Home | Category: Themes, Early History, Archaeology
LATE PREDYNASTIC EGYPT
Naqada art
Kozue Takahashi wrote: The Late Predynastic Period, (also called Gerzean period or Naqada II) is known as the most important predynastic culture in Egypt. Although the center of the development was the same as that of Amratian (or Naqada I), Gerzean culture slowly spread throughout Egypt. This period is best characterized by the discovery of the el-Gerza Culture providing a third predynastic phase and a second stage of the Naqada period. Kawm al-Ahmar, Naqada, and Abydos are the large sites developed during Naqada II period. They had large settlement areas with increasing division of wealth and status. [Source: Kozue Takahashi, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com +]
“Social stratification is evident from the burials of this time. The rich were buried in tombs lined with mud brick, while the poor were buried in oblong tombs with one-sided ledges to hold funerary offerings. Tombs of people in the upper class were bigger and richer than those of the middle class. Regional political leaders can be easily identified by their "chieftains's tombs'' at different sites. +\
“Compared with the pharonic civilization, the Gerzean culture reached a stage of development that was already well advanced, especially in its funeral and religious rituals. Gerzean tombs had become virtual replicas of earthly dwellings; sometimes they comprised several profusely furnished rooms. There were amulets, figurines and ceremonial objects decorated with thematic scenes of animals (lions, bulls, cattle, hippopotami and falcons) which are known to have represented various gods from a very early period in Egyptian history. +\
Marcelo P Campagno of the University of Buenos Aires wrote: “In ancient Egypt, the late fourth millennium B.C. corresponds to what is known as the late Predynastic Period (Naqada IIIa-b). It was a crucial time for the constitution of Egypt as a single political entity. In Upper Egypt, earlier tendencies towards social differentiation and functional specialization intensify during this period, mainly in Hierakonpolis and Abydos. From this time on, similar tendencies are also apparent in Lower Egypt, in centers such as Buto, Tell el-Farkha, and Minshat Abu Omar. The process of political unification of Egypt takes place during this period. Authors differ with regard to specific events, but most agree that the process began in upper Egypt and then continued outwards, to ultimately encompass the territory from Elephantine to the Nile Delta. The earliest known examples of writing (Abydos Tomb U-j) date back to this period, as well as the earliest serekhs, both anonymous and with kings’ names. These names are usually grouped under the label “Dynasty 0,” a term that only indicates the existence of kings in the Nile Valley before the advent of Dynasty 1. [Source: Marcelo P Campagno, University of Buenos Aires, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 2013 escholarship.org ]
See Separate Articles: NEOLITHIC EGYPT: TOOLS, BURIALS, SITES africame.factsanddetails.com; EARLY PRE-DYNASTIC EGYPT (4500-4000 B.C.) africame.factsanddetails.com
Defining Late Predynastic Egypt
Marcelo P Campagno of the University of Buenos Aires wrote: “The last part of the fourth millennium B.C. in the Nile Valley is generally known as the late Predynastic Period, that is, the time immediately prior to Dynasty 1. The epoch has received a variety of names, due to diverse periodization criteria. W. Flinders Petrie (1901a, 1920) originally proposed, in the framework of his system of sequence dates, the name Semainean for the last Predynastic epoch (SD 60 - 75). Later, the existence of a clear difference between the Semainean and the preceding Gerzean Period was brought into question, and both periods were subsumed under the name of the latter (Kantor 1944). Werner Kaiser (1957) proposed a new chronology based on evidence found in Upper Egypt (Naqadan culture), which he classified into three main phases (Stufen). [Source: Marcelo P Campagno, University of Buenos Aires, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 2013 escholarship.org ]
“According to this chronology, refined later by Stan Hendrickx (1996, 1999, 2006), the late fourth millennium B.C. generically corresponds to Naqada IIIa-b. In Lower Egypt, the beginning of Naqada III coincides with the latest (“transitional”) phase of the so-called Buto-Maadi culture, whose later incorporation into Naqadan culture (see below) means that, beginning with Naqada IIIb, the chronology of Upper and Lower Egypt is unified under Naqada’s name. Beyond these specifically chronological criteria, in recent times the period is also referred to as Protodynastic (Adams and Ciałowicz 1997), since the earliest royal names are registered during this time. This meaning of the term Protodynastic ought not to be confused with a previous use (Trigger 1983), referring to the Thinite Dynasties 1 and 2 (nowadays called the Early Dynastic Period, see Wilkinson 1999). As for the early royal names, they used to be grouped under the label “Dynasty 0,” a rather equivocal name, as it does not refer to a sequence of kings of the same lineage, but merely to the set of known late Predynastic kings, whose names are not unanimously accepted by researchers.
