Egypt’s Monuments Part I: The Birth of The Pyramids Part I; The History of The Early Dynastic Tombs

This next series will be from a book that I am reading through at the moment called The Pyramids: Their Archaeology and History by the Egyptologist Miroslav Verner. This series is going to be a little different from the posts I usually write, but I hope my readership will enjoy it nonetheless. I won’t be able to go through the entire book, it is a four-hundred and so page book, but I will be dealing with key chapters. In the first part of Verner’s book he deals with the birth of the pyramids and the early history of Egypt. This post will be looking at that history and the start of tombs among the rulers of Egypt.

The first chapter of Miroslav Verner’s book, Before The Pyramids, deals with the unstable history of Egypt before it became the developed Egypt that we read so much about. There are many key factors that made Egypt what it was during the Dynastic period of Egypt, and we must survey these factors if we wish to learn the full purpose of the pyramids; and why they were created. Before the Dynastic period of Egypt the country was split and you had the upper portion of Egypt fighting against the lower portion. The Dynastic period started with the uniting of both Upper and Lower Egypt, but who was the royal who accomplished this task? There is a Palette of a king, dating to about 3000 B.C., that tells of his victory in doing this, but like most archaeological finds the recent discoveries claim that this king was not the only one to try to unite Egypt. “Recent Archaeological research suggests, however, that Narmer [The King of the palette] was not the first king to unify Upper and Lower Egypt. In particular, the German excavations in the cemetery at Umm El-Qaab, near Abydos, have shown that the fourteen predecessors of Narmer buried there, who constituted the so-called Zero Dynasty, must have reigned over all Egypt at least part of the time, so that the true era of unification had already begun some two centuries earlier.” (Miroslav Verner, The Pyramids: Their Archaeology and History. New York: Grove Press, 1997, p. 15). Even though many ruler’s attempted to unite both portions of Egypt many couldn’t keep the two parts unified, because there was no set city in those times and you only had an Agricultural society; besides the royals. Both parts of Egypt, the Southern and Northern parts, had different forms of lively-hood. So throughout the first three Dynastic periods the kings of that time had difficulties uniting Upper and Lower Egypt. The first real developed city arrived in the Fist Dynasty period with King Aha who was one of Narmer’s sons. “Construction of the White Walls, the fortified residence of the Egyptian kings, began in the age of unification, and was located on the boundary between the Nile Valley and the delta. The city that gradually grew up around the fortification was later known as Mennefer (Greek Memphis) and ultimately extended over several square miles.” (Miroslav Verner, The Pyramids: Their Archaeology and History, p. 16).

Even though the royals now had a residence it was not permanent, and they would have to travel to secure their status and govern their people. “Until well into the First Dynasty Egyptian rulers had no permanent residence. In the biennial “Horus-procession” they crossed the whole country with their retinue, in order to collect taxes, administer justice, and show themselves to the people.” (Miroslav Verner, The Pyramids: Their Archaeology and History, p. 17). According to Verner this was similar to the monarchs of Europe in Medieval times: “European rulers did the same thing in the early Middle Ages, thus creating the system of Palatinates.” (Miroslav Verner, The Pyramids: Their Archaeology and History, p.17). This instability of the first three Dynastic periods occurred until in the end of the Second Dynasty:

“During the early or Thinite period (as the reign of the first two dynasties is also known), the prolonged, complicated, and often conflictual process of shaping the ancient Egyptian state that had begun toward the end of the prehistoric era, around the middle of the fourth millennium B.C.E, was finally brought to a conclusion. The fusion of the fundamentally different cultural groups of the delta and the Nile Valley played a major role in this process……In contrast to the predynastic monarchs from Hierakonpolis, the princes of the great cities in the delta were probably not able to extend their rule beyond the local level. Consequently they could not avoid military subjection to the king. Initially, the violently created bond between Upper and Lower Egypt was not very stable, being threatened by various political, economic, and religious interests.” (Miroslav Verner, The Pyramids, p. 20-22).

