Quick viewing(Text Mode)

MOST ANCIENT EGYPT Oi.Uchicago.Edu Oi.Uchicago.Edu

oi.uchicago.edu

MOST ANCIENT oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu

Internet publication of this work was made possible with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber

MOST ANCIE NT EGYPT

William C. Hayes

EDITED BY KEITH C. SEELE

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO & LONDON oi.uchicago.edu

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 65-17294

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, CHICAGO & LONDON The University of Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada © 1964, 1965 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Published 1965. Printed in the United States of America oi.uchicago.edu

WILLIAM CHRISTOPHER HAYES 1903-1963 oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu

INTRODUCTION

WILLIAM CHRISTOPHER HAYES was on the day of his premature death on July 10, 1963 the unrivaled chief of American Egyptologists. Though only sixty of age, he had published eight books and two book-length articles, four chapters of the new revised edition of the Cambridge , thirty-six other articles, and numerous book reviews. He had also served for nine years in Egypt on expeditions of the Metropolitan Museum of , the institution to which he devoted his entire career, and more than four years in the United States Navy in World II, during which he was wounded in action-both periods when scientific fell into the background of his activity. He was presented by the President of the United States with the bronze medal and cited "for meritorious achievement as Commanding Officer of the U.S.S. VIGILANCE ... in the efficient and expeditious sweeping of several hostile mine fields.., and contributing materially to the successful clearing of approaches to Okinawa for our in- vasion forces." Hayes' original intention was to work in the field of medieval arche- ology. His first field experience, however, was with the University of Michi- gan expedition digging the ruins of ancient Carthage. Thus archeology and art engaged his attention early in , and he had won an M.A. and an M.F.A. at Princeton before he even dreamed of becoming an Egyptologist. Already a member of the Metropolitan Museum's Egyptian expedition at Deir el Bahri in 1927, Hayes found his place quickly and developed rapidly. He began his hieroglyphic studies with the private study of Alan H. Gardiner's epoch-making Egyptian Grammar (Oxford, 1927). This kindly giant of was his inspiration, and the veteran found in his young disciple a kindred spirit, gave him personal instruction for several summers in England, and held him in close friendship to the end. Ultimately the older man was to outlive the younger by less than six months. Hayes was endowed with a beautiful mind. The perfection of his work- vii oi.uchicago.edu

INTRODUCTION and he was ever a perfectionist-was exemplified even in his first book, Royal Sarcophagi of the XVIII Dynasty (Princeton, 1935), which in every respect was a model publication and one of the most useful Egypto- logical Ph.D. dissertations ever printed. Its preparation took him into the eerie darkness of those ancient labyrinths in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings where, surrounded by painted , snakes, headless spirits, and wailing ghosts of the departed, he copied hieroglyphs and studied the de- veloping form and decorative style of the quartzite coffins, the resting places of the . Thus he was able, in the tombs of the kings, to establish their chronological order, long disputed by the philologists and historians, by the style of their sarcophagi. Most of these wonderful monuments still lie in the tombs because of the sheer impossibility-lacking a Belzoni-of removing the gigantic monoliths from the depths to which they were lowered at the royal funerals so long ago. But Hayes was strong and adroit and determined. He was already as adept at handling stone fragments weighing a ton as at piecing together with his tweezers the faience fragments of broken tiles from the palace of Ramesses II. He did this in his second book, Glazed Tiles from a Palace of Rameses II at Kan~tr (New York, 1937); several of his articles record the assembly of mighty statues and sphinxes of Queen and the shattered sarcophagus of her favorite, the Chief Steward Senmut. The ambitious Senmut possessed not one tomb but two in the . One of these was discovered by the Metro- politan Museum expedition. The other was cleared by the expedition, and from some of the humblest and least glamorous objects which could possibly be found in such an operation Hayes produced his remarkable book, Ostraka and Name Stones from the Tomb of Sen- (No. 71) at Thebes (New York, 1942). A portion of this book was devoted to the pictures and inscriptions often rather crudely sketched or written on limestone fragments (ostraka), yet significant and interesting because the author was able to demonstrate that they were preliminary drafts of scenes and texts which were to be executed on the walls of the tomb. Since the tomb is now a sadly demolished wreck, some of the sketches provide the only surviving evidence of the nature of that noble funerary monument of ancient Thebes. A second section of Ostraka and Name Stones is a penetrating analysis of some obscure words pertaining to building, masonry, etc., found in the work records written on ostraka from the tomb. Here Hayes appears as the lexicographer, and every student of hieroglyphic can transfer welcome new meanings to his copy of the Egyptian Dictionary. But Hayes' philological studies were by no means confined to a nar- row segment of the . At Lisht the Metropolitan Mu- seum had conducted extensive excavations, and he had a good volume to show for his work there in The Texts in the Matabeh of Se'n-- viii oi.uchicago.edu

INTRODUCTION at Lisht (New York, 1937). It was a publication of some Twelfth Dynasty copies of the ancient Texts. Among them he discovered a hitherto unknown pyramid text, and he was likewise able to demonstrate that the Middle Kingdom copies were derived from early originals though not actu- ally copied from the examples still preserved in the of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. On his return from Egypt in 1936 Hayes had become Assistant Cura- tor of Egyptian Art. Henceforth he was to devote most of his energy to the study of the Egyptian collections of the Metropolitan Museum. They are the finest and most extensive in the . With the instinct of a born educator he out to interpret them to the public and to reveal their role in the development of . He had already made a note- worthy contribution in this direction in one of his longest articles, his pop- ular "Daily Life in ," illustrated in part with thirty-two extraordinary paintings done under his direction by H. M. Herget. This remarkable work, published in 1941 in the National Geographic Magazine (and still available in book form), combined the intimate knowledge of Egyptian art, crafts, industries, recreation, religion, and customs, which Hayes had by this time thoroughly mastered, with the artistic talents of Mr. Herget. A vast audience of National Geographic readers was thus given by far the best picture of Egyptian life ever achieved by modern scholar- ship, with each interpreted detail based on precise archeological evidence. It must be supposed that Hayes' mind was deeply preoccupied with the desire to interpret Egyptian to his contemporaries and to utilize for that purpose the rich collections of the great museum to which he was devoting his life. For within a after his release from the United States Navy at the end of the war he had completed the manuscript of the first half of what was to be his greatest achievement, which he modestly entitled The Scepter of Egypt, a Background for the Study of the Egyptian Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, though publication of the work was delayed for several years until 1953. The subtitles of the two volumes reveal their actual historical character: Part I covered the period in Egypt From the Earliest Times to the End of the Middle Kingdom, while the second volume (Part II) carried the story through The Period and the New Kingdom (New York, 1959). In these two rich volumes, sumptuously printed with a multitude of carefully chosen photographs, Hayes traced the from the prehistoric beginnings to the end of the New Kingdom as the story was illustrated by actual objects in the collections. While guides and other handbooks to museum collections had been produced before- and some of them very good indeed-none was quite so ambitious as The Scepter of Egypt and none so fully and successfully enlightening to the user. In a total of more than nine hundred pages of text and with over five hundred ix oi.uchicago.edu

INTRODUCTION

photographic , the Egyptian objects in the Metropolitan Mu- seum tell their story to the visitor in a manner unparalleled in the world. But William C. Hayes' mind operated not only within the circle of his own museum. His developing historical interest led him to delve wherever he an opportunity to interpret the culture of ancient Egypt. Thus, be- tween the two parts of The Scepter of Egypt he produced a work of pure scholarly research which probably ranks as his best scientific publication. The Brooklyn Museum possessed a tattered papyrus manuscript acquired more than fifty years previously by Charles Edwin Wilbour. It consisted of five to six hundred torn fragments, many of them exceedingly small, and these were mingled in exasperating confusion with similar scraps of other papyri written in a virtually indistinguishable . Hayes undertook to solve the hopeless puzzle and succeeded with the assistance of Mr. Anthony Giambalvo-able preparator of the Brooklyn Museum-in piecing together the multitude of fragments. Though his modesty led him to state "that any final commentary on it must necessarily be written by ... spe- cialists . . . in the social, economic, legal, and political aspects of ancient ," there is little doubt that his study of the "seven odd feet of ancient writing paper" has produced its definitive interpretation. He found in it "the criminal register of the late XIIth and early XIIIth Dynasties and a series of mid-XIIIth Dynasty entries" which was intended "to estab- lish the right of a woman named Senebtisy to the ownership of ninety-five household servants." Hayes proceeds to an enlightening discussion of classes of labor in the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, the administrative and judiciary organization of the country, "the extent to which the activities and spheres of influence of the various departments of the government overlapped one upon the other and the efficient and apparently frictionless manner in which, for example, the Departments of , Labor, and Justice co6perated with one another and with the officials of the provincial admin- istration in the handling of problems and conditions germane to them all." Finally, from his study of the names of the "ninety-five household servants," he is able to conclude that, in the early Second Intermediate Period of Egyptian history, before the conquest of the Hyksos, "the Asiatic inhabit- ants of the country. . . must have been many times more numerous than has previously been supposed." He believes that a "brisk " in Asiatic slaves was carried on by the Asiatics themselves, with Egypt as the prin- cipal market for the trade, much as described in Genesis 37:28, 36 in the account of the sale of Joseph to the Ishmaelites. The foregoing account of Hayes' Papyrus of the Late Middle Kingdom in the Brooklyn Museum (Brooklyn, 1955) makes no pretense at an evalua- tion of his achievement; it is but an illustration of what a devoted scholar X oi.uchicago.edu

INTRODUCTION can recover from a body of seemingly hopeless material by the application of patience and unflagging . Hayes had been Assistant Curator and Associate Curator of his de- partment at the Museum. The full curatorship came to him in 1952. There followed a period of hard work and disappointment. His work was curtailed to some degree by a heart attack. Nevertheless, he accepted an assignment to prepare some of the chapters for the proposed revision of the Cambridge Ancient History. He contributed four of these, one on Egyp- tian chronology, the others dealing with the history of the Middle and New Kingdoms. Already published in pamphlet form, they are the best treatment of the topics in English. By this time it was inevitable that Hayes' developing interest in Egyp- tian history should summon him to the logical goal of a complete "His- tory of Egypt." All his scientific work had been leading toward it. He had amassed voluminous notes and bibliographical records. Much of the preliminary labor had been performed in the preparation of the Scepter. The "History" was in his files; he must fill in the gaps and carry it on to the end. He envisaged a work in four volumes and thought that it might be issued by the Oxford Clarendon Press. Probably the most difficult section of the "History" would be the be- ginning. It would be necessary to set forth what is known about the geology and geography of Northeast , relate it with other of the surrounding world, and trace early man into the ancient Valley of the . This was largely foreign territory to Hayes, but he undertook the task with his usual thoroughgoing ardor. He discovered at once that the pre- historians and geologists held widely divergent views, often quite unrecon- cilable, and furthermore that the literature was increasing with such rapidity and to such proportions as to require constant revision and reconsideration of his results. In The Scepter of Egypt he had covered prehistoric and pre- dynastic Egypt-from the earliest times to the beginning of the First Dy- nasty-in approximately seventeen pages of text. As he proceeded with the new work he was to require, in text and notes, more than a hundred and fifty. One chapter sufficed for the Scepter; he was well into the fourth chapter of the projected first volume, without reaching the end of the predynastic period, when he had to lay down his task forever. Long before embarking upon the actual writing of his new "History," Hayes had explored with this editor the feasibility of publishing at least a selection of the chapters in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, doubtless at a stage of his thinking prior to his realization of the magnitude of the work. The plan was later abandoned in favor of direct publication in book form. At the time of his death a draft of the first three chapters, with their notes, and even of the incomplete fourth chapter, were in the hands of the xi oi.uchicago.edu

INTRODUCTION Clarendon Press. They were generously released by the editors, and the original plan of publication, so sadly altered by circumstances, was resumed. Thus they have appeared first of all in JNES, XXIII (1964), 73-114, 145- 92, and 217-74; however, the title selected for the fragment of Hayes' great unfinished work, Most Ancient Egypt, is not his choice but merely the briefest possible clue to his distinguished legacy. It has already been stated that William C. Hayes was a perfectionist. That very quality may have led to occasional defects in these chapters of Most Ancient Egypt. Yet it must be made perfectly clear that, if such be discovered by the reader, they are to be attributed not to the author but to the editor. In his struggle for perfection, Hayes was engaged, near to the time of his death, in a detailed revision of the form of the notes to the chapters. He had originally cast the references in normal bibliographical style, including name of author, title of work, facts of publication, and page numbers. In the interest of brevity, however, he had decided to adopt a condensed style by citing only the author and date of his work-details would be given in full in the exhaustive bibliography at the end of the work, where each article or book cited would appear but once. This editor found the notes to chapter 1 in both forms, with a few additions in the brief style; those to chapter 2 were in normal form; and the notes to chapter 3 were prepared in the brief style alone. Obviously, all the notes must be published uniformly in individually comprehensible form, since there would now be no general bibliography. Owing to the editor's absence in as director of the Oriental Institute Nubian Expedition, the conversion of all notes to uniformity was confronted with some difficulty. While every attempt was made to achieve the fullest accuracy, it is too much to hope that there has been complete success. It is hoped that the reader will exercise a measure of indulgence when he fails to locate a given reference or detects a wrong one, realizing that the late author would have revised his manuscript for publication better than any editor. It will undoubtedly be universally recognized that William C. Hayes' Most Ancient Egypt is the best discussion of the beginning of civilization in the Nile Valley. It is right and proper that the book, even though but a fragment of the author's great plan, should be made available beyond the circle of JNES readers. The editor is pleased to feel that in this final form the volume may be regarded as another garland laid beside the monument of his enduring fame. KEITH C. SEELE The Oriental Institute

xii oi.uchicago.edu

BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF WILLIAM CHRISTOPHER HAYES

