Serekh

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During the summer of 1994, excavators from the Nahal Tillah expedition in southern Israel discovered a rare incised ceramic sherd with the serekh sign of King Narmer, the same individual whose ceremonial slate palette was found by Quibell in Upper Egypt. The serekh was found on a large circular platform, possibly the foundations of a storage silo on the Halif Terrace. It dates to ca. 3,000 BCE. The serekh is a stylized rectangle which contained the Horus name of ancient Egyptian kings. The pharaohs had five royal names.

Made up of two compartments, the bottom contains parallel lines which represent the frontal view of a palace . The top compartment represents a plan view of the courtyard of the palace. The name of the king is written here in hieroglyphics. Narmer's name is represented phonetically by the catfish (Nír) and the chisel (mír). Mineralogical studies of the sherd with the serekh sign show conclusively that it is a fragment of a wine jar which was imported from the Nile valley to Israel some 5,000 years ago.