THE EARLY MONARCHY AND THE UNIFICATION OF EGYPT Tradition and a substantial body of indirect evidence suggest strongly that Egypt, in the period immediately preceding the foundation of the First Dynasty, was divided into two independent kingdoms: a northern kingdom, which included the Nile Delta and extended southwards perhaps to the neighbourhood of the modern village of Atfīh (Lower Egypt) and a southern kingdom comprising the territory between Atfīh and Gebel es-Silsila (Upper Egypt). The residences of the kings are believed to have been situated at Pe, in the north-west Delta, and at Nekhen (Hierakonpolis), on the west bank of the river near Edfu, both of which, in historical times at least, possessed important sanctuaries of the falcon-god Horus, the patron deity of the rulers. In the vicinity of Pe lay Dep, the seat of a cobra-goddess Uadjit (Edjo); the two places were together known in the New Kingdom and later under one name Per-Uadjit (House of Edjo), rendered as Buto by the Greeks. Across the river from Nekhen stood Nekheb (El-Kāb), where a vulture-goddess Nekhbet had her sanctuary. Both goddesses came to be regarded at a very early date, perhaps while the separate kingdoms were in being, as royal protectresses. Even such information about this period as was recorded in the king-lists is largely lost and what remains is difficult to interpret. The first line of the fragmentary Palermo Stone consists of a series of compartments, seven only being entirely preserved, each of which contains a name and a figure of a king wearing the crown of Lower Egypt, but no historical events are mentioned.
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