Djer

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Persondata
NAME	Djer
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Athothis, Atoti
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Pharaoh of Egypt
DATE OF BIRTH	{{{Birth}}}
PLACE OF BIRTH	Ancient Egypt
DATE OF DEATH	{{{Death}}}
PLACE OF DEATH	Ancient Egypt

Djer
Preceded by: Hor-Aha	Pharaoh of Egypt 1st Dynasty	Succeeded by: Djet
Athothis, Atoti
Stela depicting the Horus name of the pharaoh Djer, on display at the Cairo Museum
Reign	41 years
Consort(s)	Merneith
Issues	Djet?
Burial	Tomb in Umm el-Qa'ab, Abydos
Major Monuments	Tomb in Umm el-Qa'ab

Djer is the second or third ^[1]Egyptian king of the first dynasty. Manetho gives him the name Athothis, or Atoti.

1 Length of Reign
2 Reign
3 Further reading
4 See also
5 Notes

[edit] Length of Reign

While the 3rd Century BCE Egyptian Priest Manetho states that Djer ruled for 57 years, modern research by Toby Wilkinson in Royal Annals of Ancient Egypt stresses that the near contemporary and therefore more accurate Palermo Stone document ascribes Djer a reign of "41 complete and partial years." (Wilkinson: p.79) Wilkinson notes that Years 1-10 of Djer's reign is preserved in register II of the Palermo Stone while the middle years of this king's reign is recorded in register II of Cairo Fragment One. (Wilkinson: p.258)

[edit] Reign

Djer probably fought several battles against the Libyans in the Nile delta. The evidence for Djer's life is:

tomb in Umm el-Qa'ab, Abydos;
seal prints from graves 2185 and 3471 in Saqqara;
inscriptions in graves 3503, 3506 and 3035 in Saqqara
Seal impression and inscriptions from Helwan (Saad 1947: 165; Saad 1969: 82, pl. 94)
Jar from Turah with the name of the king (Kaiser 1964: 103, fig.3)
UC 16182 ivory tablet from Abydos, subsidiary tomb 612 of the enclosure of Djer (Petrie 1925: pl. II.8; XII.1)
UC 16172 copper adze with the name of king Djer (tomb 461 in Abydos, Petrie 1925: pl. III.1, IV.8)

Like his predecessor, Hor-Aha, he was buried in the holy place Abydos. Close to his grave is another, that probably belongs to his wife Merneith, mother of the later king Den, and possibly his regent during his youth. From the Eighteenth dynasty, his tomb was revered as the tomb of Osiris.

[edit] Further reading

Toby A. H. Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, Routledge, London/New York 1999, ISBN 0-415-18633-1, 71-73
Toby Wilkinson, Royal Annals of Ancient Egypt: The Palermo Stone and Its Associated Fragments, (Kegan Paul International), 2000.