Egyptian hieroglyphs 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, ...

, a serekh is a rectangular enclosure representing the niched or gated façade of a palace surmounted by (usually) the

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 ...

falcon Falcons () are birds of prey in the genus ''Falco'', which includes about 40 species. Falcons are widely distributed on all continents of the world except Antarctica, though closely related raptors did occur there in the Eocene. Adult falcons ...

, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The serekh was the earliest convention used to set apart the royal name in ancient

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

ian iconography, predating the later and better known

cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the f ...

by four dynasties and five to seven hundred years.

Appearance

A serekh was an ornamental vignette combining a view of a palace façade and a

plan A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with details of timing and resources, used to achieve an objective to do something. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions through which one expects to achieve a goal. ...

(top view) of the royal courtyard. The term ''serekh'' derives from the Egyptian word for " facade". Different serekhs on different types of object display countless variations of the façade decor in its complexity and detail. It seems that no strict artistic rules for the design of the serekh itself existed.Jürgen von Beckerath: ''Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen''. Münchner Ägyptologische Studien. Bd. 49. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1999, , p. 7-9.Rolf Gundlach: ''Horus in the Palace: The centre of State and Culture in pharaonic Egypt''. In: Rolf Gundlach, John H. Taylor: ''Egyptian royal Residences: 4. Symposium zur Ägyptischen Königsideologie (4th edition, London 2004)''. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2009, , p. 45–68.Toby A. H. Wilkinson: ''Early Dynastic Egypt: Strategy, Society and Security.'' Routledge, London 1999, , p. 56-57, 201–202.

History

The serekh first appears as an ornamental miniature during the late Gerzeh culture, when it was used as a royal crest only. From 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 ...

period onward, the first uses of the full written word appear in old papyri. Narmer Palette verso serekh

A serekh was normally used as a royal crest, accentuating and honouring the name of the

pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until th ...

. Its use can be dated back as early as the Gerzeh culture (c. 3400 BC). The hieroglyphs forming the king's name were placed inside a rectangular extension atop the serekh, which represented the royal courtyard. Additionally, the falcon of the god

, or in a few cases the Set animal, topped the serekh, showing the celestial patron of the named king. If the word "serekh" was written in full letters (as shown in the infobox above), sometimes accompanied by a miniature of the serekh, it could also be used in text. One of the most important elements of royal display and identity in ancient

was the king's name, important as pharaohs were concerned that future generations remain aware of their reigns.Kathryn A. Bard, ''An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt'' (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), p. 114. These were first seen from rulers as early as those of Dynasty 0 and continued to be used by kings throughout the history of ancient Egypt. For example, a serekh of

Senusret I Senusret I (Middle Egyptian: z-n-wsrt; /suʀ nij ˈwas.ɾiʔ/) also anglicized as Sesostris I and Senwosret I, was the second pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt. He ruled from 1971 BC to 1926 BC (1920 BC to 1875 BC), and was one of the mos ...

, who was a king during the Twelfth Dynasty, has been found and is now displayed at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The serekhs of kings from the 30th Dynasty can also be seen. The serekh represented the king's palace shown in a combination of plan and elevation. The rectangular enclosure represented the plan while the patterned area represented the elevation of the façade.Gay Robins, ''The Art of Ancient Egypt'' (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 33. A serekh incised or painted in ink on a vessel denoted that the contents were the produce and/or property of the royal court. The serekh containing the king's name was used on a variety of objects and made a fundamental statement of royal ideology.Robins (2000), p. 36. The king's name was written in hieroglyphs and the Horus falcon, in reference to the sky god

, usually surmounted it. The Horus name is the first of five royal titles that were in use by the Fifth Dynasty. The second title is the (He of the) Two Ladies, representing the king as manifesting, and under the protection of, the goddesses Nekhbet of Elkab and Hierakonpolis in Upper Egypt, and Wadjet of Buto in Lower Egypt.Bard (2008), p. 123. The third title is the Horus of Gold, with the Horus falcon above the hieroglyphic sign for gold. The fourth title is often translated as “He of the Sedge and Bee,” with the sedge plant symbolic of Upper Egypt and the bee symbolic of Lower Egypt. This is also known as nswt-bìty, a title which expressed the many dualities over which the king exercised rule: Upper and Lower Egypt, the Black Land of cultivation and the Red Land of desert, the realms of day and night, and the natural and the supernatural. The fifth title is Son of Ra. This name claims a direct solar origin for the king as child of the sun-god. The Horus name was commonly written in the serekhs of ancient Egypt. There are a couple of cases in which the Horus name appears without serekhs, and only Peribsen and

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 Shu ...

have serekhs without the Horus name.

Horus

The king's name was written in hieroglyphs and the Horus falcon, in reference to the god Horus, usually surmounted it. As a result, the king's name in the serekh came to be known by Egyptologists as his ‘Horus name.’ The writing of the king's name within the serekh symbolized the king in his palace as the center of royal administration and power. The serekh as a whole was therefore a symbol of kingship. The presence of the Horus falcon showed that the living king was a manifestation of the god. Additionally, the Horus names of several First Dynasty kings expressed the aggressive authority of Horus, perhaps reflecting the coercive power of kingship at this early stage of Egyptian statehood. Examples of such names are ‘Horus the fighter’ (

Hor-Aha Hor-Aha (or Aha or Horus Aha) is considered the second pharaoh of the First Dynasty of Egypt by some Egyptologists, while others consider him the first one and corresponding to Menes. He lived around the 31st century BC and is thought to have ...

