Deshret

{{short description|Red crown of Lower Egypt}} {{redirect hatnote|Red crown|the Missouri tavern|Red Crown Tourist Court}} {{Infobox crown |name=Deshret |color=#D13232 |image=Red crown.svg |caption=Deshret, the Red Crown of Lower Egypt |nation=Ancient Egypt, Lower Egypt }}{{Hiero|Deshret, Red Crown<br>(crown as<br>determinative)|<hiero>D46:N37:D21-X1-S3</hiero>|align=right|era=egypt}} '''Deshret''' ({{langx|egy|{{huge|'''𓂧𓈙𓂋𓏏𓋔'''}}|translit=dšrt|lit=Red One|italics=no}}) was the Red Crown of Lower Egypt. It was a red bowl shaped with a protruding curlicue. When combined with the Hedjet (White Crown) of Upper Egypt, it forms the Pschent (Double Crown), in ancient Egyptian called the ''sekhemti''.

The Red Crown in Egyptian language hieroglyphs eventually was used as the vertical letter "n". The original "n" hieroglyph from the Predynastic Period and the Old Kingdom was the sign depicting ripples of water.

The word '''Deshret''' also referred to the desert Red Land on either side of Kemet (Black Land), the fertile Nile river basin.

==Significance== In mythology, the earth deity Geb, original ruler of Egypt, invested Horus with the rule over Lower Egypt.<ref>Ewa Wasilewska, ''Creation Stories of the Middle East'', Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2000, p.128</ref> The Egyptian pharaohs, who saw themselves as successors of Horus, wore the ''deshret'' to symbolize their authority over Lower Egypt.<ref>Toby A. H. Wilkinson, ''Early Dynastic Egypt'', Routledge 1999, p.194</ref> Other deities wore the ''deshret'' too, or were identified with it, such as the protective serpent goddess Wadjet and the creator-goddess of Sais, Neith, who often is shown wearing the Red Crown.<ref>George Hart, ''The Routledge Dictionary Of Egyptian Gods And Goddesses'', p.100</ref>

The Red Crown would later be combined with the White Crown of Upper Egypt to form the Double Crown, symbolizing the rule over the whole country, "The Two Lands" as the Egyptians expressed it.<ref>Ana Ruiz, ''The Spirit of Ancient Egypt'', Algora Publishing 2001, p.8</ref>

==Records== [[File:Vase Fragment Decorated with a Red Crown.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Vase fragment with earliest known depiction of a Red Crown. Naqada IIA, circa 3600 BC, Ashmolean Museum.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hollis |first1=Susan Tower |title=Five Egyptian Goddesses: Their Possible Beginnings, Actions, and Relationships in the Third Millennium BCE |date=3 October 2019 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-78093-794-6 |page=29 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V2KmDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT29 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Chaos en beheersing: Documenten uit aeneolitisch Egypte |date=14 October 2024 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-67093-8 |page=305 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=01YpEQAAQBAJ&pg=PA305 |language=en|quote= Fragment of a "blacktopped" pot, red polished pottery with black rim, a representation of the "Red Crown" of Lower Egypt was modelled in the clay, before it was baked. Amratian (S.D. 35-39), from Naqada, tomb 1610. Oxford Ashmolean Museum 1895.795}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Black top shard 1895.795|url=https://www.ashmolean.org/collections-online#/item/ash-object-488271 |website=www.ashmolean.org |publisher=Ashmolean Museum |language=en}}</ref>]] No Red Crown has been found. Several ancient representations indicate it was woven like a basket from plant fiber such as grass, straw, flax, palm leaf, or reed.{{Citation needed|date=January 2025}}

