Dynasty Notes
Dynasty I is the "formal" start of the kings in Egypt. Traditionally,
it begins with Menes and the unification of Egypt under a single
king -- remember that prior to this, Egypt was ruled as a series
of separate nomes, or districts, each ruled by a local chieftain-king
in a collection of early kings from Dynasty
0.
There is some argument about who actually starts the first dynasty
-- some sources include Narmer as the first king, others relegate
him to the pre-dynastic period in Dynasty
0 and begin the king
list with Horus Aha. The same argument rages over whether Narmer or Aha is the semi-mythical "Menes" who unified Egypt and was
considered by the egyptians themselves as the First King. Unifying
the north and south of egypt into a single entity was the major
accomplishment of the early dynasties.
It is very difficult to accurately date these early dynasties,
and depending on which book you look at, the dates may be decades
(or even centuries) different. Oxford History of Egypt gives
3050 BCE -- 2890 BCE, while Clayton has 3050 BCE -- 2867 BCE.
No one knows who is right, and the differences are often of
interpretation of earlier dates from Manetho and other egyptologists
of antiquity.
There is very little actually known about the kings here, but
their monuments and tombs (found mostly in Abydos) are well
known and much-studied. Written evidence is pretty scarce, especially
considering that writing was a pretty new invention in Egypt
and hieroglyphs were in a rudimentary form. Even though
we are able to walk through the stone temples and
mud brick mastabas of the first dynasty, the more delicate
bits and pieces that help define history are not quite
as durable. That anything exists at all is pretty
amazing.
Most of what we know of the first dynasty is from a series of
mastaba tombs in Abydos and Saqqara, and the writings of Manetho (who is
a bit suspect, but more on that later.)6
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pharaohs
Menes
Djer
Merneith
Djet
Den
Anedjib
Semerkhet
Qa'a
Sneferka
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