This type of rule caused a lot of problems for the monarchs and for Egypt itself. There were a lot of Rebellions, cues, and overall instability of the economy and government. But, finally, after years of kings and rulers attempting to unite and join the two portions of Egypt, one king succeeded to actually do what many before him had tried……The unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, and this became known as the Old Kingdom era. King Khasekhem was the monarch who finally unified Egypt so it became the prosperous Old Kingdom, and those after him furthered the development of Egypt as a whole and the Upper and Lower parts never went back to the ways of the Thinite age. “This time, it seems he [Khasekhem] was successful. The subsequent long period of internal stability and relative shelter from outside influences was the crucial precondition that allowed the Old Kingdom (from the Third Dynasty to the Sixth Dynasty) to flourish.” (Miroslav Verner, The Pyramids: Their Archaeology and History, p. 22). This is the history of Egypt’s instability before the Old Kingdom was created, and from this time one most “Pharaohs,” although this word wasn’t adopted by royalty until the New Kingdom, wore the two crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt together. Upper Egypt rulers wore the white crown while Lower Egypt rulers wore the red crown, and they were combined in the Old Kingdom era. Until towards the end of the Middle Kingdom era and through the New Kingdom different types of crowns were worn but the Uraeus (the rearing cobra) is almost always seen worn with the headdresses.

Lastly I will go over the design and outline of the tombs with which the rulers of the Zero Dynasty to the Second Dynasty were buried. These tombs can be compared and contrasted to the tombs that we typically see the Pharaohs of Egypt buried in; the pyramids. The Early Dynastic tombs were completely different from the pyramids in size, but not in the amount of chambers and storage. “These tombs already consisted of entire complexes of rooms and were located in the desert. In the late Zero Dynasty, a tomb’s underground portion consisted of a burial chamber and one or more storerooms for accessories to be used by the dead pharaoh in the beyond.” (Miroslav Verner, The Pyramids: Their Archaeology and History, p. 24). When a royal was buried everything that they owned was buried with them for the afterlife. Tombs and pyramids were built for religious reasons and I will go into the religion behind them in my next post, because it is interesting to see the rituals and worship of the Pharaoh and how his tomb was to send him on to the afterlife. Tombs always had statues, artwork, and all other kinds of decorations outside the entrance: “Two stone Stelae stood in front of the faced of the tomb.” (Miroslav Verner, The Pyramids: Their Archaeology and History, p. 24). Another ancient ritual that was used in many different cultures was that not only would the deceased bring all of their possessions with them but they would also bring their household: wives, servants, and even pets. Viking rulers would be buried within their boats with their wives, servants, and even their dogs and horses. Egyptians would mummify their dogs and pets as well. Verner states that the tombs of the Early Dynastic era the wives were buried in their own secondary tombs, and it is unknown if these wives were buried at the same time of the king or not. “From the time of King Aha onward, the royal tombs were surrounded by so-called secondary tombs, the number of which came to 338 under King Djer. The royal cemetery in Abydos was later plundered and burned, and its original form is now virtually impossible to reconstruct. However, the rulers’ servants and wives seem to have been buried in the secondary tombs. We do not yet know whether they were killed during the burial ceremony and immediately interred with the ruler.” (Miroslav Verner, The Pyramids: Their Archaeology and History, p. 24). So even though these Early Dynastic tombs were similar to the pyramids with the storerooms and secondary tombs they are different in size and ceremonial decorations. Later rulers of Egypt decorated created their tombs as extravagant as they wanted and we can see this with tombs such as the Giza pyramids and the Valley of the Kings. In my next post I will be dealing with the religion side of these Early Dynastic tombs and how it connects with the ancient society. The rituals and ceremonies used in the Thinite era were passed on all throughout the Dynastic periods, so through the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and the New Kingdom.