Scorpion Macehead
Encyclopedia
The Scorpion macehead refers to a decorated ancient Egyptian
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

 macehead found by British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 archeologists James E. Quibell
James E. Quibell
James Edward Quibell was a British Egyptologist, born in Newport, Shropshire.He was educated at Adams' Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford...

 and Frederick W. Green in what they called the main deposit
Main deposit (Nekhen)
The Main deposit was a foundation deposit of particular note in a temple in Nekhen. It was dug during the early Old Kingdom, and was excavated in 1894. The deposit is famous for having been the site where the Narmer Palette, Narmer Macehead, and Scorpion Macehead were discovered.The site was first...

 in the temple of Horus
Horus
Horus is one of the oldest and most significant deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion, who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...

 at Hierakonpolis during the dig season of 1897/1898. It is made of limestone, is pear-shaped, and is attributed to the pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...

 Scorpion
King Scorpion
Scorpion, or Selk, also King Scorpion or Scorpion II refers to the second of two kings so-named of Upper Egypt during the Protodynastic Period. Their names may refer to the scorpion goddess Serket...

 due to the glyph
Glyph
A glyph is an element of writing: an individual mark on a written medium that contributes to the meaning of what is written. A glyph is made up of one or more graphemes....

 of a scorpion
Scorpion
Scorpions are predatory arthropod animals of the order Scorpiones within the class Arachnida. They have eight legs and are easily recognized by the pair of grasping claws and the narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back, ending with a venomous stinger...

 engraved close to the image of a king wearing the White Crown
Hedjet
Hedjet is the formal name for the White Crown of pharaonic Upper Egypt. The crown was white and, after the unification of Egypt, it was combined with the Red Crown of Lower Egypt, with the delta to form the Pschent, the Double Crown of Egypt...

 of Upper Egypt.

A second, smaller macehead fragment showing Scorpion wearing the Red Crown of Lower Egypt is referred to as the Minor Scorpion macehead.

Egyptian pictorial conventions

Ancient Egyptian depiction obeyed a number of conventions. Perspective
Perspective (graphical)
Perspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...

 being unknown, depth was often hinted at by depicting a more remote scene above a closer one. People's lower body, their legs, arms, and head were almost always shown in profile, while their torso was depicted in frontal view, as was the eye. Legs are always apart. Size was often dependent on status, kings being depicted larger than their inferiors.

The Major Scorpion macehead

On the macehead the king sporting a bull's tail is standing by a body of water, probably a canal, holding a hoe. He is wearing the White Crown of Upper Egypt and is followed by two fan bearers. A scorpion and a rosette are depicted close to his head. He is facing a man holding a basket and men holding standards. A number of men are busy along the banks of the canal. In the rear of the king's retinue are some plants, a group of women clapping their hands and a small group of people, all of them facing away from the king. In the top register there is a row of nome
Nome (Egypt)
A nome was a subnational administrative division of ancient Egypt. Today's use of the Greek nome rather than the Egyptian term sepat came about during the Ptolemaic period. Fascinated with Egypt, Greeks created many historical records about the country...

 standards. A bird is dangling from each of them, strung up by its neck.

The Minor Scorpion macehead

Little is left of this macehead and its imagery: A king wearing the Red Crown of Lower Egypt, sitting on a throne below a canopy, holding a flail. Beside his head images of a scorpion and a rosette. Facing him is a falcon who may be holding an end of a rope in one of its claws - a motif also present on the Narmer Palette
Narmer Palette
The Narmer Palette, also known as the Great ierakonpolis Palette or the Palette of Narmer, is a significant Egyptian archeological find, dating from about the 31st century BC, containing some of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found. It is thought by some to depict the unification of...

.

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