Hedjet

Hedjet (ḥḏt) is the formal name for the White Crown of pharaonic Upper Egypt. The crown was white and, after the unification of Egypt, it was combined with the Deshret, the Red Crown of Lower Egypt, to form the Pschent, the Double Crown of Egypt. The symbol sometimes used for the Hedjet was the vulture goddess Nekhbet shown next to the head of the cobra goddess Wadjet, the Uraeus on the Pschent.

History

The white crown, along with the red crown, has a long history, with each of their respective representations going back into the Predynastic Period, indicating that kingship had been the base of Egyptian society for some time. The earliest image of the Hedjet was thought to have been in the Qustul in Nubia. According to Jane Roy, "New evidence from Abydos, however, particularly the excavation of Cemetery U and the tome U-j, dating to Naqada IIIA has shown that this iconography appears earlier in Egypt.

Nekhbet, the tutelary goddess of Nekhebet (modern el Kab) near Hierakonpolis, was depicted as a woman, sometimes with the head of a vulture, wearing the White Crown. The falcon god Horus of Hierakonpolis (Egyptian: Nekhen) was generally shown wearing a White Crown. A famous depiction of the White Crown is on the Narmer Palette found at Hierakonpolis in which the king of the South wearing the hedjet is shown triumphing over his northern enemies. The kings of the united Egypt saw themselves as successors of Horus. Vases from the reign of Khasekhemwy show the king as Horus wearing the White Crown.