Ethnicity in Ancient Egypt: an Introduction to Key Issues

Journal of Egyptian History 11 (2018) 1–17

brill.com/jeh

Ethnicity in Ancient Egypt: An Introduction to Key Issues

Juan Carlos Moreno García CNRS—France [email protected]

Abstract

The study of ethnicity in the ancient world has known a complete renewal in recent times, at several levels, from the themes studied to the perspectives of analysis and the models elaborated by archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists and historians. Far from traditional approaches more interested in detecting and characterizing particular ethnic groups (“Libyans,” “Medjay”) and social organizations (“tribe,” “clan”, etc.), in identifying them in the archaeological record through specific markers (pottery, ornaments, weapons, etc.) and, subsequently, in studying their patterns of interaction with other social groups (domination, acculturation, assimilation, resistance, centre periphery), recent research follows different paths. To sum up, a deeper understanding of ethnicity in ancient Egypt cannot but benefit from a close dialogue with other disciplines and is to enrich current debates in archaeology, anthropology, and ancient history.

Keywords ethnicity – identity – community – migration – mixity – ethnogenesis

The study of ethnicity in the ancient world has undergone a complete renewal in recent times, at several levels, from the themes studied to the perspectives of analysis and the models elaborated by archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists, and historians. Far from traditional approaches more interested in detecting and characterizing particular ethnic groups (“Libyans,” “Medjay”) and social organizations (“tribe,” “clan,” etc.), in identifying them in the archaeological record through specific markers (pottery, ornaments, weapons, etc.) and,

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/18741665-12340040Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 03:26:02PM via free access 2 Moreno García subsequently, in studying their patterns of interaction with other social groups (domination, acculturation, assimilation, resistance, centre-periphery), recent research follows different paths. The influence of post-colonial theory, as well as the renewal of social history, gender studies, and cultural studies, explains why the focus is put instead on the construction of (changing) identities, in entanglement, in hybridity, in mutual influence, and in the capacity of people and individuals to shape and modify their identities through intentional choices depending on the context, the public, and the expected impact.1 This means that single individuals may display very different cultural markers in different situations, depending not solely on power relations and hierarchy, but also on fashion or on strategic choices in order to join coveted social networks, to obtain status and respectability or to assert autonomy. In this perspective, a concept such as “ethnic group” becomes much more fluid and less easy to identify. Thus, human groups cannot be simply reduced to a kind of folkloric repository of distinctive values and cultural attributes. They appear instead as active players in which an ethnic label (“Egyptian,” “Nubian”) encompasses in fact different sub-groups and sub-cultures (based on wealth, gender, age, social position, beliefs, accessibility to symbolic items, etc.), each one follow- ing specific interests and strategies depending on the circumstances. In both cases, agency appears as a central concept, far from the crude social deter- minism prevalent in so many studies of the last two centuries. Egyptology is not alien to this move, as can be discerned in many recent publications about cultural identities, definition of ethnic groups both by ancient Egyptians and Egyptologists, and the interaction of Egyptians and non-Egyptians at particular “multicultural” sites (mostly Nubian fortresses and cities in the Middle and New Kingdom, towns such as Elephantine and Tell el-Dabʿa, cult centres such as Serabit el-Khadim, etc.).2 Similar perspectives help also in understanding how identities were forged and changed in Egyptian society.3

1 Jones, The Archaeology of Ethnicity; Kohl, “Nationalism and archaeology”; Hu, “Approaches to the archaeology of ethnogenesis”; Díaz-Andreu, The Archaeology of Identity; Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties; Wendrich and van der Kooij, Moving Matters; Halles and Hodos, Material Culture and Social Identities; McInerney, A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean; Curta, “Ethnic identity and archaeology.” 2 General introductions: Riggs and Baines, “Ethnicity”; Smith “Ethnicity and culture”; Schnei- der, “Foreigners in Egypt”; Wendrich, “Identity and personhood”; Spencer, Stevens, and Binder, “Introduction: History and historiography.” Cf. also Schneider, Ausländer in Ägypten; Smith, Wretched Kush; Van Pelt, “Revising Egypto-Nubian relations”; Bader, “Cultural mixing in Egyptian archaeology.” Prejudices linked to the study of some foreign peoples: Moreno García, “Ḥwt iḥ(w)t,” 70 n. 3. 3 Meskell, Archaeologies of Social Life and Object Worlds in Ancient Egypt; Stevens, Private Reli- gion at Amarna; Bussmann, “Egyptian archaeology and social anthropology” and “Great and

