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Tablet at Sneferu at Wady-Magharah

Tablet at Sneferu at Wady-Magharah.jpg Gallery in the Great PyramidThumbnailsFigure of BesGallery in the Great PyramidThumbnailsFigure of BesGallery in the Great PyramidThumbnailsFigure of BesGallery in the Great PyramidThumbnailsFigure of BesGallery in the Great PyramidThumbnailsFigure of Bes

The first living, breathing, acting, flesh-and-blood personage, whom so-called histories of Egypt present to us, is a certain Sneferu, or Seneferu, whom the Egyptians seem to have regarded as the first monarch of their fourth dynasty. Sneferu—called by Manetho, we know not why, Soris—has left us a representation of himself, and an inscription. On the rocks of Wady Magharah, in the Sinaitic peninsula, may be seen to this day an incised tablet representing the monarch in the act of smiting an enemy, whom he holds by the hair of his head, with a mace. The action is apparently emblematic, for at the side we see the words Ta satu, "Smiter of the nations;" and it is a fair explanation of the tablet, that its intention was to signify that the Pharaoh in question had reduced to subjection the tribes which in his time inhabited the Sinaitic regions.