To appreciate the novelty of the design of the Narmer palette, we must investigate its antecedents. Material and shape proclaim it as a specimen of a common type of toilet article: throughout predynastic times slate palettes (Fig. 4) had been used for the grinding of a green powder which, put on the lids, protected the eyes against glare and infection. On the Narmer palette, too, a round space is set aside for this purpose, even though the size of the object seems to preclude actual use. Now palettes, as well as combs, knife-handles, and so on, had been embellished with reliefs during the last phase of the predynastic period. Among such decorated objects, two treat new subjects. The first, an ivory knife-handle found at Gebel el Arak in Upper Egypt (Figs. 23, 24), shows, on one side, the pursuit of game, a motif which recurs on other objects of the same age; on the other side is depicted a battle. The second, the Hunters’ palette (Fig. 25), shows two groups of men who have joined forces in an attempt to destroy lions, perhaps because these infested wasteland which had to be reclaimed. The two groups are identified by standards carried in their midst. The battle scene and the hunting scene are without parallels in predynastic times. But they are likewise unconnected with later Egyptian art. Their novelty consists in the rendering of communal action, their un-Egyptian character in the manner of that rendering. Both knife-handle and palette present a faithful record of the actual course of events: groups of men are engaged in combat or move together towards game. We must suppose that some of the figures stand for leaders or chieftains, but there is nothing by which we can identify them. Each scene shows the melee characteristic of the occasion. But to the Egyptian of historical times such a veristic rendering was totally unacceptable. It hid the true significance of occurrences by merely rendering their outward appearance. However large the masses that moved in battle, built temples or pyramids, went into the deserts to quarry stone or mine gold, they were moved by the will of their divine ruler. Art was adequate to its purpose only if it stressed this fact. It did so by using, throughout two and a half millennia, variants of Narmer’s composition. Note that on the macehead of Scorpion, the classical Egyptian viewpoint is not yet rendered in its purity: men are shown to assist the ruler;[135] and the strangled _rekhyt_-birds swing from the standards of the gods. On some other fragments which antedate Narmer[136] the divine standards are provided with hands to show their active participation in a ruler’s victory. But on the Narmer palette, as on all monuments of historical times, Pharaoh acts alone. The standards of the gods have become adjuncts to his progress (Fig. 28), and men are merely followers; no act of theirs can be significant beside his own.