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More regrettable than aught else is the absence from the "Palermo Stele" of that part of the original monument which gave the annals of the earliest kings. At any rate, in the lines of annals which still exist above that which contains the chronicle of the reign of Neneter no entry can be definitely identified as belonging to the reigns of Aha or Narmer.
We illustrate a fragment of another votive shield or palette of the same kind, now in the museum of the Louvre, which probably came originally from Hierakonpolis. It is of exactly similar workmanship to that of Narmer, and is no doubt a fragment of another monument of that king.
He may have lived as late as the time of the IId Dynasty, whereas Narmer must be placed at the beginning of the Ist, and his conquest was probably that which first united the two kingdoms of the South and North.
We know from the small record-plaques of this period that the kings were constantly founding or repairing places of this kind, which were always great rectangular enclosures with crenelated brick walls like those of early Babylonian buildings. We have seen that the Northern Egyptian possessed similar fortress-cities which were captured by Narmer.
The "Scorpion," too, whose name is found at Hierakonpolis, certainly dates to the same time as Narmer and Aha, for the style of his work is the same. We thus find that the two kings who left the most developed remains at Hierakonpolis are the two whose monuments at Abydos are the oldest of all on that site.
Petrie is compelled to exclude Narmer from the dynasty, and to relegate him to "Dynasty 0," before the time of Mena. It is quite possible, however, that Narmer was the successor, not the predecessor, of Mena. He was certainly either the one or the other, as the style of art in his time was exactly the same as that in the time of Aha.
It was an age of cheerful savage energy, like most times when kingdoms and peoples are in the making. About 4000 B.C. is the date of these various monuments. Khâsekhemui probably lived later than Narmer, and we may suppose that his conquest was in reality a re-conquest.
Of these predynastic kingdoms we know very little, except from legendary sources. The Northerners who were conquered by Aha, Narmer, and Khâsekhehiui do not look very much like Egyptians, but rather resemble Semites or Libyans.
The tomb B 9 is perhaps that of King Zeser, who seems to have been a successor of Ka. It is of the same construction as that of Ka. The tomb B 10 appears to be the oldest of the great tombs, by its easternmost position; and the objects of Narmer point to this as his tomb.
As we shall see in the next chapter, he is probably one of the originals of the legendary "Mena," who was regarded from the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty onwards as the founder of the kingdom, and was first made known to Europe by Herodotus, under the name of "Menés." Narmer is therefore the last of the ancient kings of Hierakonpolis, the last of Manetho's "Spirits."
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