Pschent
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The Pschent (sh-yen) was the name of the Double Crown of Ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians generally referred to it as sekhemti, the Two Powerful Ones.[1] It combined the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and the White Crown of Upper Egypt. The Double Crown represented the Pharaoh's power over all of Egypt.[2] A cobra ready to strike, the uraeus symbolizing the Lower Egypt goddess Wadjet and a vulture, the Upper Egyptian tutelary goddess Nekhbet were fastened to the front of the Double Crown. Later, the vulture head was often replaced by a second cobra.
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[edit] History
The invention of the Double Crown is generally attributed to the First Dynasty king Den, but the first king to wear a Double Crown may actually have been Djet: a rock inscription shows his Horus apparently wearing it.[3]
The king list of the Palermo stone which begins with the names of Lower Egyptian kings wearing the Red Crown–nowadays thought to have been mythological demi-gods–marks the unification of the country by giving the Double Crown to all First Dynasty and subsequent kings.[4] The Cairo fragment, on the other hand, shows these pre-historic kings with the Double Crown.[5]
[edit] Archaeology
Just as is the case with the Red and the White Crowns, no Double Crown has survived. It is known from statuary, depictions and inscriptions only.
[edit] Mythology
Among the gods depicted wearing the Double Crown is Horus, the divine ruler of all Egypt,[6] and Atum, the creator god.[7]
[edit] References
- Françoise Dunand, Christiane Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men in Egypt: 3000 BCE to 395 CE, Cornell University Press 2004
- Francis Llewellyn Griffith, A Collection of Hieroglyphs: A Contribution to the History of Egyptian Writing, the Egypt Exploration Fund 1898
- Toby A. H. Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, Routledge 1999
- John Donnelly Fage, Desmond J. Clark, Roland Anthony Oliver, A. D. Roberts, The Cambridge History of Africa, Cambridge University Press 1975
- Barry John Kemp, Ancient Egypt: Anatomy Of A Civilization, Routledge 2006
- Jan Zandee, Studies in Egyptian Religion: Dedicated to Professor Jan Zandee, Brill 1982
- The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. 2005
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Griffith, op.cit., p.56
- ^ Dunand & Zivie, op.cit., pp.32f.
- ^ Wilkinson, op.cit., p.196
- ^ Fage et al., op.cit., p.521
- ^ Kemp, op.cit., p.92
- ^ Zandee, op.cit., p.74
- ^ New Encyclopaedia Britannica, p. 689
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