The earliest representations of royal power in Egypt: the rock drawings of Nag el-Hamdulab (Aswan).

Hendrickx, Stan ; Darnell, John Coleman ; Gatto, Maria Carmela 等

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Introduction

Sometime during the early 1890s, Archibald H. Sayce (1845-1933) made a sketch copy of a rock drawing at Gharb Aswan (Upper Egypt) that was subsequently included in a catalogue of inscriptions between Aswan and Kom Ombo published by de Morgan et al. (1894: 203) (Figure 1). At that moment, hardly anything was known about the earliest history of Egypt, and the Early Dynastic royal necropolis at Abydos would only be discovered a few years later. Famous documents such as the Narmer palette or the Scorpion mace head, both found at Hierakonpolis in 1898, had not yet been excavated. Consequently, Sayce had no documentation at his disposal that would have allowed him to recognise the early date of the scene, and he may not even have been aware that what he had copied was actually a very early royal representation. The brief description and rudimentary drawing of but a portion of the overall imagery at the site remained unnoticed for over a century until, in 2008, Nabil Swelim made available to one of the authors a photograph of a rock drawing (Figure 2), said to be from near Aswan (Hendrickx et al. 2009b). The photograph came from the unpublished documentation of the late Labib Habachi (1906-1984, see Kamil 2007), and a search of his archive kept at Chicago House in Luxor at the end of 2009 revealed a series of related photographs. Meanwhile, Maria C. Gatto had rediscovered the site itself (Hendrickx & Gatto 2009), thereby revealing that Sayce's imperfect hand copy did not concern a single rock art scene, but was rather an excerpt from one of a number of scenes located at short distances from each other. More recently, while working in the local ancient quarries, the QuarryScapes project encountered some of those drawings (Storemyr 2009). The ensemble of the site, presented here for the first time, makes up the most important iconographic source for the period of state formation in Egypt.

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The rediscovered and newly discovered rock art sites that form the Nag el-Hamdulab ensemble are located on the rocks confining a sandy plain west of the village of Nag el-Hamdulab, on the west bank of the Nile, about 6km north of Aswan (Figure 3). Unfortunately, several inscription areas at the site have been heavily damaged during the last decades. At present, seven sites, most of them consisting of more than one tableau, are known at short distances from each other (Figure 4). Important portions of the lost or damaged tableaux--but unfortunately not all of the lost and damaged elements--may be reconstructed on the basis of photographic documentation from the Labib Habachi Archive. Stylistic and technical peculiarities suggest that all the main tableaux with human figures are the work of only one or two hands. All representations are pecked with a pointed implement; the contour lines of the individual representations are clearly delineated but a number of them were more elaborately worked by pecking the interior surface to achieve a flat, sunken surface (Figure 2).

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Chronology

The rock inscriptions at Nag el-Hamdulab comprise a series of discrete vignettes that represent elements of an overall cycle of images involving hunting, warfare, nautical festival events, and the regalia of political authority. An anonymous king wearing the White Crown appears in three tableaux and defines the context for all the discrete portions of the overall site.

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Before discussing individual tableaux, a consideration of the chronological position of the Nag el-Hamdulab rock art is fundamental for understanding the ensemble, and has already received some discussion (Hendrickx & Gatto 2009; Hendrickx et al. in press). The royal scene at site 7 (Figure 2) shows several similarities to the Scorpion mace head (Oxford AM E.3632), the Narmer mace head (Oxford AM E.3631), and the Narmer palette (Cairo JdE. 32169) (here Figure 5). The Scorpion mace head slightly predates the Narmer monuments and starting from the Nag el-Hamdulab scenes, a striking increase in size difference between the king and his retinue can be observed. This accords with the development of the representation of Dynastic Egyptian conventions. Furthermore, the tip of the White Crown points straight upward at Nag el-Hamdulab, while that on the Scorpion mace head tilts slightly towards the back. On the Narmer palette, the crown is still slightly further tilted and worn in the oblique position that will be standard throughout the rest of Egyptian history. Finally, the representations of the standard and fan-bearers provide relevant information. At Nag el-Hamdulab the king is preceded by two standard-bearers and followed by a fan-bearer. On the Scorpion mace head, the king is preceded by two standard-bearers and followed by two fan-bearers. On the Narmer mace head, two fan-bearers stand beside the high podium on which the king sits enthroned, while four standard-bearers advance towards the king. On the Narmer palette, four standard-bearers are present, although the fan-bearers are lacking. The doubling of the fan and standard-bearers confirms that the Nag el-Hamdulab tableaux occupy a chronological position before the Scorpion mace head.

