Taurus or Bull is the provisional name for a Predynastic Egyptian ruler whose historicity is disputed. He is considered a ruler of the late

Chalcolithic The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in di ...

Naqada III Naqada III is the last phase of the Naqada culture of ancient Prehistoric Egypt, 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 ...

culture of southern

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. If "Taurus" or "Bull" actually represents a ruler's name, it is mainly known from

ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and Tooth, teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mamm ...

tablets from the Abydos tomb U-j of Umm El Qa'ab and from a rock carving on the

Gebel Tjauti Gebel Tjauti is a rock formation in Egypt. The rock is named after Tjauti, an ancient Egyptian official who lived at the end of the Eighth Dynasty, around 2150 BC. The rock is known for a series of rock inscriptions known as the Gebel Tjauti ro ...

mountain.

Attestations

Egyptologist

Günter Dreyer Günter Dreyer (5 October 1943 – 12 March 2019) was an Egyptologist at the German Archaeological Institute. In southern Egypt, Dreyer discovered records of linen and oil deliveries which have been carbon-dated to between 3300 BCE and 3200 BCE ...

deduced the existence of King "Taurus" from incisions on a statue of the god Min, which he interpreted as line of succession. He suspected that the grave goods, which were intended for King

Scorpion I Scorpion I () was a ruler of Upper Egypt during Naqada III. He was one of the first rulers of Ancient Egypt, and a graffito of him depicts a battle with an unidentified predynastic ruler. His tomb is known for the evidence of early examples of wi ...

, came from the state domain goods of King "Taurus" and thus the bull symbol originated from the name of the latter.Günter Dreyer: Umm el-Qaab I .: the predynastic royal tomb U-j and its early documents (= Umm el-Qaab, 1st volume). von Zabern,

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

1998, ., pp. 87 & 176.Ludwig David Morenz: picture letters and symbolic signs. The development of the writing of the high culture of ancient Egypt (= Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 205). Friborg 2004, ., pp. 130–134, 172, 190–193. Further evidence of the existence of this ruler is the interpretation of a rock drawing discovered in 2003 on the

in the desert west of Thebes. It apparently represents a successful campaign by King Scorpion I against King Taurus. This battle was possibly part of the concentration of power in late prehistoric Egypt: Scorpion I, operating from

Thinis Thinis ( Greek: Θίνις ''Thinis'', Θίς ''This'' ; Egyptian: Tjenu; ; ) was the capital city of pre- unification Upper Egypt. Thinis remains undiscovered but is well attested by ancient writers, including the classical historian Manetho ...

conquered Conquest involves the annexation or control of another entity's territory through war or coercion. Historically, conquests occurred frequently in the international system, and there were limited normative or legal prohibitions against conquest ...

Taurus' realm in the Naqada area.

Doubts

However, since the bull sign is never accompanied by a

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 ...

falcon or a gold

rosette Rosette is the French diminutive of ''rose''. It may refer to: Flower shaped designs * Rosette (award), a mark awarded by an organisation * Rosette (design), a small flower design *hence, various flower-shaped or rotational symmetric forms: ** R ...

– indicators of rulers in the pre-dynastic period – some researchers doubt that it refers to a king. For example, the writing expert

Ludwig David Morenz Ludwig David Morenz (born 4 April 1965) is a German professor in Egyptology at the University of Bonn.Tait (2003), p. xi-x. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig and Habilitation from the University of Tübingen. His fields of resea ...

and the Egyptologist

Jochem Kahl Jochem Kahl (born 1961) is a German Egyptologist. A native of Ravensburg, Kahl studied undergraduate history and Greek at the University of Tübingen from 1983 to 1984 and then Egyptology, Classical Archeology and Pre- and Early History at Münst ...

point out that Egyptian hieroglyphic writing was still in the early stages of development during the pre-dynastic period and that it was extremely unsafe to assign individual pictorial symbols. The reason for this is the fact that in this early writing development phase no fixed determinatives for "locality", " nomes" and "region" existed. A representation of a bull could represent the king as an attacking force, but it could also be part of a name for a certain place or district (e.g. for the mountain bull district). There were also depictions of bulls in connection with the archaic ceremony "Catching the wild bull" as a pre-form for the later Apis run. A bull representation therefore does not necessarily confirm a king's name.

Wolfgang Helck Hans Wolfgang Helck (16 September 1914 – 27 August 1993) was a German Egyptologist, considered one of the most important Egyptologists of the 20th century. From 1956 until his retirement in 1979 he was a professor at the University of Hamburg. ...

: Studies on the Thinite period (= Egyptological treatises. (ÄA) Vol. 45). Harrassowitz,

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden (; ) is the capital of the German state of Hesse, and the second-largest Hessian city after Frankfurt am Main. With around 283,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 24th-largest city. Wiesbaden form ...

1987, , (restricted online version), pp. 147 & 153.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bull Predynastic pharaohs