“Regarding the absolute chronology of the period, there are some discrepancies among specialists, mainly due to the limited number of radiocarbon dates and to the difficulties of correlating this kind of data with the “historical” chronologies of later periods (Hendrickx 2006: 90 - 92). Several authors have accepted approximate dates between 3200 and 3050 B.C. for Naqada IIIa-b (Bard 2000; Midant-Reynes 2003; Wilkinson 2000). However, more recent works (Hassan et al. 2006; Hendrickx 2006) suggest earlier dates for the beginning of the period (around 3350 B.C.), differing with regards to when it ends (3060 and 3150 B.C., respectively), and thus implying greater disagreement about the total duration of the period.”
Trade and Cultural Exchanges in Late Predynastic Egypt
Kozue Takahashi wrote: “By Naqada II (also called Nakada II or Naqadah II) Period, bigger and more practical river ships were made, and the trade along the Nile River was flourishing. Egyptian boats changed from crafts made of reed bundles to ships made of wood planks. There is evidence of intense trade with the Near East. Ma'adi was a center of trade with the Near East and there were a wide range of settlement that presumably played a role of intermediary to transport goods to the south. [Source: Kozue Takahashi, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com +]
“Imports of lapis lazuli tell us that their trading went as far as Badakhshan in Afghanistan. Lapis lazulis was traded across land and by ocean via the Persian Gulf to Sumer. Evidence of a brief period of either direct or indirect contact with cultures in Mesopotamia during the late Gerzean time was found. Some of the influence from Southwestern Asia can be seen from pottery paralleled in Mesopotamia and Palestine, seal stones with Mesopotamian motifs-interlacing ophidians, master of animals, griffin with wings, and the complex niched-facade mud brick architecture paralleled in Sumer where it was used for the decoration of the temples of the gods. +\ “The major difference between the Amatian and the Gerzean lay in their ceramic production. The decoration of Gerzean pottery was more developed with the use of stylized motifs including geometrical representations of flora and more naturalistic depictions of fauna and other aspects of their culture. Gerzean culture was introduced into Egypt by the "Eastern Desert Folk,'' who invaded and governed Egypt while the Amratian white-lined pottery was brought by "Libyan invasions.'' Gerzean culture is characterized by a buff-coloured pottery with pictorial decorations in dark red paint, use of an abrasive tubular drill for stonecutting, pear-shaped mace-heads and ripple-flacked flint knives and an advanced metallurgy.” +\
Development in the Late Predynastic Egypt (3,500-3,300 B.C.)