Boats form a characteristic element of the Nag el-Hamdulab tableaux and nearly all of them are of the so-called 'sickle shaped' type with 'clubbed' ends (Figures 6-9), already occurring frequently in rock art and on pre-Dynastic 'Decorated' pottery (Graff 2009: 171), the latter dating to the Naqada IIC-D period, c. 3600-3300 BC, although the prows and sterns of Nag el-Hamdulab boats turn up higher. Boats with high prows, but without the 'clubbed' ends, occur during the late pre-Dynastic and Early Dynastic period (Huyge 2002: 198), and the Nag el-Hamdulab boats seem to be at an intermediate position. The dog accompanying the king appears to represent a late occurrence of the canid as a symbol of human organisation and the domination of chaotic forces (Hendrickx 2006; compare also Darnell 2011: 1166-69), and speaks for an earlier date for the Hamdulab tableaux during the period of transition between pre-Dynastic iconography and Dynastic imagery because the dog no longer occurs in this context on the Scorpion mace head or the Narmer monuments.

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The form of the boat and the important parallels between the Nag el-Hamdulab tableaux and the Scorpion and Narmer documents suggest that a late Dynasty 0 date, c. 3200-3100 BC, is most probable for the Nag el-Hamdulab tableaux, placing the ensemble at a highly important moment in the process of state formation in Egypt.

The scenes

The uniformity in style and the interrelations between the sites and tableaux suggest that the Nag el-Hamdulab cycle of images is the result of a premeditated 'grand scheme,' rather than the consequence of artists adding scene upon scene over time. All of the tableaux are to be considered in the same context and are elements of the conceptualisation of the Nag el-Hamdulab landscape. Another important observation is that the artist(s) preferred rock surfaces with straight, vertical faces. Several times, the drawings begin at the right-hand edge of the rock edges, even when plenty of space is available to the left. Such organisation is exceptional for rock art, where the artists generally start from the centre of the available surface. For the Nag el-Hamdulab scenes, this could indicate that the artist(s) were normally working on other media; apparently they were accustomed to rectangular surfaces, on which they started working from the right edge. This fits very well with scribal practice--writing on for example papyrus--and indicates that the artist(s) at Nag el-Hamdulab were professionals; at this very early moment in Egyptian history they must have been directly related to the royal court.

The present article summarises the most important tableaux, following their order from north to south. Site 1 is located on a protruding rock, forming a highly visible orientation point at the intersection between the Wadi el-Faras and the Nag el-Hamdulab bay, almost as a 'boundary stone' (Figure 4). A boat dominates each of the two tableaux at this site, once with the representation of a prostrate, feather-wearing man--prisoner or allied foreigner--and once with three prisoners following the boat (Figure 6). The identification of the latter as prisoners is not straightforward but results from comparison with other late pre-Dynastic and Early Dynastic documents on which prisoners are systematically identified by having their arms bound behind the back, often being tied by a rope at their neck as well. Visually, a 'triangle' or a curved line behind their back indicates the pinioned arms, with no indication of arms in front of the prisoner's chest. Especially relevant is the scene on the Qustul Incense Burner (Chicago OIM.24069) showing a prisoner to the right of the boat with a lion(?) (the man does not greet the vessel; Hendrickx & Eyckerman 2010: 131). What might appear as a 'raised arm' is thinner than the arm behind the back, and gently curved in a manner most unlikely for a real appendage, while the arm behind the back is bent at a suitable angle. The figure represents a prisoner attached to the boat, a motif appearing beyond doubt on the Gebel Sheikh Suleiman relief (Murnane in Williams & Logan 1987: 282-84). The scenes from site 1 introduce two essential elements of the decoration scheme at Nag el-Hamdulab--boats and military domination. Although this combination may not seem logical, none of the tableaux shows a narrative, and all of the groups are highly symbolic. The idea of power receives expression not solely or even primarily through human representations but through the images of boats, which are the main elements of the nautical procession that is essential for the interpretation of the Nag el-Hamdulab scenes (compare boats that convey symbolic, rather than narrative, information in rock art and on 'Decorated Ware' ceramics--Huyge 2002; Graft 2009; Hendrickx & Eyckerman 2010).

