Djer: Defender of Horus

"Djer (or Zer or Sekhty) is considered the third pharaoh of the First

Dynasty of ancient Egypt in current Egyptology. Jürgen von Beckerath in the Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen (1999) translates the hieroglyphs of the name Djer as "Defender of Horus."

 

Djer's reign was preceded by a regency controlled by Neithhotep, possibly his mother or grandmother. 

 

An ivory tablet from Abydos mentions that Djer visited Buto and Sais in the Nile Delta. 

Relief of King Djer at Wadi Halfa

An inscription at Wadi Halfa records a military campaign deep into Nubia and there is evidence of a campaign into both Libya and the Sinai. He even went as far as naming one of his regnal years “The Year of Smiting the land of the Setjet” (Syria-Palestine). This made him the first Pharaoh to record military activity outside Egyptian borders.

At least one label from the reign of Djer shows evidence of human

Label showing the killing of a human in a ritual

sacrifice, with a bound person being stabbed during a ritual that appears to have a funerary character.

Manetho claimed that Athothes, who is sometimes identified as Djer, had written a treatise on anatomy that still existed in his own day, over two millennia later. 

Several ladies bearing titles that identify them as queens have been associated with Djer and may have been his wives: Herneith, who was the owner of Saqqara tomb S3507, Nakhtneith, buried in one of the subsidiary graves of Djer’s tomb, and Penebui.

 

Djer was buried in Umm el-Qa'ab at Abydos. Djer's tomb is tomb O of Petrie. His tomb contains the remains of 318 retainers who were buried with him."

 

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