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On this basis, the study of ethnicity in ancient Egypt addresses several major issues. Considering the rich pharaonic imagery about foreign peoples (one can think about the Nine Bows), a crucial element of analysis is how Egyptians imagined and characterized the Other, and how the resulting picture was inspired by information derived from ethnographic and historical observation but put nevertheless at the service of the construction of stereotypical images (as it emerges, for instance, from the Amarna Letters and from the iconography of the expedition of Queen Hatshepsut to Punt).4 This leads to a second issue, construction of identities. Forging depictions (both literary and iconographic) of the Other implies not only defining foreignness but also what Egyptianness meant, from lifestyles, ritual purity, and banqueting to dressing, customs and the very definition of “civilized,” as many texts reveal. So particular lifestyles carried with them cultural particularities that Egyptians tended to identify with “foreignness,” such as Egyptian herders depicted nevertheless as crip‑ pled, with exotic hairstyles and wearing cloaks. This also means that, in a context of pharaonic imperial expansion (as it happened in Nubia and in the Levant during the Late Bronze Age), the influence of the cultural values and styles of the dominant culture produced new forms of self-identity on subject peoples, ranging from Egyptianization to affirmation of “ethnic” labels (one can think of people defining themselves as Aamu “Asiatics” in their otherwise typically Egyptian monuments), from preservation of traditional culture to the selective adaptation of elements taken from the Egyptian society, depending on the circumstances.5 Thus a cow leather and a skull found beside the coffin in the otherwise typically Egyptian tomb of Ini, a provincial “great chief” of Gebelein in the First Intermediate Period, are remainders of a Nubian funerary custom and of the possible Nubian origin of Ini himself.6 The outcome was a continuous exchange between cultures and the introduction of foreign customs (fashion, “international styles,” court manners, commensality practices, religious beliefs, etc.) not always perceptible in formal art and in scribal culture, with their emphasis on formal behaviour and traditional practices, but visible nevertheless in domestic archaeology.

little traditions in Egyptology.” Cf. also the excellent example provided by Miniaci, “The collapse of faience figurine production.” 4 Loprieno, Topos und Mimesis; Baines, “Contextualizing Egyptian representations of society and ethnicity”; Liverani, International Relations in the Ancient Near East; Bader, “Zwischen Text, Bild und Archaologie.” Another example: Matić and Franković, “Out of date, out of fashion.” 5 Smith, “Hekanefer and the Lower Nubian princes.” 6 Donadoni Roveri, “Gebelein.”

