Events The Palermo Stone mostly records standard rituals performed by the king, in particular the biennial "Following of Horus"
connected to taxation, and regular religious festivals. These included special feasts of the god
Sokar occurring every six years, the running of the
Apis bull and an "adoration of the celestial Horus". Although not mentioned in the royal annals, the goddesses
Bastet and
Neith must also have been venerated as witnessed by stone bowls on which their names are associated with Nynetjer's. Another bowl bearing the king's name mentions a chapel of
Hedjet, the white crown of
Upper Egypt, possibly set up in Memphis, then probably the capital of Egypt. All of these activities took place in the Memphite area except possibly for one ritual associated to
Nekhbet, goddess of
Elkab. Wilkinson observes that, with few exceptions, Nynetjer is not well attested archaeologically outside of the Memphite region. This could point to royal activity being largely confined to
Lower Egypt during his reign. The inscription bearing Nynetjer's name found in Nubia could be the main exception to this observation, as it may be a clue that he sent a military
expedition into this region. Given that the expedition is not mentioned in the surviving fragments of the royal annals, which do not cover Nynetjer's reign after his 20th year on the throne, it may have taken place later. Two special events are also recorded on the annals, namely the foundation of "Hor-ren", a temple, palace or estate during Nynetjer's seventh year of rule, and either the foundation of or the attack on two localities "Shem-Ra" and "Ha", the latter of which translates to "north land". This may refer to the suppression of a rebellion in Lower Egypt. Alternatively, for the Egyptologists Colin Reader and
Jochem Kahl, this event is to be understood as part of the important development of the cult of the sun god
Ra during the reigns of Raneb and Nynetjer. They interpret the record as referring to the foundation of an institution or building whose name, "Shem-Ra", has been variously translated as "The going of Ra", "The sun proceeds", or "The sun has come". For them as well as the Egyptologist
Nicolas Grimal, the ancient Egyptians started to see their ruler as the offspring of the sun deity. Within this context, Nynetjer's name should be understood as meaning "He who belongs to the god (Ra)". A smaller fragment of the annals, the Cairo Stone, may record further events belonging to Nynetjer's later reign: another festival of Sokar in his 24th year on the throne and a Following of Horus in his 34th, although the dating is uncertain. The surface of the stone slab in this section is much damaged and most of the record is illegible. The Egyptologist has proposed reading also the "birth" (creation) of a statue of Anubis and an "Appearance of the king of Lower and Upper Egypt". Among later historical sources, the
Aegyptiaca reported concerning Binōthris that: For
Walter Bryan Emery this comment may possibly be related to the status of queens
Meritneith and
Neithhotep of the
First Dynasty (), both of whom are believed to have held the Egyptian throne for several years.
Administration of the gods" next to Nynetjer's serekh|alt=Drawing in black and white of a small fragment of seal impression showing a Horus above a serekh with hieroglyphs on the right-hand side and more hieroglyphs in a crenelated rectangle on the left-hand side The reign of Nynetjer probably witnessed an increase in the number of people involved in the administration as the tasks for which they were responsible grew significantly. For example, the biennial event "Following of Horus" referred to on the Palermo Stone most probably involved a journey of the king and the royal court throughout Egypt. From at least the reign of Nynetjer onwards, the goal of this journey was to undertake a census for taxation purposes, and to collect and distribute various commodities. According to the annals of the Third Dynasty (27th century BC), this census involved an enumeration of gold and land. The responsibility for the supervision of state revenues was under the authority of the chancellor of the treasury of the king, who directed three administrative institutions introduced by Nynetjer in replacement of an older one. Nynetjer might also have introduced an office for food management related to the census. At the beginning of the Third Dynasty the "Following of Horus" disappears from the records, replaced by a more thorough census, which may have originated during Nynetjer's reign. From at least the reign of
Sneferu () onwards this extended census included
cattle counts—under which name it became known—while oxen and small livestock were recorded from the Fifth Dynasty (25th–24th century BC) onwards. Ink inscriptions on jars strongly suggest that the administrative partition of Egypt into
