TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 2002 . THE FRESNO BEE

5,250-year-old discovery could rewrite dawn of history

 JOHN NOBLE WILF0RD

NEW YORK TIMES

Carved in the limestone of a desert cliff in Egypt is a 5,250-year-old tableau of a victorious ruler, perhaps the so-called King Scorpion — whose exploits, previously the stuff of myth and legend, may have been crucial to the founding of Egyptian civilization. This is about 3244 B.C. About 760 years after Adam was created. Adam was about 760 years old at this time. Adam lived to be 930 years old. Methuselah, Noah’s grandfather, was 78 years old at this time. The archaeologists who discovered the tableau seven years ago now say it may be the world’s earliest historical document.

More than that, they say, the inscribed scenes and symbols bear a strong resemblance to later hieroglyphs. This is a significant addition to a growing body of evidence that the first true writing originated in Egypt — not in ancient Sumer, in what is now Iraq, as scholars of antiquity had believed.

While some aspects of the discovery are controversial — particularly the suggestion that the ruler depicted is King Scorpion — several archaeologists familiar with it agree that this represents an early stage of writing, perhaps earlier than Sumerian writing. For informative and interesting reading see THE 12^th PLANET written by Zecharia Sitchin, a leading scholar of Sumerian language.

And since the invention of writing is regarded as the great divide between pre history and history, the discovery may push back the beginning of recorded Egyptian history 100 to 150 years, to about 3250 B.C., well into the obscure period before the land’s unification under powerful pharaohs. Until now, the earliest recognized historical document in Egypt was the Narmer Palette, found in the late 19th century in the ruins of ancient Hierakonpolis and dated 3100 B.C. The tableau, measuring 18 by 20 inches, was discovered in 1995 by Dr. John Coleman Darnell, a Yale Egyptologist, and his wife, Dr. Deborah Darnell, also a specialist in Egyptian archaeology, while they were surveying ancient trade routes in the desert west of the Nile.

The site is Gebel Tjauti, a place where several caravan trails converge about 25 miles northwest of Luxor and about 250 miles south of Cairo. It is close to where in 1999 the Darnells reported finding inscriptions that could be the earliest known examples of alphabetic writing, from about 1800 B.C.

Only now, after years of analysis and further excavations, the Darnells are describing their tableau findings in detail in a book to be published in June by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. They discussed their interpretations of the research in recent interviews. Their work also will be included on a television program, “The Real Scorpion King,” to be shown April23 on the History Channel.

“We do feel that this is the earliest known historical document,” John Darnell said in an interview. “It may not be exactly 100% writing, only proto-hieroglyphs, but the tableau really is able to impart the who, what, where of an event.”

Dr. Renee Friedman, an Egyptologist at the British Museum in London, who has examined the tableau, said, “It is a historical document, there’s no question about it.”

On the tableau at Gebel Tjauti, probably incised by flint tools, are figures and symbols that appear to depict the procession of a ruler returning to the city of Abydos after vanquishing the rival leader of Naqada. A falcon is drawn above a scorpion. The falcon is a standard symbol for the god Horus, and the name Horus is an other word for king in Egyptian history. So the subject of the tableau is thought to be one King Scorpion, once assumed to be a mythic ruler.

The Darnells contend that this could be the same king who had occupied the tomb that German archaeologists, led by Dr. Gunter Dreyer, explored at Abydos. The stylistic correspondences with the tomb were critical to dating the tableau.