EGYPTIAN PHARAO'S PROCESSIONS

EGYPTIAN PHARAO'S PROCESSIONS

The king is taking part in a procession with six other people, including two ﬁgures about half his size, who are behind and in front of him on the palette, but are perhaps intended to be regarded as walking on either side of him in reality. These two men, both clean-shaven, evidently represent high ofﬁcials. The one to the left is evidently a sandal-bearer, since he carries a pair of sandals in one hand and and a small vessel in the other, while a pectoral, or perhaps royal seal, is tied around his neck by a cord. A single hieroglyph in a rectangular frame or box is placed behind and above his head; this sign, probably being a representation of a reed ﬂoat (but of uncertain meaning in this context), is usually rendered phonetically as db3. He also has two different signs in front of his head, apparently a superimposed rosette sign and the hm sign thatlater came to have several meanings, including ‘servant’. The ofﬁcial to the right is represented at a slightly larger scale, and is shown wearing a wig and a leopard-skin costume, as well as possibly writing equipment slung around his neck. He may be identiﬁed by two hieroglyphs above his head spelling the word tt, probably an early version of the word for vizier.

The king and these two ofﬁcials, along with four smaller standard-bearers (all but one of whom are shown bearded), are evidently reviewing the decapitated bodies of ten of their enemies, who are laid out on the far right, each with his head between his legs, presumably in the aftermath of a battle or ritual slaughter. The four standards are topped by symbols or totems which are known from later periods, comprising two falcons, one jackal (perhaps the god Wepwawet), and a strange globular item that is clearly the sˇd orˇds royal placenta). These standards, taken together, form a group that were later identiﬁed as the so-called ‘followers of Horus’ (or ‘the gods who follow Horus’) and had strong associations with the celebration of a royal jubilee or funeral. Above the corpses are four signs or images: a door, a falcon, a boat with high prow and stern, and a falcon holding a harpoon.

On the other side of the palette is a much larger, muscular striding ﬁgure of Narmer, this time shown wearing the conical White Crown of Upper Egypt along with the same tunic tied over his left shoulder and the bull’s tail hanging from his waist, as well as fringes ending in cow’s heads. This time he is accompanied only by the sandal-bearer (behind him, or to one side), as he smites a foreigner with a pear-shaped mace held up above his head (but held slightly oddly, halfway up the handle). The sandal-bearer is again shown at just under half the size of the king (although the ruler’s tall crown makes him tower even more over the rest of the ﬁgures in the scene), and once more he has the rosette and hm signs by his head.