Gerzean (Naqada II) ostrich egg
Kozue Takahashi wrote: “During the Gerzean period, pottery was mass-produced and was of very good quality. Unusual animal motifs drawn on the Gerzean pottery, such as ostriches and ibexes tell us that Gerzean people went to hunt in the sub-desert since those animals could not be found near the Nile River. The donkey was the only locally domesticated animal that was portrayed as tame in the late Predynastic art. [Source: Kozue Takahashi, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com +]
“Gazelle herding and the domestication of sheep and dogs are found in the Gerzean along with cattle and pigs. The dwarf goat was found at the Gerzean site of Tukh and Esh-Shaheinab. The ancient indigenous way of hunting, fishing and utilizing wild plants supported the subsistence economy of Egypt until late Predynastic Period. However, population increase affected the distribution of plants and animals in the desert. In the late predynastic period, elephants, giraffes and ostriches seem to have vanished from the desert and floodplain. +\
“Writing was most likely not brought into Egypt, but may have began during this period with representations on the Naqada pottery. This pottery apparently charts gradual stylization of the plants, animals and religious dances depicted, eventually resulting in a set of divine symbols that are virtually hieroglyphic signs. These Naqada pictures reflect a fundamental principle throughout Egyptian history: the combination of pictograms and phonograms. +\
Marcelo P Campagno of the University of Buenos Aires wrote: “From a socioeconomic point of view, the increasing concentration of a great number of exotic and highly elaborate goods in few burials in Upper Egyptian cemeteries points to the presence of elites engaged in long- distance trade with control over craft production. At some sites, there are clear indications of a remarkable vertical (hierarchical) and horizontal (functional) differentiation. Among the main centers at the end of Naqada II (Abydos, Naqada, Hierakonpolis), evidence of social differentiation only diminishes in Naqada, where the use of the elite Cemetery T declines (Bard 1994). On the contrary, this evidence is strong in Hierakonpolis, where the elite Cemetery HK6 is reused and a massive building (HK29A) for ceremonial purposes remains in use (Friedman 2008, 2009; Hikade 2011). Evidence of hierarchical organization is even stronger in Abydos, where the pre- existing elite Cemetery U continues to be used; in particular, the Tomb U-j—9.10 x 7.30 m, with twelve brick-lined chambers, hundreds of imported vessels, an ivory heka scepter, and the earliest known examples of writing—clearly suggests the existence of a state-like elite, capable of obtaining vast quantities of prestige goods and of controlling craftsmen and scribes (Dreyer 1998; Hartung 2001; on the origin, problems, and early implications of Egyptian writing, see Baines 2006; Cervelló Autuori 2005; Kahl 1994; Vernus 1993).” [Source: Marcelo P Campagno, University of Buenos Aires, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 2013 escholarship.org ]
Merging of Upper and Lower Egypt in the Late Predynastic Period
Marcelo P Campagno of the University of Buenos Aires wrote: “Beyond Upper Egypt, there were different situations. To the south, two early Naqada III sites in Lower Nubia showed marked social differentiation, judging from mortuary evidence: Sayala (Cemetery 137) and Qustul (Cemetery L) (Firth 1927; Williams 1986). To the north, sites in Middle Egypt such as Mostagedda and Matmar—similar to other sites in Upper Egypt, such as Armant and Adaima—provide evidence indicating the existence of village organizations, with moderate social differentiation (Castillos 1998; Crubézy et al. 2002; Wilkinson 1996). Further to the north, the situation in the Memphite area and the Delta seems to have been characterized by pronounced social differentiation, as suggested by the large size of some tombs and the quantitative and qualitative expansion of prestige goods (see Chłodnicki and Ciałowicz 2007; Ellis 1996; Köhler 2004; Kroeper 2004; Tassie and van Wetering 2003), as well as by large buildings that point to both the existence of elite residences and different forms of labor specialization (Buto, Tell Ibrahim Awad, Tell el-Farkha; see Ciałowicz 2004; Eigner 2000; Tristant 2005; von der Way 1997). [Source: Marcelo P Campagno, University of Buenos Aires, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 2013 escholarship.org ]
“Late Predynastic material culture in both Upper and Lower Egypt shows more homogeneity than in previous periods. Such homogeneity seems to reflect the influence of the south on the north, since many of the findings in Lower Egypt (pottery types, shapes and contents of tombs, mud-brick architecture, serekhs) have precedents in Upper Egypt. However, specialists do not agree on the scope and implications of this process. Kaiser’s already mentioned theory of an expansion of Naqadan culture that took place before political unification—what Th. von der Way (1992: 4) has called “cultural assimilation by superimposition”—is the most generally accepted criterion for interpreting the changes in Lower Egypt’s archaeological record. More recently, Christiana Köhler (1995, 2008) has questioned the assumption of a marked cultural contrast between Upper and Lower Egypt before Naqada III, a contrast she explains as a difference in the levels of craft specialization (household production in the north as opposed to a workshop industry in the south, stimulated by the ecological advantages of the region as well as the demands of emerging elites).
