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The inscriptions give us the name of King Den and, between him and the enemy, are the chilling words 'they shall not exist'. This 'other' is going to be obliterated. Who he is we don't know but, to the right of the label, is an inscription which reads: 'the first occasion of smiting the east'. And, as the sandy ground beneath the figures rises to the right-hand side, it's been suggested that the enemy comes from the east, from Sinai. All the tricks of savage political propaganda are already here-the ruler calm and victorious, the alien misshapen, defeated enemy.
这铭文告诉了我们这法老的名字是丹，然后在他与他的敌人之间是一句令人心寒的话：“他们不得存在。”这些“他们”终将被消灭。虽然我们不知道这里的“他们”指的是谁，不过这标签的右侧刻的是：“第一次东征”。而且在人物形像脚下的沙质地面向东方延伸，这说明了敌人是来自于东部的，有人在猜，也许是西奈半岛。总之，这里集中体现了所有野蛮的政治宣传伎俩：顺我者昌，逆我者亡。
The area that this Egyptian state was able to coerce and control is staggering; at its height, it included virtually all the Nile Valley from the Delta to what is modern Sudan, as well as a huge area to the east up to the borders of Sinai. We asked archaeologist Toby Wilkinson what state building on this scale required:
当时埃及国王能够进行强权统治的疆土范围之大令人咋舌，在王朝鼎盛时期，几乎囊括整个尼罗河谷，从三角洲到现代苏丹，向东直达西奈半岛的边界。我们请教了考古学家托比?威尔金森，到底建设这么大规模的王朝需要什么呢？
"Well obviously this is an early period in Egypt's history, when the nation is still being consolidated, not so much territorially as ideologically and psychologically. And the king and his advisers are looking for ways to reinforce Egypt's sense of its own nationhood, and support for their regime.
“嗯，显然这是埃及历史上一个早期的阶段，国家仍旧在扩张兼并中，思想上与心理上还没形成一种固定疆土的理念。法老与他的智囊团不断地寻找可以进一步强化埃及自身的国家民族意识及支持他们政权的方法。
And I think they realised, as world leaders have realised throughout history, that nothing binds a nation and a people together quite so effectively as a foreign war against a common enemy, whether that enemy is real or manufactured.
我认为他们已经意识到了，作为世界各国领导人都清楚的一点，纵观历史，对于一个国家或一个民族而言，没有什么比团结一致对抗一个共同敌人具有更大的约束力与凝聚力，这敌人真实也好，假想也罢，都无所谓。
