Gerry in reply to my post asked
> Gerry: This again is most fascinating. So Gerzian Culture predates
> Hierakonpolis and was Semitic. Hierakonpolis succeeds in unifying
Upper
> and Lower Egypt into one unit and the Semitic element becomes
> indiginized only to have the leaders declare themselves
"aristocracy".
> Now, at Hierakonpolis, who were the leaders? Were they gods or
humans?
I quote for you "Evidence for the government of the Nile valley during
the Naqada III [i.e.Gerzian] is dominated by three sites, Abydos,
Naqada (Nubt) itself, and Hierakonopolis (Nekhen) - where enormous
brick-built tombs indicate a powerful elite". (Historical Atlas of
Ancient Egypt). These "confederated" into a single state ruled from
Nekhen, under such shadowy kings as Ka, Ba and Selk (Scorpion), the
latter possibly the father of Narmer. Autonomous confederacies were
brought into the emerging state of the south by Narmer and Aha. Narmer
himself seems to have married a northern Princess (Neithotep) from Sais
or Buto. Aha, his son is often assumed to have been Manetho's Menes.
Thus the leaders were human, not Gods, although the Vulture Goddess of
Nekhen came to represent the south, just like the Cobra of Buto
represented the north in later hieroglyphics, and on the royal Uraeus.
Later writers have suggested that the southerners were the Horus
people, as falcons were frequently portrayed on their iconographic
standards. In the second dynasty, it is proposed, a revolt of the
conquered, saw a number of Pharaohs using Seth on their standard in
place of the earlier falcon. Ka-sekhemui the second last pharaoh of
the second dynasty seems to have bought peace by including both Horus
and Seth on his Serekh, achieving some kind of compromise. His son
Huni ushered in a new period of prosperity, and his grandson, Snofru
was the the first Pharaoh of the glorious Third Dynasty. It has been
suggested that the battles between Horus and Seth, incoprorated into
the corpus of the Isis-Osirus myth, represent a vague memory of this
religious struggle.
For your interest
John