The Narmer Palette, also known as the Great Hierakonpolis Palette or the Palette of Narmer, is a significant Egyptian archeological find, dating from about the 31st century BC, containing some of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found. It is thought by some to depict the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the king Narmer. On one side, the king is depicted with the bulbed White Crown of Upper (southern) Egypt, and the other side depicts the king wearing the level Red Crown of Lower (northern) Egypt. Along with the Scorpion Macehead and the Narmer Maceheads, also found together in the Main Deposit at Nekhen, the Narmer Palette provides one of the earliest known depictions of an Egyptian king. The Palette shows many of the classic conventions of Ancient Egyptian art, which must already have been formalized by the time of the Palette's creation. The Egyptologist Bob Brier has referred to the Narmer Palette as "the first historical document in the world".

The Palette, which has survived five millennia in almost perfect condition, was discovered by British archeologists James E. Quibell and Frederick W. Green, in what they called the Main Deposit in the Temple of Horus at Nekhen, during the dig season of 1897–1898. Also found at this dig were the Narmer Macehead and the Scorpion Macehead. The exact place and circumstances of these finds were not recorded very clearly by Quibell and Green. In fact, Green's report placed the Palette in a different layer one or two yards away from the deposit, which is considered to be more accurate on the basis of the original excavation notes. It has been suggested that these objects were royal donations made to the temple. Nekhen, or Hierakonpolis, was the ancient capital of Upper Egypt during the pre-dynastic Naqada III phase of Egyptian history.

Narmer was an ancient Egyptian king of the Early Dynastic Period. Probably the successor to the Protodynastic kings Scorpion and/or Ka, some consider him the unifier of Egypt and founder of the First Dynasty, therefore the first king of a unified Egypt.

The identity of Narmer is the subject of ongoing debate, although mainstream Egyptological consensus identifies Narmer with the First Dynasty pharaoh Menes, who is also credited with the unification of Egypt, as the first pharaoh. This conclusion is based on the Narmer Palette which shows Narmer as the unifier of Egypt and the two necropolis seals from the necropolis of Abydos that show him as the first king of the First Dynasty.

The approximate date of Narmer/Menes is mostly estimated as close to the 31st or 32nd century BCE, although recent Egyptological literature comprises estimates of anywhere between the 34th and the 30th centuries BCE.

Reign

The famous Narmer Palette, discovered by James E. Quibell in 1898 in Hierakonpolis, shows Narmer displaying the insignia of both Upper and Lower Egypt, giving rise to the theory that he unified the two kingdoms. Since its discovery, it has been debated whether the Narmer Palette represents a historic event or was purely symbolic. In 1993, however, Günter Dreyer discovered in Abydos a year label of Narmer depicting the same event as that on the Narmer Palette which clearly shows that the Narmer Palette depicts an actual historic event.