Review: DE PROROK, . K., Digging for Lost African Gods, (1926), in The Amer- ican Journal of , 2d Series, XXX (1926), 199-200. Review: CONTENAU, G., La civilisation phenicienne, (1926), in The American Journal of Archaeology, 2d Series, XXXI (1927), 137-39. "An Engraved Glass Bowl in the Museo Cristiano of the Vatican Library," The American Journal of Archaeology, 2d Series, XXXII (1928), 23-32. Review: PENDLEBURY, J. D. S., Aegyptiaca, a Catalogue of Egyptian Objects in the Aegean Area, (1930), in The American Journal of Archaeology, 2d Series, XXXV (1931), 239-41. "A Statue of the Herald Yamu-nedjeh in the , , and Some Biographical Notes on Its Owner," Annales du Service des Antiquits de l'Egypte, XXXIII (1933), 6-16. "The Texts in the Chamber of Se'n-Wosret-cankh," Bulletin of the Met- ropolitan Museum of Art, XXVIII (November 1933), Section II, 26-38. "The Entrance Chapel of the Pyramid of Se'n-Wosret I," Bulletin of the Metro- politan Museum of Art, XXIX (November 1934), Section II, 9-26. Royal Sarcophagi of the XVIII Dynasty ("Princeton Monographs in Art and Archaeology": Quarto Series, Vol. XIX). Princeton, 1935. "The Tomb of Nefer-Khewet and His Family," Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, XXX (November 1935), Section II, 17-36. Review: EDGERTON, WILLIAM F., and JOHN A. WILSON, Historical Records of Ramses III, in The American Journal of Archaeology, XL (1936), 558-59. (With Ambrose Lansing) "The Museum's Excavations at Thebes," Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, XXXII (January 1937), Section II, 4-39. Hayes' authorship applies to "The Tomb of Rac-mos and Ijat-nifer," pp. 12-39. "An Egyptian Scribe's Palette," Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, XXXII (June 1937), 157-58. (With Ambrose Lansing) "Exploring an Egyptian Tomb," Science Digest, I (May 1937), 66-70. Review: WEILL, RAYMOND, Le Champ des Roseaux et le Champ des Offrandes dans xiii oi.uchicago.edu

BIBLIOGRAPHY la religion fundraire et la religion genrale (1936), in The American Journal of Archaeology, XLI (1937), 643. Glazed Tiles from a Palace of Rameses II at Kantir (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Papers," No. 3). New York, 1937. The Texts in the Magtabeh of Se'n-Wosret-cankh at Lisht ("Publications of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedition," Vol. XII). New York, 1937. (With Ambrose Lansing) "-mose and Hat-nufer," Scientific American, CLVII- CLVIII (November 1937), 266-68; (December 1937), 332-34; (January 1938), 14-16. "Two Egyptian Statuettes," Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, XXXIII (April 1938), 107-8. "The Egyptian of the Lotus: A Bronze Statuette," Bulletin of the Metro- politan Museum of Art, XXXIII (August 1938), 182-84. "A Writing-Palette of the Chief Steward Amenlotpe and Some Notes on Its Owner," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, XXIV (1938), 9-24. "A Fragment of a Prehistoric Egyptian Victory Monument," Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, XXXIV (February 1939), 48-49. The Burial Chamber of the TreasurerSobk-most from er Rizeikdt (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Papers," No. 9). New York, 1939. Review: CALVERLEY, AMICE M., The Temple of King Sethos I at Abydos, Vol. III, The American Journal of Archaeology, XLIII (1939), 347-48. Review: WAINWRIGHT, G. A., The Sky , in The American Journal of Archaeology, XLIII (1939), 522-23. "Minor Art of the Egyptian New Kingdom. A Perfume Jar and a Pair of Cos- metic Boxes," Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, XXXV (April 1940), 81-82. "The Lady on the Papyrus. A Late Egyptian Bronze," Bulletin of the Metro. politan Museum of Art, XXXV (September 1940), 176-78. Review: ENOBERO, ROBERT M., The Hyksos Reconsidered, in Classical Weekly, XXXIII (1940), 159. "Daily Life in Ancient Egypt," The National Geographic Magazine, LXXX (1941), 419-515. Reprinted in Everyday Life in Ancient Times. Highlights of the Beginnings of Western Civilization in , Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Na- tional Geographic , Washington, D.C., 1951. Review: LANGTON, N. and B., The Cat in Ancient Egypt (1940), in The American Journal of Archaeology, XLV (1941), 118. Ostraka and Name Stones from the Tomb of Sen-mit (No. 71) at Thebes ("Publi- cations of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedition," Vol. XV). New York, 1942. "An Archaic Egyptian Statue," Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2d Series, IV (December 1945), 113-16. "Portrait of King Amen-botpe I," Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2d Series, IV (January 1946), 140-42. "Egyptian Tomb Reliefs of the Old Kingdom," Bulletin of the Metropolitan Mu- aeum of Art, 2d Series, IV (March 1946), 170-78. xivy oi.uchicago.edu

BIBLIOGRAPHY "A Painted Wooden Pectoral of King Rameses III," Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2d Series, V (October 1946), 67-69. "Royal Portraits of the Twelfth Dynasty," Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2d Series, V (December 1946), 119-24. "Royal Decrees from the Temple of at Coptus," The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, XXXII (1946), 3-23. Review: REISNER, GEORGE A., A History of the Necropolis, Vol. I (1942), in The American Journal of Archaeology, L (1946), 422-23. Review: SMITH, WILLIAM S., A History of Egyptian and Painting in the Old Kingdom (1946), in The American Journal of Archaeology, L (1946), 492-93. "A Canopic Jar of King Nesu--neb-Dedet of ," Bulletin of the Metropoli- tan Museum of Art, 2d Series, V (June 1947), 261-63. "Manche en ivoire grav6, predynastique au Metropolitan Museum," Chronique d'Egypte, XXII, No. 48 (1947), 220-22. "Egyptian Sculpture: A Statue of the Lady Senewy," Art in America, XXXV (1947), 256-63. "Horemkhacuef of and His Trip to It-towe," The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, XXXIII (1947), 3-11. "A Much-copied Letter of the Early Middle Kingdom," Journal of - ern Studies, VII (1948), 1-10. "Minor Art and Family History in the Reign of -Iiotpe III," Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2d Series, VI (June 1948), 272-79. "Recent Additions to the Egyptian Collection," Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2d Series, VII (October 1948), 60-63. "Writing Palette of the High Priest of Amin, ," The Journalof Egyptian Archaeology, XXXIV (1948), 47-50. "A Foundation Plaque of IV," Brief Communication, The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, XXXIV (1948), 114-15. "King Wadjkare c of Dynasty VIII," The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, XXXIV (1948), 115-16. "La 37e et la 38e ann6e de regne d'Amnophis III," Chronique d'4gypte, XXIV, No. 47 (1949), p. 96, Fig. 9. Corrigendum, p. 287; in consequence of a misprint that could not be controlled by the author, the title originally read "La 36e et la 37e anne ... ." "Career of the Great Steward IUenenu under Nebbepetr c Mentul otpe," The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, XXXV (1949), 43-49. Review: WERBROUCK, M., Le temple de Hatshepsout d Deir el Bahari (1949), in Chronique d'Egypte, XXV, No. 49 (1950), 76-79. Review: DAVIES, NORMAN DE G., Seven Private Tombs at Kurnah, in The American Journal of Archaeology, LIV (1950), 82-83. "The Sarcophagus of Sennemit," The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, XXXVI (1950), 19-23. "Inscriptions from the Palace of Amenhotep III," Journal of Near Eastern Studies, X (1951), 35-56, 82-111, 156-83, 231-42. Review: ALLEN, T. GEORGE, Occurrences of Pyramid Texts with Cross Indexes of xv oi.uchicago.edu

BIBLIOGRAPHY These and Other Egyptian Mortuary Texts (1950), in The American Journal of Archaeology, LV (1951), 272-73. Review: PARKER, R. A., The Calendars of Ancient Egypt (1950), in The American Journal of Archaeology, LVI (1952), 83-84. Review: DE BUCK, A., The Egyptian Cofin Texts IV: Texts of Spells 268-854 (1951), in The American Journal of Archaeology, LVI (1952), 215-16. Review: ELGOOD, P. G., The Later Dynasties of Egypt (1951), in The American Journal of Archaeology, LVI (1952), 216-17. The Scepter of Egypt, A Background for the Study of the Egyptian Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Part I: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Middle Kingdom. New York (Harper and Brothers in co-operation with the Metro- politan Museum of Art), 1953. "Notes on the Government of Egypt in the Late Middle Kingdom," Journal of Near Eastern Studies, XII, No. 1 (1953), 31-39. Review: CATON-THOMPSON, G., Kharga in (1952), in The Amer- ican Journal of Archaeology, LVII (1953), 117-19. Review: KOEFOED-PETERSEN, OTTo, Catalogue des sarcophages et cercueils egyp- tiens (1951), in The American Journal of Archaeology, LVII (1953), 119. Review: SMITH, WILLIAM S., Ancient Egypt as Represented in the Museum of Fine , Third edition (1952), in The American Journal of Archaeology, LVIII (1954), 159. Review: CHAPMAN, SUZANNE E., and Dows DUNHAM, Decorated Chapels of the Meroitic Pyramids at Meroe and Barkal (1952), in The American Journal of Archae ology, LVIII (1954), 159-60. A Papyrus of the Late Middle Kingdom in the Brooklyn Museum [Papyrus Brooklyn 35. 1446]. Edited with Translation and Commentary. The Brooklyn Museum, 1955. Review: VANDIER, J., Manuel d'archeologie egyptienne: Tome I: Les poques de formation (1952), in The American Journal of Archaeology, LIX (1955), 186-87. Review: DE BUCK, A., The Egyptian Coffin Texts V: Texts of Spells 355-471 (1954), in The American Journal of Archaeology, LX (1956), 289. "Varia from the Time of Hatshepsut," Mitteilungen des deutschen archaologischen Institute Abteilung Kairo, XV (1957), 78-90. Review: DE BUCK, A., The Egyptian Coffin Texts VI: Texts of Spells 472-786 (1956), in The American Journal of Archaeology, LXI (1957), 292. Review: BRUNNER-TRAUT, EMMA, Die altagyptischen Scherbenbilder (Bildostraka) der deutschen Museen und Sammlungen (1956), in The American Journal of Archae- ology, LXI (1957), 291-92. "Egyptian Art," Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, XVII (1958-59), 45-47. The Scepter of Egypt, A Background for the Study of the Egyptian Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Part II: The Hyksos Period and the New Kingdom (1675-1080 B.C.). Cambridge, Massachusetts (Published for the Metropolitan Mu- seum of Art by Harvard University Press), 1959. Review: Medinet Habu, Vol. V. The Temple Proper. Part I: The Portico, the Treasury, and Chapels Adjoining the First Hypostyle Hall with Marginal Material xvi oi.uchicago.edu

BIBLIOGRAPHY from the Forecourts, by the EPIGRAPHIC SURVEY (1957), in Journal of Near East- ern Studies, XVIII (1959), 75-77. Preface: G. POSENER, S. SAUNERON, J. YOYOTTE, Dictionary of Egyptian Civili- zation (English edition). "A Selection of Tuthmoside Ostraca from Der el-Bahri," The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, XLVI (1960), 29-52. The Cambridge Ancient History, Revised Edition of Volumes I and II. Cambridge University Press. Vol. I, Chapter VI. Chronology: Egypt to End of Twentieth Dynasty. Cambridge, 1962. Vol. I, Chapter XX. The Middle Kingdom in Egypt: Internal History from the Rise of the Heracleopolitansto the Death of Ammenemes III. Cambridge, 1961. Vol. II, Chapter II. Egypt: From the Death of Ammenemes III to Seqenenre II. Cambridge, 1962. Vol. II, Chapter IX. Egypt: Internal Affairs from Tuthmosis I to the Death of Amenophis III, Parts I-II. Cambridge, 1962. Most Ancient Egypt. Being Chaps. I-IV of a projected four-volume "History of Egypt," in course of preparation at the author's death. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, XXIII (1964), 73-114, 145-92, 217-74. Most Ancient Egypt. Edited with an Introduction by Keith C. Seele. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.

xvii oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu

CONTENTS

I. THE FORMATION OF THE LAND The Egyptian Tableland : I, 30 The Nile Valley : 2, 31 The and the Red Sea Hills : 4, 32 The Gulf : 5, 32 The River and Terraces : 5, 33 "Recent" Developments in the Nile Valley : 8, 33 and the Delta of the Nile : xo, 35 The Nubian Nile Valley and Its Cataracts : 14, 35 The Fayum Lake Basin : 16, 36 The Oases of the : 18, 36 Climate : zo, 37 Chronology : 24,38 Egypt at the Beginning of Prehistory : 27, 40

2. MAN IN EGYPT The "Abbevillians" : 43, 76 Growth and Development of the Acheulian Tradition : 49, 78 The Age : 54, 8o The of Late Paleolithic Times : 59, 83 The Final Paleolithic, or , Stage : 70, 87

3. THE AND COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT Near Eastern Origins : 91, 137 The Fayum Settlements : 93, 139 The Oases of Siwa and Kharga : 99, 140 The West Delta Settlement of Merimda Beni Salama : 103, 141 El Omari: Its Settlements and Cemeteries : I16, 143 , Wadi Digla, Heliopolis, and Qasr Qarun : 122, 144 Character of the Northern Egyptian Communities : 134, 146 xix oi.uchicago.edu

CONTENTS

4. THE PREDYNASTIC CULTURES OF UPPER AND Preliminary Survey : 147* The Tasians and Badarians The Culture: Initial Phases Transitional Stage of the : Change and Development Final Stage of the Naqada Culture: The Juncture with History The Post-Paleolithic Prehistory of Nubia

* See p. 148, n. I.

