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Narmer in hieroglyphs: the first pharaoh's name and where to see it
20 October 2026
The first pharaoh of a united Egypt is usually named as Narmer, who ruled around 3000 BC. Egyptians of the New Kingdom gave the title of first king to someone they called Menes, and whether Menes was Narmer or his successor Aha is still argued. A few rulers before Narmer, grouped as Dynasty 0, already held power over large parts of the country.
In hieroglyphs Narmer's name is two signs inside a serekh, the palace-front frame topped by the Horus falcon. A catfish writes nꜥr (nar) and a chisel writes mr (mer). Read together they give nꜥr-mr, Narmer.
Two seal lists from Abydos start with Narmer
The strongest case for Narmer comes from his own dynasty. In 1985 the German Archaeological Institute found clay seal impressions in Den's tomb at Umm el-Qa'ab, the royal cemetery of Abydos. Rolled out from a cylinder seal, they name the kings in order: Narmer, Aha, Djer, Djet and Den, then Merneith with the title king's mother. Günter Dreyer published them the following year, and they are the earliest confirmed king list from Egypt.
A second sealing, from the tomb of Qa'a, the last king of the dynasty, names all eight kings. It too begins with Narmer. Both are necropolis seals, pressed onto goods for the royal tombs, so they record how the court itself counted its kings.
Menes enters the record more than a thousand years later
The name Menes, mnj (meni), is written with the game board (Y5) for mn and the water ripple (N35) for n. It heads the Turin papyrus and the list of Seti I at Abydos, both of the 19th Dynasty. Manetho, a priest writing in Greek under the Ptolemies, made Menes the founder of the 1st Dynasty, and Herodotus says he built Memphis. Neither the Den nor the Qa'a list mentions him.
Two finds from the period are read both ways. A seal impression from Abydos sets Narmer's serekh beside the signs mn and n. Some scholars read it as a second name of Narmer. Others read it as a prince called Menes, who would then be Aha. An ivory label from Naqada puts Aha's serekh next to a shrine holding the mn sign, once taken as proof for Aha and now usually read as the name of a building. A 2014 count of published opinions found 41 authors for Narmer and 31 for Aha.
Iry-Hor, Ka and Scorpion ruled before him
Egyptologists call the kings just before Narmer Dynasty 0, and their tombs lie in the same cemetery at Umm el-Qa'ab. Iry-Hor, around 3170 BC, is the earliest Egyptian ruler known by name. A rock inscription found in Sinai in 2012 shows his name on a boat beside the name of Memphis, the White Walls, so the city was probably older than Narmer's reign. His successor Ka wrote his serekh with the raised arms (D28), the ka sign, though some scholars read the name Sekhen.
Scorpion is harder to place. Tomb U-j at Abydos, from around 3200 BC, is linked to a ruler called Scorpion I, and its small labels carry some of the earliest signs found in Egypt. A later Scorpion appears on a limestone macehead from Hierakonpolis, wearing the white crown, with a scorpion sign beside his head. Toby Wilkinson and others see this second Scorpion as Narmer's rival. Bernadette Menu argues he was Narmer under another name.
A catfish and a chisel spell nꜥr-mr
The catfish (K8) is the Nile catfish, whose Egyptian name nꜥr gives the first half. The chisel (U23) gives mr. Both are used for their sound, as a rebus, so the pair says little about the man. Guesses at the meaning include "striking catfish" and "fierce catfish".
His name comes in two lengths. Full serekhs with both signs stand on stone monuments and official seals. On many jars only the catfish is drawn, sometimes reduced to a few strokes, and some of those serekhs have no falcon on top. A jar lid from Abydos in the British Museum carries the catfish in its serekh, pressed in several times with a large cylinder seal.
His serekh reached Tarkhan and Canaan
Narmer's name turns up across the whole country. At Tarkhan, about 60 km south of Cairo, Flinders Petrie's team dug tomb 414 in 1911 to 1913 and found many seal impressions of Narmer and a large jar with his name, now in the Petrie Museum in London. His serekh is also carved on rocks at Wadi Ameyra in southern Sinai, among inscriptions left by mining expeditions.