“On this basis, the influence of the south on the Delta might be viewed as the result of changing consumption patterns of northern elites rather than evidence of the total replacement of one culture by another. The same change may have taken place in Lower Nubia, where the A-Group elite burials at sites such as Qustul and Sayala contain imported goods and objects with iconographic influences coming from Upper Egypt. Thus, the “cultural expansion” during late Naqada II and early Naqada III might be largely due to local elites in neighboring regions emulating the practices and symbols of prestige of the powerful Upper Egyptian elites.”
Naqada ivory objects
Religion Pre-Dynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt
Lee Huddleston wrote in Ancient Near East Page: “Pre-Pharoanic Egypt consisted of many [42?] small states centered around a community religious compound. All of them possessed many divinities in common but differed in their perceptions of the relative power of the individual divinities. Upper Egypt [to the south of the Delta of the Nile] had stronger kings and were more zenophobic than their contemporary rulers in Lower Egypt [the Delta]. All considered themselves divine. Communities in the Delta allowed resident foreigners and had considerable commerce with non-Egyptian peoples. [Source: Lee Huddleston, Ancient Near East Page, January, 2001, Internet Archive, from UNT \=/]
“The kings took servants with them when they died; i. e., subjects were ritually buried in the king's burial precinct-a practice called Sati. Other Egyptians [and foreigners in the Delta] had separate cemeteries. In Upper Egypt royal cemeteries were much grander in relation to those of other Egyptians than in the Delta. Around 3200-3000 BCE Egypt was unified by a king from Thebes in the south. His traditional name was Menes and he may have been one of the two men depicted on the Narmer Pallette, Narmer and his presumed father identified as Scorpion. \=/
In unified Egypt, with a capital and religious center in Memphis, “Theocracy, or rule by God or by terms dictated by God, describes Egyptian government. Each of the Forty-two nomes [provinces] of Egypt were the property of a Divinity and all of Egypt belonged to the Divine Pharoah. Gods were territorial and people in the land of a particular God must give him/her priority deference. Since Memphis was owned by the God Ptah, Ptah was recognized as the national deity.” \=/
Political Development in the Late Predynastic Period
In the late predynastic period, there is evidence of increased political activity and a struggle for predominance between Upper and Lower Egypt. Kozue Takahashi wrote: “In both regions, the basic unit of government was the local community clustered around a town or group of villages and was under the greater control of a local variant of one of the universal gods, and looking for leadership to some powerful headman.” [Source: Kozue Takahashi, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com +]
Marcelo P Campagno of the University of Buenos Aires wrote: The decline of the Naqada site around 3200 B.C. suggests that this center could have fallen to one of its neighbors and rivals, either Hierakonpolis to the south or Abydos to the north. Rock carvings recently discovered at Gebel Tjauti—in an overland path that may have connected Hierakonpolis to Abydos, allowing them to avoid passing through Naqada—with scenes including early kingship symbols (falcons, individuals holding scepters and maces) and depictions of violence (capture of prisoners) support this possibility. In particular, the depiction of a scorpion similar to those represented repeatedly on Tomb U-j’s vessels— considered by some authors to be the name of the tomb owner—may also provide a link to Abydos. [Source: Marcelo P Campagno, University of Buenos Aires, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 2013 escholarship.org ]
“Expansion to the north seems to have resulted in increased political integration. Before this process, there appears to have been a variety of political scenarios in the regions to the north of Upper Egypt. In Middle Egypt, as pointed out above, some social differentiation occurred; however, there are no specific traces of political- administrative leadership. On the other hand, in the Memphite region and the Delta, the situation may have been much more heterogeneous. Aside from the aforementioned indications of socioeconomic differentiation, some sites in these regions show evidence of what were probably recording systems (seals and other small devices in Tell el-Farkha, potmarks in vessels from many northern sites), and serekhs with features and names only known in the north.
