The Palette of Narmer was a ceremonial version of similar palettes that were used to ground up eye makeup. The top center of the front of the palette is a picture of a fish and a vertical chisel that represents the sounds nar and mer, representing the main subject of the relief sculpture, Narmer. Narmer is shown much larger than the rest of the people represented on the palette to show his importance and power over them, which is also shown by his actions of killing the man in front of him and those already deceased in the bottom section of the palette. The other side of the palette also shows Narmer overtaking the enemies with help from a bull. The whole palette itself represents the unification of lower and upper egypt.
As we moved into the Ancient Egypt section of our studies, I realized it was much different from the art we had been looking at because it was more sculpture than paintings. This particular piece of artwork shows typical egyptian art elements. The artist used iconography, which is the reading of images. It also includes the element of simultaneous narrative because it is not just one complete picture, but of different images of different parts of a story. Lastly, it uses the traditional Egyptian style of the composite pose which was made using a grid, with the figure's shoulders forward and the rest of the figure facing to the side.
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