Note 8 — Chapter I · —THE DISCOVERY OF PREHISTORIC EGYPT

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. But in the archaic period, with which we are dealing, a star like the Babylonian sign may very well have been used for “god,” and the title of Narmer’s sandal-bearer may read Hen-neter. He was the slave of the living god Narmer. All Egyptian kings were regarded as deities, more or less.