XX oi.uchicago.edu

1 THE FORMATION OF THE LAND

THE story of human activity in is encountered today all along the Nubian the land now known as Egypt stretches Nile between the Second Cataract and el- back some five hundred thousand years to Sebaiya in southern , in the an early stage of the present, or so-called oases of the Libyan desert, along the Quaternary, era in the history of the western slopes of the Red Sea hills, and, earth's surface. As elsewhere on that sur- as an isolated extrusion, as far north as face this scarcely conceivable span of time Abu Roash, near Cairo. At the top, above covers only a minute fraction of the story the sandstone, lay strata of Upper of the land itself, the more recent chapters Cretaceous limestones, shales, and clays, of which take us back approximately sixty now much eroded over the limited areas million years, through a long chain of where they remained exposed, but still to geological and climatic developments, to be seen in the oases, on the west side of the initial phases of the preceding Tertiary the Red Sea hills, and in the neighborhood era. of in Upper Egypt. On the ancient sea bottom, so con- 1. THE EGYPTIAN TABLELAND stituted, the waters of the Eocene bay Early in the Eocene period, the second laid down the massive strata of sedi- major division of the Tertiary, the mentary rocks-principally limestones-of extended in a deep bay which the Egyptian tableland is for the over the northeast corner of the most part formed. of Africa, its warm waters reaching south- Toward the end of the Lower, or early, ward to at least the twenty-third parallel Eocene forces exerted on the earth's crust of latitude and westward over the northern began to thrust this tableland upward and portion of what is now . The bed of clear of the sea, a prolonged process which the bay and the land masses bordering it continued, with occasional interruptions, on the east and south were composed alike throughout the bulk of the Eocene and the of three principal types of rock super- succeeding Oligocene and Miocene periods imposed one above the other. At the base and which was therefore contemporaneous lay the metamorphic and igneous rocks and probably associated with the crustal of Archeozoic and Proterozoic origin- movements responsible in and schists, gneisses, granites, diorites, and for the creation of such relatively quartzes-now visible over a wide expanse recent mountain chains as the Alps, the south of the Second Cataract of the Nile Carpathians, and the . and in small, isolated areas further to the In the course of its elevation the table north, as at the First Cataract and in the was tilted slightly downward from south hills bordering the Red Sea. On these to north, its southern portion emerging rested the great layer of sandstone, of first, its central and northern sections Upper Mesozoic (Cretaceous) date, which remaining submerged beneath the waters oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND of the slowly receding bay or becoming re- Cairo southwestward over the Libyan submerged by occasional transgressions of desert. the sea long enough to have superimposed By Upper Eocene time the sea had with- upon them strata of limestone and other drawn to about the latitude of the Fayum sediments characteristic of the Middle and and the Oligocene period witnessed its Upper Eocene and subsequent phases of retreat still further to the north. When, the Tertiary. following a phase of accentuated uplift in The results of this are discernible to the the late Miocene period, the elevation of traveler passing from Lower Egypt into the tableland was arrested, the head of the Upper Egypt and Nubia. At Cairo the ancient bay of the Mediterranean lay near Lower Eocene strata are buried deep be- the apex of the present Delta or perhaps neath the marine and estuarine deposits still further to the north. of later geological periods and do not appear above the surface until one reaches 2. THE NnE VALLEY a point halfway between Deirut and in Middle Egypt, whence south- All the while a factor of the utmost ward they rise in the towering cliffs importance was at work----erosion of the characteristic of the section between rising tableland by rain water beating and . South of Luxor erosion down upon it and draining in torrents of the limestone plateau has laid bare the from the neighboring highlands. The more ancient rocks which once formed the Lower and Middle Tertiary were periods old sea bed-the shales of Esna, the sand- of moderate to heavy rainfall, and the river stone of Nubia, and the crystalline rocks or system of rivers which flowed down the of the cataracts and the south of sloping plateau to the sea was of gigantic . volume and force. Unlike its relatively On the return trip from Upper Egypt to puny descendant, the modern Nile, this Cairo the sequence is reversed, and we can ancestral river system-the Urnil of the follow the stages of the marine regression German geologists-was fed by numerous through the Eocene period by the changing tributaries along almost the whole of its nature of the surface strata along the length, a circumstance which evidently edges of the Nile Valley. Between Deirut more than compensated for the fact that it and Manfalut the Lower Eocene lime- seems not as yet to have established a stones dip beneath those of the Middle connection with the drainage system of the Eocene, and from the latter are East African Sudd and lake regions and replaced by soft clays, the Nile cliffs thence only to a very limited extent, if at all, with northward giving way to flat, open country that of the Abyssinian highlands. relieved here and there by small mesas. On The once prevalent belief that in Egypt the east of the river just south of Cairo the the main stream formerly followed a limestones reappear in the high scarp of course which lay somewhat to the west of the Moqattam hills, but in the plains on the present river is no longer generally the west the Middle Eocene strata have held. Traces of what have been thought to long since disappeared beneath various be the Upper Eocene estuary of the Upper Eocene sediments, which after a "Urnil," however, are found to the west short distance are themselves covered by and north of the Fayum, and the vast tri- a blanket of Oligocene sands and gravels, angle of sand and gravel which may have the latter stretching from the region of formed its Oligocene delta can be traced oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND from Deirut in Middle Egypt northwest to the general elevation of the plateau, was the oasis of Moghara and, far to the north- completed by the early part of the east, over the northern end of the Red Sea Pliocene period. hills and the Gulf of . The "Petrified Whereas, in the main, the Nile Valley Forests," extending over the Libyan and its tributary gorges are the products desert from the northern Fayum to the of erosion, volcanic activity and crustal region east of Cairo, are composed of movements of mid-Tertiary date were ancient tree trunks and other silicified responsible for many of the striking carried down by the huge stream physiographical features seen both in the and deposited around its mouth. Mixed in Valley itself and in the surrounding with the Upper Eocene estuarine deposits plateau surface. It was at this time that and the Oligocene sands and gravels are the belt of dolerite stretching from the shells of tropical fresh-water snails and north side of the Fayum toward Cairo, turtles and of river , snakes, the "Black Hills" near el-Bahnasa, and crocodiles, and large land animals in- the prominence of Karat el-Soda, to the cluding an early form of and the west of Manfalut, were thrust to the sur- strange extinct beast, Arsinoitherium. face as intrusions of molten rock, pen- The cutting of the present Egyptian etrating the rock formations of younger Nile Valley commenced well back in date, up to and including those of Oligo- Miocene times; but the bulk of its excava- cene origin. The sulphurous springs still tion was accomplished during the so- found in various parts of Egypt, notably called Pontic Pluvial period, the intensely at Helwan, were products of the same rainy interval coming between Suess's igneous eruptions. Second and Third "Mediterranean" periods More important and far-reaching in their and spanning the Upper Miocene and effects than these small and isolated Lower Pliocene ages. The course adopted volcanic spasms were the crustal move- by the river was either dictated by ments which in the Miocene period affected recently created undulations in the surface the surface of the plateau and gave rise in of the plateau or was simply the bed in Egypt to two sets of folds, the first ex- which the ancestral Nile happened to find tending from north to south, approxi- itself at the time the now accentuated up- mately parallel to the Nile, the second- lift of the tableland forced it to cease and perhaps the later-group running meandering. Once entrenched in the lime- diagonally from northeast to southwest stone there was no possibility of a major across the course of the river. The first set alteration in the direction of the river, and of folds produced the anti- the great stream followed a generally dcline on the west of the Nile Valley and northerly course down the continuously that of the Wadi on the east, the rising tableland to the Mediterranean. So second group being responsible for such rapid was the rise of the plateau that there notable landmarks as Gebel Abu Roash was no chance for any but vertical erosion. and the Moqattam hills, Gebel Ataqa, the The result is a gorge six to nine miles wide Qallala hills, the Wadi Araba, and, far to and 1300 to 1600 feet deep, down the the south, the hills of the . At center of which the modern Nile, raised Silsila, forty miles north of the First high on its own alluvium, now flows. The Cataract, transverse faulting left exposed cutting of this gorge, intensified in Upper across the course of the river a barrier of Miocene times by a marked increase in hard Nubian sandstone and just south of oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND

this opened the wide tectonic basin en- of the present site of the Great Bitter Lake closing the plain. and Gebel Gunaifa. This barrier apparently remained unbroken until modern times when the two seas were once more united 3. THE RED SEA AND THE RED SEA by means of the . It may, how- HILLS ever, have been submerged during the Before following the development of the epoch at moments of maximum Nile Valley through the end of the Tertiary high sea-level and overland communica- and into the period of human occupation tion between Asia and Africa thereby we must not overlook one of the most temporarily severed. important events in the geohistory of Though of somewhat earlier origin than Egypt-the coming into being of the Red the Red Sea itself, the rugged chain of Sea and, with it, the admission of the mountains which rises along its western waters of the to the east shoreline and stretches northward into coast of Egypt and the definitive separa- southern Sinai owes its existence largely to tion of the of Africa and Asia. crustal movements of mid-Tertiary date. Unlike the Nile Valley, the Red Sea is of This being so, we should expect and do, in rift origin, the result of a long and compli- fact, find the same strata of Eocene lime- cated tectonic process, which, starting stone occurring in the Nile Valley in back in Palaeozoic times and again in Upper Egypt banked against the east side the Middle Eocene, had accomplished the of the Red Sea hills, sloping down to the bulk of its task by the end of the Pliocene water's edge beneath layers of younger period. The process commenced with the deposits, gypsums and ancient coral reefs. vaulting upward of the region between Along the crests of the hills the sedi- northeastern Egypt and Sinai in a broad mentary covering has long since dis- anticline, the crest of which lay in the line appeared, leaving the ancient metamorphic of the present Gulf of Suez. Following ex- and plutonic formations exposed in a wild tensive erosion of this ridge, the lateral and jagged skyline which rises northwest pressure was relieved by an in-folding of its of (Gebel el-Shayeb) to almost axial region, and the creation thereby of a 7,200 feet above sea level, and in southern long, narrow depression, or geo-syncline, Sinai (Gebel Katharina) to more than between Asia and Africa, into which the 8,600 feet. The slopes of the hills on either Mediterranean Sea forthwith intruded. In side are scarred by innumerable ancient the course of succeeding geological periods watercourses, those on the east draining the rift, thus inaugurated, expanded directly into the Red Sea, those on the slowly southward and following renewed west running down into the plains east of orogenetic movements in the Upper Plio- the Nile and expanding there into a cene, spread at length to form the southern succession of broad valleys along the east- Red Sea and to open a connection with the ern rim of the main river gorge. One of the Indian Ocean through the Bab el-Mandeb. largest and most important of these By Upper Pliocene times, however, the valleys is the Wadi Qena, a "sunken Gulf of Suez and hence the whole of plain" twelve and a half miles wide and the Red Sea had become cut off from the one hundred and twenty-five miles long Mediterranean by an upthrust barrier from north to south, which joins the Upper about ten miles wide and originally over Egyptian Nile Valley at the apex of the six hundred feet in height, occupying part bend between Luxor and . oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND

4. THE PLIOCENE GULF down from the precipitous side walls of the gorge. Over and around these the still In the Middle Pliocene, or Third waters of the gulf proper deposited layers Mediterranean Period, the Nile Valley, its of soft, clayey sediments, which in the primary excavation now complete, was northern reaches of the valley are found to passing into the second principal stage of be rich in marine fossils. Far exceeding in its development. Owing either to a general volume these fine, deep-water deposits, subsidence of the land masses bordering however, was the sandy and gravelly the Mediterranean or to a rise in its waters detritus brought from the south by the the sea at this time backed up into the Nile main river and swept down off the valley gorge, filling it to a depth of more than six sides by its torrential tributaries. Although hundred feet and thus forming a long, it is possible to distinguish definite stages narrow gulf extending from the headlands in the filling process, separated from one of Gebel Abu Roash and Gebel el-Ahmar another by intervals of erosion, in most southward beyond Kom Ombo and per- places the various constituents of the fill haps as far as . On the east the are intermingled side by side in no readily waters of the gulf spread up into the lateral apparent chronological order. In general, valleys mentioned in the preceding para- the softer deposits occupy the center of the graph and on the west may possibly have valley, with the coarser material banked broken through the boundary of the valley against its sides and fanned out in screes proper and flooded the low-lying ground around the mouths of its tributaries. draining into the Great Oases of the The lateral portions of the Pliocene gulf Libyan Desert. The Nile, still a river of deposits, augmented by patches of Pleisto- formidable volume, flowed into the south- cene gravels, sands, and silts, form Egypt's ern end of the long bay a few miles north "low desert," that strip of now barren of its head, and all along its sides in- terrain which in the middle and southern numerable tributary streams poured into parts of the country separates each edge it the copious drainage from the well of the Nile's alluvial plain from the rocky watered plateau. The nature of the sedi- walls or eroded slopes of the high desert ments laid down by the water of the gulf plateau and which since the Paleolithic shows that only to about a hundred miles age has provided men with a much above modern Cairo was it marine and frequented area of habitation. south of this brackish or fresh, the fresh- water and estuarine zones progressing ever 5. THE RIVER AND WADI TERRACES northward with the slow return to fluvia- During the very long interval of transi- tile conditions at the end of the Pliocene tion from the Pliocene to the Pleistocene period. period-the so-called Plio-Pleistocene- In the course of its prolonged Pliocene the sea once more withdrew from Egypt, submergence the Pontic valley and its the waters of the gulf receded, and the tributaries were gradually choked with broad and swiftly flowing river streamed clay, sand, and gravel deposits, which by down to the Mediterranean over the mixed the beginning of the Pleistocene period deposits which choked its ancient valley. had filled them to a height of at least 590 On these deposits the Nile and its tribu- feet above present sea level. The bed of the taries spread sheets of coarse gravels, valley had already become encumbered by brought from afar: pebbles of Nubian huge masses of Eocene limestone slipped sandstone, igneous and metamorphic rocks, oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND and mixed gravels from the Red Sea hills. descending like flights of steps from both Still missing from its sediments, however, sides of the old valley down to the river's are those minerals (notably augite) which edge, each pair of terraces being the would indicate a substantial connection lateral portions of a former Nile bed, left with the Blue Nile or the Atbara. Though high and dry by a new deepening and the upper reaches of the main stream may narrowing of the channel. Though ex- already have been receiving water from tensively eroded by subsequent meander- the Sobat and the Bahr el-Ghazal it is clear ings of the Nile itself and by the lateral that the hydrography of the Pliocene and tributaries within the main valley, re- early Pleistocene Nile must have presented mains of these terraces are still to be seen a picture quite different from that of.the in Upper and Middle Egypt and in places and that the annual summer on both sides of the Delta. South of inundation, now so important a factor, as Aswan some of the higher terraces, cut in yet played no essential role in the life of the native sandstone of the Nubian valley, the river and its valley. are well preserved. Nowhere, however, In common with many other of the have more than two or three terraces of a world's rivers the Nile during the Pleisto- series survived in a single locality and then cene period eroded its new bed and usually on only one side of the river. deepened its channel, not in one long, Frequently-especially in Nubia and continuous operation, but in sharply southern Upper Egypt-all that remain defined stages separated from one another are eroded rock platforms from which the by periods of stability, during which new sand and gravel covering has been scoured and distinctive types of gravel were away. Further north the structures spread out over the river bed. In northern themselves have often been demolished, Egypt these stages appear to have been to leaving formless accumulations of sands a large extent eustatically controlled, that and gravels redeposited at lower levels and is, governed by and hence directly related in some instances at considerable distances to, alternate lowerings and raisings of the downstream. sea level of the Mediterranean. In the As is customary elsewhere, the Nile southern reaches of the valley, too remote terraces are designated according to their from the sea to be affected by fluctuations individual heights above the present flood in its levels, changes in climate with plain of the river in the localities where accompanying decreases or increases in the they occur. The "100-foot terrace," for local precipitation and run-off seem to example, comprises those sections of have been the factors chiefly responsible gravel or rock platforms which are found for the alternating phases of aggradation to be between 80 and 100 feet (25 to 30 and erosion entered into by the Upper meters) above modern Nile level, regard- Egyptian Nile and its tributaries. In both less of whether they belong to the pluvial(?) areas the natural tendency of the river to terrace series of Upper Egypt or to the meander was to some extent checked by eustatically controlled (and, presumably, the coarseness of the material along the old not directly related) series of Middle and valley sides, and in general each new chan- Lower Egypt. Besides the successions of nel was excavated in the soft and low-lying terraces formed in the main valley there deposits along the center line of the fill. are similar and corresponding sets in the The result was a series of gravel-coated lateral valleys, or . These are of im- river terraces, cut in the gulf deposits and portance because they survive in sections oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND of the country-notably in southern by its probable association with a datable Upper Egypt-where the main river Mediterranean sea level (the Tyrrhenian). terraces have been largely destroyed. The series is continued by terraces at 50 In the region of Saqqara and the Fayum and 30 feet in Upper Egypt and 33-50 feet depression Plio-Pleistocene river gravels in northern Egypt, in the gravels of which have been noted to a height of 470 feet occur implements of progressively more above the Nile and near the apex of the advanced types. The 10-foot terrace, a low Delta are preserved to a maximum gravel platform visible chiefly in the present altitude of 765 feet; but the highest lateral wadis of Upper and Middle Egypt, gravels describable as general features of belongs apparently to a period of aggrada- the landscape are those at 320 and 255 feet tion which followed by a considerable (98 and 78 meters), segments of which are interval the cutting of the face of the 30- preserved along the west side of the Nile foot terrace. from the southwest edge of the Delta to Soil profiles taken in the Nile terraces the town of in Middle Egypt. In disclose the formation, immediately fol- Upper Egypt and Nubia the highest lowing the deposition of the gravel surviving platform is the 300-foot terrace. cappings, of calcareous brown soils evi- This was succeeded, during the period dently developed during phases of fairly bridging the Upper Pliocene and Lower heavy local precipitation and cool tem- Pleistocene by two terraces 200 and 150 peratures. These phases were followed by feet, respectively, above present river level. unproductive intervals of aridity and then The 100-foot terrace of Upper Egypt by periods of warm, moist climate during carries us well down into the Pleistocene which sandy red earth made its appearance period and-what is of considerably and subtropical steppe conditions may greater interest-into the period of the have prevailed. The presence of augite in earliest known human occupation of the sediments of the 100-foot terrace of Egypt, for incorporated in the gravels of Lower Egypt suggests that the main river this terrace are found the earliest stone was now being fed by the Blue Nile and implements which can with assurance be the Atbara, though not to the extent identified as the handiwork of Man. A current in later Paleolithic times or at terrace of similar height in Middle and the present day. Lower Egypt appears to be composed, in With the 100-foot terrace of Upper part at least, of redeposited sands and Egypt we abandon the broad dating by gravels of the 100-foot Upper Egyptian geological periods and date this terrace stage. As exemplified in the estuarine and all subsequent milestones in the geo- gravel deposits of Abbassiya, near Cairo, history of Egypt in terms of human and in those of the Rus Channel, near activities and human development. In the Fayum, it has been found to contain these terms, the 100-foot and 50-foot "rolled," or travel-worn, specimens of the terraces belong to the , same early types of implements seen in or Early Old of Man's devel- the south as well as unworn implements of opment ( and Acheulian), the more developed forms. That this terrace, 30-foot terrace to the transition stage in any case, is appreciably later in date between Lower and Middle Paleolithic than its Upper Egyptian counterpart is (Acheulio-Levalloisian), the 10-foot terrace suggested not only by the types or condi- of Upper Egypt and the earliest silts and tion of the implements found in it, but also fine gravels to the Middle Paleolithic oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND

