Pharaohs, Kings and Rulers of Egypt: Menes

Menes

Aha! or King Menes

Many people believe that Aha was actually King Menes of Memphis. Menes was the founding king of the 1st Dynasty, and was the first king to unify Upper and Lower Egypt into one kingdom. Ancient Egypt's most predominant form of civilization began with his crowning, and did not end permanently until the beginning of the Roman era, which started with Augustus Caeser. Menes founded the city of Memphis, and chose as its location an island in the Nile, so that it would be easy to defend. He was also the founder of Crocodopolis. During his time, the Egyptian army performed raids against the Nubians in the south and expanded his sphere of influence as far as the First Cataract.

His chief wife was Queen Berenib, though she was not the mother of his heir, King Djer, and his mother was probably Neithotepe, if that lady was not also his wife. His death is a mystery, for, according to legend he was attacked by wild dogs and Nile crocodiles in the Faiyum . Aha's tomb resides at Saqqara, the famed necropolis of Memphis.

Menes is the name of the Egyptian pharaoh credited with founding the First dynasty, sometime around 3100 BC. Menes was seen as a founding figure for much of the history of Ancient Egypt, and was possibly a mythical founding king similar to Romulus and Remus for Ancient Rome.

Ancient Egyptian legend credits a pharaoh by this name with uniting Upper and Lower Egypt into in a single, centralized monarchy. However, he does not appear on extant pieces of the Royal Annals (Cairo Stone and Palermo Stone), which is a now-fragmentary king's list that was carved onto a stela sometime during the Fifth dynasty. He typically appears in later sources as the first human ruler of Egypt, directly inheriting the throne from the god Horus. He also appears in other, much later, king's lists, always as the first human pharaoh of Egypt. Two king's lists of the 19th dynasty (13th century BC) call him Meni, the 3rd century BC Egyptian historian Manetho called him Menes, and the 5th century BC Greek historian Herodotus referred to him as Min.

Pharaoh Menes is also credited with the foundation of Memphis, which he established as the Egyptian capital. According to Manetho, Menes reigned for 62 years and was killed by a hippopotamus.

The discovery of the Narmer Palette in the late 19th century depicting the hitherto unknown pharaoh Narmer, possibly pre-dating Menes, wielding the symbols of both Upper and Lower Egypt, cast doubt on the traditional account. The general scholarly consensus is that Narmer and Menes (or his successor Hor-Aha) are in fact the same person. Others hold that Menes inherited an already-unified kingdom from Narmer; still others believe that Menes completed a process of unification started either unsuccessfully or only partially successfully by Narmer.

In any case, while there is extensive archeological evidence of there being a pharaoh named Narmer, the only indisputable evidence for Menes is an ostracon which contains his name under the Nebty symbols. There is a general suspicion that Menes either was a name of Narmer, his predecessor, or of his successor, Hor-Aha. Some people also believe that this may have been a legend created by the Egyptians to tell what happened. Others think that Narmer may have been the father of Menes.

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