Thinite Confederacy
| Thinite Confederacy | |||||
| Tribal confederacy | |||||
| |||||
| Capital | Thinis | ||||
| Languages | Egyptian | ||||
| Religion | Ancient Egyptian | ||||
| Political structure | Confederation | ||||
| Tribal chief | Menes[1] | ||||
| Historical era | Protodynastic period | ||||
| - | Established | ? | |||
| - | Disestablished | c. 3150 BC | |||
| - | Unification of Egypt | c. 3100 BCE | |||
The Thinite Confederacy is an Egyptological term for a hypothesized tribal confederation in Ancient Egypt. It is thought to have preceded the full unification of Upper Egypt c. 3100 BC. The leaders of the Thinite Confederacy were most likely tribal nobles. Based at the city of Thinis, the Thinite Confederacy would later be incorporated into the combined Kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt.
The evidence of the "Thinite Confederacy" is mostly speculative and in part relies on Manetho. Modern Egyptologists have a number of competing hypotheses to explain conjectured "proto-dynastic" events that presumably led to the unification under the First Dynasty. Many scholars today mention evidence for a "Dynasty 0" that preceded Dynasty I. The term "Dynasty 00" is also used for the period preceding Dynasty 0 in connection with the Abydos-Thinis area and may correspond to a theoretical "Thinite Confederacy".[2] The terms "Dynasty 0" and especially "Dynasty 00" are widely seen as playful, but are frequently used nonetheless in lieu of a more agreed-upon term. In archaeological terms, this is referred to as the Naqada III period.
It makes an appearance in the computer game Pharaoh.
References
Bibliography
- van den Brink, Edwin C. M. (1992). The Nile delta in transition: 4th-3rd millennium BC: proceedings of the seminar held in Cairo, 21-24 October 1990, at the Netherlands Institute of Archaeology and Arabic Studies. Cairo: Netherlands Institute of Archaeology and Arabic Studies. ISBN 978-965-221-015-9.
- Maspero, Gaston (1903). Archibald Henry Sayce, ed. History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria 9. M. L. Herbert McClure (trans.). N.p.: Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7661-3501-7.