(Levalloisian), the immediately subsequent Egypt, in the ancient Fayum lake beaches phases of the river to the Upper, or Late, at elevations of 112 and 92 feet above sea- Paleolithic (Epi-Levalloisian), and so on. level, and in the silts of the , on the east of the Delta. Off to the west 6. "RECENT" DEVELOPMENTS IN THE the wadi gravels of the Kharga oasis scarp NILE VALLEY have been found to contain analogous The penultimate stage in Nile history industries identified, respectively, as Upper may be said to have begun in late Middle Levalloisian and "Levalloiso-Khargan." Paleolithic times with a sharp decrease Fossilized bones found in Sebilian deposits in the local rainfall and run-off and- near Kom Ombo and in association with coincidentally-with the establishment, such deposits at Qau and Asyut in Middle chiefly through the Blue Nile and the Egypt reflect the existence at this period Atbara, of a full-scale connection with the of a rich and varied fauna, including drainage system of the Abyssinian high- species of hyena, donkey, horse, hippo- lands. As a result the annual summer potamus, , ox, lion, gazelle, bubalis, flood became for the first time a dominant ostrich, , tortoise, two kinds of factor in the life of the river and the fish, and numerous shellfish. Human deposition of coarse local sands and remains, believed by their finders to be of gravels was replaced in Nubia and date, resemble those of the Egypt by the building up on the valley predynastic Upper of a much bottom of massive layers of finer, alien later period. sediments-the so-called Sebilian, or basal, In Late Paleolithic times the Nile en- silts. These silts, brought from the East tered upon a new period of bed erosion, re- African uplands by the floodwaters of the sinking its channel to a great depth in the now relatively sluggish stream, reach a silt deposited during the preceding stage height of 100 feet above the present river and leaving on its margins, in the form level in the region of the Second Cataract, of fresh spreads of fine gravel, the concen- tapering down to 20 feet in the latitude of trated coarser elements from the eroded Luxor in Upper Egypt and dipping be- silt. The fall of river level is marked by neath the modern alluvium near Nag a descending series of shingle beaches, Hammadi. Thus, in the south the lower still visible in isolated localities in Nubia gravel terraces and platforms were over- and Upper Egypt; but even better seen lapped and partially covered up, and in the descending shorelines of the sub- with the rise of the river's bed, its waters sidiary lakes and marshes referred to spread out to form lakes and marshy above, which with the lowering of the river tracts along its course, as in the broad bay were gradually drained of their water. In enclosing the Kom Ombo plain. In the the materials forming the ancient surfaces basal silts of Nubia and Upper Egypt of these lake and river beaches are found occur implements of Upper Levallois and Late Paleolithic implements of the ad- early Epi-Levallois types. Further north vanced and diminutive types which what would appear to be contemporaneous characterize the final stages of the Leval- industries, also of Levalloisian character, lois tradition in Egypt (Epi-Levallois II are represented in the 25-foot fine gravels, and III). or silts-the so-called 8-meter terrace-of Approximately ten thousand years ago, Lower and northern Middle Egypt, in the in the period of transition between the Old sub-alluvial "Sebilian" gravels of and the Neolithic, or New oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND

Stone Age, the Nile, responding to an early Nile's alluvial plain has been less thor- postglacial rise in sea-level, began anew to oughly studied than its vertical growth; aggrade its bed and choke its mouth with but it is evident that since early historic sediments of Abyssinian origin-first with times, and especially from the Hellenistic mica-bearing sands, silts, and fine gravel, period onward, considerable lateral ex- and then, beginning probably in early pansion has taken place at the expense Neolithic times, with the silts, clays, and of the adjoining low desert, particularly fine sands which form the present arable in areas where the latter, dissected by land of Egypt. This fertile, uppermost former wadi activity, slopes gently down- alluvium, brought from far to the south ward toward the valley floor. With the by a river which over the last sixteen onset of each annual flood the coarser and hundred miles of its course is without a heavier sediments (chiefly sands) brought tributary, has been aptly termed by a down by the river are piled up along its French geologist "la terre vegetale." banks, forming which rise above all Every year the summer inundation de- but the highest water levels and have thus posits a new layer of this life-giving soil formed favorable sites for human habita- in the Egyptian Nile Valley and over the tion. The rest of the flood plain, built up fiat alluvial plain of the Delta; and little more slowly of the finer and more widely by little the accumulation has not only distributed elements in the river's load, choked and buried the earlier channels of falls away gently toward the sides of the the river, but has crept up around the valley, forming basin lands, in the low- monuments of ancient man, sparing neither lying outer portions of which the ground- prehistoric camp sites nor the more recent water remains visible throughout the structures of historic times. Borings taken greater part of the year in the form of in three zones between Aswan and Cairo small lakes and marshes. Networks of have recorded silt at depths of 22, 28, and lateral waterways spilling over at high 32 feet, and from such borings and other water from the elevated river bed into observations it has been estimated that these basins have cut the levees up into the rate of silt deposition, before the con- series of hills, or islands, the tops of which struction of the modern dams and barrages, have been raised still further by the was 0.0405 inches a year or three and a accumulated deposits of civilization. half to four inches a century. Unfortu- The annual inundation of the Nile, as nately for all such estimates, the rate of we have seen, probably became a salient deposition, controlled by fluctuations in in the life of Egypt at the time of the sea-level of the Mediterranean and in the serious decline in the local rainfall the volume of the Blue Nile, appears to which occurred during the latter part of have been far from uniform, varying con- the Middle Paleolithic period. Nowadays siderably not only from one locality to the yearly flood waters come chiefly from another, but from one period to another. the late and summer rains around It is, indeed, probable that 60 per cent of the headwaters of the Blue Nile and the the total upper alluvium was laid down be- Atbara, the former of which joins the fore the beginning of the Old Kingdom (ca. White Nile at Khartoum, the latter two 2700 B.C.), 20-25 per cent during the last hundred miles to the north. Some con- 2500 years, and, by contrast, almost none ception of the magnitude and force of the at all between the years 1960 and 900 B.C. flood can be derived from the fact that The horizontal development of the between the months of June and Sep- oi.uchicago.edu

10 FORMATION OF THE LAND

tember the volume of the Blue Nile may During the long and for the most part increase from a normal 7,000 cubic feet to arid periods discussed in the foregoing over 350,000 cubic feet per second. At paragraphs it is only natural that a Khartoum the initial rise of the river is second agency, , should have played usually discernible about the middle of a part in shaping the Egyptian landscape, May; at the First Cataract, on the south- not only by formidable feats of surface ern boundary of Egypt proper, early in erosion, but also by the deposition of dry, June; and at Cairo, at the end of June or sandy material either on or between layers during the first weeks of July. The time of of Nilotic sediments or in the form of the river's rise can, however, vary con- marginal dunes along the western fringes siderably from year to year, the intervals of the valley. Wind-blown sand occurs, for between floods differing by as much as example, in the basal (Sebilian) silts of eighty days during a single generation. Upper Egypt and both above and below Before the end of September the inunda- the later alluvial deposits of sections of tion has normally reached its height and Middle Egypt. Fields of sand encroach the swollen river has submerged the whole upon the western margins of the alluvial of its alluvial plain and spilled over into plain between Gebel Deshasha and Deir el- low-lying hollows along the desert's edge, Miharraq and constitute locally "a con- transforming them into marshes or shal- siderable hindrance to cultivation." A low lagoons. Today part of the flood is study of the marginal dunes suggests that held in reserve by a series of modern dams they can be divided into two principal and barrages; but until 1890, when the groups-the Older Dunes, built up be- first of these was completed, the flood tween 2350 and 500 B.C., and the Younger waters drained unimpeded into the open Dunes which came into being between sea, often leaving in their wake con- A.D. 300 and the present day. Unlike the siderable damage to revetments, dikes, mobile dunes of the desert plateau and roadways, bridges, modern villages, and those which move across the Pleistocene ancient ruins. By the end of November gravels west of , most of the bulk of the water has receded from the the marginal dunes are more or less an- land leaving the moist fields, covered with chored in their places by the local vegeta- a thin layer of fresh silt, exposed and tion. ready for the annual planting. In Middle Egypt the average difference between low 7. LowEn EGYPT AND THE DELTA OF water (May-June) and the height of the THE NILE inundation (September) is twenty-two feet; but here again there is a yearly When, in mid-Tertiary times, the Nile variation depending more or less directly adopted its present course it flowed into on the volume of the equatorial rains. An the gradually diminishing Mediterranean inundation four or five feet below the by way of a broad bay or estuary, the average is a "bad Nile" and in antiquity a head of which lay, as we have seen, in succession of these usually resulted in the neighborhood of modern Cairo and is crop failures and . On the other marked today by the prominences of hand, an exceptionally high Nile (30 feet Gebel Abu Roash and Gebel el-Ahmar, or over) was almost equally disastrous the ancient "gates of the Delta." The geo- because of the widespread destruction history of Lower Egypt, insofar as it has a which it wrought. bearing on Man's activities in this most oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND 11 important region, is the story of the build- rhinoceros, a giraffe, a camel, an early form ing up in this bay of a series of super- of horse, a boar, a hyena, a type of large imposed deltas, which as time progressed cat, and three cynopithecoid apes. contracted laterally, but thrust steadily Borings, sunk through the "terre veg6- northward until by Late Paleolithic times tale" to depths of 267 feet at Cairo, 345 the present coastline, some 110 miles north feet at , and 535 feet at Abuqir, of Cairo, had been reached. have failed to reach solid rock or a Though much of the prehistory and stratum of the Pliocene age or earlier; but early history of Lower Egypt lies buried have penetrated three distinct layers of beneath the silt of the present Delta, loose material-silts, sands, and gravels- beyond the confines of the latter and in its deposited successively between the Plio- southern and eastern portions are still Pleistocene interval and the Late Paleo- preserved large expanses of those far lithic phase of human development. older deltas formed by the Nile before and Pliocene gulf deposits and Plio-Pleisto- during the occupancy of earliest Man. cene river gravels are well represented Ancient deltaic deposits have been identi- from the region of Cairo northwestward fied as far south as Minya, 130 miles above and northeastward along both sides of the apex of the modern Delta; and we the modern Delta, the gravels rising to have already traced the gravel spreads of great heights above the present flood what well may be the Oligocene delta of plain and descending toward it, as in the ancestral river system northwest Upper and Middle Egypt, in a series of across the Libyan Desert as far as Moghara terraces. Especially noteworthy are the and northeast across the Arabian Desert implementiferous gravels of the 100-foot beyond Suez. terrace exposed near Cairo in the sand-pits Miocene deposits, unknown in the Nile of Abbassiya and the successions of Valley, not only stretch westward from terraces identified near el-Khatatba on the the oasis of the Wadi el-Natrun, but are west side of the Delta and, on its east side, also found in abundance in the much just north of the Wadi el-Tumilat. The faulted region between Suez and the east last-named feature, which appears itself to side of the Delta. Some of the drainage have been formed during the 100-foot lines in the area between Cairo and the terrace stage of Lower Egypt, is a former Gulf of Suez probably date back to Upper Nile arm linking the eastern Delta with Miocene times. the Isthmus of Suez. It was destined to Estuarine beds of the Pliocene period become, in later times, one of the principal preserved in the Wadi el-Natrun are of routes into northern Egypt from the east special interest because of the rich and and as such, to play an important role in varied fauna contained in them-a fauna Egyptian history. comprising both aquatic and land animals As the sea is approached the river whose bones had been collected and swept gravels give way to submarine deposits of down by the river, in some cases probably deltaic types, the well defined lines of from hundreds of miles upstream. Besides change marking the ancient delta coast fish, turtles, and crocodiles the aquatic lines and enabling us to fix the positions fauna include a dwarf hippopotamus, of the old delta mouths of the river. We three species of otter, and a sea cow. can, for example, follow the coast of the Among the bones of land animals were Plio-Pleistocene delta eastward from the those of a mastodon, an elephant, a Wadi el-Natrun to a point north of el- oi.uchicago.edu

