| Nebty name in hieroglyphs | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Full title
nebty He of Nekhbet and Wadjet (He of the Two Ladies) | |||
 | |||
The Nebty name (also called the Two-Ladies-name) was one of the "great five names" used by Egyptian pharaohs. It was also one of the oldest royal titles. The modern term "Two-Ladies-name" is a simple derivation from the translation of the Egyptian word nebty.
The terms "Nebty name" and "Two-Ladies-name" derive from the Egyptian word nbtj (Nebty), which is a dual noun meaning "the (two) ladies". As a mere noun it is a religious euphemism designating the goddesses Nekhbet and Wadjet as a deified pair. As a royal crest it was thought to represent a unified Egypt. [1] [2]
The Nebty name, similarly to the later Niswt-Bity name, was constructed with two sign groups. The first one shows a griffon vulture sitting on a basket. The second group shows an erect cobra, also sitting on a basket. The oldest versions of the Nebty name showed instead of the cobra the red crown above the second basket. The sign groups forming the Nebty name were never used separately. [1] [2]
The Nebty name was symbolically linked to the two most important goddesses of Ancient Egyptian kingship: Nekhbet and Wadjet. Whilst Nekhbet (Egypt. Nekhebety; "she from Nekheb") was the "mistress of Upper Egypt", her pendant Wadjet (Egypt. Wadyt; "she who thrives" or simply "lady of the green") was the "mistress of Lower Egypt". Nekhbet was worshipped as the "celestial mother of a king", which is expressed in the Ancient Egyptian queen title Mwt-niswt ("mother of the king"). The cobra of Wadjet was worshipped as the "celestial diadem snake on the king's forehead", believed to spit fire at anyone who dared to take on the pharaoh. This protective behaviour made Wadjet very popular and already in early dynastic times several deities were depicted as wearing a uraeus on their foreheads. With his Nebty name each pharaoh wished to present himself as the one under the guidance and protection of the two goddesses, thus legitimizing himself as being ruler of the whole of Egypt. [1] [2]
After the Horus name, the Nebty name is the second oldest royal name of Ancient Egyptian history and also known as the "Two-Ladies name". Egyptologists such as Toby Wilkinson and Ludwig David Morenz point to an obvious prototype of the Nebty name used before the introduction of the final form: ivory tags from the Abydos tombs of the kings Hor-Aha and Djer and the queen Neithhotep show the Two-Ladies crest with the red crown instead of the cobra over a basket. In the case of Hor-Aha the Nebty crest is of special interest, because it is depicted inside a three-framed building (shrine? tomb?) together with the hieroglyph Men (Gardiner sign Y5; meaning "to stay" or "to endure"). It is intensely disputed whether this sign group merely gives the name of a Nebty shrine (Men-Nebty; "where the Two Ladies endure"), whether it shows Aha's Nebty name inside his tomb or whether it shows, instead, Narmer's Nebty name, indicating that Aha buried Narmer. The ivory tags of kings Djer and Djet show the prototype inside a palace and a shrine, guided by the notation that the kings visited the palace of the Two Ladies or oversaw the building of wine cellars for the Nebty shrine. The first use of the final form of the Nebty crest (vulture and cobra over two baskets) appeared during the reign of king Semerkhet, who called himself Iry-Nebty ("guardian of the Two Ladies"). After him, every future king used a Nebty name, though not every king of the early dynasties and the Old Kingdom is known by his Nebty name. [1] [2]
A further problem in determining Nebty names is a fashion which arose during the reign of king Peribsen. He was the first ruler who used the Nebty crest as a separate name or title. After him, it seems that other rulers used separate Nebty names, too. Evidence for that is the case of king Qa'a. Ivory tag inscriptions reveal that Qa'a obviously used two different Nebty names: Qa'a-Nebty ("raised arm of the Two Ladies") and Sen-Nebty ("kissed by the Two Ladies" or "brother of the Two Ladies"). And king Hotepsekhemwy called himself Sehotep-Nebty ("the Two Ladies are pleased (with him)"), thus using virtually the same name as he used for his serekh name. [3] [4] Another problem in assigning Nebty names is that during the Old Kingdom Egyptian queens also used the Nebty crest as a part of their birth names. Prominent examples are the queens Hetephernebti and Djefatnebti. This has caused a problem concerning the interpretation of a Nebty name appearing on an ivory stencil from Saqqara. It is disputed whether it was the name of a queen (Djeseret-ankh-Nebty) or just the Nebty name of king Sekhemkhet. [3] [5]
Pharaoh is the vernacular term often used for the monarchs of ancient Egypt, who ruled from the First Dynasty until the annexation of Egypt by the Roman Empire in 30 BCE. However, regardless of gender, "king" was the term used most frequently by the ancient Egyptians for their monarchs through the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty during the New Kingdom. The earliest confirmed instances of "pharaoh" used contemporaneously for a ruler were a letter to Akhenaten or an inscription possibly referring to Thutmose III.
