Early Dynastic Egypt by Toby A. H. Wilkinson

Author:Toby A. H. Wilkinson [Wilkinson, Toby A. H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Archaeology
ISBN: 9780415260114
Google: ih2EAgAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0415260116
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2001-06-13T16:00:00+00:00

nswt-bỉty names

After the title nswt-bỉty came a name which may also have been the king’s birth name (S.Schott 1956:76). It was certainly the name by which many kings were known in later annals and king lists. The nswt-bỉty title was often paired with the element nbty, after the introduction of the latter in the reign of Semerkhet. Peribsen was the first king to separate the two elements and use the nswt-bỉty title alone once more (S.Schott 1956:61), on a sealing from Abydos (Petrie 1901: pl. XXII.190).

Den’s nswt-bỉty name, zmtỉ (S.Schott 1956:60), appears on many contemporary inscriptions, especially the stone vessels found beneath the Step Pyramid. The name was also used on royal seals, frequently without reference to the king’s Horus name. It must, therefore, have had a significance of its own. It means ‘the two deserts’, referring to the eastern and western deserts which guarded the Nile valley on each side. It reinforces the message of the nswt-bỉty title: that the king’s rule extends over the whole of Egypt, east and west as well as north and south. Given the evidence that Den probably conducted a military campaign against the nomadic tribespeople of the eastern desert, his nswt-bỉty name may have had added resonance, proclaiming his intention to subdue Egypt’s desert borderlands and bring them under his yoke. An alternative reading of the name is h 3stỉ, translated as ‘the foreigner’ or ‘the Sinaitic’ (Godron 1990:21). It has been suggested that

Den adopted this secondary name following a military success against the inhabitants of the Sinai, recorded on the ivory label from Abydos (Godron 1990:180).

The nswt-bỉty-nbty name of Den’s successor, the Horus Anedjib, is curious and quite impenetrable: mr-p-bỉ3. For many years, the nswt-bỉty-nbty name of Semerkhet likewise defied interpretation; but it has now been shown to read ỉrỉ-n r, ‘guardian of the god’. If the nbty element is interpreted as forming part of the name, rather than another title, then the name should read ỉrỉ-nbty, ‘guardian of the Two Ladies’ (Quirke 1990:23). The name expresses the close relationship between the king and the divine sphere. It also conveys something of the tension inherent in the ideology of divine kingship: the king is separate from the rest of humanity, the interlocutor between people and gods, indeed the gods’ representative on earth; but he is still not quite one of the gods, possessing only ‘limited divinity’ (Quirke 1990:11). It is the royal ka, the divine essence incarnate in the king, which passes unchanged from generation to generation; the king himself cannot escape death. Finally, the nswt-bỉty-nbty name of Hetepsekhemwy (htp) is merely an abbreviation of his Horus name.

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