Chapter XV <<< French Version >>> Chapter XVII (forthcoming)
The city of Charmutha/Punt with all its merchants and colonies was one of the greatest maritime powers of High Antiquity. His ships, which sailed the many seas, opened up new trade routes that allowed cultural exchanges between very distant regions. All these ways, as were later the roads of Rome, the railways or the Internet, are as many interconnections which allowed the emergence of new technologies and their diffusion between various countries more or less advanced between them. This Red Sea port, as large as Carthage, was at the heart of ancient civilizations (Mesopotamia in the North, Egypt in the West, Crete in the North-West and Harappa in the North-East) and contributed in its own way the spread of the first writings to many regions whether or not they are close to the Arabian Peninsula. However, the use of the alphabet did not occur spontaneously or progressively but rather through successive stages: the pictogram with its realistic graphics (man, woman, animals, etc.), the ideogram with its realistic and abstract graphics (running, walking, river, beauty, etc.), the phonogram (symbols associated with phonemes) and finally the alphabet (symbols associated with primary phonemes).
Today, the invention of writing and its dissemination must be conceived through multiple exchanges between regions more or less technically advanced between them, and also more or less distant. These commercial and cultural relations are one of the keys to understanding the ideograms and/or logograms that developed all around the Near East, including those in Crete (hieroglyphs and Linear A) which are a mutual legacy of neighboring powers. A comparison of Cretan, Egyptian and Mesopotamian glyphs (proto-cuneiform and non-cuneiform) suggests three ways in which ideograms spread, and these in three different times: a first spread, in the 4th millennium BC, from Mesopotamia (glyphs created around -3,400 years BC) to Egypt (glyphs resumed around 3,200 years BC) following the first commercial exchanges via Ta Netjer (Happy Arabia); later, the second, in the 3rd millennium BC, from Ta Netjer (Charmutha/Punt being one of the countries) to new more distant regions including the Cretan island (Minoan hieroglyphs) with the invention of high-speed boats. sea ; then finally, the third in the second millennium BC, from Egypt to Pount/Charmutha and its colonies following an increased influence of the country of the pharaohs which imposed its hieroglyphs and its simplified writings called hieratic.
This theory of a diffusion in three times may seem surprising but it offers a coherent interpretation to all Egyptian, Phoenician and Minoan mythologies that I will deepen in my following articles, in particular on the Zero dynasty of the pharaohs. All these commercial and cultural exchanges which date back to High Antiquity are one of the main factors in the spread of Sumerian glyphs (those of the Uruk period) to Divine Arabia (Happy Arabia, Ta Netjer) then to Egypt and Crete. Professor Luigi Pernier had already suspected such an influence of Punt (Charmutha, Arabia Heuseuse) on the Minoan civilization because of the dwellings on the disc of Phaistos and on the frescoes of Deir el Bahari (reference n°148, Godard Louis). As for Professor Maurice Dunand, he had noted similarities between Linear A of the Minoans, the Byblos’ scripts and the Egyptian writings (reference n°149, Dunant Maurice). My article today proposes to study one of the axes of influence, that which goes from Divine Arabia (Happy Arabia) to Egypt and which existed at the time of Pharaoh Narmer. All these investigations and analyzes will ultimately provide an unprecedented look at the writing’s birth.
1 – Primary Scripts and the invention of the alphabet:
Before defining what the primary scriptures could be, it is important to recall the four main phases of the alphabet’s invention:
- The pictogram which is a set of rather realistic graphic symbols of men, women, animals and certain more complex notions: the hunter with his bow and his arrows, the shepherd with his stick…
- The ideogram or logogram which is a more complex representation than the pictogram since it also includes abstract notions such as verbs or ideas: RIVER, NICE, BEAUTIFUL, GREAT, WALK, RUN…
- The phonogram which is a set of graphic signs mainly associated with sounds. The words here are a succession of symbols which gives its equivalent phoneme: [RI]-[VER], [NI]-[CE].
- And finally, the alphabet which is a primary decomposition of phonemes : [R-I]-[V-E-R], [N-I]-[C-E].
The pictograms in themselves do not allow structured writing since many abstract notions are absent. On the other hand, the ideograms or logograms turn out to be sufficiently developed for us to be able to consider them as the first symbols of the primary scripts.
