King Scorpion Updates.
This file created on July 9, 2003 is a Volume III continuation of the original website at http://www.mazzaroth.com/ChapterFour/KingScorpion.htm for "Late Breaking News" regarding the subject of King Scorpion.
International Herald Tribune Online.
The falcon and the scorpion
by John Nobel Wilford The New York Times
Thursday, April 18, 2002.
Early writing may tell of legendary Egyptian king
NEW YORK Carved in the limestone of a desert cliff in Egypt is a 5,250-year-old tableau of a victorious ruler, perhaps the so-called
King Scorpion - whose exploits, previously the stuff of myth and legend, may have been critical to the founding of Egyptian civilization. The archaeologists who discovered the tableau seven years ago now say it may be the world's earliest historical document.
More than that, they say, the inscribed scenes and symbols bear a strong resemblance to later hieroglyphs. This is a significant addition to a growing body of evidence that the first true writing originated in Egypt - not in ancinet Sumer, in what is now Iraq, as scholars of antiquity had believed.
While some aspects of the discovery are controversial - particularly the suggestion that the ruler depicted is
King Scorpion - several archaeologists familiar with it agree that this represents an early stage of writing, perhaps earlier than Sumerian writing.
And since the invention of writing is regarded as the great divide between prehistory and history, the discovery may push back the beginning of recorded Egyptian history 100 to 150 years, to about
3250 B.C., well into the obscure period before the land's unification under powerful pharaohs. Unitl now, the earliest recognized historical document in Egypt was the
Narmer Palette, found in the late 19th century in the ruins of ancient
Hierakonpolis and dated
3100 B.C.
The tableau, measuring 18 to 20 inches (46 by 51 centimeters), was discovered in 1995 by
John Coleman Darnell, a Yale Egyptologist, and his wife,
Deborah Darnell, a specialist in Egyptian archaeology, while they were surveying ancient trade routes in the desert west of the Nile. The site is
Gebel Tjauti, a place where several caravan trails converge about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of Luxor and about 250 miles south of Cairo. It is close to where in 1999 the Darnells reported finding inscriptions that could be the earliest known examples of alphabetic writing, from about 1800 B.C.
Only now, after years of analysis and further excavations, the Darnells are describing their tableau findings in detail in a book to be published in June by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Their work will also be included on the television program, "
The Real Scorpion King," to be shown Tuesday on the History Channel. (The program is tied to the release of a Universal Studios movie, "
The Scorpion King." The movie is fiction and bears no relation to the Darnells' research, a Universal spokeswoman said).
"
We do feel that this is the earliest known historical document," John Darnell said in an interview. "
It may not be exactly 100 percent writing, only protohieroglyphs, but the tableau really is able to impart the who, what, where of an event."
Renee Friedman, an Egyptologist at the British Museum in London, who has examined the tableau, said, "
It is a historical document, there's no question about it."
The case for an earlier origin of writing in Egypt has been gaining adherents since German archaeologists opened a royal tomb at Abydos in the 1990s and found ivory tags inscribed with symbols that appeared to be related to hieroglyphs. The symbols are similar in style to some of those in the tableau or slightly more advanced, scholars say, suggesting that the two finds are contemporary examples of a nascent script.
On the tableau at
Gebel Tjauti, probably incised by flint tools, are figures and symbols that appear to depict the procession of a
ruler returning to the city of
Abydos after vanquishing the rival leader of
Naqada. A
falcon is drawn
above a
scorpion. The
falcon is a standard symbol for the god
Horus, and the name
Horus is another word for
king in Egyptian history. So the subject of the tableau is thought to be one
King Scorpion, once assumed to be a mythic ruler. The Darnells contend that this could be the same
king who had occupied the tomb that German archaeologists, led by
Gunter Dreyer, explored at
Abydos. The stylistic correspondences with the tomb were critical to dating the tableau.
In their book, the Darnells said striking parallels in iconography "
leave little doubt that the Gebel Tjauti tableau is contemporary, or nearly so, with that tomb and that it may even belong to the owner of that tomb."