12 FORMATION OF THE LAND

Khatatba at the western edge of the mod- These deposits occur also in the Wadi el- ern delta and pick it up again on the east Tumilat and in a few places along the side along the slopes which run from south eastern edge of the Delta. Rising to a of the Wadi el-Tumilat to the dunes and maximum height of thirty feet above the marshes of the present coast. The high- present level of the alluvium, they contain level terraces, bearing off to the east and implements of more recent types than west along the North African shoreline, those found in the lower terraces of Upper pass ultimately into ancient Mediterranean Egypt, but similar to those in the Middle Sea beaches. Remains of eight to ten such Egyptian gravels which rise above fifteen beaches or marine bars, ranging in height feet and to those occurring in deposits in from more than 360 feet above sea-level the Fayum basin and in the channel which down to sea-level, are to be seen to the connects the latter with the Nile. west of to a distance of In the later Paleolithic stage of human twenty-four miles inland from the present development the Nile, as we have seen, shoreline of Gulf and in places else- sank its channel not only deeply into the where along the coast between Abuqir silts piled up during the preceding stage, and the Gulf of Sollum. but far below the level of the modern flood Large remnants of the Pleistocene delta plain. Naturally, no Nilotic deposits of are still visible in the form of sandy this period are visible on the surface of the islands, or "turtlebacks," which are distri- Delta, where borings have shown that the buted over an area of some two thousand younger of the two buried channels lies miles in the eastern and southern at least one hundred feet, and probably portions of the great triangular plain. more, below the surface of the modern These islands, capped with sands of alluvium. Later Paleolithic and pre- Middle Paleolithic date, represent the Neolithic implements, however, have been more compact and resistant portions of the found in surface washes at the east end of Plio-Pleistocene and Pleistocene deposits, the Wadi el-Tumilat, in the sand dunes between which the river arms during the near el-Ismailiya, in the sites at Helwan, period lowered their beds south of Cairo, and in surface sites on the with such rapidity that there was little west side of the Delta. Though these energy left over for lateral erosion. The indicate people living on the slopes border- silt covering overlapping the gently sloping ing the Delta-a state of affairs which edges of the visible turtlebacks and con- continued during the Neolithic period- cealing others completely from view is there can be little doubt that large areas of thin, and it is clear that even in fairly the Delta itself were at this time habitable recent historic times these eminently and probably inhabited. habitable expanses of elevated, dry land Between Cairo and the sea the deposi- were both more numerous and much tion of the upper alluvium followed a larger in area than at the present day. somewhat different pattern than in the In addition to the capping of the turtle- valley to the south. Not only was the area backs fine gravel and silt deposits of the to be covered far broader, but the ability Middle Paleolithic aggradation phase of of the river to transport and distribute its the Pleistocene are found along the load of silts and heavier sediments was western edge of the Delta, covered with much reduced by its division into many wind-blown surface sand and overlapping arms and by a marked diminution in its older delta sands and terrace gravels. gradient and, therefore, in its rate of flow. oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND 13

As a result the river embankments, or sinking appears to have taken place since levees, tend to be lower and narrower, the Roman times. basins deeper, and permanent swamps The most striking feature of the and lakes somewhat more numerous, Mediterranean coastline of Egypt is the especially in the northernmost portions of series of shallow lakes or lagoons, which the plain. Nevertheless, with silt deposi- extend from west to east across the sea- tion even in this area attested to a depth ward side of the Delta from Alexandria to of more than thirty-six feet and the sea- and which in their present forms level about 5000 B.C. more than thirty feet are of relatively recent origin. On the north below its present position it is clear that in these coastal lakes are bounded by bars of Neolithic and later prehistoric times much diluvial marine limestone and in places by of the Delta plain was seasonally dry as reefs, similar to pelagic coral reefs, and on far north as the brackish coastal lagoons, the south by low-lying marshy tracts, that is, as far north as the present 10-foot which separate the lagoons from the (3-meter) isohyp. It has been chiefly during cultivated lands of the Delta. Of the four the historic period that a gradually rising principal lakes-Maryut, , Burullus, sea-level has compelled men to concen- and Menzala-only Lake Maryut, at the trate their settlements on the sandy turtle- extreme northwest corner of the Delta, by backs of the southern and eastern Delta, Alexandria, is completely landlocked, the on the silt islands which once formed bars enclosing the other lakes having parts of the elevated river banks, and on broken through at one or more places. the fringe areas which now comprise the Between the lagoons, at points where the low desert. river debouches, or did debouch, into The present-day Delta is a flat alluvial the sea through its several delta mouths, plain, roughly triangular in shape, bounded Nilotic silt has overrun the marine on the northwest by Abuqir, on the north- barriers and formed northward-projecting east by Lake Menzala, and on the south by spurs, as at Abuqir, , and Dam- Cairo. With an area of over nine thousand ietta. The small tongue of land which square miles, it represents two-thirds of extends to the east from the the total arable land of Egypt. The altitude mouth across the northern side of Lake of the modern cultivated land at the apex Menzala is composed exclusively of Nile of the Delta is less than sixty-five feet alluvium, precipitated into the sea and above sea-level, and the soil in the basin carried to the east by the North African lands tends to be waterlogged at a shallow coastal current. Still further to the east, depth below the surface. Owing to some where the coast of Sinai bends northward subsidence and compaction, but chiefly, it in a striking curve before turning up to- would seem, to a rise in sea-level of six ward Palestine, another narrow tongue of and one-half to thirteen feet since classical land encloses the long, narrow coastal lake times much of the fertile triangle as well of Sirbonis, now called the Sabkhet el- as the coastal areas to the east and west Bardawil. The Egyptian shoreline to the are lower now in relation to the sea than west of the Delta and the western part of they were in the Greco-Roman period. As the Delta coast itself are composed to a a result Hellenistic structures all along great extent of ridges of soft oSlitic lime- the coast from Cyrenaica to have stone which, in the words of Blanckenhorn, become partially submerged and in the "run parallel with the coast and to the region of Alexandria a very marked south climb stepwise to the high ground, oi.uchicago.edu

14 FORMATION OF THE LAND

but are separated from one another by periods was accompanied in Nubia by longitudinal valleys ... " These ridges and general erosion of the southern portion of the valleys between represent former off- the sedimentary tableland; and it was not shore marine bars and lagoons formed in until after the sandstone underlying the the course of the Pleistocene period by at Upper Cretaceous and Eocene strata had least eight marine transgressions above been laid bare that the Nubian river modern sea-level. Important Egyptian system converged into a single stream and harbors, like those of Mirsa Matruh and adopted its present course. The excavation Alexandria, owe their existence to the of the Nubian Nile Valley was, then, an breaking down, in comparatively recent event of late Pliocene or post-Pliocene times; of the outer of these coastal bars. times. The courses of the Nile through its own Since the Pliocene gulf did not eKtend delta have been many and various. At the south of Aswan there are no deposits of present day the river divides into its two this age in the Nubian valley; and the Plio- principal branches at Batn el-Baqar, ten Pleistocene and Pleistocene river terraces miles northwest of Cairo. The Rosetta here are rock platforms carved in the sand- arm off toward the northwest and stone which forms the walls of the valley pours its load of silt into the sea thirty-five and covered with spreads of gravel derived miles east of Abuqir, between Lake Edku from the sandstone plateau itself and and Lake Burullus. The Damietta branch brought in for the most part by the lateral bears away in a northerly and then north- tributaries of the river. The 300- and 200- easterly direction and flows into the foot terraces are preserved only in places, Mediterranean close beside the western as at and near Korosko, edge of Lake Menzala. Classical writers list where high cliffs rise on either side of the seven principal Nile mouths, all named river; but the 150-, 100-, and 50-foot after important Delta towns and called, in terraces are well represented all the way order from east to west, the Pelusiac, between Wadi Halfa and Aswan, the last Tanitic, Mendesian, Phatnitic, Sebennytic, two, as in Egypt, containing in their Bolbitinic, and Canopic mouths. The gravels implements of Lower Paleolithic Phatnitic and Bolbitinic arms appear to types. No traces of terraces below the 50- have corresponded respectively with the foot level have been observed, though still existent Damietta and Rosetta Middle Paleolithic implements of types branches. Of the other five-all now fallen associated in Egypt with the 30-foot into disuse-the Pelusiac mouth at the ex- terrace and the 10-foot gravels have been treme eastern edge of the Delta and the found in surface sites and in the basal Canopic mouth at its extreme western parts of the later river silt. The advent of edges were the most important. Middle Paleolithic times appears to have been accompanied south of Aswan by a 8. THE NUBIAN NILE AND ITS VALLEY reduction in rainfall-hence, in the volume CATARACTS of the river and its tributaries-more The narrow gorge through which the marked than in the north at this period; Nile flows between the frontier and and it is probable that in Nubia the el-Sebaiya in southern Upper Egypt is of 30-foot terrace and the 10-foot gravel more recent origin than the Egyptian Nile platform were never formed. Valley. The cutting of the latter during The Middle-Late Paleolithic phase of silt the Upper Miocene and Lower Pliocene deposition was followed, as in Egypt, by oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND 15

renewed erosion and cutting down of the Atiri, true cataract conditions can no river bed-the difference being that in longer be said to exist. At Semna itself the Nubia this process of degradation has con- rock barrier has been cut down some tinued without interruption from the twenty-six feet during the last four Late Paleolithic period until the construc- thousand years as indicated by Nile marks tion of the modern dam at . Thus, of the late Twelfth Dynasty at that height while north of Aswan the Nile has since above the present river level. North of the pre-Neolithic times been building up its Semna rapids the course of the river is bed, in Nubia it has been slowly cutting it obstructed here and there by small down, a process particularly noticeable in islands; but it is not until the island of the so-called cataracts and narrows of the Shargandi, twelve miles upstream from river. Wadi Halfa, is reached that the cataract These "cataracts" and narrows occur proper begins. Thence northward for six along the Nubian Nile at places where miles the Nile swirls and tumbles through the river while excavating its post- a maze of rocky islets and giant boulders Pliocene valley, encountered at relatively until near the towering prominence of shallow depths below the surface of the it enters its silt-encumbered valley sandstone outcrops of igneous and meta- in the Nubian sandstone and resumes its morphic rocks, through which it has sub- normally steady and placid rate of flow. sequently forced its way only with Were it not for the fact that the con- considerable difficulty and unaccustomed struction and subsequent heightening of turbulence. In the region of the Second the have caused most of Nubia Cataract, south of Wadi Haifa, the from Shellal southward to be flooded, the ancient rock formations were exposed by First Cataract and its approaches would general erosion of the thin southern rim exhibit a generally similar pattern of of the sandstone plateau and are found development. At Kalabsha, forty miles up- not only along the river but over a river from Aswan, the Nile has opened a considerable portion of the northern deep though narrow gorge through the Sudan. A hundred and sixty miles to the southern spur of the igneous and meta- north they reappear in the form of morphic complex and eroded the granite isolated spurs extending across the course sill to a point where it no longer constitutes of the river first at Kalabsha and then for a serious impediment to the river's flow. a distance of twenty-one miles south of Between Dehmit and Shellal the channel, Aswan. though hemmed in by hard rock walls, is The Second Cataract may be said to still relatively free of obstructions. This is include a succession of rapids extending far from being the case over the six-mile along the river for a distance of more than stretch occupied by the cataract itself thirty miles from above the Middle King- between the large island of el-Heisa, south- dom forts at Semna to a point some five or west of Shellal, and the historically six miles south of the modern town of Wadi important island of , im- Halfa. The name Batn el-Hagar, "Belly of mediately opposite the town of Aswan. Stones," is now applied to the whole of the Here the Nile in its early struggles to ninety-mile stretch of river south of Wadi penetrate the rocky barrier split into Halfa; but above Semna the Nile has three main channels. Through the western- lowered its bed and cleared its channel in most of these it still flows below the the hard rock to an extent where, except at modern dam, whirling and twisting in oi.uchicago.edu

