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

king King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

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 kinglists, Egyptologists to this day are trying to connect Wadjenes with contemporary

Horus Horus (), also known as Heru, Har, Her, or Hor () in Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as the god of kingship, healing, protection, the sun, and t ...

-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 and as the predecessor of king Senedj. 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 , from Ancient Greek , , ; and , ''wikt:-logia, -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. It is also "the deter ...

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 species; as well as the ...

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 Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters. ...

ic sign of a flower called ''Weneg'' (also read as ''Uneg''), which is rarely used in Egyptian writing. A king Weneg (also written as "Weneg-Nebti") is also contemporarily identified by black ink-inscriptions on

alabaster Alabaster is a mineral and a soft Rock (geology), rock used for carvings and as a source of plaster powder. Archaeologists, geologists, and the stone industry have different definitions for the word ''alabaster''. In archaeology, the term ''alab ...

-shards and as incised writings on

schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock generally derived from fine-grained sedimentary rock, like shale. It shows pronounced ''schistosity'' (named for the rock). This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a l ...

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 Euse ...

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.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 The Sed festival (''ḥb-sd'', Egyptian language#Egyptological pronunciation, conventional pronunciation ; also known as Heb Sed or Feast of the Tail) was an ancient Egyptian ceremony that celebrated the continued rule of a pharaoh. The name is ...

. Egyptologists such as

Wolfgang Helck Hans Wolfgang Helck (16 September 1914 – 27 August 1993) was a German Egyptologist, considered one of the most important Egyptologists of the 20th century. From 1956 until his retirement in 1979 he was a professor at the University of Hamburg. ...

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 Jürgen von Beckerath (19 February 1920 – 26 June 2016) was a German Egyptology, Egyptologist. He was a prolific writer who published countless articles in journals such as '':fr:Orientalia, Orientalia'', ''Göttinger Miszellen'' (GM), ''Journa ...

believe that Weneg-Nebti and Wadjenes are identical and that Wadjenes's Horus name was Sekhemib-Perenmaat or Horus Sa. The ancient Egyptian historian

Manetho Manetho (; ''Manéthōn'', ''gen''.: Μανέθωνος, ''fl''. 290–260 BCE) was an Egyptian priest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom who lived in the early third century BCE, at the very beginning of the Hellenistic period. Little is certain about his ...

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 (r. 1279–1213 BC), now in the Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum) in Turin. The papyrus is the m ...

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, who succeeded Nynetjer and who placed the crest animal of

Seth Seth, in the Abrahamic religions, was the third son of Adam and Eve. The Hebrew Bible names two of his siblings (although it also states that he had others): his brothers Cain and Abel. According to , Seth was born after Abel's murder by Cain, ...

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 ( ', shortened to , , locally: ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the Nile River valley south of the delta and the 30th parallel North. It thus consists of the entire Nile River valley from Cairo south to Lake N ...

. 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