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The Egyptian civilization
used a number of different crowns throughout its existence. Some were used to
show authority, while others were used for religious ceremonies. Each crown was
worn by different pharaohs or deities, and each crown
had its own significance and symbolic meaning. The crowns include the atef, the deshret, the hedjet, the khepresh, the pschent, and the Hemhem.
Contents
·
1List of crowns of Egypt
·
2Atef
·
3Deshret
·
4Hedjet
·
5Hemhem
·
6Pschent
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7Cap crown
·
8See also
·
9References
Image
|
Name
|
Components
|
Worn by
|
In art
|
|
Atef
|
hedjet with
ostrichfeathers
|
Osiris
|
Osiris from the tomb of Nefertari (1295-1255
BC)
|
|
Deshret
(red crown)
|
uraeus
(rearing cobra)
|
pharaohs
of Lower Egypt
and the desert Red Land;
the deities Horus, Wadjet
and Neith
|
Lionslayer, New Kingdom (dynasties
19-20), ostracon
|
|
Hedjet
(white crown)
|
vulture
|
pharaohs
of Upper Egypt;
the deities Horus
and Nekhbet
|
Ahmose I or Amunhotep I (Dynasty
18, 1539-1493 BC)
|
|
Khepresh
(blue crown or war crown)
|
uraeus
|
New Kingdom pharaohs
in battle and ceremonies
|
Tutankhamun
|
|
Pschent,
Greek ψχεντ,
Egyptian sḫm.tỉ, sekhemti
(double crown)
|
deshret and hedjet;
uraeus and
vulture
|
pharaohs, and
their Horus
|
Ptolemy VI Philometor (3rd–2nd century BC), engraving on a ring
|
|
Cap crown
|
skullcap, band, streamers or bow, uraeus
|
Egyptian kings, typically
|
The Wilbour Plaque, ca.
1352-1336 B.C.E., Brooklyn Museum 16.48, probably depicting Akhenaten and Nefertiti. On the left, the king wears the khat headdress,
and on the right, the queen wears the cap crown.
|
Atef, the crown of Osiris, is a combination of Upper Egypt’s
white crown, the hedjet, and ostrich feathers on
either side. It also often has a golden disc at its tip. The ostrich feathers,
similar to those representing ma’at, symbolize truth,
justice, morality, and balance.[citation needed] They
represent the cult center of Orisis as well, which is
located in Busiris.[citation needed] The
atef is typically worn atop a pair of ram or bull
horns as a circlet.
The atef crown is seen as
far back as the 5th dynasty.[citation needed] According
to Egyptian beliefs, this crown represents Osiris as the god of fertility,
ruler of the afterlife, and a representative of the cycle of death and rebirth.
Later on, though, it came to be worn by other pharaohs because of the belief
that they would become a form of Osiris after their death.[1] In their
tombs, the pharaohs would have themselves depicted as Osiris by wearing his
crown.[1] During
Middle Kingdom Egypt, even regular citizens could have Osiris’s crown because
Osiris had become the judge of the deceased.[2] It was
also worn during religious rituals.
The crown of Lower Egypt, also known as deshret, is a red bowl
shaped crown with a protruding curlicue. It is typically associated with the
rulers and pharaohs of Lower Egypt. The word deshret
is also the name for the arid land surrounding the Nile River area.[3]
The red color of
the crown is symbolic of the “red land”, arid desert land that surrounded the
fertile “black land” of Kemet.[4] The
curlicue of the crown is symbolic of the proboscis, or stinger, of the honey
bee.[citation needed] The crown
was woven, like a basket, of plant fiber, perhaps grass, straw, flax, palm
leaf, or reed. It is theorized that it was passed down from king to king
instead of being buried with each king, which might explain why no actual deshret has been found.[3]
Representations
of the deshret can be seen as early as the late Naqada I period,
around 3500 BCE. In these early predynastic times, it
is believed the crown was worn in association with the god Seth, and it wasn't
until the formation of the first dynasties, around 3000 BCE, that it became
symbolic of rule over Lower Egypt.[5]
In Egyptian
mythology, it is believed that deshret was first
given to the god Horus by Geb to symbolize his rule over
Lower Egypt. The crown was then passed on to pharaohs, who saw themselves as
successors to Horus.[3] The
goddess Neith, when depicted in a human body, is
usually shown wearing the crown of Lower Egypt. The earliest depiction of Neith in this crown was first found in the temple of Userkaf in Abu Gorab, which was
constructed in 2499 BCE.[6]
The hedjet, also known as hdt, is the crown worn by the king of Upper (Southern)
Egypt. It resembles a bowling pin and is also called the “White One.” In
addition, this crown is one half of the double crown, the pschent.