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Sites 2 to 5 are located very close to each other, on the cliffs at the centre of the Nag el-Hamdulab plain (Figure 4). At site 2 the military theme is integrated into a socio-religious context. The first of the two main tableaux at site 2 shows bowmen and prisoners next to a boat that has a figure on top of each of its two cabins (Figure 7). Both of these figures on the cabins hold a stick or staff, and may represent the occupants of the cabins, although their precise meaning--presumably religious and/or political--remains unclear. Between the two bowmen behind the boat is a smaller person with one arm bent behind the back and the other upturned before the chest, in a manner unlike any other representation at Nag el-Hamdulab. The best parallel is a prisoner on the recto of the Battlefield Palette, from whose neck hangs a type of weight (Spencer 1980: 79-80, no. 576). This provides a strong indication that the scene depicts a prisoner with his arms bound behind his back and attached by a rope to the bow. In front of the boat is a single person standing behind a very large bow. A close parallel occurs on a fragmentary knife handle from cemetery U at Abydos (Dreyer 1999: fig. 10b), and the bow is an element of power in itself, regularly appearing without human presence.

The second important tableau of site 2 consists of two boats, one roughly above the other (Figure 8). Both boats have many oars and an oarsman on the stern, in contrast to most of the other Nag el-Hamdulab boats, indications already of the importance of the scene. The lower boat is of the regular 'sickle shaped' type but has as a remarkable element, a bull standard, on its prow. The upper boat has a very high prow and stern, both of which are very narrow, and a single, very low cabin on which stands a king wearing the White Crown. In front of the ruler is a standard with Wepwaout, 'Opener of the Ways', a canid god related to warfare and hunting. This second type of boat occurs only once more at Nag el-Hamdulab, where it carries a shrine, indicating that a divine boat is intended (see below, Figure 11). Therefore, the Nag el-Hamdulab cycle introduces the king as a religious concept rather than as a representation of actual military or political power.

The most important tableaux from site 3 have been destroyed and are only (incompletely) known through archival photographs. In two scenes, the king appeared in a ceremonial procession with his retinue, including a number of prisoners. A boat appears in one of the tableaux (Figure 9), forming a link to the other sites. But despite this symbolic element, the king now clearly appears as an actual ruler, the religious context being of but secondary importance. The only preserved tableau of site 3 shows a man leading a (wild?) bull and calf. Behind this is the image of a large knife, indicating that the group concerns sacrificial animals--the ceremony central to the Nag el-Hamdulab cycle is now placed in the context of meat offering, probably wild animals.

The site 4 tableau is a small but very direct and therefore important addition in which the actual feast on occasion of the festival is referenced through the representation of brewing, and a person sitting and drinking. Next to this, and on a larger scale, is a person apparently identified as a Nubian by a particular type of bow depicted in front of him. Nubia was known as the 'Land of the Bow', the frontier of which was at the First Cataract, immediately south of Nag el-Hamdulab. Recent research has shown an important presence of Nubians in the Aswan region during pre-Dynastic times (Gatto 2011) and the Nubian in the Hamdulab tableau may represent a chieftain or military commander of the Nubian denizens of the Hamdulab region, or another area immediately to the south thereof.

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Site 5 is located left of the entrance of the only rockshelter present at Nag el-Hamdulab. The small tableau is heavily damaged by more recent drawings and inscriptions which are, however, no part of the recent vandalism. The tableau consists of a bull's head and a female dancer. The latter can easily be identified by the long hair braid ending in an oval shape that represents one of the rounded weights (discs or balls?) attached to the braided hair of female dancers during the Old Kingdom (e.g. Graves-Brown 2010: 93). The combination of a bull's head and a female dancer is not as strange as it may seem at first view because the combination of hunting, butchering, music and dance is known from the early Old Kingdom onwards through the Ladies of the Acacia House (Hendrickx et al. 2009a: 212-14). This ritual context combines well with the reference to the actual feast at site 4.

Site 6 is located on an isolated hill at the southern end of the Nag el-Hamdulab sandy bay, relatively close to the alluvial plain, and comprises only one tableau, consisting of three registers showing cattle controlled by humans and dogs (Figure 10). Two possible interpretations of the scene present themselves, and the proper understanding of the group hinges on the wild or domesticated nature of the animals represented. The theme of catching and bringing up wild animals is most important for pre-Dynastic times (Hendrickx 2010; Graft et al. 2011). Although archaeozoological studies show that hunting was only of marginal economic importance during pre-Dynastic times (Linseele & Van Neer 2009), hunting scenes are nevertheless an important element of pre-Dynastic iconography. Hunting was part of the elite lifestyle, and slaughtering wild animals on the occasion of religious festivals or elite burials (Friedman 2008, 2009; Linseele et al. 2009) allowed the upper echelons of society to show their importance in real life, confirmed through visual representations which contributed to the establishment of hierarchic structures and ultimately state formation (Hendrickx 2010). Alternatively, the animals may represent the wealth of local, probably Nubian, cattle-herding groups (for a Nubian presence in the First Cataract area and beyond see Gatto 2006, 2011), perhaps the economic basis for the power of the subjugated and/or allied Nubian ruler appearing in a scene at site 1. In the latter case, the dog atop the back of the uppermost bovid is not attacking, but rather symbolically dominating, the beast (for canids doing both in a single tableau, see Darnell 2011: 1166-69).

