Palette Of Narmer

Throughout the history of art, there are many objects such as: sculptures, paintings, buildings, etc.. that talk for themselves in one glance, but there are many others with an interesting history to tell with the analysis of each element. Like the Palette of Narmer, it’s a palette for ceremonial purposes. This kind of objects were very common in ancient egypt, but the Palette of Narmer was a unique piece showing the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt.

One side of the Palette shows Narmer wearing the “white crown” ( the crown used in upper Egypt) grabbing a foe by the hair ready to strike him. Right to these action there’s the God Horus (a symbol of the king) next to a marshland (symbol of lower Egypt because of its geographic location by the Nile), and the head of a foe in a representation of the fallen. On the left, there’s a ball man with a basket on his hand and sandals, behind him there are two hieroglyphs the flower-like means king and the other can be read as servant, meaning that the man is the servant of the king. . Below the king, there are two enemies each one with one hieroglyph to the left, the hieroglyphs mean the place where they were captured by the king.
Underneath this (and the two heads of the Goddess Hathor), in the left we can observe Narmer with his servant behind him, Narmer wearing the “red crown”;(?) in front of Narmer is a large haired person, which is most likely to be a priest followed by four bearers, from left to right they are carrying : animal skin, dog and the other two have falcons. To the right there’re 10 decapitated bodies, above the bodies there’s a sickle and a falcon which means the conquering of a region. A layer lower we can see two Serpopards, symbolizing the unification of lower and upper Egypt. And at the bottom there is a bull tearing down the walls of a city with a dead enemy by the