Whether the discoveries really show
King Scorpion is much less clear. Friedman and others questioned whether the rulers depicted at Abydos and Gebel Tjauti were one and the same. She noted that the
falcon-scorpion symbols occupied a lower corner of the tableau, not a very prominent place for a king.
As they read the narrative, the Darnells concluded, they decided that this is a record of a military operation to establish control over a region of conflicting small kingdoms. It is also the proclamation of "
the triumph of order over chaos or - more simply and less allegoricallly stated - victory."
From their knowledge of subsequent events, John Darnell speculated that this victory by
King Scorpion, or whoever he was, could have been decisive in unifying southern Egypt and bringing about the entire country's unification. That is supposed to have happened around 3100 B.C. An early monarch named
Narmer is usually credited with the unifying triumph of the south over the north, as commemorated on the large slate palette from Hierakonpolis that had been considered the earliest written document in Egypt.
Agreeing that the tableau is indeed an early form of writing,
Mohammed el Bialy, general director of antiquities for the west bank of Luxor, said it was "
at least as informative as the Narmer Palette."
The Darnells' research is being conducted under the auspices of the Egyptian government's Supreme Council of Antiquities, headed by
Zahi Hawass.
Copyright 2001 The International Herald Tribune.
Archaeologists Find Ancient Egyption Tomb.
Bodies that predate pharoahs are unearthed
by The Associated Press
April 22, 2005.
Cairo, Egypt -- Archaeologist digging in a
5,600-year-old funeral site in southern Egypt unearthed seven corpses believed to date to the era, as well as an intact figure of a cow's head carved from flint.
The American-Egyptian excavation team made discoveries in what they described as the largest funerary complex ever found that dates to the elusive
5-millenia-old Predynastic era, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said Wednesday.
"
This is a major discovery, and will add greatly to our knowledge of the period when Egypt was first becoming a nation," said Hawass, Egypt's Chief archaeologist said.
The team working for five years in the area of
Kom El-Ahmar, some 370 miles south of Cairo, known in antiquity as
Hierakonopolis, excavated a complex thought to belong to a ruler of the ancient city who reigned around
3,600 B.C.
The find is significant because little is known about the early phase of Predynastic period. That era predates the unification of upper and lower Egypt that triggered the well-known Dynastic era, when the pharoahs ruled.
Little remains from the Predynastic period. Objects that have survived are either in bad shape or have been smuggled out of the country. The grave sites at Kom El-Ahmar appear to date to the early
Nagada II era, a time when the settlement at Hierakonopolis was at its peak and the city was the largest urban center on the Nile. The complex, which is enclosed in a well-preserved wall of wooden posts, consist of a large rectangular tomb covered with the earliest known superstructure. Against the enclosure wall in an ash-laden deposit, excavators came across a complete figurine of a cow head carved from flint. Hawass said Egyptian flint figurines are extremely rare. Only 50 have been discovered to date. He said the uncovering of these examples in one site is a stroke of luck.
Excavators also found 46 limestone fragments from Egypt's earliest life-size human statue, along with fragments of two funerary masks and a collection of fine pots that point to the date of the complex.
Although the tomb and its surroundings were severely plundered in antiquity, excavators unearthed four bodies at one tomb. The position of the corpses suggests that they may belong to sacrificed servants or prisoners who were buried in a grave in a fashion, which was a common practice in the first Dynasty, Hawass said.
A second tomb housed well-preserved remains of three adults as well as textile and padding used to wrap the corpes thus covering them with thick matting.
Eight deep post-holes, four on each side, were found at the longest side of the burial chamber, three of which still bear the ancient wooden post. Six more post-holes to the east, in two rows, suggest the presence of an offering chapel.
A deposit of burnt ostrich eggshell found at the site is thought to convey the desire to magically ensure rebirth.
Excavations at the site started in 2000 under the leadership of famed Egyptologist Barbara Adams, who died in 2002. And has been continued under Renee Friedman, the current head of the American team.