Some of the monuments they have left us, seem to show that their reigns were as much devoted to war as those of the later Pharaohs. The king whose Horus name was Nârumîr, is seen on a contemporary object which has come down to us, standing before a heap of beheaded foes; the bodies are all stretched out on the ground, each with his head placed neatly between his legs: the king had overcome, apparently in some important engagement, several thousands of his enemies, and was inspecting the execution of their leaders. That the foes with whom these early kings contended were in most cases Egyptian princes of the nomes, is proved by the list of city names which are inscribed on the fragments of another document of the same nature, and we gather from them that Dobu (Edfu), Hasutonu (Cynopolis), Habonu (Hipponon), Hakau (Memphis) and others were successively taken and dismantled.[*]
* Palette resembling the preceding one, and with it deposited in the Gîzeh Museum; reproduced by Steindokff, and by J. de Morgan. The names of the towns were enclosed within the embattled line which was used later on to designate foreign countries. The animals which surmount them represent the gods of Egypt, the king's protectors; and the king himself, identified with these gods, is making a breach in the wall with a pick-axe. The names of the towns have not been satisfactorily identified: Hat-kau, for instance, may not be Memphis, but it appears that there is no doubt with regard to Habonu. Cf. Sayce, The Beginnings of the Egyptian Monarchy in the Proceedings of the Biblical Archæological Society, 1898, vol. xx. pp, 99-101.
On this fragment King Den is represented standing over a prostrate chief of the Bedouin, striking him with his mace. Sondi, who is classed in the IInd dynasty, received a continuous worship towards the end of the IIIrd dynasty. But did all those whose names preceded or followed his on the lists, really exist as he did? and if they existed, to what extent do the order and the relation assigned to them agree with the actual truth? The different lists do not contain the same names in the same positions; certain Pharaohs are added or suppressed without appreciable reason. Where Manetho inscribes Kenkenes and Ouenephes, the tables of the time of Seti I. gave us Ati and Ata; Manetho reckons nine kings to the IInd dynasty, while they register only five.[*]