The meaning of the word Pharaoh
The title "Pharaoh," assumed by the rulers of Egypt, has its meaning in the etymology of the word itself. In Egyptian "per-a'a" meant "great house," hence palace. This designation morphed into the Hebrew "par'ooh" and, from there, into the Greek "pharaò" and, then, into the late Latin Pharao and the Italian Pharaoh. Therefore "Pharaoh" indicates those who stood in the palace. Probably, the early Protodynastic Pharaohs were the only ones who lived in a stone house. All others, as can still be seen today by sailing on the Nile, built their dwellings with bricks made from the silt of the river, dried in the sun. A curiosity: since the (unwise) Aswan Dam prevents the Nile from bringing silt downstream, there is no longer the possibility of fertilizing the soil with it. Therefore, to this day, as an alternative to chemical fertilizers, the Egyptian state is buying from those who still have houses built this way, these traditional bricks (this is what I was told on the spot!). To signify their kingship, all the early Pharaohs have their names inserted in the "Serek," also called the "name of Horus." This is a rectangular frame, surmounted by the falcon of Horus, which, at the bottom, bears the design of an architectural structure in more or less similar shapes. Above this is the name of the Pharaoh, which, in the early dynasties, is very simple and only phonetic: the snake reading "Dj" with a "T" for Get, the hand "D" with an "N" for Den, a sun "Ra" with the sign "Neb" for Reneb, etc.
It is only from the 3rd Dynasty onward, with Djoser, that a second royal titling appears, that of the Golden Horus, which would be followed by the others until the entire royal protocol of five titlings was composed: the Serek, the name of the Golden Horus, that of the "two Ladies" (Necbeth and Buto, the vulture and the cobra), symbolizing the union of Upper and Lower Egypt and later forming the royal symbol of the Ureus, the name "of the Bee and the Reed" (with the same meaning as the previous one) and that of the "Son of Ra," the duck with the sun.
While the first three titles are all set in rectangular frames, the last two are set within a stylized rope lace, knotted at the bottom. These are the "cartouches" that constitute a kind of surname and name of the Pharaoh. The only Pharaoh to have had six was Tut-ankh-amon. In fact, when he came to the throne, in his cartouche of "Son of Ra" the name was Tut-ankh-aton, in homage to the heresy of Echnaton. Following the restoration of traditional religion, this first scroll had the symbol above it turned the other way and a new scroll was inserted with the name we know.
Another amusing curiosity is that, when we buy an object that is sold to us as bearing the name of Tut-ankh-amon, nine times out of ten the cartouche is not that of the "Son of Ra," which is more complicated to write, but that of "the bee and the reed," which, in this case, reads "Neb-Kefrure" and means "very important light-bearer"!
