The royal titulary or royal protocol is the standard naming convention taken by the

pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...

s of

ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

. It symbolised worldly power and holy might, also acting as a sort of

mission statement A mission statement is a short statement of why an organization exists, what its overall goal is, the goal of its operations: what kind of product or service it provides, its primary customers or market, and its geographical region of operation ...

for the duration of a monarch's reign (although sometimes it even changed during the reign). The full titulary, consisting of five names, did not come into standard usage until the Middle Kingdom but remained in use as late as the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

Origins

In order that the pharaoh, who held divine office, could be linked to the people and the gods, special epithets were created for them at their accession to the throne. These titles also served to demonstrate one's qualities and link them to the terrestrial realm. The five names were developed over the centuries beginning with the

Horus name The Horus name is the oldest known and used crest of ancient Egyptian rulers. It belongs to the " great five names" of an Egyptian pharaoh. However, modern Egyptologists and linguists are starting to prefer the more neutral term "serekh name". T ...

. This name identified the figure as a representative of the god

Horus Horus (), also known as Heru, Har, Her, or Hor () in Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as the god of kingship, healing, protection, the sun, and t ...

. The

Nebty name The Nebty name (also called the Two-Ladies-name) was one of the " great five names" used by Egyptian pharaohs. It was also one of the oldest royal titles. The modern term "Two-Ladies-name" is a simple derivation from the translation of the Egyptia ...

was the second part of the royal titular of Upper and Lower Egypt. This name placed the king under the protection of two female deities, Nekhbet and

Wadjet Wadjet (; "Green One"), known to the Greek world as Uto (; ) or Buto (; ) among other renderings including Wedjat, Uadjet, and Udjo, was originally the ancient Egyptian Tutelary deity, local goddess of the city of Dep or Buto in Lower Egypt, ...

and began sometime towards the end of the First Dynasty as a reference to "The one who belongs to Upper and

Lower Lower may refer to: * ''Lower'' (album), 2025 album by Benjamin Booker *Lower (surname) *Lower Township, New Jersey *Lower Receiver (firearms) *Lower Wick Lower Wick is a small hamlet located in the county of Gloucestershire, England. It is sit ...

Egypt", along with mention of the Two Ladies. Beginning sometime in the

Fourth Dynasty of Egypt The Fourth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (notated Dynasty IV) is characterized as a "golden age" of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Dynasty IV lasted from to c. 2498 BC. It was a time of peace and prosperity as well as one during which trade with othe ...

, the Gold Falcon name (sometimes called the Horus of Gold) was created. The last two names of the king, the

prenomen The praenomen (; plural: praenomina) was a first name chosen by the parents of a Ancient Rome, Roman child. It was first bestowed on the ''dies lustricus'' (day of lustration), the eighth day after the birth of a girl, or the ninth day after the ...

and the nomen, were generally depicted within the circular, roped

cartouche upalt=A stone face carved with coloured hieroglyphics. Two cartouches - ovoid shapes with hieroglyphics inside - are visible at the bottom., Birth and throne cartouches of Pharaoh KV17.html" ;"title="Seti I, from KV17">Seti I, from KV17 at the ...

of the king (eventually the cartouche would contain all royal names, including the queen and the royal children) and were known as the Throne name and the Son of Re name.

Horus name

𓅃𓊁

The

is the oldest form of the pharaoh's name, originating in

prehistoric Egypt Prehistoric Egypt and Predynastic Egypt was the period of time starting at the first human settlement and ending at the First Dynasty of Egypt around 3100 BC. At the end of prehistory, "Predynastic Egypt" is traditionally defined as the period ...

. Many of the oldest-known Egyptian pharaohs were known only by this title.Toby A. H. Wilkinson: ''Early Dynastic Egypt''. Routledge, London/New York 1999, , p. 74-75. The Horus name was usually written in a serekh, a representation of a palace façade. The name of the pharaoh was written in

hieroglyphs Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters.I ...

inside this representation of a palace. Typically an image of the falcon god

was perched on top of or beside it. At least one Egyptian ruler, the Second Dynasty pharaoh

Seth-Peribsen Seth-Peribsen (also known as Ash-Peribsen, Peribsen and Perabsen) is the Horus name, serekh name of an Early Dynastic Period of Egypt, early Egyptian monarch (pharaoh), who ruled during the Second dynasty of Egypt, Second Dynasty of Egypt (c. 28 ...

, used an image of the god

Set Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics *Set (mathematics), a collection of elements *Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively Electro ...

instead of Horus, perhaps signifying an internal religious division within the country. He was succeeded by Khasekhemwy, who placed the symbols of both Set and Horus above his name. Thereafter, the image of Horus always appeared alongside the name of the pharaoh. By the time of the New Kingdom, the Horus name was often written without the enclosing serekh.

Nebty ("two ladies") name

G16 The

(lit. " two ladies") was associated with the so-called " heraldic" goddesses of

Upper and Lower Egypt In History of ancient Egypt, Egyptian history, the Upper and Lower Egypt period (also known as The Two Lands) was the final stage of prehistoric Egypt and directly preceded the Early Dynastic Period (Egypt), unification of the realm. The concepti ...

: * Nekhbet, patron deity of

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ', shortened to , , locally: ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the Nile River valley south of the delta and the 30th parallel North. It thus consists of the entire Nile River valley from Cairo south to Lake N ...

, represented by a

vulture A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to Nort ...

, and *

, patron deity of

Lower Egypt Lower Egypt ( ') 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, the Nile River split into sev ...