On the Egyptian side, the inventor of writing and language is Thoth, also nicknamed the « language of Atum » or Gods’ scribe. The embodiment of intelligence and speech, he knows the incantations the gods cannot resist. According to legend, anyone who was able to decipher the magic formulas of the Book of Thoth could hope to surpass the gods. All the sciences are in his possession: He knows everything and understands everything. As the holder of knowledge, he is responsible for disseminating it. If the ancient Egyptians revered him so much, it is because all the Knowledge and Knowledge had been transmitted to them by books and writings that Thoth had voluntarily abandoned in temples.
Among the Phoenicians, the inventor of writing this time is Taut, whose phonetic resemblance is not fortuitous with the god Thoth since numerous inscriptions present that the Egyptian divinity as being the « Lord of Punt », the one of the countries of Divine Arabia (Felicia Arabia, reference n°150):
· An inscription on a Ramesside monument in Sinai identifies the moon god Thoth as the Lord of Ta Netjer (Référence n°151, Inscription in Sinai, [KRI II 401,14], cf. Shaheen, Alaael-din M., Thot, « Lord of Punt »; A brief note, GM 165 (1998), 9-11).
· On the sandstone statue of Ramses (Object reference 1905,1014.124, British Museum, reference n°152), two names were engraved: « Hathor, Lady of Turquoise and Thoth, Lord of Punt »
If Thoth is a god of Punt, could it be that he is a Warlord from the Asian continent who has meanwhile become king of Egypt and who disseminated his hieroglyphs in his adopted country? If so, the sacred writing of the Egyptians would then be an import from the Arabian Peninsula. To validate or not this theory, we must go back to the first hieroglyphs of the 4th millennium BC, on the Thinite period, to detect traces of such an origin. These symbols, in this distant time, did not yet constitute complete sentences such as we know (subject, verb and object) but certain associations began to give nominal groups (object with its adjective). Their first use was to name the first pharaohs with royal cartouches called Serekh of Horus. Despite the passage of time, the names of several of them have been preserved: Horus the falcon, Houroui the double falcon, the scorpion, Narmer, …
Figure XVI.a : Narmer’s macehead (wikipedia, référence n°153)
Figure XVI.b : Narmer’s palette (wikipedia, référence n°154)
Anyway, the first hieroglyphs date back to the Narmer’s reign with his first nominal groups that we find on different objects: macehead (Figure XVI.a, reference n°153), palette (Figure XVI.b, reference n°154) and baboons’ statuettes (Figure XVI.e, reference n°155). An in-depth study of all these old historical pieces (including the frescoes of Sethi) suggests a real Asian origin to this pharaoh of the Zero dynasty without however validating this theory.
2 – Pharaoh Narmer, master of hieroglyphs and foreigner to the land of Egypt :
On his famous palette (see figure XVI.b) where the first hieroglyphs appear, Pharaoh Narmer celebrates his victories with many massacres of enemies and beheadings of prisoners. On the front, from top to bottom, the royal cartouche of Narmer (K13+U22, “spicy catfish”) is surrounded by two bulls. Slightly below, on the right, a friendly or enemy boat is taken by Horus the Falcon to the shores of Egypt. The scene continues with Pharaoh Narmer (K13+U22) finishing off an enemy with his mace. This pharaoh surrounded by his two main companions, his Shaman (the Flower, double M42) and his Quartermaster (V13 the rope for the blows of the whip and X1 the caring bread), wears the headdress of Upper Egypt. At the very bottom, two enemies cowered in fear have taken refuge (hieroglyph V7, a cord in the shape of a bracelet to express protection) in their fortress (hieroglyph O16/O13, the fortress).
On the back, at the top, we have the same Serekh surrounded by two bulls. Below, the pharaoh with the crown of Lower Egypt goes to war with his two companions (his Shaman and his Quartermaster represented by the hieroglyphs M42 and V13-X1) and the representatives of 4 nomes. His defeated enemies suffer the ultimate punishment of death by decapitation. Below, a battle has been represented between two imaginary animals, Serpentard that I will rather call them « leocamelopardalis ». And finally, at the very bottom, the scene ends with a bull smashing through the enemy’s fortress.
The first interest of this old palette is the appearance of the first hieroglyphs, some of which form nominative groups: K13+U22 for the Pharaoh Narmer, V13+X1 for the Quartermaster. This is why Narmer was the first pharaoh to understand the importance of the scriptures and to use them to manage his kingdom.
