Hieroglyphic writing was invented in Egypt long before the 1st Dynasty, but its earliest stages are unknown (see 2.2). The earliest known writing is found on labels from the late Predynastic Tomb U-j at Abydos (see Figure 5.6). Early Dynastic writing is greatly developed in relation to the earliest hieroglyphs, and it was an innovation that must have been of much use to the early state for economic and administrative purposes.
Figure 5.10 Location of the “Main Deposit,’’ Hierakonpolis. Source: J. E. Quibell, F. W. Green, Hierakonpolis II. London: Egyptian Research Account, 1902, plate 72
Hieroglyphs appear on royal seal impressions, labels, and potmarks, to identify goods and materials of the king or state. Titles and names of officials are also recorded. Most of the evidence for early writing comes from a mortuary context, and its use was mainly associated with the king and state.
Inscribed labels from the Abydos royal tombs of Dynasty 0 and the 1s* Dynasty contain the earliest evidence of recording “year names” of a king’s reign, and it has been suggested that this represents a royal annals system. While there is no archaeological evidence of state taxation based on an agricultural surplus, such as state granaries, recording years by a king’s reign would also have been useful to officials who collected taxes and levies. Beginning with Dynasty 0, inked inscriptions on pots from the Abydos tombs imply tax collection (of cereals) from Upper and Lower Egypt, and in the 1s* Dynasty the treasury is named (first the “white house” and later the “red house”). The king also directly owned large land-holdings throughout Egypt, and the names of these agricultural estates are preserved in seal impressions and on inscribed vessels. Although this evidence is from the royal tombs, these estates or others probably provided for the king in life as well as in death.
Early writing also appears with scenes on royal commemorative art, such as the Narmer Palette, and from the beginning writing is integrated with representational art. In the royal commemorative art of Dynasty 0 a formal art style is also seen, which in its most formal manifestations was centered on the works of the king and his court. Specific conventions developed in royal art: the king is always shown in a larger scale than all other humans, scenes were arranged in rows (called “registers” by Egyptologists), and the human torso was drawn frontally, but with the head, arms, and legs in profile.
Writing (and graphic art) that expressed beliefs in the mortuary cult later achieved a much fuller expression in tombs and pyramid complexes of the Old Kingdom. Administrative documents are not known until the Old Kingdom, and the use of writing in administration in the Early Dynastic Period can only be implied - mainly from labels, inscriptions, and sealings on tomb goods, and the invention of papyrus.
World History