, represented by a

cobra COBRA or Cobra, often stylized as CoBrA, was a European avant-garde art group active from 1948 to 1951. The name was coined in 1948 by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home countries' capital cities: Copenhagen (Co), Brussels ...

. The name is first definitively used by the First Dynasty pharaoh

Semerkhet Semerkhet is the Horus name of an early Egyptian king who ruled during the First Dynasty. This ruler became known through a tragic legend handed down by the historian Manetho, who reported that a calamity of some sort occurred during Semerkhe ...

, though it only became a fully independent title by the Twelfth Dynasty. This particular name was not typically framed by a

or serekh, but always begins with the hieroglyphs of a vulture and cobra resting upon two baskets, the dual noun "nebty".

Horus of Gold

G8 Also known as the Golden Horus name, this form of the pharaoh's name typically featured the image of a Horus falcon perched above or beside the hieroglyph for gold. The meaning of this particular title has been disputed. One belief is that it represents the triumph of

over his uncle

, as the symbol for gold can be taken to mean that Horus was "superior to his foes". Gold also was strongly associated in the ancient Egyptian mind with eternity, so this may have been intended to convey the pharaoh's eternal Horus name. Similar to the Nebty name, this particular name typically was not framed by a cartouche or serekh.

Throne name (''prenomen'')

M23:t-L2:t The pharaoh's throne name, the first of the two names written inside a

, usually accompanied the title '' nsw-bity'' (''nsw(t)-bjt(j)''), traditionally interpreted as " eof sedge ndbee" and often translated for convenience as "King of Upper and of Lower Egypt". (The sedge and the bee symbolised Upper and Lower Egypt, respectively, although recent research has thrown this interpretation into doubt. Schenkel, Wolfgang (1986) “Das Wort für König (von Oberägypten)” in ''Göttinger Miszellen'', 94, pp. 57-73. ) The epithet ''nb tꜣwy'', "Lord of the Two Lands", referring to the valley and delta regions of Egypt, often occurs as well.

Personal name (''nomen'')

G39-N5:.- This was the name given at birth. The name itself was preceded by the title "Son of Ra", written with the hieroglyph of a duck (''za''), a

homonym In linguistics, homonyms are words which are either; '' homographs''—words that mean different things, but have the same spelling (regardless of pronunciation), or '' homophones''—words that mean different things, but have the same pronunciat ...

for the word meaning "son" (''za''), adjacent to an image of the sun, a hieroglyph for the chief solar deity Ra. It was first introduced to the set of royal titles in the Fourth Dynasty and emphasizes the king's role as a representative of the solar god Ra. For women who became pharaoh, the preceding title was interpreted as "daughter" also. Modern historians typically refer to the ancient kings of Egypt by this name, adding ordinals (e.g. "II", "III") to distinguish between different individuals bearing the same name.

Examples of the full titulary

Senusret I

In the Middle Kingdom, the full titulary was sometimes written in a single cartouche, as in this example from

Senusret I Senusret I (Egyptian language, Middle Egyptian: wikt:z-n-wsrt, 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, Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt. He ruled from 1971 ...

, from

Beni Hasan Beni Hasan (also written as Bani Hasan, or also Beni-Hassan) () is an ancient Egyptian cemetery. It is located approximately to the south of modern-day Minya in the region known as Middle Egypt, the area between Asyut and Memphis.Baines, John ...

Hatshepsut

The full titulary of

Eighteenth Dynasty The Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XVIII, alternatively 18th Dynasty or Dynasty 18) is classified as the first dynasty of the New Kingdom of Egypt, the era in which ancient Egypt achieved the peak of its power. The Eighteenth Dynasty ...

pharaoh

Hatshepsut Hatshepsut ( ; BC) was the sixth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, Egypt, ruling first as regent, then as queen regnant from until (Low Chronology) and the Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Thutmose II. She was Egypt's second c ...

, providing a guide to pronunciation and its equivalent meaning and showing the differences since this pharaoh is a woman, is as follows, *Horus name: ''Wesretkau'', "Mighty of Kas" *Nebty name: ''Wadjrenput'', "She of the Two Ladies, Flourishing of years" *Golden Horus: ''Netjeretkhau'', "Divine of appearance" (''Netjeret'' is the feminine form of ''netery'' meaning 'godly' or 'divine', and ''khau'', 'appearances') *Praenomen: ''Maatkare'', "Truth a'atis the Ka of Re" *Nomen: ''Khnumt-Amun Hatshepsut'', "Joined with Amun, Foremost of Noble Ladies"

Thutmose III

The full titulary of

pharaoh

Thutmose III Thutmose III (variously also spelt Tuthmosis or Thothmes), sometimes called Thutmose the Great, (1479–1425 BC) was the fifth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. He is regarded as one of the greatest warriors, military commanders, and milita ...

, providing a guide to pronunciation and its equivalent meaning, is as follows *Horus name: ''Kanakht Khaemwaset'', "Horus Mighty Bull, Arising in Thebes" *Nebty name: ''Wahnesytmireempet'', "He of the Two Ladies, Enduring in kingship like Re in heaven" *Golden Horus: ''Sekhempahtydjeserkhaw'', "Horus of Gold Powerful of strength, Sacred of appearance" *Praenomen: ''Menkheperre'', "He of the

Sedge The Cyperaceae () are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as wikt:sedge, sedges. The family (biology), family is large; botanists have species description, described some 5,500 known species in about 90 ...

and the Bee, Enduring of form is Re" *Nomen: ''Thutmose Neferkheperu'', "Son of Ra, Thutmose, beautiful of forms"

References

Bibliography

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External links

The Gold namethe Royal Titulary
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on Digital Egypt {{Ancient Egyptian titulary * royal titulary *