[[File:Limestone head of a king. Thought by Petrie to be Narmer. Bought by Petrie in Cairo, Egypt. 1st Dynasty. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London.jpg|thumb|left|Limestone head of an early Egyptian king, The Petrie Museum. Modern scholars have considered the stone bust to depict an Early Dynastic or Old Kingdom pharaoh, wearing the Deshret crown..<ref>{{cite book |last1=Trope |first1=Betsy Teasley |last2=Quirke |first2=Stephen |last3=Lacovara |first3=Peter |last4=Museum |first4=Michael C. Carlos |last5=Archaeology |first5=Petrie Museum of Egyptian |title=Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College, London |date=2005 |publisher=Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University |isbn=978-1-928917-06-9 |page=18 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mNuNQgAACAAJ |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stevenson |first1=Alice |title=A face in the crowd: chance encounters with Egyptian sculpture |journal=Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology |date=2015 |pages=44–45 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1g69z2n.16?seq=1 |publisher=UCL Press}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Charron, Alain |title="L'époque thinite" in L'Egypte des millénaires obscurs |date=1990 |publisher=Hatier |page=97 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y2rOzgEACAAJ |language=fr}}</ref><ref>"Jacket illustration: Head of an unknown Egyptian king, probably Second Dynasty." {{cite book |last1=Wilkinson |first1=Toby |title=Early Dynastic Egypt |page=Back cover |url=https://archive.org/details/EarlyDynasticEgyptUploadBySamySalah/mode/2up?q=king |language=English}}</ref>]]

The Red Crown frequently is mentioned in texts and depicted in reliefs and statues. An early example is the depiction of the victorious pharaoh wearing the ''deshret'' on the Narmer Palette. A label from the reign of Djer records a royal visit to the shrine of the Deshret which may have been located at Buto in the Nile delta.<ref>Toby A. H. Wilkinson, ''Early Dynastic Egypt'', Routledge 1999, p.284</ref>

The fact that no crown has ever been found buried with any of the pharaohs, even in relatively intact tombs, might suggest that it was passed from one reign to the next, much as in present-day monarchies.

Toby Wilkinson has cited the iconography on rock art in the Eastern Desert region as depicting what he interpreted to be among the earliest representations of the royal crowns and suggested the Red Crown could have originated in the southern Nile Valley.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wilkinson |first1=Toby |title=Genesis of the Pharaohs : dramatic new discoveries rewrite the origins of ancient Egypt |date=2003 |publisher=Thames & Hudson |location=London |isbn=0500051224 |pages=54–82}}</ref>

==Phonogram== {{Hiero|1 Red Crown, Deshret<br>2 also, vertical<br>"N"|<hiero>N</hiero>|align=right|era=egypt}}

Deshret, the ancient Egyptian Red Crown, is one of the oldest Egyptian hieroglyphs. As an iconographic element, it is used on the famous palette of Pharaoh Narmer as the ''"Red Crown of the Delta"'', the Delta being Lower Egypt.

The first usage of the Red Crown was in iconography as the symbol for Lower Egypt with the Nile Delta, horizontal letter 'n', Gardiner no. 35, <hiero>N35</hiero> Later it came to be used in the Egyptian language as an alphabetic uniliteral, vertical form for letter "n" as a phoneme or preposition. It became functional in running hieroglyphic texts, where either the horizontal or vertical form preposition satisfied space requirements.

Both the vertical and horizontal forms are prepositional equivalents, with the horizontal letter n, the N-water ripple (n hieroglyph) being more common, as well as more common to form parts of Egyptian language words requiring the phoneme 'n'.

One old use of the red crown hieroglyph is to make the word: 'in'!, (formerly ''an''-(a-with dot)-(the "vertical feather" hieroglyph a, plus the red crown). Egyptian "in" is used at the beginning of a text and translates as: ''Behold!'', or ''Lo!'', and is an emphatic.

The Red Crown is also used as a determinative, most notably in the word for deshret. It is also used in other words or names of gods. ;Use in the Rosetta Stone [[Image:RosettaStoneDetail.jpg|thumb|right|190px|Rosetta Stone usage of Red Crown, not as preposition: part of Pschent (Double Crown), and part of '''"Taui"''', the name for Upper and Lower Egypt (used combined with a Crossroads (hieroglyph))]] In the 198 BC Rosetta Stone, the '' 'Red Crown' '' as hieroglyph has the usage mostly of the vertical form of the preposition "n". In running text, word endings are not always at the end of hieroglyph blocks; when they are at the end, a simple transition to start the next block is a vertical separator, in this case the preposition, vertical n, (thus a space saver).