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A third issue concerns modern prejudices about the identification of peoples and ethnic groups (particularly non-literate ones) from the archaeological record. Older interpretations based on diffusionism and on the ascription of specific sets of artefacts (pottery, ornaments, etc.) to particular peoples and cultures have given way to the elaboration of more sophisticated perspectives. Of course, this does not mean that cultural particularities are useless to help identifying people from one culture living in a foreign environment.7 For instance, the presence and absence of toggle pins in some areas of Tell el-Dabʿa point to dressing styles common among some people living there (Levantine) but hardly used at all by their Egyptian neighbours.8 However, the discovery of Nubian pottery and points of arrows at different archaeological contexts in Tell el-Dabʿa has been considered as solid proof of the existence of Nubian mercenaries, despite other alternative interpretations (merchants, etc.), as if Nubians living in Egypt could only be military specialists, herders, or enslaved people.9 Similar conflictual interpretations emerge in other contexts. When archaeology reveals the presence of houses with an Egyptian plan in the Levant, it is difficult to decide if they were inhabited by local elites imitating the architecture of the dominant power or if, on the contrary, they were the residences of Egyptians living abroad that kept with them the building traditions of their homeland.10 This is the basis of a fourth issue, non-colonial interaction and the possibility that ethnic communities not only crossed and settled in Egypt, but that they also lived in distinctive settlements and preserved their own culture. The case of the Pan-Grave cemeteries found in most of Egypt is well known,11 not to mention the Jewish community living in Elephantine or the temples from the 3rd millennium BCE with a Levantine, not Egyptian, plan discovered in the eastern Delta.12 However, occasional textual references also point to the existence inside Egypt of settlements that seem not to be Egyptian and that were inhabited by foreign populations. Thus the Middle Kingdom papyri from Ilahun record Asiatics coming from wnt settlements close to Ilahun, whereas these kind of sites are usually associated with Bedouin and Asiatic populations living east of Egypt.13 Another Semitic term (sgr) designated an enclosure or

7 Sparks, “Strangers in a strange land.” 8 Bietak, “The Egyptian community in Avaris.” 9 Compare Matić, “ ‘Nubian’ archers in Avaris,” with Aston and Bietak, “Nubians in the Nile Delta.” 10 Holladay, “Toward a new paradigmatic understanding of long-distance trade.” 11 Näser, “Structures and realities of Egyptian-Nubian interactions.” 12 Bietak, “Two ancient Near Eastern temples.” 13 Luft, Urkunden zur Chronologie der späten 12. Dynastie, 45; Bietak, “From where came the Hyksos,” 147. Cf. also the Middle Bronze Age enclosures known as “Hyksos camp” at Tell el-Yahudiya, in Wadi Tumilat: Petrie, Hyksos and Israelite Cities, pl. ii–iv.

Journal of EgyptianDownloaded History from Brill.com09/28/202111 (2018) 1–17 03:26:02PM via free access Ethnicity in Ancient Egypt 5 a kind of fortification in the area of Wadi Tumilat (as in papyrus Anastasi V 19, 7).14 But the Wilbour papyrus mentions seven sgr in the area of Fayum and northern Middle Egypt (one of them was situated near Heracleopolis).15 Having in mind that both wnt and sgr designated enclosure-type settlements, it might be possible that foreign populations living in Egypt preferred to keep their own distinctive types of settlement when they established themselves (or were forced to settle) in this area. In any case, Middle Egypt also witnessed the emergence of the term wḥy.t in the very late 3rd millennium BCE, a term that means “tribe,” but also a particular type of site (perhaps a kind of clanic village) before it became synonymous with “village” around the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE.16 Papyrus Harris I and the Wilbour papyrus also refer to Sherden towns and to allotments of land to Sherden people in the Fayum, while papyrus Amiens mentions estates established for the Sherden in the tenth nome of Upper Egypt. Later on, a 1st millennium BCE dedicatory stela from Tell Minia el-Shorafa, near Heracleopolis, refers to “fields of the Sherden,”17 while another two early 1st millennium dedicatory stelae discovered at the temple of Herishef at Heracleopolis belonged to a general and to a Sherden soldier and both mention, respectively, “the great fortress (nḫt.w ꜤꜢ) of the Sherden” and “the great fortress” (nḫt.w ꜤꜢ).18 Sherden were not unique in this respect. Inscriptions from the times of Merenptah and Ramesses III mention Libyan “invasions” but they also refer to Libyans settled and living within Egyptian borders, in some cases in towns. Early Middle Kingdom iconography from Beni Hassan also depicts Libyan caravans arriving into this area of the Nile Valley, a fact concomitant with the new importance of itinerant cattle raised there (and the introduction of the term mnmn.t “cattle on the move”) and with the first appearance of wḥy.t-villages in Middle Egypt.19 To this evidence one could also mention Nubians settled in some localities of southernmost Egypt (Elephantine, Gebelein, etc.), where they formed distinctive communities.20 So, a fifth issue relates to migration, the movement of populations, and the redefinition of borders as ethnic dividers.21 According to pharaonic ideology, one of the main duties of pharaohs was to repel foreigners outside the Nile