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Site 7, already seen by Sayce at the end of the nineteenth century, is the most important in size and can be considered the culmination of the concept behind the Nag el-Hamdulab cycle. Located south of the Nag el-Hamdulab sandy bay, in a narrow gulch in the rock cliff, the site consists of four tableaux, among which two are particularly large. The first of these is visible with some difficulty from a distance and is not really in a 'hidden' position, unlike the second large tableau that can only be seen from inside the bay. The first tableau is the largest at Nag el-Hamdulab, and is already for that reason of primary importance. The scene is organised around five boats, four of which are grouped in a row, slanting slightly upwards to the right, while the fifth is placed at a higher position (Figure 11). Despite the size and the importance of the boats, the focal element of the tableau is the representation of a ruler, followed by a fan-bearer and preceded by a dog and two standard-bearers, situated above the only boat with an elaborately decorated cabin. The king wears the White Crown and holds a long prototypical heqa-sceptre. Four of the five boats are of the regular 'sickle shaped' type. On the most elaborately drawn, not by coincidence below the king, a falcon standard can be seen, while three of the boats have a standard with bull horns. Both the falcon and the bull are royal symbols, emphasising the royal character of the boats. The fifth boat is placed rather awkwardly at the bottom of the tableau, beneath the 'royal boat'. The prow and stern are not broad and rounded, but the prow is narrow and makes a hook while the stern ends in a straight top line. The boat has only a single domed or vaulted cabin, the decoration of which represents a door with the rolled up door curtain, identical to the false doors on Old Kingdom funerary monuments. An important number of parallel representations indicate that the cabin represents a shrine, transforming the vessel into a 'divine boat' and placing the tableau in a religious context. In front of the 'royal boat' are four bearded persons, their arms beside their bodies, holding a horizontal line representing a rope. Although the rope does not touch the boat, the men most likely represent people towing the boat, a theme that occurs regularly in rock art. The whole of the tableau allows an exceptional view on the idea of a boat procession. The ritual event is under the direct supervision of the king and his retinue and the general idea is that of a display of royal power in the religious context of a boat procession. The boats and the king with his retinue face towards Elephantine, perhaps--given the site's importance during the Early Dynastic period as border town controlling the First Cataract--the ultimate destination of the procession. The reality of such an event is confirmed by a small tableau to the left of the one under discussion, in which a small boat appears below a long row of small vertical lines--approximately 56--that may represent an aid to counting strokes.

The final element of the first tableau at site 7 is a four-sign hieroglyphic inscription immediately behind the stern of the uppermost boat and above the prow of the final vessel (Figure 11). The hieroglyphs are fully pecked in the style of the images of the tableaux, possess the same degree of patination, and are certainly elements of the tableau. Palaeographically of Early Dynastic date, the annotation refers to a 'nautical following' and appears to label the imagery--and apparently the entirety of the Nag el-Hamdulab cycle--as ultimately related to the royal and ritual event known as the 'Following of Horus', the biennial judicial and tax-collecting perambulation of the royal court as demonstration of royal authority, here further related to a toponym that unfortunately cannot be located (cf. Wilkinson 1999: 220-21).