16 FORMATION OF THE LAND countless smaller channels around and be- sandstone. Flooded during the earlier tween seven good-sized islands and in- phases of its existence not only by the main numerable glistening black boulders. The river, but by an important group of dry eastern channel, through which a tributary streams flowing into it from the railway line now runs, was blocked with east, the Kom Ombo basin in Late Paleo- sandstones, shales, and compacted silts lithic times still contained an extensive, (Pliocene?) and finally with gravels and though dwindling lake or swamp, on the sands of the 100-foot terrace stage and shores of which are the remains of human was apparently abandoned in Lower habitations. Paleolithic times, the central channel The river meanwhile, during its Lower- falling into disuse at a later date, following Middle Paleolithic stages of bed erosion, the silt-aggradation phase of the middle- had cut two deep channels through the late Paleolithic period. Coarse-grained red sandstone barrier forming the northern granite, also called "syenite" from the rim of the basin, one on either side of the ancient Greek name of Aswan (Syene), is hard massif known today as Gebel el- the dominant surface rock in the region of Silsila. Owing probably to a westerly shift the First Cataract, but grano-diorites and in the course of the river the eastern diorites are also well represented, and the channel silted up and was subsequently more ancient crystalline schists and gneis- abandoned; and from the end of the Paleo- ses are found "near the periphery of the lithic period on the Nile has flowed only outcrop." through the narrow western gorge, be- Geohistorically the First and Second tween precipitous walls of sandstone Cataracts and the river narrows associated which over a distance of almost a mile with them are among the more recent come directly down to the water's edge. additions to the physiography of the Nile The Silsila gorge, at one time without Valley. Contact between the ancient river much doubt a true cataract, was at an and the granitic rock barrier was not, as ancient period in Egypt's history regarded, we have seen, established until late Plio- reasonably enough, as the gateway to cene or post-Pliocene times; and most of Nubia and was revered as one of the the erosion which created the present-day legendary sources of the Nile. It marks, in gorges and rapids has undoubtedly taken any case, the remains of the last serious place within the memory of man-much barrier encountered by the river in its of it, indeed, since the beginning of course to the Mediterranean. At el- . Sebaiya, forty miles to the north, the Nile For a distance of eighty miles below the leaves the sandstone behind and passes First Cataract the Nile follows a narrow into the softer shales and limestones channel in the sandstone similar in characteristic of its Egyptian valley. character to its Nubian valley above Dehmit and exhibiting only in the vicinity 9. THE FAYUM LAKE BASIN of Kom Ombo features of special interest Outside of the valley and delta of the to the student of . Here, Nile no part of Egypt has played a more between Khannak and Kagug, crustal important role in the history and pre- disturbances of Miocene date opened, as history of the country than the Fayum we have seen, a wide triangular basin, or basin and its ancient lake. sunken plain, bounded on the north by a A fertile, oasis-like depression in the high, east-west fault scarp of hard Nubian Libyan desert sixty miles south of Cairo oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND 17 and only some fifteen miles to the west of Paleolithic (Lower Levalloisian) date. Sec- the river, the Fayum measures thirty-five tions of gravel platforms extending miles in width from north to south and through the Hawara Channel show that almost fifty miles in length from east to the beach of a lake at 112 feet above sea- west. The lake which once filled it is today level is a continuation inside the Fayum represented by the Birket Qarun, a of the Nile gravels of the 25-foot aggrada- relatively small, brackish body of water tion phase, and in this case implements of occupying the low-lying northwestern late Middle Paleolithic types common to portion of the depression and at present both the river gravels and the beach used chiefly as a sump, its surface arti- shingle confirm the association. ficially stabilized at 147 feet below mean As the Nile in final Middle Paleolithic sea-level. For its water supply the old lake and Late Paleolithic times lowered its bed basin has for centuries depended on the from one level to another the Fayum lake Bahr Yusef, a brook which leaves the Nile fell with it, first to 92 feet and then to 74 far to the south near Asyut, winds north- feet above modern sea-level. Toward the ward parallel to the river, and enters the end of the Paleolithic period the river had Fayum through the ancient Hawara sunk so low that its waters no longer channel, between Gebel Sedment and flowed into the Fayum, and the lake Gebel Lahun. dropped to 18 feet below sea-level and Geologists are not in complete agree- appears, indeed, to have dried up al- ment on the period when the Fayum together. Wind erosion again took charge depression, as such, came into existence and the dry lake basin was evidently or on the steps involved in its creation. It deepened considerably at this time, sur- is, however, the opinion of the majority of passing in all probability its present observers that, following some preliminary maximum depth of 174 feet below sea- shaping by tectonic and possibly fluviatile level. activity, the present basin was largely During the period of transition between excavated by wind erosion in early the Old and New Stone Ages the Nile, as Pleistocene times; and that a direct we have seen, entered upon its present hydrographic connection between the phase of bed aggradation and began once Fayum and the Nile through the Hawara more to send its overflow through the Channel had been established by the be- Hawara channel into the Fayum, re. ginning of the Middle Paleolithic period. establishing the lake and raising its surface At that time the depression was occupied to 59 feet above sea-level. Soon, however, by a vast, high-level lake, the surface of the Hawara channel itself began to be which lay 131-138 feet above modern sea- choked with silt, and this factor alone level with storm beaches piled up along its appears to have been sufficient to reduce easterly, or lee, shore to a height of 144 the amount of water received by the feet. The beach of this lake would seem to Fayum basin below that which it lost be associated with the 50-foot river each year through seepage and evapora- terrace of northern Middle Egypt, which tion. In spite, therefore, of some local rain- at nearby stands at 142 feet fall the lake early in the Neolithic period above sea-level. Though no implements had apparently already fallen to 43 feet have been found in Situ in either the and this was followed by a 33-foot lake terrace gravels or the beach shingle it is and in mid-Neolithic times by a lake only probable that both are of early Middle 13 feet above sea-level. With the decline oi.uchicago.edu

18 FORMATION OF THE LAND

of the so-called Neolithic Wet Phase, or denudation as the anticlinal areas now Sub-pluvial, and the approach of semi- occupied by the oases rose from beneath desert conditions the Fayum lake sank the sea"; and it has been suggested that seven feet below sea-level, remaining at crustal movements of pre-Pliocene times this general level throughout the balance determined the lines along which the of Egyptian prehistory and well down into softer strata were exposed to erosion and, historic times. hence, the positions and the general From time to time since the early years shapes of the depressions. Mitwally be- of the second B.C. the level lieves that "the depressions owe their of the lake has been artificially regulated origin to the action of erosion on areas of by the government of Egypt for purposes favourable geological structure and upon of flood control, , land reclama- strata possessing a differential resistance tion, or drainage. In general the ancient to its power" and points out that "the posi- lake, known in the New Kingdom as the tion of all the depressions (Baharia and Lake of Miwer and in Greco-Roman times Fayum excepted) coincide with the south- as the Lake of Moeris, occupied a far ern limits of major geological formations" greater proportion of the Fayum depres- -Kurkur, Kharga, and Farafra with the sion than it does now, not approaching its edge of the Eocene limestone, Dakhla with present restricted dimensions until the be- the southern limit of the Cretaceous chalk, ginning of the Christian Era. In antiquity and Siwa with the southern limit of the the inhabited portions of the Fayum Miocene formations. Said excludes the pos- included, besides the old lake beaches and sibility of a tectonic origin for the oases the marginal areas of fertile lake bottom and is of the opinion that they started as left exposed by the descending waters, a water-filled minor depressions which be- fan-shaped expanse of Nile silt extending came dust-bowls and were subsequently from the inner end of the Hawara channel deflated by wind. According to him the over most of the southeastern part of the depth of their floors was "governed by depression. It is near the center of this the ground water level which forms, in a "delta" that has always stood the Fayum's way, a base level for wind action." A few principal town: the dynastic Shedet, the geologists still adhere to the belief that classical Crocodilopolis (Arsinoe), and the fluviatile erosion by Libyan branches of modern Medinet el-Fayum. the Upper Eocene-Oligocene "Urnil" river system also played an important part in 10. THE OASES OF THE LIBYAN DESERT the initial formation of the basins of the Like the Fayum, the other habitable central and southern groups. depressions of the Libyan desert-the The depressions themselves are for the Wadi el-Natrun and the oases of Siwa, most part long and narrow, extending Bahria, Farafra, Kharga, Dakhla, and either in a generally east-west direction, others-are immense basins scooped out like the Wadi el-Natrun and the oases of of the softer portions of the plateau surface Siwa and Dakhla, or from north to south, chiefly by the powerful erosive action of like Bahria and Kharga; and are either sand-laden winds. This excavatory work, wholly or partially surrounded by steep the bulk of which appears to have been and often lofty escarpments. Ancient accomplished between later Tertiary and torrents have furrowed the sides of these Middle Pleistocene times, may have been scarps in many places, and inside the preceded by "a vast primary marine depressions hard, resistant masses of rock oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND 19 have been left standing to form hills here the Fayum, most of which is fertile-the and there on their floors. The lowest arable land in the oases is confined to portions of the Kharga depression descend relatively small patches immediately sur- a few feet below sea-level and more than rounding the artesian and com- 1300 feet below the surface of the sur- prising in the oasis of Kharga less than rounding plateau, and, in the north, one percent of the total area of the depths of seventy to eighty feet below sea- depression. Outside of these fertile patches level have been recorded in the Wadi the floors of the depressions are often as el-Natrun and in the oasis of Siwa. So far barren as the surrounding desert plateau as actual size is concerned, the smallest and in places are heavily drifted over with and most recently formed of the depres- wind-blown sand. Unlike the Wadi el- sions under consideration, the Wadi el- Natrun, the vast, uninhabited Qattara Natrun, has a length of about twenty-five Depression, and other of the more miles and an average width of about six northerly depressions, the southern oases miles, while the largest, the oasis of do not ever seem to have contained large Kharga, measures a hundred and fifteen lakes or extensive marshy tracts, certain miles from north to south and reaches a deposits in Kharga oasis, once thought to maximum width of almost fifty miles. have been lacustrine, being no longer From mid-Pleistocene times, when the accepted as such. oases appear first to have become habit- A study of the eastern scarp of the able, they have depended for their water Kharga depression has disclosed the supply chiefly on natural springs bubbling presence here of two classes of tufa formed out of the upper strata of sandstone which during periods of relatively high humidity: form or underlie the floors of the depres- the so-called Plateau Tufa, "unfossili- sions or (since the Sixth Century B.C.) on ferous, locally pre-human, and possibly artesian wells sunk hundreds of feet into Plio-Pleistocene" in date; and the Wadi the lower strata of the same stone. The Tufa, "crammed with the impressions of subterranean water tapped by these fossil and intimately associated springs and wells is believed to have with Paleolithic man." Like the deposits travelled through the sandstone for great formed around the ancient springs on distances, originating either in the Nubian the floor of the depression the fluviatile Nile or far to the southwest in the rain- gravels underlying the layers of Wadi Tufa swept highlands of Chad or the Repub- in the passes of the scarp were found to lic of the Sudan. Almost no active springs contain human artifacts ranging in date are to be found nowadays in the oases; but from late Lower Paleolithic (Upper Ach- at Kharga groups of large mounds distri- eulian) down into local Neolithic. Evi- buted over the floor of the depression mark dences of post-Paleolithic and later the positions of "fossil springs" once used prehistoric habitations occur in the silt- by prehistoric man and containing in their pans and chert quarries of the adjoining deposits implements of final Lower Paleo- Libyan Plateau and in some of the silty lithic and later types similar to those basins in the depression proper. found also in the wadi gravels of the A glance at the geographic distribution depression's eastern scarp. Within the of the Libyan oases will prove helpful in basins proper human activity appears to understanding their economic and cultural have been largely concentrated around relationships with one another and with these springs; and today-in contrast to Egypt, of which in antiquity they were not oi.uchicago.edu

20 FORMATION OF THE LAND regarded as forming a part. This was true for about seventy-five miles and enters even of the Wadi el-Natrun which lies the oasis by way of a lateral ravine known only sixty miles north of the Fayum and today as the Abu Sighawal pass. From less than forty miles from the western edge Asyut the principal caravan route to the of the Delta and from which the Egyptians Sudan runs almost due south across at an early period obtained a kind of soda, the desert, passes lengthwise through the called , used extensively by them Kharga depression, and proceeds thence as a detergent and preservative. Siwa, southward to via the small Nubian lying some two hundred and seventy-five oases of Bir el-Natrun and Selima. This miles due west of the Fayum, near the is the famous Darb el- Arbain, or "Road boundary of modern Libya, is the most of the Forty (Days)," one of the most remote and least "Egyptian" of all the ancient and extensively used lines of fertile depressions, its affiliations until a communication linking Egypt with the relatively late period in Egyptian history African lands to the south. having been principally with Libya and Aside from their function as way- the Saharan and North African regions to stations on the southern and western the west. In antiquity it appears to have trade routes the oases have since Paleo- been reached from the Nile Valley by way lithic times supported populations of their of the oasis of Bahria, which lies a hundred own and have been known for their and ten miles almost due southwest of the production of wine, olive oil, dates, and Fayum and less than a hundred miles other commodities. As outposts of the from the Nile opposite Samalut and ancient Libyans, as havens for political Minya in Middle Egypt. Bahria, in turn, is refugees, and as places of exile for enemies linked with the southern group of oases by of the state they have from time to time the extensive, but historically unimport- played a by no means negligible role in ant, depression of Farafra, which stretches Egyptian history. southward to within fifty miles or less of the western end of the Dakhla scarp, its 11. CLIMATE principal settlement, Qasr Farafra, falling Variations in Egypt's normally arid approximately on the latitude of the climate from the beginning of the Tertiary Upper Egyptian of Asyut. Dakhla era to the present day are to a great extent and Kharga form the two arms of a great reflected in the geological and bio- 1]-shaped depression, the whole of which geographical developments outlined in the was in ancient times referred to as the foregoing pages. "Southern Oasis" and later as "the Great Every class of evidence-physiograph- Oasis." Kharga, the north-south arm of ical, floral, and faunal-indicates that in the 1, stretches from north of the latitude northeastern Africa the Tertiary was of Luxor to about the latitude of Aswan, characterized in large part by warm and is reached from the Nile Valley by a temperatures and extended intervals of dozen different caravan tracks, most of moderate to heavy rainfall, the latter them converging on one or the other of its reaching a peak toward the end of the two principal villages, Kharga and Beris. Oligocene period and again in middle and The shortest and best of these routes late Pliocene times. Though during phases across the Libyan plateau to the Great of maximum precipitation the climate Oasis is the one which leaves the Nile apparently achieved a tropical-monsoonal Valley near , bears west-southwest character, made possible the growth of oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND 21 trees of considerable size, and supported a More recently, however, the same fauna of sub-equatorial type, the rainfall evidence has been convincingly reinter- was clearly never sufficient to provide the preted and four pluvial periods separated Egyptian tableland with a thick covering from one another by three interpluvials of forest. We think, rather, of grassy have been postulated for the late Lower to plains fringed here and there by clumps of Upper Pleistocene, probably preceded trees and deteriorating rapidly into tree- during the earliest Pleistocene by still less steppe and even desert during the another pluvial and interpluvial. The four periods of aridity which interrupted moist periods in question have been the stretches of more favorable climate. tentatively designated as the Mindel In Egypt, as in other portions of the Pluvial, the Riss Pluvial, the Early Wirm Saharo-Arabian climatic zone, the Pleisto- Pluvial, and the Main Wirm Pluvial, the cene epoch is now generally believed to names being borrowed from the well-known have comprised a succession of "pluvials," Alpine glacial phases with the early stages or periods of relatively abundant annual of which these north African and south- rainfall, separated from one another by west Asian pluvials are presumed to be intervals of aridity, or "interpluvials," associated. In Egypt the Mindel and Riss with the former decreasing and the latter Pluvials are thought to have produced the increasing in intensity with the transition gravel cappings of the 100-, 50-, and 30- to the succeeding , or recent, foot Nile terraces of the upper valley and, epoch. Investigations conducted by Pro- in terms of human activity, to have fessor Karl W. Butzer indicate that the embraced the whole of the Lower Paleo- Pleistocene pluvials, though associated (Abbevillian and Acheulian), meteorologically and chronologically with including the period of Man's first demon- the advance of the glaciers in more strable occupation of the oasis of Kharga northerly latitudes, "are the direct con- (Upper Acheulian) and the period of sequence of primary changes in the transition to the Middle Paleolithic general circulation of the atmosphere and (Acheulio-Levalloisian). The 100-foot Nile are not secondary effects of the presence gravels of northern Egypt (Acheulian) are of continental glaciation." assigned to the Mindel-Riss Interpluvial Evidences of erosion and deposition as and the 50-foot gravels and 131-foot studied both in the Nile Valley and on the Fayum lake (Lower Levalloisian?) to the eastern scarp of Kharga oasis have led one Riss-Wuirm Interpluvial. The Early Wiirm group of observers to limit the number of Pluvial would have witnessed the forma- Pleistocene pluvials to two: a first, and tion of the 10-foot wadi gravels of Upper major, pluvial extending from late Plio- Egypt (Middle Paleolithic) and the suc- cene or Plio-Pleistocene times to about the ceeding Interpluvial the commencement middle of the Pleistocene period and of Abyssinian silt deposition in the south, witnessing, in the river valley, the earlier the building-up of the 25-foot fine gravels Lower Paleolithic stages of human pre- and silts in the north, and the decline of history; and a second and somewhat less the Fayum lake first to 112 and then to effective pluvial beginning in later Lower 92 feet above sea-level (late Middle Paleolithic times and reaching two or Paleolithic-Late Paleolithic). It was ap- three minor peaks of precipitation during parently during the second and minor sub- the Middle Paleolithic stages of man's maximum of the Wuirm Pluvial ("Main cultural development. Warm") and during its increasingly arid oi.uchicago.edu

