Hedju Hor (fl. c. 3250 BC) was a ruler in northern Egypt from the Predynastic Period.[2][3] His true existence is unknown. The name Hedju Hor means: The maces of Horus.[4]
It is thought that his reign began around 3250 BC,[citation needed] but almost nothing is known of his existence. He is known only from inscriptions found in the Nile Delta region and pottery shards from Tura. It has been conjectured that he was the first pharaoh of Lower Egypt, or the last; or that he was a member of Dynasty 0.[citation needed]
Hedju Hor is only known from two clay jugs on which his serekh appears: one from Tura[5] in the eastern Nile Delta and one from Abu Zeidan on the northeastern tip of the Nile Delta.[6]
Wolfgang Helck, who was an Egyptologist, held him as a Pharaoh of Dynasty 0 and identified him with Wash, who is known as the ruler defeated by Narmer on the Narmer Palette,[7] an opinion later shared by Edwin van den Brink.[8] By contrast, Toby Wilkinson[9] and Jochem Kahl both argue that Hedju Hor was not a pre-dynastic Pharaoh but, rather, a ruler of a small proto-state of the pre-dynastic era and have attributed to him the title King.
Hedju Hor also has no known tomb and is not found in the text of the Palermo Stone, which is a stone listing the oldest kings of Ancient Egypt.[10] This makes the claims of both Helck and van den Brink even more unlikely.[citation needed]
^Ludwig David Morenz: Bild-Buchstaben und symbolische Zeichen. Die Herausbildung der Schrift der hohen Kultur Altägyptens (= Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 205). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004; Academic Press, Fribourg 2004, ISBN3-7278-1486-1.
^Leprohon, Ronald J (2013). The Great Name: Ancient Egyptian Royal Titulary. SBL Press. p. 23. ISBN978-158-983-736-2.
^Henry Georg Fischer: Varia Aegyptiaca . In: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, No. 2. Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake 1963, p. 44.
^Helck, Wolfgang (1987). Untersuchungen zur Thinitenzeit. Ägyptologische Abhandlungen 45. Wiesbaden.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link), p.98
^van den Brink, Edwin (1996). "The Incised Serekh-signs of Dynasties 0–1, Part I: Complete Vessels". In Spencer, Alan J. (ed.). Aspects of Early Egypt. London: British Museum Press. pp. 140–158. ISBN0714109991., p.147
^Toby A.H. Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt - Strategy, Security and Society. Routledge, London 1999, ISBN0-415-18633-1. page 55-56.
^Hsu, Hsu, Shih-Wei (2010) The Palermo Stone: the Earliest Royal Inscription from Ancient Egypt, Altoriental. Forsch., Akademie Verlag, 37 (2010) 1, 68–89.
