To understand the significance of NUE001’s life and death, it is worth understanding the world of Old Kingdom Egypt — because this was one of the most extraordinary periods in human history, and NUE001 was part of it.

The Old Kingdom spans roughly 2686 to 2181 BCE.

It encompasses the Third through Sixth Dynasties and represents one of the most dramatic consolidations of power and cultural identity in all of ancient history.

In the century or two before the Old Kingdom’s formal beginning, the previously fragmented political landscape of the Nile Valley had been unified under a single ruler — a process traditionally associated with a king known in later tradition as Narmer or Menes, depicted on the famous Narmer Palette, one of the most important objects in Egyptian archaeology.

What followed unification was an explosion of achievement.