Hedju Hor

Hedju-Hor
Hor-Hedju
A clay cutting of a hieroglyph of Hedju Hor[1]
A clay cutting of a hieroglyph of Hedju Hor[1]
Pharaoh
SuccessorNy-Hor?
Royal titulary
Horus name
Hedju-Hor

Ḥr.(w)-ḥḏw

G5
T3 T3 T3
DynastyDynasty 0

Hedju Hor was a ruler in northern Egypt from the Predynastic Period.[2][3] His true existence is unknown. The name Hedju Hor means 'the maces of Horus'.[4]

It is thought that his reign began around 3250 BC,[citation needed] but almost nothing is known of his existence. He is known only from inscriptions found in the Nile Delta region and pottery shards from Tura. It has been conjectured that he was the first pharaoh of Lower Egypt, or the last; or that he was a member of Dynasty 0.[citation needed]

Hedju Hor is only known from two clay jugs on which his serekh appears: one from Tura[5] in the eastern Nile Delta and one from Abu Zeidan on the northeastern tip of the Nile Delta.[6]

Wolfgang Helck, who was an Egyptologist, held him as a Pharaoh of Dynasty 0 and identified him with Wash, who is known as the ruler defeated by Narmer on the Narmer Palette,[7] an opinion later shared by Edwin van den Brink.[8] By contrast, Toby Wilkinson[9] and Jochem Kahl both argue that Hedju Hor was not a pre-dynastic Pharaoh but, rather, a ruler of a small proto-state of the pre-dynastic era and have attributed to him the title King.

Hedju Hor also has no known tomb and is not found in the text of the Palermo Stone, which is a stone listing the oldest kings of Ancient Egypt.[10] This makes the claims of both Helck and van den Brink even more unlikely.[citation needed]

  1. ^ Fischer, Henry Georg: Varia Aegyptiaca. In: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, (2). Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake (1963), S. 33, Abb. 1.
  2. ^ Eichhorn, Günther: "Egypt - Protodynastic Period - 3200 to 3100 BCE". Archived from the original on 2019-10-06.
  3. ^ Ludwig David Morenz: Bild-Buchstaben und symbolische Zeichen. Die Herausbildung der Schrift der hohen Kultur Altägyptens (= Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 205). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004; Academic Press, Fribourg (2004), ISBN 3-7278-1486-1.
  4. ^ Leprohon, Ronald J (2013). The Great Name: Ancient Egyptian Royal Titulary. SBL Press. p. 23. ISBN 978-158-983-736-2.
  5. ^ "Ancient Egypt - Dynasty 0". www.narmer.pl. Retrieved 2019-10-06.
  6. ^ Fischer, Henry Georg: Varia Aegyptiaca . In: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, (2). Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake (1963), p. 44.
  7. ^ Helck, Wolfgang (1987). Untersuchungen zur Thinitenzeit. Ägyptologische Abhandlungen 45. Wiesbaden.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link), p. 98.
  8. ^ van den Brink, Edwin (1996). "The Incised Serekh-signs of Dynasties 0–1, Part I: Complete Vessels". In Spencer, Alan J. (ed.). Aspects of Early Egypt. London: British Museum Press. pp. 140–158. ISBN 0714109991., p. 147.
  9. ^ Toby A.H. Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt - Strategy, Security and Society. Routledge, London (1999), ISBN 0-415-18633-1. pp. 55-56.
  10. ^ Hsu, Shih-Wei (2010) The Palermo Stone: the Earliest Royal Inscription from Ancient Egypt, Altoriental. Forsch., Akademie Verlag, 37(1), pp. 68–89.