Unification
3050 BC
Egypt is unified
by Menes, a local ruler of Thebes. The unification is
celebrated in symbols in Egyptian Art throughout the next
3000 years. For example the sedge and
the bee. The sedge is the
symbol of Upper Egypt and the bee is the symbol of Lower
Egypt. This example is taken from the Kings List in the
Mortuary Temple of Seti I, constructed 1500 years after
Menes.From the same New
Kingdom period, the Gold Mask of Tutankhamun shows him wearing a cloth headress with a
golden vulture, the Goddess Nekhbet of Upper Egypt, and a
golden cobra goddess of Lower Egypt.
Another familiar symbol of
unification is the wearing of the two crowns of Egypt:
the dome shaped crown of Upper Egypt and the sloping cone
shape of the crown of Lower Egypt.
All of these symbols were still used by the last Pharaoh
of Egypt, Cleopatra, 3000 years after unification.
Prior to unification, local rulers were in power. Then a
strong leader in the Nile Delta consolidated the local
groups into Lower Egypt, and Menes consolidated the local
groups in Upper Egypt. These two rulers then contested
who would control all the length of the Nile.
But these were not primitive
tribes, the local kingdoms of Egypt were highly civilized
prior to unification.
They herded cattle and raised grain
and other crops. They traded with others along the Nile
and some of the tribes in the surrounding deserts. They
manufactured pottery, cloth and baskets. And they had
complex religious practices that involved the
construction of structures devoted to them.
Travel Back Through Time with Suzie
Manley's Backtrack Egypt
Egypt's Historic
Dynasties: Modern | Ottoman
| Muslim | | Roman
| Greek | Late |
New
| Middle | Old
| Dynastic | Unification
|