nomes existed under Nynetjer's rule, providing the earliest evidence for this regional management system. Similarly, the earliest individual holding the full titles associated with the office of
vizier, Menka, may have served Nynetjer. These innovations represent a qualitatively new stage in resource collection and management on behalf of the nascent Egyptian state after the creation in the mid-First Dynasty of the institutions responsible for the preparation of the royal tomb and the upkeep of subsequent funerary cults, as well as the state treasury. In the Early Dynastic Period, this treasury did not function as its modern counterparts. Rather it was an institution responsible for administering agricultural produces and stone ware, the latter being an important component of the funerary furniture. Tombs of kings of the First to Third dynasties included thousands to tens of thousands of stone bowls, jars and cups. The ritualized supply of these to the royal tomb played a major role in the grand spectacle of the preparation of the king's tomb and so were a crucial element in the early ideology of kingship. Archaeological evidence confirms the existence of the treasury during Nynetjer's rule. The main task of the state administration was to ensure the continuing existence and effectiveness of kingship, which included providing for the king's life after death. This, in turn, required increasing quantities of commodities to be regularly collected, as the Second Dynasty royal tombs were modelled after the king's palace, incorporating a large number of storage rooms for wine and food. Goods necessary for the provision of the court and funerary cults were produced in large agricultural domains and estates dedicated to producing specific resources. Such institutions had been set up by kings since at least the First Dynasty. Although a single estate providing
natron—a type of salt used for
curing food, cleaning and in the
mummification process—is known from a seal impression in connection with Nynetjer, he probably established novel estates and domains during his reign as well as maintaining those founded prior to his rule. Positions at court and highest offices of the state were probably determined on family ties and bonds of kinship, as in the preceding late
Predynastic Period. Few officials serving Nynetjer are known by name. These include Iyenkhnum,
Ruaben the overseer of sculptors, and possibly the vizier Menka.
End of reign What happened towards the end of Nynetjer's rule and shortly thereafter is uncertain. It is possible that Egypt saw civil unrest and the rise of competing claimants to the throne reigning concurrently over two realms in Upper and Lower Egypt. Historical records preserve conflicting lists of kings between the end of Nynetjer's reign and that of Khasekhemwy, who oversaw military campaigns against Lower Egypt. Wilkinson wrote in 1999 that negligible progress had been made on the internal history of the Second Dynasty over the preceding generation. Consequently, an accurate estimate of its length is impossible, the total duration of the Second Dynasty remains debated by Egyptologists and boils down to educated guesses of one to two centuries. Three hypotheses have been put forth concerning this period: first, there could have been a political breakdown and a religious conflict; second, this could result from a decision by Nynetjer to bequeath Upper and Lower Egypt to different sons to better manage Egypt; or third, an economic collapse might have led to Egyptian disunity. |alt=Fragment of a dark-grey stone bowl inscribed with light-coloured hieroglyphs For Erik Hornung, the troubles originate from an Upper Egyptian reaction to the migration of power and royal interest towards Memphis and Lower Egypt, leading to a breakdown of the unity of the state. This is manifested through the abandonment of the
First Dynasty necropolis of Abydos in favour of Saqqara, which saw the construction of the tombs of the first three kings of the Second Dynasty. An attempt to counteract this trend could explain why Hotepsekhemwy and Nynetjer maintained a chapel to the white crown of Upper Egypt in Memphis. The nascent political conflict between Lower and Upper Egypt might also have taken on a religious aspect. For Grimal, Raneb's establishment of the cult of Ra, and Raneb and Nynetjer's emphasis on Bastet and
Sopdu, both Lower Egyptian deities, may have been perceived as too favourable to northern Egypt. Hornung and
Hermann Alexander Schlögl also point to king Seth-Peribsen, who reigned some time after Nynetjer and chose the god Set rather than Horus as a divine patron for his name, Set being an Upper Egyptian god from
Ombos. Additionally, Seth-Peribsen chose to have