In southern Canaan, now Israel, about 20 serekhs that may be his have been found, mostly scratched into Egyptian storage jars, at sites such as Tel Arad, Tel Erani, Nahal Tillah and Tel Malhata. Seven of them are uncertain. The jar fragment from Arad, published by Ruth Amiran in 1974, is in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The finds show Egyptian goods, and probably Egyptians, reaching the region in his reign.
The palette and the macehead carry his finest serekhs
The Narmer Palette in Cairo gives the best-known copy of the name, at the top of both faces. The Narmer Macehead in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, found by James Quibell at Hierakonpolis in 1898, shows the king enthroned under a canopy in the red crown. His serekh, with the falcon on top, stands beside him. A register below counts the spoils: 120,000 captives, 400,000 cattle and 1,422,000 goats. The Scorpion macehead is in the same museum.
- Egyptian Museum, Cairo: the Narmer Palette
- Ashmolean Museum, Oxford: the Narmer and Scorpion maceheads
- Petrie Museum, London: the Tarkhan jar with his name
- Israel Museum, Jerusalem: the jar fragment from Arad
- Abydos: his tomb among the earliest kings at Umm el-Qa'ab
Questions
Who was the first pharaoh of Egypt?
Most modern lists start with Narmer. Iry-Hor and Ka ruled much of Upper Egypt before him, so the answer depends on whether a king of part of the country counts. Ancient Egyptian lists start with Menes.
How do you pronounce Narmer?
Say "NAR-mer". Hieroglyphs left out vowels, so the a and the e are modern fillers between the consonants n, ꜥ, r and m, r.
Did Narmer have a cartouche?
No. The cartouche came into regular use about four centuries after him, around the reign of Sneferu. His only name on his own monuments is the Horus name in its serekh.
Where was Narmer buried?
At Umm el-Qa'ab, the royal cemetery of Abydos, in two joined mud-brick chambers known as B17 and B18. Werner Kaiser identified them as his in 1964. The tomb was looted many times and is smaller than Aha's.
Glossary
- cartouche
- An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
- dynasty
- A line of kings counted together, usually one family. Egyptologists number Egypt's kings in about 30 dynasties, following the priest Manetho.
- hieroglyphs
- The picture signs of ancient Egyptian writing, used from about 3200 BC to AD 394. A sign can stand for sounds, for a whole word, or for the kind of thing a word means.
- Horus name
- The oldest of a king's names, written in a serekh under the Horus falcon. It names the king as the god Horus on earth.
- New Kingdom
- Egypt's age of empire, about 1550 to 1069 BC, the time of Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II.
- papyrus
- A writing sheet made from strips of the papyrus reed laid in two crossing layers and pressed. Sheets were glued into long rolls.
- pharaoh
- The king of Egypt. The word comes from per-aa, "great house", a name for the palace that came to mean the king himself in the New Kingdom.
- priest
- A servant of a god in a temple, who washed, dressed and fed the god's statue each day. A high priest led the staff of a great temple.
- rebus
- Writing a word with the picture of something that sounds the same. Hieroglyphs used this to write sounds.
- serekh
- A frame showing the front of a palace, with a king's Horus name written above it and the Horus falcon on top. The oldest royal names are written in serekhs.
- tomb
- A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.
- Upper Egypt
- The south of Egypt, the narrow Nile valley from around Memphis to Aswan. It is called upper because it is upstream.
People in this article
Where to see it
- Abydos site
- Egyptian Museum, Cairo museum
- Ashmolean Museum, Oxford museum
- Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London museum
- British Museum, London museum
- Memphis (Mit Rahina) site
Sources
More to read
- Usermaatre: the throne name of Ramesses II and the kings who copied it User maat ra, Usermaatre: 'the justice of Ra is strong', the throne name of Ramesses II, read sign by sign, and the later kings who took it.
- Queen Tiye in hieroglyphs: her name and where to see it Queen Tiye, wife of Amenhotep III and mother of Akhenaten: her name read sign by sign, the marriage scarab, her portraits and where to see them.
- Nefertari in hieroglyphs: her name, her temple and her tomb Nefertari's name in hieroglyphics, read sign by sign: the queen of Ramesses II, her temple at Abu Simbel and her painted tomb in the Valley of the Queens.