The second interest is the battle between the two imaginary animals which are often called Serpentard (contraction of Serpent and Leopard) but which I prefer to call them “leocamelopardalis”. These imaginary animals, leopards with long necks, are not the fruit of human imagination but rather the fruit of a linguistic misunderstanding between the sponsor Narmer and his master blacksmith. The pharaoh had asked for a battle between two « camelopardalis » (spotted camels to designate giraffes) but the craftsman included a scene with two « leopardalis » (spotted lions to designate leopards). Finally the animals represented are « leocamelopardalis » which turns out to be a mixture of « camelopardalis » and « leopardalis », a mixture of giraffe and leopard, which gives long-necked leopards. This scene on the Narmer palette thus demonstrates a pharaoh of foreign origin in relation to his local population.
Therefore, if this pharaoh was not an ethnic Egyptian, he who mastered the first sacred scriptures, then where could he come from?
3 – Narmer, a Red Sea pirate who became pharaoh :
My hypothesis on Narmer here is a pirate of the Red Sea who, following several raids on the lands of Egypt, became pharaoh. Here are five clues that support my theory without completely validating it:
Clue n°1: the tomb’s frescoes of Sethi I:
Figure XVI.c : Sethi’s Frescoes (L’Égypte Eternelle, Montet Pierre, référence n°156)
The Sethi’s frescoes describe the offerings of the four peoples of Egypt to the pharaoh: the “romets” of Middle Egypt; the “aamouts”, a people of Lower Egypt of Asian origin; ”Neyesyou”, a people from Upper Egypt with sub-Saharan origins and the ”Timihou”, Libyans from the western deserts of Egypt (see figure XVI.c). Here, the most similar Egyptians to Narmer are the « aamout » with their trimmed beards, which logically gives an Asian origin to this pharaoh.
Clue n°2: the imaginary animal represented on Namer’s serekh:
According to the royal cartouches, the pharaoh’s emblem is officially a catfish, and in particular one of the following two species: « Heterobranchus longifilis » or « Malapterurus electricus ». But this hieroglyph presents at least four inconsistencies: 1- there are two hieroglyphs K13 and K4 to represent the catfish; 2- the presence at the same time of these two animals K13 and K4 on the Kagemni fresco; 3- Narmer’s hieroglyph A54 which is a chimera consisting of a lateral back and a flat head with two eyes; 4- the six vibrissae of catfish much lower than the ten drawn. This is why Narmer’s hieroglyph A54 is not a catfish but rather a cuttlefish with ten tentacles, which is confirmed by Bugdoff’s dictionary in which the word [nar] does designate a mollusk there.
Attention, in the dictionary of Vygus, this same Egyptian word [nar] means « catfish » whereas the cuttlefish isn’t mentioned there. To explain this difference between the two dictionaries, [nar] could be interpreted as a multi-tentacled fish, which gives us both « cuttlefish » and occasionally « catfish ».
Figure XVI.d: the myth of Kraken
A question then arises: if the hieroglyph represents a cuttlefish for Narmer, could this mollusk of the seas be the emblem of this pharaoh? The answer is yes if the symbol does not represent the small animal but the giant squid, this terrifying animal that dared to attack boats (figure XVI.d). This hieroglyph K13 therefore confirms us on the theory of a pharaoh with foreign origins, and also of a man of the seas.
Clue n°3: the boat represented on the front guided by the Horus falcon:
For many specialists, this boat represented on the front symbolizes the arrival of enemies on Egyptian lands. But, at the very bottom of the palette, we can see that his enemies have taken frightened refuge in their fortress, which for me excludes a come by boat. Therefore, I favor another interpretation, that of an incursion of Narmer and his men into African lands. These sailors were then pirates who launched raids on the countries of Egypt and who by chance of fate became masters of Upper Egypt.
Clue n°4: the chronological order of events between the two sides of the palette:
The chronology of the two faces brings another look at the journey of this pharaoh. On the recto, accompanied by his two companions (the Shaman and the Quartermaster), Narmer wears the crown of Upper Egypt. While on the verso, the pharaoh wears the crown of Lower Egypt followed by his two companions and representatives of 4 nomes of Middle Egypt against the northern countries. The difference between the two faces are the standard bearers, which induces an installation in Upper Egypt before Lower Egypt. Following this chronological order, these pirates could not have come from the Mediterranean, via the Nile delta. They had therefore taken another path, less known, that of the Canal of the Pharaohs, which was an arm of the Nile and which flowed into the Red Sea. The comparison between two sides thus suggests an arrival of Namer from the Arabian Gulf and not from the Mediterranean.
Clue n°5: the papyrus represented on the boat and on which lies Horus the Falcon:
The desire to represent a flowering reed on which Horus the falcon rests is not insignificant since this plant is a strong symbol in Egyptian culture. For the inhabitants of the Nile, the divine paradise is a plain of reeds known as the field of « Ialou ». We can therefore see an allusion to the divine country called Ta Netjer or Punt and especially to the lagoon of Charmutha ( Chamutha(s) the gods land (or Punt) ).
