38 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babyloniatime the capital of the southern kingdom was Nekhen, called
Hierakonpolis in the Greek period, the site of which is now
represented by the ruins of Kom el-Ahmar, opposite El-Kab.
Here, among the foundations of the ancient temple, Mr. Quibell
has found remains which probably go back to an age before
that of Menes and the rise of the united Egyptian monarchy.
Among them are huge vases of alabaster and granite, which were
dedicated by a certain king Besh in the year when he conquered
the people of Northern Egypt. On the other hand, on a stela now
at Palermo a list is given of kings who seem to have reigned over
Northern Egypt while the Pharaohs of Nekhen were reigning in
the south.^11
For how many centuries the two kingdoms existed side by
side, sometimes in peaceful intercourse, sometimes in hostile
collision, it is impossible to say. The fact that Egypt had once
been divided into two kingdoms was never forgotten; down to
the last days of the Egyptian monarchs the Pharaoh bore the
title of“lord of the two lands,”and on his head was placed
the twofold crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. Nekhen was
under the protection not only of Horus, the god of the Pharaonic
Egyptians, but also of Nekheb, the tutelary goddess of the whole
of the southern land. From the Cataract northward her dominion
[040] extended, but it was at El-Kab opposite Nekhen, where the road
from the Red Sea and the mines of the desert reached the Nile,
that her special sanctuary stood. Besh calls himself on his vases
“the son of Nekheb”; and even as late as the time of the Sixth
Dynasty the eldest son of the king was entitled“the royal son of
Nekheb.”^12
(^11) See Sethe in theZeitschrift für Aegyptischer Sprache, 1897, 1.
(^12) Similarly the“chiefKher-heb”of the Pharaoh, in the age of the Old Empire,
bore the title of“Chief of the city of Nekheb”(Ebers,Life in Ancient Egypt,
Eng. tr., p. 90). The Pyramid texts speak of the White Crown of Southern
Egypt as well as of the royal uræus“in the city of Nekheb”(Pepi167); and the
goddess of the city is described as“the cow Samet-urt”who was crowned with
the two feathers (Teta359). Elsewhere mention is made of“the souls of On,