A History Of The World In A 100 Objects: No. 11

A History Of The World In A 100 Objects
Number 11

King Den's Sandal Label
Hippopotamus ivory label, found at Abydos (near Luxor), Egypt
Around 2985 BC

This item is from a time at which people were increasingly moving towards living in bigger cities & this, as the book suggests, brings with it an increasingly unsocial society, cities being quite violent, turmultuous, vibrant places. It's a hippo Ivory tusk from one of Egypt's earliest Pharaohs, King Den, & isn't the most spectacular of ancient Egyptian thing, but that's not what the book's about. The book's about changes or fluxes in Human history & this comes right in the middle of Egypt becoming the dominant world power of the era.
The object it's self is made of Hippo Ivory & is about 2inches square, it was found in the mud & is at least 5,000 years old. It's about the same size as a clothes label but doesn't have laundry instructions on it. It shows a man, thought to be King Den, striking another character with what looks like a club with a ball on the end of it. It has hieroglyphs on it as well & is the earliest object to feature hieroglyphs & has gone a long way to helping decipher ancient Egyptian symbols as this period is also the dawn of the written object.
The scene is allegorical in nature & depicts King Den smitting his enemies in the traditional way that rulers like to do. The label also helps show the riches of Egypt at the time, & King Den's power within the state, because they come from a pair of sandals they were made of materials that were highly expensive for the period & by very skilled craftsmen. They help show that King Den, who's empire was vast & increasingly difficult to control due to the furtile Nile delta bringing conflicts & the symbols on the label show how he was able to rule this mighty empire & create a prosperous state, probably the 1st proper state in the world's history, that grew to be a mighty empire for 2,000 years & set the template for all other civilisations to follow.