A Tour Through Town: Reimagining Hierakonpolis

Hierakonpolis has long been famous as the home of the palette of King Narmer, a potent icon for the birth of Egyptian civilization at c. 3100 BC. However, on-going work at the site is now extending back our view of its development by some 500 years. Explorations in the elite cemetery have revealed tombs of the local rulers, who expressed their power not only in the elaborate architecture and contents of their sizable graves, but also with the people and intriguing array of animals they took with them to the afterlife. Exotic animals such as elephants, a leopard and troops of baboons attest to a veritable royal menagerie, while the recent discovery of a nearly intact royal tomb gives us a tantalizing glimpse at the complex rituals that must have surrounded their burials. These unique finds are providing new insights into the meaning and purpose of Predynastic art and artifacts, and augment our understanding of the influence the site’s early elite had on the trajectory of Early Dynastic culture and the development of some of its most distinctive features.

Speaker: Renee Friedman, University of Oxford