“The pace and specific dynamics of the political unification process are difficult to determine. Although the expansion to the north may have begun in early Naqada IIIa, the process seems to have reached completion only in late Naqada IIIb, in the transition between “Dynasty 0” and Dynasty 1, since it is only with Ka and Narmer that objects related to a single king have been consistently found at sites ranging from Upper Egypt to the southern Levant. Regarding the nature of the expansion, traditional Egyptology, relying on a historicist reading of a set of ceremonial objects decorated with scenes of combats, walled settlements, and prisoner executions (among them, the Gebel el-Arak knife-handle; Battlefield, Cities, Bulls, and Narmer palettes; Scorpion and Narmer maceheads), assumed that expansion was mainly achieved by systematic military conquest. This approach has been questioned, both because of the nature of the message expressed in these documents— symbolic rather than “realistic”—and because of the lack of unequivocal archaeological evidence indicating such conquest. In any case, iconography of the period suggests that the expansion was carried out in a context that was at the very least discursively violent; this kind of symbolic violence is totally compatible with the prerogatives of an elite capable of exercising coercion on the territories that were being included under its rule.
“The direction of the expansion, as well as the iconographic motifs related to its violence, both provide clues about the reasons behind this process. The expansion followed the routes to the principal regions from which prestige goods consumed by Upper Egyptian elites arrived (e.g., ivory, ebony, incense, or animal skins coming from the south and intermediated by Lower Nubia; wine, oils, timber, copper, precious stones, and even Mesopotamian artifacts coming from the north through the Delta and the Levant). Thus, the expansion may have suppressed the competition of potential rivals, avoiding intermediaries and securing the obtaining in situ of the exotic products desired in Egypt. Regarding the depictions of scenes of violence, they make known one of the core attributes of the Egyptian king, a figure who imposes cosmic order against the threat of chaos. Throughout Egyptian history, the king would have been seen as the divine guarantor of order imposed through violence, as the ritual massacre of the enemy, depicted both before (Hierakonpolis Tomb 100) and after (palette of Narmer) the late Predynastic Period, symbolizes. In this respect, the expansion may have been seen by the Egyptians as the royal task par excellence, a cosmic matter rather than a strictly political one.”
Predynastic Egypt Developed Later and Quicker Than Previously Thought?
