The Most Influencial People in the World: MENES fl. C. 3100 B.C.

Menes, the original king of the first Egyptian dynasty, was the ruler who first united Egypt, and thereby established the kingdom that was to play such a long and glorious role in human civilization.

The dates of Menes’s birth and death are unknown, although he is generally believe to have flourished c. 3100 B.C. Prior to that time, Egypt was not a unified country but consisted of two independent kingdoms, one situated in the north, in the Nile Delta, and the other further south, along the Nile Valley. (Since the Nile flows down to the sea, on ancient Egyptian maps the mouths of the Nile appeared at the bottom of the page. For that reason, the Egyptians referred to the Delta in the north as “Lower Egypt,” while they called the southern kingdom “Upper Egypt.”) Generally speaking, Lower Egypt seems to have been more advanced culturally than her southern neighbor. But it was King Menes, the ruler of Upper Egypt, who succeeded in conquering the north, and thereby united the entire country.

(This ebony tablet form the First Dynasty is one of the earliest known of hieroglyphics, and contains the royal hawk of Menes).

Menes (who was also known as Narmer) came from Thinis, a town is southern Egypt. After subduing the northern kingdom, he referred to himself as “King of Upper and Lower Egypt,” a title that was retained by succeeding pharaohs for thousands of years. Near the former boundary between the two kingdoms Manes founded a new city, Memphis, which because of its central location was well suited to be the capital of the united country. Memphis, the ruins of which lie not far from present-day Cairo, was for many centuries one of the leading cities of Egypt, and for a considerable period her capital.

Little additional information about Menes has been preserved. He is credited with a very long reign—sixty-two years, according to one ancient source, although that may well be an exaggeration.

Despite our limited knowledge of the events of that distant time, Menes’s achievement seems to have been of enormous importance. During predynastic times (that is, before Menes), Egyptian culture was considerably less advanced than that of the Sumerian civilization, situated in what is now Iraq, however, seemed to release the latent power of the Egyptian people. Certainly, the unification was followed by periods which were to endure, with comparative little change, for two millennia. Hieroglyphic writing developed rapidly, as did building and other technical skills. Within a few centuries, Egyptian culture had equaled—and in many ways surpassed—that of Sumeria. Indeed, during most of the two thousand years following Menes, Egypt, from the standpoint of wealth and culture, was either the most advanced nation in the world or a close second. That is a record of enduring achievement that few civilizations can rival.

It is difficult to know just where Menes belongs on this list; for we have no direct information as to how important his personal activities were in the conquest of the north and the unification of Egypt. Lacking reliable information, we can only conjecture how large his role was; but it seems a rather safe guess that it was quite important. In general, Egyptian pharaohs were not figureheads but actual rulers possessing enormous authority. Furthermore, history tells us that kingdoms rarely achieve important conquests under the leadership of an inept king; nor are they likely to retain and consolidate their conquests without able leadership. It therefore factor in the great events of his day. Despite the paucity of our knowledge concerning him, it appears that Menes was indeed one of the most influential figures in history.