The Libyan Palette (also variously known as the City Palette,Lloyd 2010, p. 841. the Libyan Booty Palette, the Libyan Tribute Palette, the Siege Palette, the Tehenu- or Tjehenu Palette) is the surviving lower portion of a stone

cosmetic palette Cosmetic palettes are archaeological Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, originally used in predynastic Egypt, predynastic ancient Egypt, Egypt to grind and apply ingredients for facial or body cosmetics. The decorative palettes of the late 4th mill ...

bearing carved decoration and hieroglyphic writing. It dates from the

Naqada III Naqada III is the last phase of the Naqada culture of ancient Egyptian prehistory, dating from approximately 3200 to 3000 BC. It is the period during which the process of state formation, which began in Naqada II, became highly visible, ...

Protodynastic Period of Egypt Naqada III is the last phase of the Naqada culture of ancient Egyptian prehistory, dating from approximately 3200 to 3000 BC. It is the period during which the process of state formation, which began in Naqada II, became highly visible, ...

(c. 3200 to 3000 BC). The palette was found at

Abydos, Egypt Abydos ( ar, أبيدوس, Abīdūs or ; Sahidic cop, Ⲉⲃⲱⲧ ') is one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt, and also of the eighth nome in Upper Egypt. It is located about west of the Nile at latitude 26° 10' N, near the modern E ...

. The palette is made of

schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes o ...

and it is 19 cm long and 22 cm wide. Housed in Room 43 on the ground floor of the

Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

,Egyptian Museum Official website
Libyan Palette article
, accessed 8 June 2007. its Journal d'Entrée number is JE27434 and its Catalogue Général number is CG14238.

Content

Early character for Lybia on the Lybian Palette

On one side, there is a scene of walking lines of animals within registers.Stephan Seidlmayer 1998, p. 28.
official website of The Grand Egyptian Museum Below these animals, an orchard with

olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'', meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as ''Olea europaea'' ...

trees is depicted, and the hieroglyphic inscription ' or ''tjehenw'' (usually transcribed as ''tehenu''), most likely a toponym of Western

Nile Delta The Nile Delta ( ar, دلتا النيل, or simply , is the delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Po ...

or, according to most scholars, what was later associated with

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...

. The character consists in the throwing stick on top of an oval, meaning "region", "place", "island", a toponym of Libya or Western Delta pronounced ''THnw'', ''Tjehenw''. The opposite side of the Libyan Palette shows the feet of some persons above a register line. Under the register, seven fortified towns are depicted, with the name of each town written within the wall. Above each town, an animal grasps its wall with the ''mr'' (hoe) hieroglyph.

Günter Dreyer Günter Dreyer (5 October 1943 – 12 March 2019) was an Egyptologist at the German Archaeological Institute. In southern Egypt, Dreyer discovered records of linen and oil deliveries which have been carbon-dated to between 3300 BCE and 3200 BCE, ...

has interpreted this scene as a scene of destruction and the animals, or animal standards, as royal names.Wilkinson 1999, p. 42. However, other scholars have suggested that the animals represent royal armies or symbols. Another completely different interpretation is that the scene represents the foundation of these cities.Abeer El-Shahawy 2010, p. 20.

References

Sources

* Abeer El-Shahawy.
The Egyptian Museum in Cairo
'' (American University in Cairo Press 2005), * Lloyd, Alan B. ''A Companion to Ancient Egypt'', vol.1, (Blackwell 2010), * Seidlmayer, Stephan. ''Egypt: The World of the Phaaohs,'' Editors: Regine Schulz, Matthias Seidel, (Könemann, 1998), *Wilkinson, Toby. ''Early Dynastic Egypt'', (Routledge, 1999), {{ISBN, 0-415-18633-1

External links

The Libyan Palette
(includes zoomable multimedia images of the palette's front and back, in a pop-up window).
Back view of the palette
(official website of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo)

(includes a bibliography of

Egyptological Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious p ...

papers which refer to the palette) 4th-millennium BC works Ancient Egyptian palettes Egyptian Museum Naqada III Abydos, Egypt

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See also

References

Sources

External links