22 FORMATION OF THE LAND

final stage ("Late Wiirm") that the Nile in and a fauna which, as in Neolithic times, Late Paleolithic times degraded its bed to may have included such animals as the great depths all the way from the Second elephant. the rhinoceros, the giraffe, the Cataract to the seacoast and that, despite ostrich, the antelope, the gazelle, and some momentary increases in rainfall, the several kinds of cat. Fayum lake sank gradually below present Relatively moist conditions seem to sea-level and may have disappeared have continued into the Middle Paleolithic altogether. age as attested by the occurrence of Fossil soil profiles and other data implements of Levalloisian types scattered derived from the river and wadi terraces far and wide over the surface of the of Egypt suggest the existence here of two present high desert. The precipitation, types of Pleistocene pluvials and of two however, was growing slighter and more types of local climate occasioned by them. spasmodic and the plateau landscape was The sub-tropical, or Mediterranean, plu- changing gradually from thorn savannah vials, during which the terrace gravels to dry steppe to semi-desert. In the oasis were deposited, appear to have been of Kharga animal and remains of this associated with the early, or advance, period are either confined to the vicinity of stages of the European glaciations. The the ancient springs or are of types which climate during these relatively brief inter- flourish today in regions of low rainfall, vals was evidently moist and cool, with an the only tree remains found in the scarp annual rainfall exceeding eight inches and deposits being those of fig-trees, date- a landscape of moderate dry steppe or palms, and the like. etesian steppe type with grasses, shrubs, The onset of aridity in late Pleistocene succulents, thorny bushes, and acacias times was evidently a gradual process, growing on the surface of the plateau and desiccation spreading slowly northward clumps of trees, such as sycamores, from Nubia into Upper and Middle Egypt. , and tamarisks, occurring along the In Nubia the rainfall and surface run-off banks of the river and its tributaries. had begun to fail in the Middle Paleolithic There followed during the closing stages period and it is probable that here, as of each pluvial and the first half of the suc- already remarked, the 30- and 10-foot ceeding interpluvial an interval of climate gravel platforms were never formed. In as dry as that of the present day and per- Upper Egypt the mixed gravels of the 10- haps even drier, when the Nile in Upper foot stage seem to have been laid down by Egypt lowered its bed, the lateral wadis "sporadic torrents" rather than by "evenly dried up, tree-life was confined to a few distributed rainfall." By Late Paleolithic undemanding species (acacias and tama- times the rainfall had failed completely risks?) growing along the immediate fringes above the First Cataract and was con- of the river, and human habitation was siderably diminished farther to the north, possible only in the northernmost, coastal as attested by the presence of blown sand areas. The third climatic phase, charac- in the basal silts of the first aggradation teristic of the late interpluvial periods, is phase in Upper Egypt. Sand dunes had believed to have been as warm as today's already begun their long, slow march climate, but moister, with sandy red earth southward from the coastal region across forming and the landscape assuming the the. Libyan plateau, drift sand was be- nature of a sub-tropical steppe and sup- ginning to accumulate around the springs porting vegetation of thorn-savannah type in the Kharga depression, and a marked oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND 23 decrease in the already none too vigorous sharply thereafter and again in early rainfall of the region of the oasis was historic times, but maintaining, neverthe. permitting silt to be deposited in the wadis less, a general level well above that of the of the eastern scarp. Though fleeting present day. Though probably confined to intervals of more favorable climate are occasional thunder showers, the precipita. attested during the Late Paleolithic period tion was sufficient to form pools of fresh men and animals tended to confine their water in the hollows of the Libyan plateau, activities to the vicinity of the river, the to support for a while large herbivorous grassy wadi bottoms of the eastern plateau, animals like the rhinoceros and the ele- and the springs and scarp ravines of the phant over broad stretches of the high oases and to shun the now parched and deserts, and to enable groves of small trees, uninviting expanses of the open plains, seasonal pastures, and extensive human over which previously they had wandered settlements to grow up along the fringes of at will. the Nile Valley in areas which had pre- Conditions even more severe than that viously been arid and which now comprise of the present day were reached in Final portions of the low desert. The river valley Paleolithic times during the first "post- and Delta in Neolithic, predynastic, and pluvial" period following the end of the early historic times evidently also showed Wiirm Pluvial. This phase, which is the effects of a somewhat more moist believed to have extended from about climate, with papyrus and water-lilies 16,000 to 9500 B.c., was one of high growing along the waterways and in the temperatures, severe wind erosion, and marshy hollows of the basin-lands and minimum rainfall, the last achieving its aquatic animals and birds inhabiting the low point in or about the twelfth millen- river and its backwaters in greater pro- nium B.C. Following a brief respite in the fusion than at the present day. form of a sub-pluvial of about a millen- Since the end of the third millennium nium's duration (ca. 9500-8500 B.C.) desert B.C. the has been conditions again closed in and held sway generally similar to that of the present day. until about 6500 B.c. when a rise in pre- Between 2350 B.C. and A.D. 700 the cipitation reduced the extreme aridity of average temperature seems to have been, the land to its modern level. if anything, a trifle above and the average Toward the end of the sixth millennium rainfall a little below the modern levels, B.C. Egypt and neighboring lands appear but with at least two "quite moist" spells, to have enjoyed another slight, but one in late Ramesside times and one effective increase in temperature and about 850 s.c. precipitation and to have entered upon a Egypt's present climate, so frequently prolonged sub-pluvial or relatively moist used as a basis of comparison in the fore- phase, extending from early Neolithic going paragraphs, is notoriously warm, times until late in the Old Kingdom (ca. dry, and clear. Mean temperatures range ° 5000-2350 B.C.). This era of actually rather from a January minimum of 50 Fahrenheit varied climate has been equated with the at Alexandria to a July maximum of 107 ° so-called Atlantic phase, or post-glacial at Aswan, the range being far greater on Climatic Optimum, of . In the desert plateau where the mercury Egypt its rainfall seems to have exceeded soars by day and on winter nights not in- six inches a yedr, reaching a peak early in frequently drops below the freezing point. the Chalcolithic period and declining The Delta coast enjoys an average annual oi.uchicago.edu

24 FORMATION OF THE LAND rainfall of about eight inches, most of it bringing stifling temperatures and filling during the winter months, but Cairo the air with sand and dust. receives only about an inch a year, and Upper Egypt perhaps a single shower once 12. CHRONOLOGY every two or three years. Sporadic cloud- Thanks to the successions of river and bursts over the Red Sea hills sustain wadi terraces, lake beaches, and silt patches of green plant life and even layers, each with its incorporated or clumps of trees in some of the rocky associated fauna and human artifacts, the valleys of the ; and gazelles, relative dating and approximate durations hyenas, jackals, foxes, and jerboas inhabit of the successive stages in the Pleistocene the fringes of the Libyan Desert near the and early post-Pleistocene geohistory and Nile Valley and in the vicinity of the oases. prehistory of Egypt can be worked out In dynastic times the presence in these from the local evidence alone. When, how- areas of a more abundant and diversified ever, we attempt to construct an absolute animal life-lions, wild , deer, and chronology of these same stages we find antelopes of many kinds-is evidently to that in Egypt, as in other lands lying in be attributed to causes other than a con- the middle and lower latitudes of the sistently more favorable climate, such, for earth's surface, our geochronologers have example, as a generally less efficient as yet provided us with little or nothing to harassment of the wild life by human go on. We are therefore forced to fall back agencies or the maintenance of extensive on the chronological correlations which reserves artificially stocked with game for are generally presumed to exist between the diversion of royal or noble huntsmen. our local Egyptian stages and the succes- With its rain-catching chain of mountains sive phases of the Great Ice Age as and its deep valleys sheltered from sand- observed in northern and , laden winds the Eastern, or Arabian, where prolonged study has produced a Desert has always been less austere than number of more or less dependable the open, rolling plains of the Libyan methods of dating these phases in terms Desert which nowadays alternate between of years before the present day. bare rock surfaces, vast spreads of gravel, We have already had occasion to refer and long, slowly moving lines of sand to the meteorological association of dunes. The prevailing northerly winds Egypt's "pluvials" and "interpluvials" which sweep across these desert plateaux with the glacial and interglacial periods of and up the long, narrow river valley have more northerly latitudes. "The con- done much to shape not only the land itself temporaneity of these lower middle lati- but also the of its inhabitants, tude pluvials with the world-wide providing a blessed relief from the heat of glaciations," says Butzer, "has been re- the day and facilitating upstream naviga- peatedly confirmed and accepted in the tion on the Nile, but often driving early contemporary literature .... Consequently Man to seek shelter from their blasts we are free to refer to the last phase of behind the walls of the valley and its glaciation as the 'Last Pluvial' in the Near lateral wadis or behind primitive shelters East, and we may speak of a 'postpluvial' of his own devising. In northern Egypt as well as a 'postglacial' period." Further the winds are more variable than in the investigation by the same authority tends south, and during the spring the hot to indicate that the pluvial episodes southerly blows for days at a time during which the implementiferous terrace oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND 25 gravels of the Nile and its wadis were laid heights (above flood plain) of the succes- down were periods of relatively short sive gravel terraces formed in the lower duration and that they coincided chrono- courses of all rivers flowing into the logically not with the whole of a European Mediterranean Sea or into bodies of water glacial phase, but only-and more pre- directly connected with it. In the case of cisely-with its initial stage, before the ice the Nile there seem to be clear corre- sheet had reached its full-scale expansion. spondences between the 320-foot terrace This would allow us to correlate the of northern Egypt and the Sicilian high pluvial 100-foot terrace of southern Egypt sea-level, the 200-foot terrace and the and its contained implements with the on- Milazzian level, the 100-foot terrace and set of the Mindel glaciation, the 50-foot ter- the Tyrrhenian level, the 50-foot terrace race with Riss I, the 30-foot wadi gravels and the Main Monastirian, and the 25-foot with Riss II, and the 10-foot gravels with gravels and the Late Monastirian. Pre. Early Wiirm, and to date these stages in suming the correlations to be valid in both the Pleistocene history of the Upper of the foregoing steps, we may then assign Egyptian Nile Valley accordingly. the 320-foot Nile terrace to pre-Glacial For Lower and northern Middle Egypt times, the 200-foot terrace to the Ginz- the most trustworthy link with the Mindel Interglacial, the 100-foot terrace to European Ice Ages appears to be the suc- the Mindel-Riss Interglacial, the 50-foot cession of Plio-Pleistocene and Pleistocene terrace and the 131-foot Fayum lake to high sea-levels as established by Deperet, the early part of the Riss-Wiirm Inter- De Lamothe, and others from a study of glacial, and the 25-foot gravels and 112- the ancient "raised" beaches, or fossil and 92-foot Fayum lakes to the latter part shorelines, of the Mediterranean Sea, of the same interglacial or, more probably, including a series of marine bars lying to the Gottweig Interstadial of the Early inland from Arabs Gulf, a short distance Wiirm glaciation; and may apply to these to the west of the present . It is stages in Nile prehistory the absolute dates generally conceded that these high sea- worked out for the corresponding sub- levels must have been reached during divisions of the European Ice Age. periods of minimum glaciation in the areas The early stages of the Upper Pleistocene bordering the sea on the north-thus, at (Late Paleolithic) degradation phase in approximately the mid-points of the Nile history, including the Fayum lakes European interglacial phases. The highest, at 74 feet and below, are probably to be or so-called "Sicilian," level (295-330 feet associated with the Main Wiirm marine above present sea-level) is usually as- regression (low sea-level); and its later signed to the period preceding the Early, stages (evolved and Final Paleolithic), or Giinz, Glaciation; the "Milazzian" level during which the Fayum appears to have (180-195 feet) to the Antepenultimate, or been re-excavated by subaerial erosion, to Giinz-Mindel, Interglacial; the "Tyrrhen- the Late Wiirm glacial stage and the final ian" level (100-115 feet) to the Penulti- retreat of the glaciers in Europe. mate, or Mindel-Riss, Interglacial; and By making use of the dates for the the two "Monastirian" levels (50-65 and European glacial and interglacial phases 16-33 feet) to the Last, or Riss-Wiirm, and Mediterranean high sea-levels derived Interglacial. It is also generally agreed- by Zeuner chiefly from Penck's geological and here is our link-that these same high estimates and the Milankovitch curves of sea-levels determined the maxlknum fluctuating solar radiation it is possible to oi.uchicago.edu

26 FORMATION OF THE LAND draw up the following chronological table Present) being thought necessary in the of the terrace and early post-terrace case of dates of 100,000 years and over. stages of Egyptian prehistory. In this The dates 90,000 B.c., 50,000 B.C., and table the dates are given in years B.C. to 20,000 B.c. were obtained by interpolation conform to the practice followed through- and adjustment of the figures given by out the rest of the book, no adjustments Zeuner for the three phases of the Last in Zeuner's round figures "B.P." (Before Glaciation.

TABLE 1

PLIO-PLEISTOCENE AND PLEISTOCENE TERRACES 320-foot terrace of northern Egypt (barren) 660,000 B.c. 200-foot terrace of northern Egypt (barren?) 500,000 B.C. 100-foot pluvial terrace of southern Egypt (earlier Lower Paleolithic) 476,000 B.C. 100-foot terrace of northern Egypt (middle Lower Paleolithic) 270,000 B.C. 50-foot pluvial terrace of southern Egypt (later Lower Paleolithic) 230,000 B.C. 30-foot pluvial terrace of southern Egypt (Lower-Middle Paleolithic) 187,000 B.C. 50-foot Nile gravels of Middle Egypt and 131-foot Fayum beach (early 150,000 B.C. Middle Paleolithic?)

LATE PLEISTOCENE SILTS AND GRAVELS Aggradation: 10-15 foot wadi gravels of southern Egypt (Middle Paleolithic) 115,000 B.C. Aggradation silts of Upper Egypt, 25-foot gravels of northern Egypt, 90,000 B.C. and 112- and 92.foot Fayum beaches (late Middle Paleolithic-Late Paleolithic I)

Degradation: 74-foot Fayum beach (Late Paleolithic II) 70,000 B.C. -18-foot Fayum beach (Late Paleolithic III) 50,000 B.C. Subaerial erosion of Fayum basin 20,000 B.C.