14 Bietak, “On the historicity of the Exodus,” 21; Hoch, Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts, 270–71 n° 385; Morris, The Architecture of Imperialism, 422, 823. 15 Gardiner, Wilbour Papyrus II, 35. 16 Moreno García, “Ḥwt iḥ(w)t,” 82–83. 17 Ritner, The Libyan Anarchy, 346; Emanuel, “ ‘Šrdn from the sea’.” 18 Petrie, Ehnasya, 22, pl. xxvii [1–2]. 19 Moreno García, “Invaders or just herders?” and “Trade and power in ancient Egypt.” 20 Raue, “Who was who in Elephantine” and “Nubian pottery on Elephantine Island”; Ejsmond, “The Nubian mercenaries of Gebelein.” 21 Bader, “Migration in archaeology”; Moreno García, “Ḥwt iḥ(w)t.”

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Valley. Literary texts, monumental epigraphy, even names of border fortresses (“Repressing-the-Medjay,” “Destroying the Nubians,” “Curbing-the-Foreign- Countries,” “Repelling-the-Iuntiu”), stress this aspect and their powerful imagery has greatly contributed to underestimate the presence of foreigners on Egyptian soil. In this perspective, when Egyptian sources mentioned Nubians or Asiatics living in Egypt, it was common to interpret them either as prisoners of war, mercenaries, or starving beggars arriving in search of food. Whether military campaigns were certainly a source of manpower (prisoners, people sent as tribute, deportees, hostages), and pastoral populations frequented Egypt, it is also evident that traders and specialists (craftsmen, sailors, warriors, etc.) also penetrated into the Nile Valley, settled there, and adopted Egyptian customs. It is not rare that in their monuments they refer to themselves as “Asiatic” (ꜤꜢmw),22 “Nubian” (Nḥs.y),23 “Sherden” (Šrdn),24 etc. The nature of these “waves” of foreign settlers might provide important clues about the social, geo- political, and economic conditions underlying the movement of populations on a broader scale. For example, the expansion of pastoral populations across the Near East during the very late Early Bronze Age and the Middle Bronze Age was concomitant with the development of international trade networks and the introduction of new metallurgical techniques. Not by chance, it was then that “warrior burials,” typical of the Levant, appeared also in Egypt (as it happened at Kom el-Hisn).25 In other cases, movements such as the Sea Peoples in the Late Bronze Age seem connected to changes in the organization of maritime trade and routes and to shifts in economic demand in the Mediterranean and the Near East. Finally, analysis of DNA and biological archaeological samples might cast light on population movements, their extent and impact, particularly in contexts when documentary sources are silent about them.26 A sixth issue is mixity.27 Peoples from different origins lived and worked together, especially at specific sites where they are easy to identify, such as harbours (Mersa/Wadi Gawasis), fortresses, and mining centres (Serabit el- Khadim, Gebel el-Zeit), and their shared cults (Hathor, amulets, etc.) reveal

22 An example: Satzinger and Stefanović, “The domestic servant of the palace Rn-snb.” 23 Darnell, “The rock inscriptions of Tjehemau at Abisko,” 33–34. 24 Petrie, Ehnasya, 22, pl. xxvii [2]. 25 Wengrow, “The voyages of Europa”; Moreno García, “Trade and power in ancient Egypt” and “Métaux, textiles et réseaux d’échanges à longue distance.” 26 Cabana and Clark, Rethinking Anthropological Perspectives on Migration; Cameron, “How people moved among ancient societies”; Meller, Daim, Krause, and Risch, eds., Migration und Integration. For ancient Egypt: Zakrzewski, Shortland, and Rowland, Science in the Study of Ancient Egypt, 202–16. An example: Buzon and Simonetti, “Stron- tium isotope.” 27 Bader, “Cultural mixing in Egyptian archaeology.”

