[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Above each man is a sign that presumably indicates his placeof origin.19 That on the right has been suggested to represent Sais, though with some reservation.20 It has alsobeen interpreted as a papyrus plant with open umbel and two stalks, signifying a Deltaic tribe that revered it.21According to W.Ward, the sign to the left is an oblong fortified enclosure with bastions on all sides (fig.50).Thisassertion is based on the bastioned walls found on Libyan and Bull palettes and First Dynasty sealings (figs.32 and51).22Some scholars argue that the "fortified enclosure" on the palette represents Memphis,23 citing as evidence threesimilar signs symbolizing Memphis on a First Dynasty cylinder seal (fig.51).The signs on the palette and the sealare equated with the inb, or wall sign,24 and the earliest known name for Memphis is the White Wall (inb hd).This name is believed to describe the wall that surrounded the town, and the inb hd sign was sometimesabbreviated to inb or the Wall.25 Thus, since the inb sign is an abbreviation of the early form of the nameMemphis, and since the inb sign is found on the Narmer palette, the fortified enclosure on the palette mustrepresent Memphis.This is a logical and apparently sound deduction, but it does contain a few flaws.Fig.51.First Dynasty Seal: Abydos (After Petrie 1900: pl.23.41)Page 93As previously mentioned, the inb sign indicates the place of origin of the dead or fleeing figure located below it,but this individual on the palette is believed to be either a foreigner or Lower Egyptian.26 Therefore, if this inbsign is equated with Memphis, then Memphis must have been a foreign or Lower Egyptian settlement at the end ofthe Naqada III period, but this line of reasoning is not supported by the evidence.As pointed out in Chapter III,Upper Egyptian settlements had replaced Lower Egyptian settlements at least as far north as Minshat Abu Omar inthe eastern Delta during the Naqada IIc/d period (fig.7), and a span of over a hundred years separates the NaqadaIIc/d period from the end of the Naqada III period.Therefore, if the inb sign does represent Memphis, Memphismust have survived as a foreign or Lower Egyptian settlement long after all other settlements in the region hadbeen vanquished by Upper Egyptianssuch a conclusion is baseless.Another flaw in this argument is that Memphis must have been a major Lower Egyptian site before the subjugationof the Delta.According to tradition, however, Memphis was founded by Menes,27 the ruler who unified Egypt,and in this instance, archaeological evidence supports tradition.Archaeological material from the First Dynasty isplentiful at Memphis, but nothing has yet been found from the Predynastic period to indicate that Memphis was animportant site nor that this site had even been established by Narmer's time.28 All of the evidence, therefore,indicates that a correlation between the inb sign on the Narmer palette and Memphis is unlikely.The identification of the inb sign on the Narmer palette as a fortified enclosure may not be justified either.Asnoted previously, this interpretation is based only on the similarity of the inb sign on the Narmer palette tofortifications portrayed on earlier palettes, but even Ward admits that "in no case do these have precisely the oblongshape of the Narmer palette sign" (figs.32 and 50).29 Furthermore, the inb sign on the reverse has little in commonwith the oval-shaped fortress being destroyed by a bull on the obverse (figs.49 and 50).30 It seems that if afortress was to be represented on this palette an oval-shaped fortification sign would have been more appropriateand such a sign is seen on an ebony plaque next to Narmer's name.31In fact, the meaning of the inb sign on Narmer's palette is unknown.In the sign list it represents either afortification or a wall.Although these are standard interpretations for the inb sign from the Old and MiddleKingdoms, they do not preclude the possibility thatPage 94during the Predynastic period this sign may have signified some other type of brick structure with bastions orcrenelations, such as a temple, tomb, or palace, 32 which only later evolved into the inb hd sign that representedMemphis.Gardiner mentions that in earliest times the inb sign may have represented a "brick enclosure withbuttresslike projections," but he does not say what type of brick enclosure.33 The fact that the inb sign was anelement in titles of architects, masons, and master bricklayers of the king also suggests a wider meaning for thissign.34Yadin's opposing interpretation of the third register on the reverse suggests that the two prostrate men are Asiaticenemies.The sign above the man on the right is a representation of a kite, a structure with long converging wallsthat end in an enclosure (fig.52).The converging walls were probably used to move herds quickly into theenclosure for protection.As kites were characteristic of the eastern deserts of Jordan, and because fortresses firstappeared in Palestine during the Early Bronze I period, Yadin saw the sign on the left as a Palestinian fortress.Heproposed that "the lower field of the palette records Narmer's domination of the two main highways betweenEgypt, Syria and Mesopotamia: the `sea road' and the `king's way'.The former cuts through the most fortified partof Palestine,Fig.52.Kite.(After Mazar 1990: fig.2.11)Page 95the latter through the less inhabited and much less fortified plateau of Transjordan." 35 Since this theory was firstpresented, kites have been found in the Sinai desert.36 Based on this information, Samuel Yeivin amended Yadin'sinterpretation.He maintains that there is no need for any deep Egyptian penetration beyond the confines of thenorthern Negev.37 Yeivin attempts to bolster his position by proposing that the peoples represented by the fortressand the kite can be identified with terms from later texts.He suggests that the fortress signifies a sedentary andagriculturally based population known as the Mntyw, or "winnowers," and that the kite represents a pastoral,seminomadic people of southern Canaan and possibly the Sinai known as the hryw-se, or "those upon the sand."38Ward persuasively argues that Yeivin's linguistic analysis is questionable and that Yeivin ignored what would beeven more convincing linguistic evidence in constructing his argument.39 For example, Yeivin derived hisinterpretation of Mntyw as winnowers from a rare verb that may mean to "sieve grain," while ignoring the morecommon meaning of ''wild ones."40Ward proceeds to expose other weaknesses in Yadin and Yeivin's theory of an incursion into Palestine.He agreesthat there is a striking resemblance between the two prostrate figures on the Narmer palette and foreignersportrayed on First Dynasty monuments,41 but in a later publication he cites a study by William Smith that suggestsrepresentations of foreigners on predynastic artifacts merely reflect the diverse population that had migrated to theDelta from various locationsnot an excursion to a foreign land.42Ward continues by stating that few similarities are shared by the fortress portrayed on the Narmer palette andfortresses found in Palestine during the Early Bronze I period: "Palestinian structures of the period were notstrengthened with regular buttresses.They show instead rounded `towers' at certain points along the wall;."43As previously mentioned, this argument is also valid when comparing the fortress on the Narmer palette torepresentations of Egyptian fortifications on predynastic artifacts.Another flaw in Yadin's argument is thatalthough some walled sites started to appear in Palestine during the Early Bronze Ib period,44 the largefortifications that he bases his theory on have been re-dated to the Early Bronze II and III periods [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]