by
Damien F. Mackey
“Peribsen’s royal name is a subject of
curiosity for Egyptologists
because it is
connected to the deity Seth rather
than Horus,
as was traditional for
the name
of a pharaoh”.
Wikipedia
The enigmatic Seth-Peribsen was a cultural innovator.
The
cartouche
Apart from his non-traditional favouring of the
deity Seth, rather than Horus, Peribsen inaugurated the use of enclosing one’s
name in a cartouche – supposedly long before any other ruler would do this:
Seth Per ib sen
stḥ-pr-ꞽb-sn
Egyptian Grammar
Peribsen also developed
Egyptian grammar:
“Other
contemporary inscriptions indicate that Egyptian grammar was perfected during his time: In
particular, the earliest seal impressions with complete sentences date back to
Peribsen’s reign. Thus, Peribsen’s reign was in fact a time of cultural and
religious advancement.”
And, again:
https://www.francescoraffaele.com/egypt/hesyra/pribsn.htm
“Before writing began to be adopted as a mirror of
the spoken word there's a period of circa half a millennium during which it was
used on little tags (those from the Abydos cemetery B and exp. U, recording
goods' quantities and provenances) on ivory and wooden labels, stone vessels,
seals and monuments, with an increasing degree of complexity.
In the reigns after Peribsen brief sentences are
known on objects of Khasekhemwy (Nimaathapi seals) and Djoser (especially the
Heliopolis temple reliefs); less than a century later, wider texts make their
earliest appearances in the form of 'biographies' (Metjen, Pehernefer under
Huni and Snofru); the Unas' Pyramid Texts date almost 400 years [sic] after
Peribsen”. ….
Administrative reforms
“During his time on the throne,
Peribsen founded an administrative center called "The white house of
treasury" as well as a new royal residence, called the "protection of
Nubt", located near Ombos ("Nubt" being the Ancient Egyptian
name of Naqada). …. The
administrative titles of scribes, seal-bearers and overseers were adjusted to
correspond to the divided bureaucratic state administration. For example,
titles like "sealer of the king" were changed into "sealer of
the king of Upper Egypt". This bureaucratic reform may indicate an attempt
by Peribsen to limit the power of these officials, further evidence for a
bloated and unwieldy state administration under Nynetjer.
….
The administration system under
Peribsen and Sekhemib had a clear and well-defined hierarchy; as an example,
from highest to the lowest rank: Treasury house (royal and therefore highest in
ranking) → pension office → property → vineyards → private vineyard (property
of citizens and therefore lowest in ranking). King Khasekhemwy, the last ruler
of the Second dynasty, was able to re-unify the state administration of Egypt
and therefore unite the whole of Ancient Egypt. He brought the two treasury
houses of Egypt under the control of the "House of the King",
bringing them into a new, single administration centre. ….
Peribsen also founded royal
edifices such as Per-nubt ("house of Ombos")
and Per-Medjed ("house of meetings") and created
several cities of economic importance. Their names, Afnut ("city
of the headdress-makers"), Nebj ("protector's
city"), Abet-desheret ("city of the red granite
jars") and Huj-setjet ("city of the Asians'), are
mentioned on numerous clay seals alongside Peribsen's serekh, often preceded by
the phrase "visit of the king at ...". Inscriptions on
stone vessels also mention an "ini-setjet" ("tribute of the
people of Sethroë"), which might indicate that Peribsen founded a cult
centre for the deity Seth in the Nile Delta. This may suggest
Peribsen ruled over the whole of Egypt, or, at least, that he was accepted as
king across all of Egypt. …”.
Religious monotheism
Seth-Peribsen:
Pharaoh of the Second Dynasty of Egypt - World History Edu
“The most striking feature of Peribsen’s royal name is the replacement of
the Horus falcon atop the serekh with the
Seth-animal. While other rulers, such as the 13th Dynasty’s Seth Meribre and
the 19th Dynasty’s Seti I, associated with Seth, Peribsen stands out as the
only pharaoh to exclusively honor Seth in his serekh.
Scholars have debated Peribsen’s choice of Seth as
his patron deity. Older theories posited that Egypt was divided during his
reign, with Peribsen ruling Upper Egypt.
Alternatively, some hypothesized that he attempted
to establish a monotheistic cult centered on Seth, akin to Akhenaten’s later
Atenism.
…. Theories from the mid-20th century painted
Peribsen as a heretic who sought to overthrow Horus worship in favor of Seth.
They cited the defacement of Seth imagery on Peribsen’s stelae and his
exclusion from king lists as evidence of religious conflict. According to these
interpretations, Egypt was divided into two factions, with Peribsen leading a
Sethian Upper Egypt”. ….