Journal of EgyptianDownloaded History from Brill.com09/28/202111 (2018) 1–17 03:26:02PM via free access Ethnicity in Ancient Egypt 7 some cultural basis common to them all.28 Tell el-Dabʿa in the Middle Bronze Age has provided fascinating evidence about the creation of a new culture, neither Egyptian nor Levantine, born from the interaction of peoples from different origins that crystallized in the creation of a new identity. Papyrus Wilbour also provides evidence about foreigners who had become soldiers and officials in the Egyptian armies and who enjoyed considerable wealth as holders of substantial plots of land, like any other Egyptian official, priest, or land- holder. Integration is also evident in the tomb of Ben-Ia (TT343), an overseer of works as well as “child of the kap” during the reigns of Hatshepsut and Thutmo sis III. Issued from a foreign family (his name was Semitic, and those of his parents, Irtenena and Tirkak, were non-Egyptian), he was nevertheless buried in a tomb decorated in a typically Egyptian style. Another case is that of Maiherpri, a Nubian prince educated with the royal princes, and buried in the Valley of the Kings. In his Book of the Dead, Maiherpri was represented as an Egyptian, and only his curly hair reveals that he was a Nubian.29 As for slaves, there are examples in which they married the family of the owner. Thus, the Adoption papyrus mentions a slave woman (ḥm.t), bought by a couple. She married the man and gave birth to a boy and two girls who were raised at home; one of the girls married the brother-in-law of the owner and became a “free woman” (nmḥ.t), like her brother and sister.30 As for statue Louvre E 11.673, it mentions a man who placed his slave (ḥm) as a barber in a temple and gave him his niece as a spouse.31 In other cases, foreigners preserved their cultural identity or, at least, some cultural practices from their countries while displaying, at the same time, those of their land of adoption. Thus, Asiatics living in Egypt held Egyptian titles and functions, were represented wearing Egyptian clothes, owned Egyptian-like monuments, bore Egyptian names but, at the same time, they still designated themselves as “Asiatics.”32 Another example comes from Gebelein, a locality where numerous Nubian soldiers settled during the First Intermediate Period. Their monuments in Egyptian style as well as their acqui- sition of goods and property in the area of Gebelein reveal their integration into the Egyptian society, whilst still being depicted as Nubian, thus retaining

28 Bloxam, “Miners and mistresses”; Moreno García, “Métaux, textiles et réseaux d’échanges à longue distance.” 29 Franci, “Being a foreigner in Egypt.” 30 Gardiner, “Adoption extraordinary”; Allam, “De l’adoption en Égypte pharaonique”; Eyre, “The Adoption Papyrus in social context.” 31 Urk . IV 1369: 4–16. 32 Cf. note 20 supra.

Journal of Egyptian History 11 (2018) 1–17 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 03:26:02PM via free access 8 Moreno García their ethnic identity.33 The mixed population of Nubians and Egyptians thus resulting is evoked in the stela of one of these mercenaries called Qedes:

I was an excellent citizen who acted with his strong arm, foremost of his entire generation. I acquired oxen and goats. I acquired granaries with Upper Egyptian barley. I acquired title to a [great?] field. I made a boat of 30 (cubits) and a small boat which ferried him who had no boat across during the inundation-season. It was in the house of my father Iti that I did this, (but) it was my mother Ibeb who acquired it for me. I surpassed everyone in this entire town in swiftness, its Nubians as well as its Upper Egyptians.34

