Abydos and Dendera · Predynastic, Early Dynastic, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom
Ancient name: Abdju
The burial ground of the first kings, Osiris's holy city, and Seti I's temple with its king list.
The kings of Dynasty 0 and the first two dynasties were buried at Umm el-Qaʿab, on the low desert behind Abydos; one of these tombs (U-j) held some of the earliest writing known. Later Egyptians took the tomb of the 1st Dynasty king Djer to be the tomb of Osiris himself, and Abydos became the god's holy city. Every year a festival carried his image from the temple to the tomb, and people from all over Egypt set up stelae and chapels so that they could share in it forever.
In the 19th Dynasty Seti I built a fine limestone temple here, finished by his son Ramesses II. Instead of one sanctuary it has seven, for Seti himself (as a god), Ptah, Ra-Horakhty, Amun-Ra, Osiris, Isis and Horus. Behind it lies the Osireion, a sunken hall of huge granite pillars built as a cenotaph for Osiris.
Seti's temple keeps some of the most delicate painted reliefs in Egypt. In a corridor off the hypostyle hall, Seti and the young Ramesses honor 76 earlier kings, each named in a cartouche, in rows of 38: the Abydos King List. It is a list of the kings Seti chose to honor, not a full history; it leaves out the Hyksos, Hatshepsut and the Amarna kings, among others.
A second, more damaged list from the temple of Ramesses II at Abydos is in the British Museum.
3 short, well-known texts from Abydos, each with its transliteration (the Egyptian sounds in Latin letters) and a translation. Tap Sign by sign to see what each sign is and how it is read. Royal names are drawn in their cartouches.
Where: The first cartouche of the Abydos King List, in the corridor of Seti I's temple.
Seti's list begins with Meni, the Menes of later Greek writers, remembered as the king who united Egypt. Most scholars think Menes was Narmer, some his successor Aha; no inscription from their own time uses the name.
Reading: The reading as in the Wikipedia article "Abydos King List", which gives this spelling.
Where: Repeated all along the bottom row of the king list, and throughout the temple.
The third row of the list does not name ancestors: it repeats Seti's own two names, his throne name and his birth name, over and over, as if to say that he is the heir of everyone above.
Reading: The standard reading (Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar (3rd ed., 1957), Excursus A on the royal titulary); the Wikipedia article "Seti I".
Where: The opening words of hundreds of stelae set up at Abydos by visitors to the festival of Osiris, many now in museums.
The formula goes on to ask for "a voice offering of bread and beer, oxen and fowl" for the owner of the stela, and usually names Osiris as "lord of Abydos". The words for the king are written first out of honor but read after ḥtp "offering".
Reading: Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, Excursus B on the offering formula.
Dates follow Shaw, ed., The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000); before 664 BC they are approximate. Readings are the standard ones in the sources named under each inscription; translations are Teddy Rook Book's own. The hieroglyphs are drawn in the site's font, TRB Hieroglyphs, so their shapes are simplified; where an inscription's arrangement or signs can't be shown faithfully, the card says so.