In 2013, British scientists announced that Ancient Egypt developed — marked by the region’s transformation from a land of isolated farmers into a state ruled over by a king — was later more rapid than previously thought: between 3700 and 3100 B.C. rather than 4000 and 3100 B.C.. Nick Renaud-Komiya wrote in The Independent, “Through a combination of radiocarbon dating and computer models, the scientists estimate that the civilisation’s first ruler, King Aha, came to power in about 3100 B.C.. Previous research had suggested that the area’s transformation began 300 years before the date established by the recent analysis. The team’s research is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A. [Source: Nick Renaud-Komiya. The Independent, September 4, 2013 +++]
“Previously Egypt’s origins had been dated using estimates based on gradually differing styles of ceramics discovered in human burial sites due to a lack of written records. Lead researcher Dr Michael Dee, from the Research Laboratory for Archaeology at the University of Oxford, said, “The formation of Egypt was unique in the ancient world. It was a territorial state; a state from which the moment it formed had established borders over a territory in much the same way we think of nations today.” ”Trying to understand what happened in human history to lead people to establish this sort of polity we felt was a gap in understanding that needed to be filled,“ he added. +++
“The scientists used radiocarbon dating on excavated artefacts, including hair, bones and plants, with established archaeological evidence and computer models to help uncover when the civilization first came into existence. Previous records suggested the pre-Dynastic period, when groups of people began to settle along the Nile to farm the land, began in 4000 B.C. But the new analysis revealed this process started later, between 3700 or 3600 B.C. The team found that just a few hundred years later, by about 3100 B.C. society had transformed to one under the rule of a king. +++
Speaking to the BBC Dr Dee said, ”The time period is shorter than was previously thought, about 300 or 400 years shorter. Egypt was a state that emerged quickly-over that time one has immense social change. This is interesting when one compares it with other places. In Mesopotamia, for example, you have agriculture for several thousand years before you have anything like a state.” Commenting on the research, Professor Joann Fletcher from the department of archaeology at the University of York, said, “This is highly significant work, which pulls the beginnings of Egypt's dynastic history into much sharper focus-it is tremendously valuable to have such a precise timeline for Egypt's first rulers.” +++
Study of Predynastic Egypt
Beatrix Midant-Reynes of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale wrote: “In 1892, when W. M. F. Petrie uncovered the vast cemetery of Naqada, in Upper Egypt, he signed the virtual “birth certificate” of Egyptian prehistory. Although Petrie’s first interpretation was that the material found at Naqada dated to the end of the Old Kingdom, he nevertheless inaugurated the systematic study of Predynastic Egypt by the application of his innovative sequence-dating system (Petrie 1901; and see Hendrickx 1996). [Source: Beatrix Midant-Reynes, Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 2014, escholarship.org ]
“Some archaeologists before him had drawn attention to the stone artifacts present in many parts of the Nile Valley and in the Egyptian deserts (Tristant 2007), but the existence of a “history before history” was not convincing and remained to be proved. Since Petrie’s time, the evolution of the research has progressed more or less steadily, benefiting in the second half of the twentieth century from the rise of cultural anthropology, which sparked a renewed interest in cultural origins. Concomitant technological progress made possible not only absolute datations (C14) and large surveys in the deserts, but allowed the development of the paleoenvironmental sciences. The chronological framework is now solid, although adjustments remain discussed (Köhler, ed. 2011), and numerous new data— particularly from the deserts and Delta—allow us to construct a clearer image of the previously “dark millenniums.”“
Marcelo P Campagno of the University of Buenos Aires wrote: “Before the pioneering excavations in Upper Egypt in the late nineteenth century, the Predynastic history of the Nile Valley— including, certainly, its final phase—was completely unknown. Speculations about the time prior to the mythical king Menes were based on the supposition that two ancient kingdoms existed, one in the Delta and the other in the Valley, whose kings would have worn, respectively, the red crown and the white crown—typical of later Pharaonic kingship. Though these speculations continued to draw the attention of many Egyptologists well into the twentieth century (especially in conjunction with a reading of the conflicts between Horus and Seth as remote historical events, see Gwyn Griffiths 1960; Sethe 1930), a new picture began to emerge following the archaeological work carried out principally in Naqada, Abydos, and Hierakonpolis. These excavations would greatly enhance the knowledge of the first dynasties, and also the understanding of the preceding periods. In particular, regarding the late Predynastic Period, some of the royal tombs found in Cemetery B at Abydos (Petrie 1901b, 1902), as well as a decorated macehead found at the Hierakonpolis Main Deposit (Quibell 1900), suggested the existence of kings before Dynasty 1 (Irihor, Ka, Scorpion), quickly grouped under the new label “Dynasty 0” (e.g., Petrie 1912: 1 - 9). [Source: Marcelo P Campagno, University of Buenos Aires, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 2013 escholarship.org ]
“The significance of the findings at these sites, in combination with racial and diffusionist theories popular at the time, led Petrie to propose that during the late Predynastic Period, a “dynastic race” could have invaded Upper Egypt, bringing to the Nile Valley all the attributes of civilization (Petrie 1912: 3 - 4, 1920: 49 - 50). In subsequent years, the excavation of sites in the Memphite region—particularly Tura and Tarkhan—with evidence comparable to that found in the south, allowed the researcher to assume that this “dynastic race,” after settling in Upper Egypt, initiated a progressive conquest of the regions to the north, a task that would be finished by the time of Menes (Petrie 1912: 2; Petrie et al. 1913: 1).