Other examples can be found in Nubia, either in the Egyptian fortresses built during the Middle Kingdom, in the mining communities at Wadi el-Hudi also from this period,35 or in New Kingdom communities such as Tombos and Amara West.36 At least some of the fortresses were surrounded by notice- able open settlements probably inhabited by a mix of Egyptians and Nubians involved in commercial exchanges.37 A seventh issue deals with ethnogenesis. Not by chance, the expansion and intensification of Egyptian interests and contacts with foreign regions, was accompanied by the introduction of new ethnic terms in which appears to be not only the “discovery” of new human groups but also the redefinition of the identities and characteristics of peoples known for a long time. One can think, for instance, in the introduction of the term Tjehemu in the inscriptions of the 6th Dynasty, when a permanent pharaonic settlement was established at Dakhla, Egyptian officials crossed the “route of the oasis,” and the interaction between Egyptians and peoples of the Western Desert intensified. This led to a reinterpretation of the traditional term, Tjehenu, used when referring to the western neighbours of Egypt. Again, the New Kingdom witnessed the introduction of new terms designating peoples living in this area (e.g., Libu, Meshwesh).38 Another example concerns Medjay people. The Egyptians per- ceived the people of the Eastern Desert near Lower Nubia as one unified ethnic

33 Fischer, “The Nubian mercenaries of Gebelein.” 34 Fischer, “The Nubian mercenaries of Gebelein,” 44–56. 35 Liszka, “Egyptian or Nubian?”. 36 Smith and Buzon, “Colonial encounters at New Kingdom Tombos”; Spencer, Stevens, and Binder, Amara West. 37 Smith, Askut in Nubia; Knoblauch, Bestock, and Makovics, “The Uronarti Regional Ar- chaeological Project.” 38 Cf. Moreno García in this issue.

Journal of EgyptianDownloaded History from Brill.com09/28/202111 (2018) 1–17 03:26:02PM via free access Ethnicity in Ancient Egypt 9 group. Yet these people were not politically unified and did not identify themselves as Medjay until the middle of the 12th Dynasty, when increased interaction between the Egyptians and the people of the Eastern Desert caused certain pastoral nomads to adopt the term “Medjay.”39 Similar concerns may explain the use of terms relating to peoples living inside Egypt. Early Dynastic inscriptions refer, for instance, to “northerners” whose relation with the first pharaohs were conflictual, perhaps because they still kept mobile lifestyles in Lower Egypt that clashed with the attempts of the kings to assert their author- ity and taxation system in this area.40 Quite significantly, a district within the Delta itself was referred to as ḫꜢst Ṯḥmw, “the land of Tjehemu,” an area on the western border of Lower Egypt but not necessarily outside the Delta.41 Finally, the sources of the early 2nd millennium BCE mention for the first time peoples living in the eastern margins of Lower Egypt and in adjacent desert areas. They were referred to as sḫtjw and jmnw, they worked as auxiliaries in the pharaonic mining expeditions to Sinai as well as in the construction of the pyramids at Lisht, and Senwosret I even created the office of jmj-r sḫtjw, “overseer of the marshland dwellers,” perhaps to control or to deal with autonomous, mobile, local populations not thoroughly placed under the king’s rule.42 Thus, the interaction between Egyptians and other social groups led to a continuous redefinition of identities and characterizations that culminated quite often in processes of ethnogenesis. In some cases different social groups became amal- gamated under a single label (Medjay) while in other cases distinctive sectors of the Egyptian society, perhaps living in liminal areas, received a particular designation that underlined their specific lifestyles. An eighth issue concerns modern perceptions and prejudices about ethnicity in ancient Egypt. Egyptology has traditionally accepted at face value the powerful imagery and ideological values displayed in Egyptian monuments, such as preserving the borders of Egypt, rejecting foreigners, and proclaiming the superiority of Egyptian culture and lifestyle over those of neighbouring, barbarian populations. This has led quite often to consider, for instance, that foreigners (particularly from Libya and Nubia) were backward populations, living at the very edge of subsistence according to very simple economic patterns. However, recent research stresses the importance of pastoral activities as complementary of the economy of the Nile Valley, as they were part of

39 Liszka, “We have come from the well of Ibhet.” 40 Moreno García, “Ḥwt iḥ(w)t,” 77–78. 41 Moreno García, “Ḥwt iḥ(w)t,” 75. 42 Moreno García, “Ḥwt iḥ(w)t,” 88.

