The Spinning Tops of Hemaka

Forty-five spinning tops were found by W.B. Emery in 1936 at Saqqara, inside the tomb of Hemaka (S 3035), Chancellor of Den, the fifth king of the First Dynasty (ca. 3000-2900 BCE). Behind their appearance of innocent games, the spinning tops reveal themselves to be the sign of a time of deep transformation in Egypt. They show connections both to the culture of the Naqada Period and to the motifs and forms that would characterise the Old Kingdom. This contribution analyses the con- nection between state formation and the societal relations it entailed; the history of their archaeological discovery and historical milieu; the syntactic structure of images based on circular frames; other Egyptian forms of amusement. A diachronic view of the iconography of hunting is offered, and two case studies (disks Cairo, JE 70164 and JE 70165) have been selected which best exemplify the nature of these artefacts as representative of a world in transition.