King Narmer 3200 BC

Narmer (c. 3150 BCE) was the first king of Egypt who unified the country peacefully at the beginning of the First Dynastic Period (c. 3150 - 2613 BCE). He has also, however, been cited as the last king of the Predynastic Period (c. 6000 - 3150 BCE) before the rise of a king named Menes who unified the country through conquest. In the early days of Egyptology these kings were considered to be two different men. Narmer was thought to have attempted unification at the end of one period and Menes to have succeeded him, beginning the next era in Egyptian history.

This theory became increasingly problematic as time went by and little archaeological evidence supported Menes' existence while Narmer was well attested to in the archaeological record. The great Egyptologist Flinders Petrie (1853 - 1942 CE) claimed Narmer and Menes as the first pharaoh of the First Dynasty in that the two names designated one man: Narmer was his name and Menes an honorific.

This same understanding holds for the other pharaoh associated with Menes, Hor-Aha (c. 3100 BCE), the second king of the First Dynasty who is also said to have united Egypt under central rule. If Hor-Aha was the ruler who achieved unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, then `Menes' was simply his honorific, meaning "he who endures". Some scholars claim there is no reason to argue over which of these kings may have united Egypt as the country wasn't truly united until the reign of Khasekhemwy (c. 2680 BCE), last king of the Second Dynasty and father of the king Djoser who began the Third Dynasty. This claim has been repeatedly challenged, however, since there is clear evidence of the king Den (c. 2990-2940 BCE) wearing the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, indicating unification under his reign. More significantly, the Narmer Palette (an ancient inscribed slab of siltstone) just as clearly shows Narmer wearing the war crown of Upper Egypt and the red wicker crown of Lower Egypt and so it is generally accepted that unification first took place under the reign of the king Narmer.