Since the start of the next hieroglyphic block could also be started with a horizontal "n" at the bottom of the previous block, it should be thought that the vertical "n" is also chosen for a visual effect; in other words, it visually spreads out the running text of words, instead of piling horizontal prepositions in a more tight text. Visually it is also a hieroglyph that takes up more 'space'-(versus a straight-line type for the horizontal ''water ripple''); so it may have a dual purpose of a less compact text, and a better segue-transition to the next words.

The Red Crown hieroglyph is used 35 times in the Rosetta Stone; only 4 times is it used as a non-preposition. It averages once per line usage in the 36 line Decree of Memphis (Ptolemy V)-(Rosetta Stone).

==See also== {{commons category|Red crown}} * Crowns of Egypt * Atef – Hedjet Crown with feathers identified with Osiris * Khepresh – Blue or War Crown also called Royal Crown * Pschent - combined White Crown (Hedjet) of Upper Egypt with Red Crown (Deshret) of Lower Egypt

==Gallery== {{Gallery |title=Examples of representations |align=center |King of lower Egypt.svg|modern drawing of a pharaoh with a red crown |Ostracon04-RamessidePeriod MetropolitanMuseum.png|Ramesside Period ostracon, pharaoh wearing Red Crown |Narmer Palette serpopard side.jpg|Narmer Palette, front |HierS.png|The vertical letter N, as preposition, or determinative in the Egyptian language |NarmerPalette-CloseUpOfProcession-ROM.png|Close-up of Narmer Palette, Pharaoh Narmer with crown |Bronze statuette of a Kushite king wearing the crown of Lower Egypt. 25th Dynasty, 670 BCE. Neues Museum.jpg|Bronze statuette of a Kushite king wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt; 25th Dynasty, c. 670 BCE, Neues Museum, Berlin |Ägyptisches Museum Kairo 2016-03-29 Mentuhotep 02.jpg|Sandstone statue of Mentuhotep II; 11th Dynasty, c. 2060–2009 BCE, Egyptian Museum, Cairo |GuardianStatueofAmenemhmatII.jpg|A guardian statue wearing the red crown which reflected the facial features of the reigning king, probably Amenemhat II or Senwosret II, and which functioned as a divine guardian for the imiut; made of cedar wood and plaster {{circa}} 1919–1885 BC<ref>{{cite web |title=Guardian Figure |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/543864 |website=www.metmuseum.org |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |access-date=9 February 2022}}</ref>}}

{{Gallery |title=Deshret (vertical letter N) in hieroglyphic writing |align=center |Philistine captives at Medinet Habu.jpg|Philistine captives at Medinet Habu |Stele of Tchia-E 7717-IMG 2594-gradient.jpg|Stele of Tchia at the Louvre |Ra slays Apep (tomb scene in Deir el-Medina).jpg|Apep being slain }}

==References== {{reflist}}

==Sources== * Budge. ''An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary,'' E.A.Wallace Budge, (Dover Publications), c 1978, (c 1920), Dover edition, 1978. (In two volumes) (softcover, {{ISBN|0-486-23615-3}}) * Budge. ''The Rosetta Stone,'' E.A.Wallace Budge, (Dover Publications), c 1929, Dover edition(unabridged), 1989. (softcover, {{ISBN|0-486-26163-8}}) * {{citation| last=Charron|first= Alain|year= 1990|chapter= L’époque thinite|title= L'Égypte des millénaires obscures |location= Paris|pages= 77–97}}. * {{Cite book |last=Stevenson |first=Alice |title=The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology: Characters and Collections |publisher=UCLPress |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-910634-04-2 |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/ThePetrieMuseumOfEgyptianArchaeology }} [http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1468795/4/The_Petrie_Museum_of_Egyptian_Archaeology.pdf Open access pdf download.] * {{citation| last1= Trope|first1= Betsy Teasley |first2= Stephen |last2=Quirke|first3=Peter|last3= Lacovara |year=2005| title= Excavating Egypt: great discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College, London |location=Atlanta| publisher=Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University}}. * {{citation | last = Wilkinson |first=TAH |year= 1999 |title= Early Dynastic Egypt |location= London; New York | publisher = Routledge}}.

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