Detail from the mace tip of King Scorpion.
The full mace tip of King Scorpion.
King, or two kings, of Upper Egypt, ruling around 3150 BCE. There are two pieces of evidence of his/their existence. The first is a mace-tip found at Hierakonpolis. Here the royal figure is identified by a scorpion and rosette ideograms. He wears the white crown of Upper Egypt. The second evidence is a 12-chambered tomb at Abydos (Tomb u-j at Umm el-Qa'ab) in which there were ink inscriptions of the scorpion hieroglyph. Researches claim that this tomb was of another king than the one on the mace-tip, hence the theory that there were two king Scorpions. He/They ruled prior to Narmer, and may have represented a competing royal house to Narmer. Former theories that Narmer and Scorpion were two names for the same king seem to have been abandoned.
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