What to make of all of this?
These innovations, administrative, cultural and
religious - and the approximate location of Seth-Peribsen in Egyptian dynastic
history - lead me to conclude that he was yet another identity for the biblical
Joseph of Egypt, son of Jacob, who was, according to traditions, a great
innovator.
Not least of the innovations traditionally attributed
to Joseph was his supposed invention of hieroglyphics. While these would
actually well pre-date Joseph in Egypt, he may have brought them to grammatical
maturity, as was the case with Peribsen.
Like the biblical Joseph, Peribsen united all of
Egypt and limited the power of the Egyptian officials, centring power on the
throne (cf. Genesis 47:13-21).
I began by referring to Peribsen as “enigmatic”, due
essentially to the fact that he comes across to Egyptologists as somewhat different,
but also because they have found him quite difficult to pin down precisely
within Egypt’s Old Kingdom dynasties. I had used the same term to describe
Imhotep (favoured by many - and by me - as Joseph):
Imhotep Enigma, his pharaoh was not Djoser, and proof for Egypt’s Third
Dynasty Famine
(3)
Imhotep Enigma, his pharaoh was not Djoser, and proof for Egypt’s Third Dynasty
Famine
The
Second Dynasty placement of Seth-Peribsen between Nynetjer and
Khasekhemwy may serve me just fine.
|
Predecessor |
|
|
Successor |
uncertain; Senedj, Sekhemib or Khasekhemwy |
For Nynetjer I have tentatively identified as
Joseph’s Famine Pharaoh, Djer. See my:
Sed Festival may have been inaugurated by Den-Djoser
(3)
Sed Festival may have been inaugurated by Den-Djoser
And
Khasekhemwy-Imhotep was, again, Imhotep (Joseph).
Joseph, whose coat was of many colours, was a man of many names
(3)
Joseph, whose coat was of many colours, was a man of many names
Such
revised identifications enable us to un-complicate ancient Egyptian history.
For
example, the following segment gives three names, Peribsen, Khasekhemwy and Djoser, that I would melt down into just the one
(the biblical Joseph): Seth-Peribsen - Wikipedia
“The "heretic Peribsen" theory
was based on three observations: that the name "Peribsen" was
excluded from later king lists (or perhaps substituted with the Ramesside name
"Senedj"), that the king's tomb had been destroyed and plundered
during antiquity and, finally, that the tomb stelae of Peribsen, that once
displayed the Set animal, were badly scratched with the clear intention of
effacing the Seth image. Egyptologists hypothesized these were the actions of
religious opponents to the Sethian priest-caste. …. Lauer and Firth relied
on the "heretic Peribsen" theory to explain the enormous quantity of
stone vessels inscribed with the name of First and Second Dynasty kings found
beneath Djoser's
pyramid in bags
bearing seals of Khasekhemwy and Djoser. They proposed that Peribsen had plundered the tombs of his predecessors,
followers of Horus, and scattered their funerary equipment. These vessels were
gathered in the royal treasury during Khasekhemwy's reign following his
reunification of Egypt, and finally put beneath the Step Pyramid by Djoser, in
an act of pious devotion [sic]. ….
The
C9th BC Syrian king, Hazael (Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky’s Aziru, my
Na’aman), would emerge in Egypt as the powerful Syrian usurper, Arsa (Irsu,
Yarsu), and would proceed there, as pharaoh Akhnaton, to upend the
traditional Egyptian religion and to enforce his newly-found Yahwistic
monotheism:
Akhnaton’s Theophany
According to
the Great papyrus Harris (Payrus Harris I):
The land of Egypt was overthrown from without, and
every man was (thrown out) of his right; they had no chief mouth for many years
formerly until other times. …. Other times having come after it, with empty
years, Yarsu, a certain Syrian was with them as chief. He set the whole land
tributary before him together; he united his companions and plundered their
possessions. They made the gods like men, and no offerings were presented in
the temples. ….
This
was an immense undertaking that could be introduced only in stages.
Vestiges
of the old religion could not be fully erased.
Joseph,
a loyal servant of the One God, must inevitably have attempted something
similar, though without the same degree of force.
He,
known in Egypt as “the [desert] foreigner”, Khasti, did not introduce
the Aten, which was Akhnaton’s best attempt to name the hidden God, but,
perhaps, chose to promote his Deity in the form of the hitherto unfavoured desert
(foreign) deity, Seth.
Was
this also the essential significance of the Sed (Seth?) Festival, that, as we
have found. Joseph the cultural genius had introduced into Egypt?:
Sed Festival may have been inaugurated by Den-Djoser
(5)
Sed Festival may have been inaugurated by Den-Djoser
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