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Species of dogs seem to have been held sacred and mummified on merely the general ground of confusion with the jackal. The ichneumon and the shrewmouse were also held sacred, though not identified with a human god. The hawk was the principal sacred bird, and was identified with Horus and Ra, the sun-god. It was mainly worshipped at Edfu and Hierakonpolis.
The oldest kings, who were certainly buried at Abydos, seem to have been the first rulers of the united kingdom of the North and South, Aha and his successors. N'armer is not represented. It may be that he was not buried at Abydos, but in the necropolis of Hierakonpolis. This would point to the kings of the South not having been buried at Abydos until after the unification of the kingdom.
These sculptured and inscribed mace-heads, shields, etc., are monuments dedicated by them in the ancestral shrine at Hierakonpolis as records of their deeds.
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."
The other form of Horus, "Horus, son of Isis," has also a body of retainers, the Shemsu-Heru, or "Followers of Horns," who are spoken of in late texts as the rulers of Egypt before the monarchy. They evidently correspond to the dynasties of Manes, or "Ghosts," of Manetho, and are probably intended for the early kings of Hierakonpolis.
Their real place of origin must have been Hierakonpolis, where the pre-dynastic kingdom of the South had its seat. The Hid Dynasty was no doubt of Memphite origin, as Manetho says. So that probably the seat of government was transferred from Hierakonpolis to Memphis by the first king of the Hid Dynasty. Thenceforward the kings were buried in the Memphite necropolis.
Lastly, we cannot avoid seeing in the Horus triumph the conquest of Egypt by the dynastic race who came down from the district of Edfu and Hierakonpolis, the centres of Horus worship; and helped the older inhabitants to drive out the Asiatics. Nearly the same chain of events is seen in later times, when the Berber king Aahmes I helped the Egyptians to expel the Hyksos.
Both kings seem to have waged war against the Northerners, the Anu of Heliopolis and the Delta, and on these votive monuments from Hierakonpolis we find hieroglyphed records of the defeat of the Anu, who have very definitely Semitic physiognomies.
Seker became in late times changed into a hawk-headed human figure. Two important deities of early times were +Nekhebt+, the vulture goddess of the southern kingdom, centred at Hierakonpolis, and +Uazet+, the serpent goddess of the northern kingdom, centred at Buto.
Here were established at the beginning of the Chalcolithic stage of culture, we may say, two kingdoms, of Lower and Upper Egypt, which were eventually united by the superior arms of the kings of Upper Egypt, who imposed their rule upon the North but at the same time removed their capital thither. The dualism of Buto and Hierakonpolis really lasted throughout Egyptian history.
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