Everything about Menes totally explained
Menes is the name of the Egyptian
pharaoh credited with founding the
First dynasty, sometime around 3100 BC. Menes was seen as a founding figure for much of the history of Ancient Egypt, and was possibly a mythical founding king similar to
Romulus and Remus for
Ancient Rome.
Ancient Egyptian legend credits a pharaoh by this name with uniting
Upper and Lower Egypt into in a single, centralized monarchy. The earliest reference to him appears on the
Palermo Stone, which is a now-fragmentary king's list that was carved onto a stela sometime during the
Fifth dynasty. He appears as the first human ruler of Egypt, directly inheriting the throne from the god
Horus. He also appears in other, much later, king's lists, always as the first human pharaoh of Egypt. Two king's lists of the
19th dynasty (13th century BC) call him
Meni, the
3rd century BC Egyptian historian Manetho called him
Menes, and the
5th century BC Greek historian
Herodotus referred to him as
Min.
Menes is also credited with the foundation of
Memphis, which he established as the Egyptian capital. According to
Manetho, Menes reigned for 62 years and was (unusually enough) killed by a
hippopotamus.
Archeological evidence
The discovery of the
Narmer Palette in the late
19th century depicting the hitherto unknown pharaoh
Narmer, possibly pre-dating Menes, wielding the symbols of both Upper and Lower Egypt, cast doubt on the traditional account. The general scholarly consensus is that Narmer and Menes (or his successor
Hor-Aha) are in fact the same person. Others hold that Menes inherited an already-unified kingdom from Narmer; still others believe that Menes completed a process of unification started either unsuccessfully or only partially successfully by Narmer. In any case, while there's extensive archeological evidence of there being a pharaoh named Narmer, the only indisputable evidence for Menes is an
ostracon which contains his name under the
Nebty symbols. There is a general suspicion that Menes either was a name of Narmer, his predecessor, or of his successor,
Hor-Aha.
Some people also believe that this may have been a legend created by the Egyptians to tell what happened. Others think that Narmer may have been the father of Menes.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Menes'.
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