Nomen (Ancient Egypt)
| Nomen in hieroglyphs | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
sˁ-Rˁ Sa-Rê Son of Rê |
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The Nomen of Ancient Egyptian pharaohs was one of the "Great five names". It was introduced by king Radjedef, third pharaoh of the 4th Dynasty, as an emendation to the traditional nswt-bity crest. The nomen was later separated from the prenomen to become an independent royal name.
The title Sa-Rê, literally meaning "Son of Ra", was written with the sign of a sun-disc and that of a goose placed below. At the beginning, the sun and goose signs were placed at the end of the cartouche containing the name of the king. This was read as: "King of Lower- and Upper Egypt, king XXX, son of Râ". Later it was placed before the cartouche, introducing the nomen of the king and now read as: "Son of Râ, king XXX". The hieroglyphs forming the nomen itself were placed inside the cartouche.
Under the reign of the Fourth Dynasty king Radjedef, the cult of the sun-god Ra reached a new peak. Egyptian pharaohs now believed that they were the actual sons of Ra, since Ra himself had just become the greatest of all gods. This would later change and Ra merged symbolically with the god Amun.
The earliest known use of the Sa-Rê title occurs during the reign of king Radjedef, third ruler of 4th Dynasty and successor of Khufu. The earliest traces of a sun-cult in Ancient Egypt, then concentrating on the sun as a celestial object, appear during the 2nd Dynasty (c. 2890 — c. 2686 BC), possibly under its second ruler, king Raneb. In particular Raned was the first pharaoh to use the symbol of the sun as a part of his Horus name. The rise in importance of the cult of the sun god is first manifested during the reign of Peribsen in the mid 2nd Dynasty, who placed the sun-disc above the figure of the god Seth. Later, under king Djoser, the founder of the 3rd Dynasty, we find the first personal names of princes and high officials connected to Râ.
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