it to something, and each marked with one or more

hieroglyph A hieroglyph ( Greek for "sacred carvings") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatoni ...

-type scratched images which are thought to be names of towns, perhaps to tie the offerings and

tribute A tribute (; from Latin ''tributum'', "contribution") is wealth, often in kind, that a party gives to another as a sign of submission, allegiance or respect. Various ancient states exacted tribute from the rulers of land which the state conqu ...

s to keep track of which came from which town. Two of those plaques seem to name the towns Baset and

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 ...

, showing that Scorpion's armies had penetrated the Nile Delta. It may be that the conquests of Scorpion started the Egyptian

ic system by starting a need to keep records in writing.''Secrets of Egypt'', Channel 5 TV program 2/8, "Scorpion King," 20 November 2008.

Battle depiction

In 1995, a 5,000-year-old graffito was discovered in the

Theban Desert Road Survey The Theban Desert Road Survey is an archaeological research project operated in conjunction with the Egyptian Ministry of Culture's Supreme Council for Antiquities that is being conducted in the Western Desert in Egypt that focuses on the ancien ...

that also bears the symbols of Scorpion and depicts his victory over another protodynastic ruler (possibly

Naqada Naqada (Egyptian Arabic: ; Coptic language: ; Ancient Greek: ) is a town on the west bank of the Nile in Qena Governorate, Egypt, situated ca. 20 km north of Luxor. It includes the villages of Tukh, Khatara, Danfiq, and Zawayda. Acco ...

's king). The defeated king or place named in the graffito was "

Bull's Head ''Bull's Head'' (french: Tête de taureau) is a found object artwork by Pablo Picasso, created in 1942 from the seat and handlebars of a bicycle. It is described by Roland Penrose as Picasso's most famous discovery, a simple yet "astonishingly c ...

", a marking also found in

. It is believed that Scorpion I unified Upper Egypt following the defeat of Naqada's king.

Evidence of wine consumption

Scorpion's tomb is known in archaeology circles for its possible evidence of ancient wine consumption. In a search of the tomb, archaeologists discovered dozens of imported ceramic jars containing a yellow residue consistent with wine, dated to about 3150 BC. Chemical residues of herbs, tree resins, and other natural substances were found in the jars. Grape seeds, skins and dried pulp were also found in the tomb.

References

32nd-century BC Pharaohs Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Naqada III {{AncientEgypt-bio-stub