“The theory of two Predynastic kingdoms in Upper and Lower Egypt, and that of a single dynastic race, would for decades continue to be the primary explanatory models for the last Predynastic centuries. From the end of the 1950s, Kaiser (1964, 1986, 1990) proposed a reassessment of the archaeological record, according to which the diffusion of Upper Egyptian cultural characteristics in the north would appear to involve a double process of unification: first, a cultural integration between the Delta and the Valley on Naqadan cultural parameters, which assumed some type of migration from south to north; and second, a process of political unification, which would have ended eight to ten generations before king Narmer. Though some aspects of Kaiser’s theory were later questioned, especially his proposal of such an early date for political unification, his model was one of the main factors leading to the reconsideration of late Predynastic history.
“Another significant factor was no doubt the extraordinary expansion of the period’s archaeological record in recent decades. In the 1960s, rescue campaigns in Sudan promoted knowledge of Lower Nubia at the end of the fourth millennium B.C., especially the site of Qustul (Seele 1974), comparable to contemporary Upper Egyptian centers. In the early 1970s, excavations in Hierakonpolis were relaunched and have continued uninterrupted since then (Adams 1995; Fairservis et al. 1972; Friedman 2005; Hoffman 1982), providing valuable information on Naqada III regarding both mortuary practices and the complex organization of the urban settlement. Excavations in the Umm el-Qaab necropolis at Abydos (Dreyer 1992, 1998; Dreyer et al. 1993; Kaiser and Dreyer 1982), also uninterrupted since their beginning in the late 1970s, have included the re-excavation of the elite Cemetery U (contiguous to Cemetery B and the Royal Cemetery of Dynasties 1 and 2). In particular, the rediscovery of Tomb U-j (see below) has been decisive for the present- day understanding of the late Predynastic Period.
“Recent archaeological work has also been of great importance in northern Egypt. Excavations at a large number of sites—Buto, Mendes, Tell el-Farkha, Tell Ibrahim Awad, Minshat Abu Omar, Kafr Hassan Dawood, Helwan, among the most relevant (see Hendrickx et al. 2004; van den Brink 1992)— have given qualitatively different information from that available only a few decades ago, particularly in relation to the remarkable and previously unknown social dynamism of this region during late Predynastic times. In addition, excavations carried out in recent decades in the southern Levant (for example, Tel Sakan, En Besor, Tel Halif, Tel Malhata, Tel Arad, Tel Ma’ahaz, Tel Erani, Tel Lod; see van den Brink 1992; van den Brink and Levy 2002), have contributed to this understanding, revealing evidence of Egyptian presence in that area prior to Dynasty 1.
“The expansion of the archaeological record in the last decades has been accompanied by an increasing use of interpretive models, mainly derived from anthropology, reflecting some of the general trends in vogue in current archaeological studies. Thus, the history of the period has been considered in the light of various theories about the state origins (Hoffman 1979; Wenke 2009), cross-cultural comparative approaches (Maisels 1999; Trigger 2003), or analytical perspectives arising from post-structuralist studies (Wengrow 2006), all of which show a great theoretical diversity that has helped weaken the traditional “isolation” of Egyptology regarding other areas of social sciences.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, escholarship.org ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Egypt sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Tour Egypt, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com; Mark Millmore, discoveringegypt.com discoveringegypt.com; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
Last updated July 2024