his tomb built in old royal burial grounds of Abydos, where he also erected a funerary enclosure. Seth-Peribsen probably ruled only Upper Egypt while another line of kings reigned over Lower Egypt and they associated themselves with Horus. For Wilkinson, unrest had already broken out during Nynetjer's reign because the king had difficulties asserting his rule over Lower Egypt. Wilkinson interprets the events of Nynetjer's 13th year on the throne as the quelling of rebellion in the North. To further that hypothesis, he points to no less than four rituals named "Appearances of the king of
Lower Egypt" reported for Nynetjer on the Old Kingdom royal annals as possibly "intended to deliver a political message about the extent of his authority" over this region. For Wilkinson, another indirect evidence that troubles had started before Nynetjer's death is given by the numerous stone vessels originally prepared for Nynetjer's Sed festival that were found in the galleries beneath Djoser's pyramid. These vessels may have remained in storage at Saqqara instead of being distributed because strife disrupted communications and weakened the authority of the central administration. Egyptologists such as Helck, Grimal, Schlögl and Francesco Tiradritti believe instead that Nynetjer left a realm that was suffering from an overly complex state administration. Consequently, Nynetjer could have decided to split Egypt between his two successors, possibly his sons, who would rule two separate kingdoms in the hope that the two rulers could better administer the states. In this case, the division of Egypt would have been peaceful at first, as possibly witnessed by the joint mortuary cults in Saqqara of two subsequent Second Dynasty kings
Senedj and Seth-Peribsen, who might have ruled over Lower and Upper Egypt, respectively. In contrast, Egyptologists such as
Barbara Bell and Michael Hoffman believe that an economic catastrophe such as a
famine or a long-lasting drought could have affected Egypt around this time. Therefore, to address the problem of feeding the Egyptian population, Nynetjer may have split the realm into two, with his successors ruling independent states until the famine came to an end. Bell points to the inscriptions of the
Palermo Stone where, in her opinion, the records of the
annual Nile floods show constantly low levels during this period. Bell's theory is not accepted by some Egyptologists such as
Stephan Seidlmayer according to whom the annual Nile floods were at their usual levels at Nynetjer's time up to the period of the
Old Kingdom. Any long-lasting drought would then be less probable to be an explanation. As Wilkinson remarks, all attempts by modern Egyptologists at reconstructing events between the end of Nynetjer's reign and Khasekhemwy's ascent to the Upper Egyptian throne remain highly speculative owing to the lack of strong, direct evidence on the matter.
Succession The identity of Nynetjer's successor is uncertain and it is unclear whether this successor voluntarily shared his reign with another ruler, if there were rival claimants to the throne, or if the Egyptian state was split later, at the time of this successor's death. All known king lists from historical sources such as the Saqqara list, the Turin Canon and the Abydos table have
Wadjenes as Nynetjer's immediate successor, a king who is otherwise not attested. These sources claim that Wadjenes was succeeded by the equally obscure Senedj. Wadjenes and Senedj may or may not be the same as
Weneg and
Nubnefer, shadowy rulers who also may have ruled shortly after Nynetjer. After Senedj, the king lists differ from each other. While the Saqqara list and the Turin canon mention the kings
Neferka(ra) I,
Neferkasokar and
Hudjefa I as immediate successors, the Abydos list skips them and lists a king Djadjay, now identified with
Khasekhemwy. This may reflect two traditions, a Lower and an Upper Egyptian one, both preserving the names of distinct regional dynasties. Indeed, if Egypt was already divided when Senedj gained the throne, kings like
Sekhemib-Perenmaat and Seth-Peribsen would have ruled Upper Egypt, whilst Senedj and his successors would have ruled the Memphite region in Lower Egypt. Political unrest and religious division are further confirmed by archaeological evidence pertaining to Khasekhemwy, last king of the Second Dynasty who is believed to have reunited the country. Indeed, he started his reign in Upper Egypt under the name Khasekhem, "The powerful one has appeared", placing his serekh under the patronage of the god Horus. An inscription on a stone vase records him "fighting the northern enemy within
Nekheb", indicating that an enemy was closing in on the historical seat of Upper Egyptian power. Later in his reign he added Horus to his serekh, changed his name to Khasekhemwy which means "The two powers have appeared", along with the addition "The two lords are at peace with him". == Tomb ==