Wadjenes (ancient Eyptian ''Wadj-nes'', which means "fresh of tongue"), also known as Wadjlas, Ougotlas and Tlas, was an early Egyptian

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

who may have ruled during the 2nd Dynasty. Since the name form "Wadjenes" is not contemporarily attested as the name of a king, but frequently appears in

Ramesside The New Kingdom, also referred to as the Egyptian Empire, is the period in ancient Egyptian history between the sixteenth century BC and the eleventh century BC, covering the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth dynasties of Egypt. Radioca ...

kinglists, Egyptologists to this day are trying to connect Wadjenes with contemporary Horus-kings.

Name sources

The king's name "Wadjenes" is attested only in the Ramesside kinglists, where he is always presented as the immediate successor of king

Nynetjer Nynetjer (also known as Ninetjer and Banetjer) is the Horus name of the third pharaoh of the Second Dynasty of Egypt. The length of his reign is unknown. The Turin Canon suggests an improbable reign of 96 yearsAlan H. Gardiner: ''The Royal Canon ...

and as the predecessor of king

Senedj Senedj (also known as Sened and Sethenes) was an early Egyptian king (pharaoh), who may have ruled during the 2nd Dynasty. His historical standing remains uncertain. His name is included in the kinglists of the Ramesside era, although it is wri ...

. The same goes for the Royal Canon of Turin, where the entry for his name is damaged so only the years of rulership are preserved.Walter Bryan Emery: ''Ägypten. Geschichte und Kultur der Frühzeit.'' Fourier-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1964, , page 275. Whilst all kinglists match each other regarding the

chronological Chronology (from Latin ''chronologia'', from Ancient Greek , ''chrónos'', "time"; and , '' -logia'') is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. Consider, for example, the use of a timeline or sequence of events. ...

position of Wadjenes, Egyptologists are uncertain as to the origin of the name "Wadjenes". Egyptologists and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

s such as Winfried Barta, Bernhard Grdseloff and Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards believe that the papyrus haulm, the first symbol in Wadjenes's name, is a misinterpretation of the

hieroglyph A hieroglyph ( Greek for "sacred carvings") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatoni ...

ic sign of a flower called ''Weneg'' (also read as ''Uneg''), which is rarely used in Egyptian writing. A king

Weneg Weneg (or, alternatively, Uneg) is the name of: * Weneg (Egyptian deity), a sky- and death deity from Egyptian religion * Weneg (pharaoh), a well attested but chronologically unfixed king of Egyptian second dynasty {{disambig ...

(also written as "Weneg-Nebti") is also contemporarily identified by black ink-inscriptions on

alabaster Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft, often used for carving, and is processed for plaster powder. Archaeologists and the stone processing industry use the word differently from geologists. The former use it in a wider sense that include ...

-shards and as incised writings on

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 ...

vessels originating from the underground galleries beneath the step pyramid of king

Djoser Djoser (also read as Djeser and Zoser) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the 3rd Dynasty during the Old Kingdom, and was the founder of that epoch. He is also known by his Hellenized names Tosorthros (from Manetho) and Sesorthos (from Eusebiu ...

at Sakkara. It is possible that Ramesside scribes interchanged the Weneg flower with the papyrus haulm, since both signs are very similar to each other in

hieratic script Hieratic (; grc, ἱερατικά, hieratiká, priestly) is the name given to a cursive writing system used for Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian and the principal script used to write that language from its development in the third millenniu ...

.B. Grdseloff: ''King Uneg'' in: ''Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte'', No. 44, 1944, page 279–306.Winfried Barta in: ''Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde'', No.108. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1981, , page11.Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards: ''The Cambridge Ancient History'', Vol. 1, Pt. 2: ''Early History of the Middle East'', 3rd reprint. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2006, , page 31. Besides the artefacts with the name "Weneg-Nebti", further objects made of alabaster show the personal name "Wadj-sen" in connection with the Sed festival. Egyptologists such as Wolfgang Helck think that Wadj-sen was a crown prince, since the titulary ''Wer-ma'a'' ("he who sees the greatest") was always reserved for the eldest son of a king and so it is also connected with Wadj-sen's name. However, Egyptologists such as Peter Kaplony and Jürgen von Beckerath believe that Weneg-Nebti and Wadjenes are identical and that Wadjenes's Horus name was Sekhemib-Perenmaat or

Horus Sa Horus Sa (also Horus Za, Sa and Za) was a possible early Egyptian pharaoh who may have reigned during the Second or Third Dynasty of Egypt. His existence is disputed, as is the meaning of the artifacts that have been interpreted as confirming h ...

. The ancient Egyptian historian Manetho called Wadjenes "Tlas". This name distortion may be based on the Coptic rewriting of the name "Wadjenes" as "Ougotlas", meaning ″fresh of tongue″.I.E.S. Edwards: ''The Cambridge ancient history'', Volume 1-3. Cambridge University Press, 1970, , page 31.

Reign

Very little is known about Wadjenes's reign. The

Turin King List The Turin King List, also known as the Turin Royal Canon, is an ancient Egyptian hieratic papyrus thought to date from the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II, now in the Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum) in Turin. The papyrus is the most extensive list a ...

lists Wadjenes as ruling for 54 years, whilst Manetho assigns 17 years to him. Egyptologists evaluate both lists as misinterpretations by Ramesside scribes or as an exaggeration. If Wadjenes was an independent ruler (as Richard Weill and Peter Kaplony believe) he was evidently the last to rule over a unified realm, since his name is found in both Memphite and Thinite royal chronicles. It is largely accepted by Egyptologists that the immediate successor of king Nynetjer left a divided Egypt, which was headed by two kings who ruled at the same time. The theory is based on the unusual '' serekh name'' of a king called

Peribsen Seth-Peribsen (also known as Ash-Peribsen, Peribsen and Perabsen) is the serekh name of an early Egyptian monarch (pharaoh), who ruled during the Second Dynasty of Egypt (c. 2890 – c. 2686 BC). His chronological position within this dyna ...

, who succeeded Nynetjer and who placed the crest animal of Seth above his name. Since the deity Seth was of Ombite origin, king Peribsen was probably of Ombite origin, too, and he definitely ruled only in

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south. In ancient E ...

. His name is missing from the Ramesside Memphite kinglists, because they were all written by Memphite priests and they did not accept any non-Memphite ruler as a rightful ancestor.

References

{{authority control 28th-century BC Pharaohs Pharaohs of the Second Dynasty of Egypt