It is executed in the same archaic style as those from Hierakonpolis.
The animals on the other side no doubt represent part of the spoil of
the North.
Returning to the great shield or palette found by Mr. Quibell, we see
the king coming out, followed by his sandal-bearer, the _Hen-neter_ or
"God's Servant,"* to view the dead bodies of the slain Northerners which
lie arranged in rows, decapitated, and with their heads between their
feet. The king is preceded by a procession of nome-standards.
[Illustration: 051.jpg (right)]
Above the dead men are symbolic representations of a hawk perched on a
harpoon over a boat, and a hawk and a door, which doubtless again refer
to the fights of the royal hawk of Upper Egypt on the Nile and at the
gate of the North. The designs on the mace-heads refer to the same
conquest of the North.
* In his commentary (Hierakonpolis, i. p. 9) on this scene,
Prof. Petrie supposes that the seven-pointed star sign means
"king," and compares the eight-pointed star "used for king
in Babylonia." The eight-pointed star of the cuneiform
script does not mean "king," but "god." The star then ought
to mean "god," and the title "servant of a god," and this
supposition may be correct. _Hen-neter_, "god's servant,"
was the appellation of a peculiar kind of priest in later
days, and was then spelt with the ordinary sign for a god,
the picture of an axe.
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