Table of Contents
Matthew Adams, lecturing for the Egyptian Study Society, traces kingship at Abydos from the moment royal power becomes a landscape rather than only a later pyramid. He uses the North Cemetery and the great brick enclosure now called the Shunet el Zebib, a raisin warehouse nickname he says has nothing to do with how early kings used the ground. Work around King Aha’s monuments, in his report, found clusters of subsidiary tombs, one of them a small child, plus well fed adults whose odd hip bones he links to court life rather than field labor, ink labeled jars, and boat graves whose long wooden hulls were hauled up from the floodplain. The argument then climbs to Khasekhemwy. One royal monument was left standing while others were leveled, offerings were carried out a southern gate, and the enclosure plan was later repeated in stone around Djoser’s stepped pyramid at Saqqara. A huge brewing installation nearby, measured in the tens of thousands of liters a batch, shows the court already feeding people on a royal scale.
Key points
- Abydos, not only Giza, is where Adams looks for the material start of kingship.
- The Shunet el Zebib name is a later label, not a guide to the monument’s first use.
- Aha’s several enclosures came with retainer graves, a child burial, elite diets, and buried boats.
- Seal impressions bring Narmer into the same early group, even where a royal name is missing.
- Khasekhemwy’s enclosure survived while others were demolished, so only one royal presence stood at a time.
- Djoser’s complex at Saqqara repeats that rectangular plan in stone.
- Industrial beer vats show the court provisioning people at a scale far beyond a household.
Short quotes
One of the graves was particularly interesting because it had been the tomb of a child of about three or four years.
Matthew Adams, Kingship at Abydos
A child’s grave among the subsidiary tombs shows who was buried beside the king. Watch at 16:25
So, these were people who had access to the best, most nutritious food throughout their lives.
Matthew Adams, Kingship at Abydos
The adult skeletons are read as courtiers, not as laborers worn down by hard work. Watch at 19:24
No other king as far as we knew at that time had multiple structures like this.
Matthew Adams, Kingship at Abydos
Aha’s repeated enclosures broke the expectation of one monument per reign. Watch at 24:31
The pyramid is inside this huge rectangular enclosure that really is more or less a copy of these Abydos monuments.
Matthew Adams, Kingship at Abydos
He derives Djoser’s stone complex from the earlier brick enclosures. Watch at 51:06
Hierakonpolis was clearly a power base in the predynastic period.
Matthew Adams, Kingship at Abydos
Southern principalities, not only Abydos, sit behind the rise of kingship. Watch at 53:55
Those could produce from a few hundred to around a thousand liters, and this is 20 times that production.
Matthew Adams, Kingship at Abydos
He compares the Abydos vats with smaller breweries to show the jump in scale. Watch at 59:39
Video by Egyptian Study Society. Watch on YouTube.