8 – Conclusion:
In conclusion, Narmer was a pirate from the Middle East (probably from Charmutha) who settled in Egypt following a raid and who granted himself the thrones of Upper and Lower Egypt. This violent man was at the same time cultured because he understood the importance of hieroglyphics in the management of a country. Question about this pharaoh: could he leave an important trace in the history of Egypt? probably yes if we notice that the word [nar] also means « baboon ». However, for all the Egyptians who did not know the giant squid, the serekh could be interpreted as the « killer baboon », which explains the quantity of statuettes of this monkey with the effigy of the Pharaoh Narmer. This baboon, considered the sacred animal of the scribes, is one of the symbols of Thoth. And so this deity could be the pharaoh Narmer deified during his lifetime in the collective memory of the Egyptians, this pharaoh who will ultimately be the famous god of the Scribes.
Figure XVI.e: baboons with Narmer’s serekh (wikipedia, reference n°155)
This Narmer palette also suggests a distant colonization of Egypt by Middle Easterners who brought with them the glyphs invented by the Sumerians. This migration may seem surprising to us, but in my next article I will provide more information on this first dynasty called Zero and its first God-Pharaohs. This distant colonization must be placed in a much broader process with multiple cultural exchanges between more or less distant civilizations, and especially over more or less long periods. In the 4th millennium BC (zero dynasty of the pharaohs), there was a first migration from Mesopotamia to Egypt via Divine Arabia (Happy Arabia, Ta Netjer) and the spread of the first knowledge from Asia to Africa. The shepherds and merchants of Iraqi cities traveled up the Phison, a mythical river that has now disappeared and which originated in the Hejaz mountains (famous mountains famous because of the gold mines). Then, from these high plateaus of the Hejaz, they could descend towards the shores of the Red Sea along the river Corys (Thalie, book III, Herodote, reference n°7 et 158) and reach the Nile delta with frail boats. Then with the design of the ocean-going ships, a new phase of diffusion of Knowledge began with new cultural links between the ports of Divine Arabia (including Charmutha) and distant lands (including Crete, Phoenicia, Harappan, …), which allowed a propagation of the glyphs around the Mediterranean. And finally, with an increasing predominance of the pharaohs, ancient Egypt imposed its hieroglyphs and hieratics on the riparian countries and in particular on the merchants of Divine Arabia. At the heart of all these maritime networks and inter-civilization exchanges, Charmutha turns out to be one of the keys to understanding and explaining the birth of the proto-scripts. My next article will focus on the influence of Divine Arabia, no longer on one reign, that of Narmer, but on the entire Zero dynasty which turns out to be the period of the Gods-Pharaohs.
Bibliographie/Bibliography (Ci-joint la bibliographie complète) :
106 – Dictionnary of Mark Vygus, 2015 :
https://fr.scribd.com/doc/294958634/Mark-VyGus-Dictionary
https://www.egyptologyarchive.com/2018/10/book-no2-middle-egyptian-dictionary.html
148 – « le Disque de Phaistos : l’énigme d’une écriture », Godard Louis, Itanos, 1995, page 133.
149 – « byblia grammata : documents et recherches sur le développement de l’écriture en Phénicie », Dunant Maurice, 1946 : https://archive.org/details/bybliagrammatado0000duna/page/n1/mode/1up
150 – « Thot, Lord of Punt ; A brief note », GM 165 (1998), Shaheen, Alaael-din M.
151 – Inscription in Sinai, [KRI II 401,14], cf. Shaheen, Alaael-din M., Thot, Lord of Punt ; A brief note, GM 165 (1998), 9-11).
152 – Object reference 1905,1014.124, British Museum
153 – Narmer Macehead, Wikipedia : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narmer_Macehead
154 – Narmer Palette, Wikipedia : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narmer_Palette
155 – Narmer baboon, Wikipedia : https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Early_dynastic_statue_of_a_squatting_baboon_02.jpg
156 – L’Égypte Eternelle, Montet Pierre, 1964.
157 – « Kraken, le Calamar géant qui a fait trembler la mer », Histoire et Civilisations : https://www.histoire-et-civilisations.com/thematiques/epoque-moderne/kraken-le-calamar-geant-qui-a-fait-trembler-les-mers-70981.php
158 – Thalie, livre III, Hérodote : https://remacle.org/bloodwolf/historiens/herodote/thalie.htm