), ‘Horus the strong’ (

Djer Djer (or Zer or Sekhty) is considered the third pharaoh of the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt in current Egyptology. He lived around the mid- thirty-first century BC and reigned for c. 40 years. A mummified forearm of Djer or his wife was disco ...

), and ‘arm-raising Horus’ (

Qa'a Qa'a (also Qáa or Ka'a) (literal meaning: "his arm is raised") was the last king of the First Dynasty of Egypt. He reigned for 33 years at the end of the 30th century BC. Identity Manetho calls Qa'a Biénechês and gives him a reign of 26 ...

). All of these names reveal the warlike iconography of the earliest royal monuments from the period of state formation. They emphasize an authority based upon military strength and the power of life and death.Wilkinson (2000), p. 202. The emphasis in the Second Dynasty, however, began to change possibly due to the periods of instability that the kings faced, though the exact reason is still disputed. This led to a slight alteration in the structure of the serekh, solely during the reigns of Peribsen and Khasekhemwy. Since this alteration only occurred during these two reigns, it is seen as an exception, as the succeeding kings returned to the previous iconography.

Progression

The earliest serekhs were empty because the symbol alone relayed the necessary message of royal power. Over time, the king began to write an epithet within the serekh.Wilkinson (2000), p. 201. These serekhs were dominated by the symbol of Horus. During the Second Dynasty only, changes in the formulation of the Horus name to a Seth-name and then a Horus-and-Seth name were seen. These changes occurred merely during the Second Dynasty and are viewed as an exception to the typical use of the Horus name as is evidenced by the continued use of Horus in the serekhs of the Egyptian kings before and after Peribsen and Khasekhemwy. Many propositions have been made as to why this change occurred, though the exact reason is still disputed.

Peribsen and Khasekhemwy

For reasons which remain unclear,

Seth Seth,; el, Σήθ ''Sḗth''; ; "placed", "appointed") in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mandaeism, and Sethianism, was the third son of Adam and Eve and brother of Cain and Abel, their only other child mentioned by name in the Hebrew Bible. ...

attained particular prominence in the late Second Dynasty, temporarily replacing, then joining,

as the god atop the royal ''serekh''.Wilkinson (2000), p. 295. When the name Peribsen, who was the penultimate king of the Second Dynasty, was written in a serekh, it was surmounted, not by the usual Horus falcon hieroglyph, but by the Seth animal, a hound or jackal-like creature with a wide, straight tail.} Peribsen thus made a visual statement that he was the earthly embodiment of

. The importance of Seth in the reign of Peribsen was also reflected in a sealing of the king from

Abydos Abydos may refer to: *Abydos, a progressive metal side project of German singer Andy Kuntz *Abydos (Hellespont), an ancient city in Mysia, Asia Minor * Abydos (''Stargate''), name of a fictional planet in the ''Stargate'' science fiction universe ...

. It referred to a god named ‘the golden one’ or, perhaps more likely, ‘he of Nubt (Naqada)’, the usual epithet of Seth in historic times. It appears as though

was adopted by ''Peribsen'' as his personal deity. This is emphasized by the wording of the inscription: ‘He of Nubt has handed over the Two Lands to his son, the dual king Peribsen’. One interpretation of this dramatic change in the format of the royal name is that it represented a rebellion of some kind that was quashed or reconciled by the last king of the dynasty, Khasekhemwy, whose name appeared in serekhs surmounted by both the Horus falcon and the Seth animal. Originally known as ''Khasekhem'', which means ‘The One who Arises in respect of the Power’, his name eventually came to be known as ''Khasekhemwy'' which means ‘The One who Arises in respect of the Two Powers’. The ‘Two Powers’ in his name have been interpreted by some as the Horus falcon and the Seth animal.Robins (2000), p. 37. The addition to Khasekhem’s name is further evidence that he was trying to merge the ideas of both

and

. While the validity of this proposal is debatable, Khasekhemwy’s epithet from seal impressions supports this notion. It is interpreted as ‘the Two Lords are at peace in him’ which can be viewed as though he resolved some internal conflict, especially if ‘Two Lords’ are seen as referring to

and

and their followers respectively. Others have viewed this evidence as a way of proclaiming national renewal under Khasekhemwy as he was able to reunite Upper and Lower Egypt. This idea remains speculative, however, due to the lack of hard evidence to support this notion. Nonetheless, it seems likely that foreign relations reached a new level under Khasekhemwy, since a seal-impression of his reign showed the first occurrence of the title ìmì-r3 h3st which means ‘overseer of foreign land(s)’. It strongly suggests the imposition of Egyptian hegemony on foreign territory. The change of the deity image on a serekh was significant: While the king's name sometimes appeared in a serekh without an image of a deity above, no deity other than Horus is so far known to have occurred on the serekh of a king until the reign of Peribsen. However, the serekhs of some queens had other deities above. And example is Neithotep's, whose serekh had the goddess Neith's emblems above it.Toby A. H. Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt - Strategy, Security and Society. Routledge, London 1999, ISBN 0-415-26011-6, p. 70 & 291 Due to evidence that Peribsen's stelae were subjected to erasure of the Seth animals, it has been inferred that whatever reasons Peribsen had for substituting his falcon failed to win acceptance among royal generations after Khasekhemwy.

References