Continuing from the first tableau at site 7 into the bay, the rock surface slopes backwards and exhibits too many irregularities for decoration. After this comes another flat surface, bearing the second large tableau (Figure 12), which consists of six animals, to which an Eighteenth Dynasty text was added afterwards. Starting in the lower left corner are two ostriches close to each other with a large ibex above them; to the right of the ostriches is a large bull, next to which are two enigmatic animals, one above the other. The animals (with the exception of the bull) face into the gulch, contrary to the orientation of the first tableau. The two peculiar animals to the right have bodies that look rather like those of dogs or lions but their 'heads' bear no comparison to that of any known animal. Each 'head' consists of five or six lines, the uppermost of which is shorter and parallel with a similar line formed by the backline of the animal; there is no indication at all of mouth, eyes or nose. Furthermore, the animals have extremely long tails, making an elongated 'S' above their back. The images appear to depict a non-existent, 'mythological' animal, a well-known aspect of late pre-Dynastic iconography (Huyge 2004). Already the mere presence of these animals indicates that symbolism plays an important role for interpreting the tableau. Also, the orientation is of primary importance. The animals face to the right, into the gulch, with the exception of the bull, which is the only animal in the group that faces in the same direction as the king in the other tableau. As the bull is a royal symbol, this allows one to consider the animal as a parallel for the king in tableau 1a (not illustrated) and as 'dominating' the animals around it. As desert animals, the ibex and ostriches are chaotic elements as confirmed by the two mythological animals that represent even more explicit aspects of chaos. Furthermore, these occur at the end of the gulch, which as the most remote/hidden location also refers to chaos. The ultimate meaning of the tableau is the royal, human assurance of control, the triumph of order over chaos on a cosmic level, referring eventually also to regeneration. The link between site 7 and those previously described is not only made by the royal image, the boats, and the concept of ritual processions, but also by a small--and unfortunately poorly preserved--hunting scene close to the royal boat procession.

Concluding remarks

The combination of a boat procession, hunting, solar symbolism, and the general theme of order over chaos fits very well with the concept of the 'Greater Pharaonic Cycle' as defined by Williams and Logan (1987), especially when considering that the theme of military victory occurs at other Nag el-Hamdulab rock art sites. In the Hamdulab cycle also appears the image of a prostrate man with a feather, arms stretched before him, an apparent visual reference to royal domination of potentially chaotic humans, a ritual manifestation of the more bellicose and physical expression of the same domination of human disorder appearing elsewhere at Hamdulab in the scene of two bowmen with a prisoner between them. The theme of military domination of human chaos, parallel to hunting as the ordering of the potentially chaotic, natural world, is very much part of the overall scheme of the Hamdulab imagery.

The Nag el-Hamdulab cycle is unique and bridges the iconographic worlds of the pre-Dynastic and Dynastic Jubilee images; it is a hybrid of the two. Whereas pre-Dynastic scenes are either one long illustration, a fluid blending of the events, or represent individual vignettes from the cycle (Darnell 2009), the Dynastic scenes--from Narmer forward--are more often broken up by the key events, divided into registers, just as the Hamdulab tableaux appear to separate certain events, and assign particular symbolism and meaning to each tableau of the greater cycle. The Nag el-Hamdulab scenes stress the nautical aspect, the pre-Dynastic focus of the event, but divide the event into distinct sequences. The Nag el-Hamdulab cycle is the earliest group of complex images of religious activity incorporating the king wearing a recognisable crown of pharaonic regalia, and the last of the large, nautical Jubilee cycles of the Naqada II period. Whereas earlier the concept of kingship was an important element, beginning with the Nag el-Hamdulab cycle, the presence of the physical king presiding over the events takes precedence over symbolism alluding to royalty. The Nag el-Hamdulab cycle may be said to show the emergence of the ruler as supreme human priest and incarnate manifestation of human and divine power. The Nag el-Hamdulab cycle is also the first complex iconographic composition with accompanying hieroglyphic annotation. That text refers to the 'Nautical Following (of Horus)', the biennial progress of the royal court on a perambulating judicial and tax-collecting visit to demonstrate royal authority throughout the land, and may therefore be the earliest record of tax collection we have from Egypt, and the first expression of royal economic control over Egypt and most probably also Nubia.

Acknowledgements

We thank W.R. Johnson for access to the Labib Habachi archive in Chicago House, Luxor, and permission to publish Figures 2 and 9. We want to thank Tina Di Cerbo for her help in accessing the Habachi Archive. Special thanks to Morgan De Dapper and Ilka Klose for the geomorphological study; Antonio Curci and Alberto Urcia for the digital documentation; Giandaniele Castangia, Stefano Caruso, Hannah Joris and Merel Eyckerman for the drawings; and Daniel Libens for the photography.

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Received: 16 September 2011; Accepted: 23 January 2012; Revised: 26 March 2012

Stan Hendrickx (1), John Coleman Darnell (2) & Maria Carmela Gatto (2)

(1) Media, Arts & Design Faculty, Elfde Liniestraat 25, Hasselt, B-3118, Belgium (Author for correspondence, email: s.hendrickx@pandora.be)

(2) Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Yale University, P.O. Box 208236, New Haven, CT 06520-8236, USA (Email: john.darnell@yale.edu; maria.gatto@yale.edu)