In Egyptian history, the Upper and Lower Egypt period was the final stage of prehistoric Egypt and directly preceded the unification of the realm. The conception of Egypt as the Two Lands was an example of the dualism in ancient Egyptian culture and frequently appeared in texts and imagery, including in the titles of Egyptian pharaohs.
Wadjet, known to the Greek world as Uto or Buto among other renderings including Wedjat, Uadjet, and Udjo, was originally the ancient Egyptian local goddess of the city of Dep or Buto in Lower Egypt, which was an important site in prehistoric Egypt.
Nekhbet is an early predynastic local goddess in Egyptian mythology, who was the patron of the city of Nekheb. Ultimately, she became the patron of Upper Egypt and one of the two patron deities for all of Ancient Egypt when it was unified.
Menes was a pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt credited by classical tradition with having united Upper and Lower Egypt and as the founder of the First Dynasty.
The First Dynasty of ancient Egypt covers the first series of Egyptian kings to rule over a unified Egypt. It immediately follows the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, possibly by Narmer, and marks the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period, when power was centered at Thinis.
Narmer was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period. He was the successor to the Protodynastic king Ka. Many scholars consider him the unifier of Egypt and founder of the First Dynasty, and in turn the first king of a unified Egypt. He also had a prominently noticeable presence in Canaan, compared to his predecessors and successors. A majority of Egyptologists believe that Narmer was the same person as Menes. Neithhotep is thought to be his queen consort or his daughter.
The Uraeus, or Ouraeus, (plural: Uraei) is the stylized, upright form of an Egyptian cobra, used as a symbol of sovereignty, royalty, deity and divine authority in ancient Egypt.
In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a serekh is a rectangular enclosure representing the niched or gated façade of a palace surmounted by (usually) the Horus falcon, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The serekh was the earliest convention used to set apart the royal name in ancient Egyptian iconography, predating the later and better known cartouche by four dynasties and five to seven hundred years.
Djer is considered the third pharaoh of the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt in current Egyptology. He lived around the mid 31st century BC and reigned for c. 40 years. A mummified forearm of Djer or his wife was discovered by Egyptologist Flinders Petrie, but was discarded by Émile Brugsch.
Hor-Aha is considered the second pharaoh of the First Dynasty of Egypt by some Egyptologists, while others consider him the first one and corresponding to Menes. He lived around the 31st century BC and is thought to have had a long reign.
Djet, also known as Wadj, Zet, and Uadji, was the fourth pharaoh of the First Dynasty, successor of Djer. Djet's Horus name means "Horus Cobra" or "Serpent of Horus".
The pschent was the double crown worn by rulers in ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians generally referred to it as sekhemty (sḫm.ty), the Two Powerful Ones. It combined the White Hedjet Crown of Upper Egypt and the Red Deshret Crown of Lower Egypt.
The royal titulary or royal protocol is the standard naming convention taken by the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. It symbolised worldly power and holy might, also acting as a sort of mission statement for the duration of a monarch's reign.
Semerkhet is the Horus name of an early Egyptian king who ruled during the First Dynasty. This ruler became known through a tragic legend handed down by the historian Manetho, who reported that a calamity of some sort occurred during Semerkhet's reign. The archaeological records seem to support the view that Semerkhet had a difficult time as king and some early archaeologists questioned the legitimacy of Semerkhet's succession to the Egyptian throne.
In Ancient Egyptian texts, the "Two Ladies" was a religious epithet for the goddesses Wadjet and Nekhbet, two deities who were patrons of the ancient Egyptians and worshiped by all after the unification of its two parts, Lower Egypt, and Upper Egypt. When the two parts of Egypt were joined together, there was no merger of these deities as often occurred with similar deities from various regions and cities. Both goddesses were retained because of the importance of their roles and they became known as the Two Ladies, who were the protectors of unified Egypt.
The Horus name is the oldest known and used crest of ancient Egyptian rulers. It belongs to the "great five names" of an Egyptian pharaoh. However, modern Egyptologists and linguists are starting to prefer the more neutral term: the "serekh name". This is because not every pharaoh placed the falcon, which symbolizes the deity Horus, atop his serekh.
Neithhotep or Neith-hotep was an ancient Egyptian queen consort who lived and ruled during the early First Dynasty. She was once thought to be a male ruler: her outstandingly large mastaba and the royal serekh surrounding her name on several seal impressions previously led Egyptologists and historians to the erroneous belief that she might have been an unknown king. As the understanding of early Egyptian writings developed, scholars learned that Neithhotep was in fact a woman of extraordinary rank. She was subsequently considered to be the wife of unified Egypt's first pharaoh, Narmer, and the mother of Hor-Aha.
Djeseretnebti is possibly the name of an ancient Egyptian queen. Since this name appears without any queen‘s title, Egyptologists dispute the true meaning and reading of this name.
Hedju Hor was a ruler in northern Egypt from the Predynastic Period. His true existence is unknown. The name Hedju-Hor means The maces of Horus.