Journal of Egyptian History 11 (2018) 1–17 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 03:26:02PM via free access 10 Moreno García broader economic cycles involving specialization from both sedentary and mobile populations. The particular ecological conditions of the Nile Valley in Egypt (a narrow fluvial “oasis” surrounded by harsh deserts) limit the existence of steppes and, consequently, of itinerant populations of herders and substantial flocks, as it happened in the Near East. However, the development of the Egyptian state and its huge demands of raw materials (leather, special oils/ unguents, medicinal plants, cattle and livestock, perhaps also cheese and milk- derived goods, desert minerals, etc.) and transport facilities across difficult environments43 might have encouraged economic specialization, particularly pastoralism, among populations living not only in “marginal” areas bordering the Nile Valley as well as in Nubia but also in Egypt itself. Thus, the interaction between sedentary populations, “foreigners,” and Egyptians specialized in full- time or seasonal mobile lifestyles (particularly in marsh environments, such as fishermen, fowlers, herders, papyrus gatherers, etc.), might have induced a complex set of relations, ranging from collaboration to conflicts resulting from rival strategies for the exploitation of disputed areas.44 Such relations cannot be reduced to the narrow and ideologically biased perspective of “Egyptians versus foreigners.” Instead, they become only intelligible when considering the complex interplay between alternative uses of the territory, the landscapes resulting from these activities, the complementarity between populations with different lifestyles and the occasional creation of rituals and ceremonies (from cults to commensality on special occasions) that cemented social relations and prevented conflict. In this perspective, “Libyans” and “Nubians” developed in fact diversified lifestyles and economic activities, partly as a result from interaction with Egyptians, that cannot be reduced simply to mere pastoralist subsistence strategies. This is the case of Late Bronze Age Libyan small metal- lurgy at Bate’s Island, Libyan agriculture and wadi irrigation at Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham, Nubian gold extraction in the area of the Fourth Cataract (leading to a re-evaluation of “Egyptian” gold extraction at Wadi el-Hudi), Nubian presence in the oases of the Western Desert probably linked to trading activities, etc.45 The integration of archaeological, textual, and ethnographic data is thus essential to get a more balanced perspective about the lifestyles encompassed by too reductive terms such as “Libyan” or “Nubian.”46

43 Cf. from a comparative perspective, Scheele, “The need for nomads.” 44 Moreno García, “Ḥwt iḥ(w)t,” “La gestion des aires marginals,” and “Leather processing, castor oil, and desert/Nubian trade.” 45 Cf. Moreno García in this issue. 46 Smith, “A portion of life solidified.”

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A final issue concerns the potential of comparative research. Studies about the interaction between nomad and sedentary populations in the ancient Near East have helped overcome traditional interpretations in which nomads were systematically regarded as parasitic and inferior to urban and agricultural populations.47 Ethnography has also revealed the resilience, capacity of adaptation, and innovation of ethnic groups when they come into contact with other groups (from colonial encounters to migration, etc.). Social and cultural history, as well as archaeology, also reveal how identities emerge, change, and adapt themselves to different stimuli. As for ethnoarchaeology, it has still much to contribute in Egyptology, for instance about how peoples, landscapes, and lifestyles evolved together, particularly in cultural and socio-economic processes marked by state intervention and by attempts to minimize or to elude it. Such processes led to the emergence of distinctive societies in and around the Nile Valley. The relation of these societies with the political formations known as “pharaonic monarchy/monarchies” was a dynamic one, and its outcome was a continuous redefinition of Egyptianness and foreignness, including processes of ethnogenesis that hide quite often the rich variety of peoples and lifestyles under ethnic labels such as “Nubian” and “Egyptian” indeed. To sum up, a deeper understanding of ethnicity in ancient Egypt cannot but benefit from a close dialogue with other disciplines and can enrich current debates in archaeology, anthropology and ancient history.

Abbreviations

Urk. IV Sethe, K. Urkunden der 18. Dynastie. Historisch-Biographische Urkunden IV. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1906.

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