New Ancient Rock Art of Egypt’s King Scorpion Discovered

Many of you will have seen the movie, The Scorpion King, starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, but not many will know a great deal about the historical figure this Hollywood character is based on.

King Scorpion was a ruler in what Egyptologists call the Protodynastic Period of Upper Egypt, sometime between 5,500 and 5,200 years ago, an elusive figure to history but fragments of his memory survive, and continue to be found.In fact, experts believe there were two King Scorpions in Egypt’s Pre or Proto-Dynastic Period, and it's Scorpion 1st who I'm referring to in this video.


A new book has been released by professor Dr. Ludwig Morenz and researcher Mohamed Abdelhay Abu Bakr and it shows how early Egyptian rulers used art, symbolism and the landscape itself to legitimise their authority.


In this video I'll give you a brief overview of the facsinating discoveries, with some links below for further information.


00:00 - Introduction

00:27 - The Scorpion King

01:01 - Two King Scorpions

01:43 - The Eastern Desert of Aswan

02:08 - New Rock Art Finds

03:17 - Egypt's Territorial Markers

03:37 - The Association with Dangerous Animals

04:42 - Scorpion Deity Association

05:18 - Violence in Rock Art

05:53 - Ritual and Religious Scenes

06:11 - New Technology

06:44 - Future Work

07:01 - Concluding Remarks



Ancient Architects
Matt Sibson