No crowns are known to have been found in any archeological digs. Some
Egyptologists have speculated that the hedjet was
made out of leather, felt, or some other fabric.[7] Another
possibility is that it was woven like a basket, as the deshret
(red crown) is known to have been, of plant fiber. A hedjet
with Nekhbet the vulture goddess next to the head of the cobra goddess is the
symbol used to represent the hedjet. Several Egyptian
gods, such a Nekhbet and Horus, are seen in some drawings and carvings wearing the
hedjet. Images of this crown have been found in
Ta-Seti (Northern Nubia in 3500–3200 BCE),[citation needed] a tomb in Deir-el-Bahari, the Narmer Palette,
and on a statue of Pharaoh Sesostris I.[citation needed]
The hemhem crown was an
ornate triple atef with
corkscrew sheep horns and usually two uraei. The Egyptian word
"hemhem" means "to shout,"
"cry out," possibly indicating that the hemhem
crown represented a battle horn.[8]
The double crown represented the unification of the two
regions of Egypt, Upper and Lower Egypt. It is also referred to as the shmty which means ‘The Two Powerful Ones” or as the pschent.[7] The pschent combines the hedjet
(white crown of Upper Egypt) with the deshret (red
Crown of Lower Egypt).[citation needed] An
interesting inscription found in the tomb of a Fourth Dynasty pharaoh states,
“He has eaten the red crown… and delights to have [the crown’s] magic in his
belly.” Historians believe this is a metaphorical reference to Upper Egypt
conquering Lower Egypt as described on the Narmer Palette.[citation needed] Menes is
credited with the invention of the double crown, although the first pharaoh to
wear the Crown was Djet.[citation needed] Horus is
depicted wearing the double crown as well as Atum,
both of which have a distinct relationship with the pharaoh.[citation needed]As with the deshret and hedjet, no pschent has been found; everything known about them comes
from ancient tales, inscriptions, and depictions.[citation needed]
Attested as early as the Old Kingdom, the cap crown
is most commonly associated with the Dynasty 25 Kushite
kings, who are frequently depicted wearing the crown with two uraei.[9] In that era, the crown was referred to as a sdn.[10] The
remnants of what appears to be a cap crown (JE 62699) were found on the mummy
of Tutankhamun.[11] Tutankhamun's
crown consisted of a band of gold wrapped around the king's temples that
secured a linen skullcap, which had mostly decayed by the time of the tomb's
excavation. The gold band was itself kept in place by a ribbon tied into a bow
at the back of the head. Still remaining and mounted on the skullcap are four uraei made of gold beads and red and blue glass beads. In
the center of each uraeus is a gold cartouche
containing the name of the Aten. The skullcap portion of the crown resembles, and was
likely associated with, the skullcap worn by the deity Ptah.
·
Crown of justification
·
Radiant crown
·
Modius (headdress)
1.
^ Jump up to:a b Dijkstra, Henk. History of the Ancient & Medieval World, Volume 2.
New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1996. Print.
2.
^ Mertz, Barbara. Temples, tombs, & hieroglyphs: a
popular history of ancient Egypt. 2nd ed., 1st William Morrow ed. New York: William Morrow, 2007. Print.
3. ^ Jump up to:a b c Egyptian
gods and goddesses, "Egyptian Symbols: Deshret."
Accessed October 28, 2013. http://egyptian-gods.org/egyptian-symbols-deshret/
4.
^ Jackson Spielvogel,
Western Civilization, (Mason, Ohio: Cengage Learning, 2012), 16.
5.
^ Toby Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, (Abingdon,
Oxon: Routledge, 1999), 194-195.
6.
^ George Hart, The Routledge
Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2005),
100.
7. ^ Jump up to:a b Dunn,
Jimmy. “The Crowns of Egypt, Part II: Specific Crowns.” Touregypt.
n.p., 4 April 2011. Web. 26 Oct. 2013 <http:/ww.touregypt.net/featurestories/crowns2.htm
8.
^ Lobban Jr.,
Richard A. (2003). Historical Dictionary of Ancient and Medieval Nubia.
Scarecrow Press. p. 364. ISBN 0810865785.
9.
^ Török, László (1997). Der Nahe
und Mittlere Osten. Leiden: Brill. p. 284. ISBN 9789004104488. Retrieved 29 January 2015.
10.
^ Goebs, Katja (2001). "Crowns". In Redford, Donald
B. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. 1. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. ISBN 9780195102345.
11.
^ "Tutankhamun:
Anatomy of an Excavation: The Howard Carter Archives". The Griffith Institute. Retrieved 29
January 2015.
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This page was last edited on 6 February 2019, at
03:52 (UTC).
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