Unfortunately, there is a notable lack of I-II, or Gottweig, Interstadial, 18,250 B.C. agreement between the last five dates for the maximum of Worm II, and given in this table and a series of probably 11,500-10,500 B.C. for the Belling Oscilla- somewhat more accurate estimates - tion of the Gotiglacial Retreat. Adding to tained from late glacial and post-glacial these radiocarbon dates of 4430 and organic specimens by means of the radio- 4134 B.C. for the Fayum Neolithic, 3783 carbon, or "Carbon 14," method of age and 3658 s.c. for the early Chalcolithic determination. These estimates give us (Nagada I), 3616 B.C. for the later Chalco- dates of around 90,000-72,000 B.P. for a lithic (Nagada II), and the end-date of point towards the end of the Last, or Riss- 3100 B.C. for the beginning of the first Worm, Interglacial, 70,000 B.P. for the historic dynasty, and we arrive at a con- beginning of the Last, or Wirm, Glacia- siderably lower dating for the late glacial tion, 43,000-29,000 B.P. for the Wiirm and post-glacial prehistory of Egypt: oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND 27

TABLE 2

Early Middle Paleolithic (10-foot Begins 70,000 B.P. of southern Egypt) Late Middle Paleolithic (aggrada ,, 43,000 B.P. silts of Upper Egypt, etc.) Late Paleolithic (deep Nile degra ,, 30,000 B.P. Late Paleolithic (Epi-Levallois ,, 16,000 B.C. Final Paleolithic, or Mesolithic ,, 10,000 B.c. Present Silt Aggradation Phase ,, 8750-3500 B.C. Neolithic Period ,, 5000 B.C. Chalcolithic Period ,, 4000 B.c. Historic Period ,, 3100 B.C.

13. EGYPT AT THE BEGINNING OF heights on the east. Farther west the grass- HUMAN PREHISTORY land gives way to poor steppe country interrupted by a series of huge and at the By way of a conclusion to the present moment uninhabited depressions-the chapter and an introduction to those to present-day oases-in the scarp valleys follow let us try to reconstruct a picture of which intermittent rainfall and run-off of the land of Egypt as it may have have resulted in the formation of tufa. An appeared, nearly half a million years ago, altogether similar basin, the Fayum, lies to its earliest known human inhabitants. not more than eighty miles from the sea- From the lofty chain of hills bordering coast and less than twenty miles to the the Red Sea a grassy steppe, dotted here west of the river valley, but the ridge and there with shrubs and thorny bushes, which separates it from the Nile is ap- stretches away to the Mediterranean Sea parently not yet broken through and its on the north and, to the west and south, lake not yet fully formed. Along the edges beyond the horizon. The Nile gorge of the river and its tributaries, in the deep winding northward from the neighborhood valleys on the east, and around the pools of modern Kom Ombo toward the ancient and waterholes of the Libyan plateau the seacoast, some fifty miles below where the vegetation resembles that of modern city of Cairo now stands, divides the land Cyrenaica and includes clumps of trees into two parts. On the east the relatively such as acacias, tamarisks, sycamores, and narrow strip of plateau is dissected by willows. Here and there the plateau land- numerous broad valleys down which scape is relieved by such prominences as occasionally torrential streams pour into the Moqattam Hills and Gebel Abu Roash the main valley from the western slopes of near Cairo, Gebel Ataqa and the Qallala the Red Sea hills. On the west the tribu- hills to the east and southeast, the taries of the river, though equally numer- magnificent hills of the Thebaid in Upper ous, have neither the length nor the Egypt, and far off to the west and south volume of those on the east, the watershed the distant mountain peaks of Gilf Kebir on this side following the line of a low ridge and Uweinat. To the northeast, across the which in Upper Egypt lies less than sixty Gulf of Suez, the mountains of southern miles from the Nile and which catches a Sinai tower to impressive heights; and far less copious rainfall than the towering looking southward from these along the oi.uchicago.edu

28 FORMATION OF THE LAND coast of the Red Sea one notes that also in the lower reaches of the lateral the ancient beaches are dissected in in- valleys, where the tributaries of the river numerable places by terraced wadis drain- traverse the gulf deposits on either side of ing the eastern sides of the adjacent hills. the main stream. From southern Upper Egypt to the At the moment with which we are con- apex of the vast sand-and-gravel Delta of cerned the bed of the Nile in Upper Egypt, the river the valley of the Nile has not having been cut down to perhaps seventy only long ago been fully scoured out in feet above modern alluvium, is in the pro- the Eocene limestone, but has sub- cess of being built up to the 100-foot level sequently become extensively choked by with layers of sands and coarse gravels mixed deposits of the Pliocene gulf era. brought down by the great stream itself Southward, however, the Nubian valley is and poured into it by its tributaries, still in the process of its primary excava- especially by the powerful torrents rolling tion, the river having only relatively down from the Red Sea hills. Here in the recently adopted a single course through south the river flows in broad meanders, the tawny sandstone of the region. Above spreading and leveling its sandy and Wadi Halfa rapids are forming where the pebbly floor and cutting away portions of stream has come into contact with hard the next higher terrace which forms its crystalline rock formations underlying the bank on either side. In summer, thanks to sandstone, and just above Aswan the river a gradually developing connection with has split into three channels in its early the Atbara and the Blue Nile, it may attempts to force its way through a momentarily overflow its banks, sweeping similar barrier. Forty miles downstream, away such surface debris as the lost or dis- around Kom Ombo, the valley broadens carded implements of early Man. North- out into a wide embayment, north of ward the sands and gravels taper off, and which yet another cataract is forming as below Mallawi in Middle Egypt we find the river has begun to scour out two the Nile at this period, not aggrading, but channels through the sandstone scarp at eroding its bed in response to a marine Silsila. regression, or low sea-level, evidently also Since the end of the Pliocene period the contemporaneous with the initial stages of huge and swiftly flowing stream has the Mindel glaciation. Within the confines repeatedly lowered and narrowed its bed of the river valley, the Delta, and the in the sandstone of its Nubian valley and lower courses of the lateral tributaries, in the gulf deposits choking its Egyptian the soil is for the most part sandy and valley, leaving on either side two series of gravelly, with no traces of silt and little of gravel-coated terraces at 300, 200, and any other type of fine material. Though 150 feet above the flood plain of the probably supporting a gallery-forest type present Nile in Upper Egypt and at 320, of vegetation it can hardly have had any 255, 200, and 150 feet above the same local special fertility of its own. datum in Middle and Lower Egypt. As The climate is a trifle cooler than that the mouth of the river is approached the of the present day and considerably more terraces of the latter series swing outward humid, the rainfall, as reflected in the along each side of the Delta and run evidently violent activity of the lateral eventually into the ancient shingle beaches wadis, almost certainly exceeding eight of the Mediterranean Sea. Similar terraces, inches a year. This, combined with the at corresponding heights, are to be seen presence of the great river, would have oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND 29 been sufficient to attract and support a Europe. From the west the stone-age fauna of both sub-equatorial and more (or his industries) could travel in northerly types, including, as elsewhere in easy stages all the way across North at this time, such large Africa, coming even from animals as the elephant, the rhinoceros, by way of the narrow strait of Gibraltar the hippopotamus, and the buffalo. Though which, though apparently open at this Egypt has as yet yielded no animal (or time, would have formed no insurmount- human) remains of early or middle able obstacle to human passage. Pleistocene date, we may be sure that its Small wonder that Egypt because of its fauna and accompanying flora was at this natural endowments, its accessibility, and period as copious and diversified as in its central position in the ancient world later Paleolithic and Neolithic times, when was an area much frequented by earliest conditions in northeast Africa must have Man. Even when, in the millenniums to been, ecologically speaking, less favorable. come, a failing rainfall deprived the land Here, then, for the time being was a as a whole of many of the attributes which portion of the earth's surface affording had first drawn men to it the Nile con- every advantage to primitive man in his tinued to make its lower valley and delta early struggles for existence and in his first one of the most desirable regions on the steps toward the development of a civilized earth's surface-a suitable cradle for one mode of life-a region endowed with a of the basic civilizations in world history. warm but not oppressively hot climate, an adequate but not excessive rainfall, NOTES copious and easily obtainable supplies of water and of food, choice camp sites in CHAPTER I protected river valleys and lake basins, GENERAL and all the natural materials needed to For tabulations of the geological eras and fashion simple and , in- periods with their approximate dates see, cluding abundant modules of chert and among others, J. Laurence Kulp, "Geologic other hard stones lying ready to hand in Time Scale: Isotopic age determinations on rocks of known stratigraphic age define an the rock formations of the plateau and in absolute time scale for earth history," the gravels of the river and its tribu- Science, CXXXIII, No. 3459 (April 14, 1961), taries. pp. 1105-14; and F. E. Zeuner, Dating the Past: An Introduction to Geochronology (4th Here, too, was a land over most of ed. [London, 1958]), Fig. 83 (opp. p. 310). which men and animals could roam with Much of the material presented in this almost complete freedom and to which chapter is drawn more or less directly from Rushdi Said's The they could readily journey from other (Amsterdam-New York, 1962); from K. W. parts of the , unchecked by wide Butzer's "Die Naturlandschaft Agyptens expanses of open sea, trackless wastes, or wiahrend der Vorgeschichte und der Dy. nastischen Zeit," Abhandlungen der Akademie ice-capped mountains. From the south der Wisenechaften und der Literatur, Math.- the wandering bands could follow the naturwiss. Klasse, 1959, Nr. 2 (Wiesbaden banks of the Nile and its tributaries [1959]), pp. 45-122; from J. Ball's Contribu- tions to the (Ministry of northward from east or . Finance, Egypt: Survey and Mines Depart. On the east the Isthmus of Suez linked ment [Cairo, 1941]); from K. S. Sandford the Delta with and, ulti- and W. J. Arkell's PrehistoricSurvey of Egypt and Western Asia, published in four volumes mately, with the rest of that huge conti- during the years 1929-1939 by the Oriental nent, as well as with and eastern Institute of the University of Chicago oi.uchicago.edu

30 FORMATION OF THE LAND

("OIP" X, XVII, XVIII, XLVI); and from logical Magazine (GM [Hertford, 1864 ff.]), the same authors' "First Report on the the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Prehistoric Survey Expedition" in "OIC" Institute (JRAI [London, 1871 ff.]), Man No. 3, 1928. Extensive use was also made of (London, 1901 ff.), Erdkunde: Archiv ffir M. Blanckenhorn's Aegypten (Handbuch der wissenschaftliche Geographie (Bonn, 1947 ff.), regionalen Geologie, VII, 9, 23 [Heidelberg the Geologische Rundschau (GR [Leipzig, 1921]) and of W. F. Hume's five-volume 1910 ff.]), and the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Geology of Egypt (Ministry of Finance, geologischen Gesellschaft (ZDGG [Berlin, 1848 Egypt: Survey of Egypt [Cairo, 1925-1948]). ff.]). Several important monographs have S. A. Huzayyin's The Place of Egypt in been published in the Mdmoires de l'Institut Prehistory ("MIE," XLIII [Cairo, 1941]), d'4gypte (MIE [Cairo, 1862 ff.]). The though devoted chiefly to a study of climates Compte rendu of the Congres International de and cultures, is rich in material on the geo- Gdographie (Cairo, 1925) (C.-R.CIG, 1925) history, physiography, and biogeography of and the Proceedings of the Pan-African Egypt and neighboring lands; contains Congress on Prehistory (PPACP [Nairobi, summaries and assessments of the often 1947; Algiers, 1952; etc.]) contain a number conflicting views of geologists and pre- of reports of interest and value. historians in regard to Egypt; and is provided Among the more useful lists of references with a seventy-page bibliography of works is E. H. Keldani's A Bibliography of Geology published prior to 1941. The 1929 English and Related Sciences concerning Egypt up to edition of Karl Baedeker's handbook, Egypt the End of 1939 (Ministry of Finance, Egypt: and the Sitddn, offers good, short treatments Department of Survey and Mines [Cairo, of the geography and geology of Egypt 1941]). (pp. xlviii ff.), descriptions of individual sites and physiographical features, and an excellent series of maps; and much useful information 1. THE EGYPTIAN TABLELAND is incorporated in the Encyclopaedia Britan- This section is a shortened and simplified nica's article on "Egypt" (11th ed., IX, version of the accounts of the formation, 21 ff.). For a brief and interestingly written elevation, and physiography of the table- survey of the geohistory of the ancient world land given by Sandford and Arkell in their J. L. Myre's "Primitive Man in Geological "First Report," pp. 5-6, and in their Pre- Time" (The Cambridge Ancient History, historic Survey, I, 5-7; II, 1-5; IV, 1-10, 93; Vol. I [1924 ed.], Chap. I, pp. 1 ff.) is still to and Sandford Prehistoric Survey, III, 1-2, be recommended. 121; Ball in his Contributions, pp. 13-28, In 1910 the Egyptian Government's presents brief and clear descriptions of the Survey Department issued Geological Maps pre-Tertiary and Tertiary rock formations of Egypt at scales of 1:2,000,000 and of the Egyptian plateau and their present 1:1,000,000; and, in 1928, an Atlas of Egypt distribution, as does Butzer in his "Die comprising "A Series of Maps with Descrip- Naturlandschaft Agyptens," pp. 51-55. Much tive Texts illustrating the Orography, Geo- more detailed descriptions will be found in logy, Meteorology and Economic Conditions."' Hume's Geology, in Said's Geology, in Thanks to the same department contoured Blanckenhorn's Aegypten, in K. S. Sand- maps of the whole or parts of Egypt at scales ford's "Geological Observations on the ranging from 1:500,000 to 1:1000 are also Northwest Frontiers of the Anglo-Egyptian now available. Especially useful is the Sudan and the Adjoining Part of the South- 1:100,000 Topographic Series of the Survey ern Libyan Desert," The Quarterly Journal of Egypt and Department of Survey and Mines, of the Geological Society of London (QJGS), Cairo (reprinted by the Army Map Service, XCI (1935), 323-81, and in numerous Washington, D. C.). See also Rushdi Said, articles devoted to individual formations, The Geology of Egypt, pp. 18 if. such as A. R. Gindy's "The Igneous and Of many periodicals in the general field Metamorphic Rocks of the Aswin Area, the three most used by writers on the geology Egypt," BIE, XXXVII, Fasc. 2 (1956), and prehistory of Egypt are the Bulletin de 83-133; R. A. Higazy and H. M. Wasfy, l'Institut d'A gypte (BIE [Cairo, 1859 if.]), the "Petrogenesis of Granitic Rocks in the Bulletin de la Soci t (Royale) de Gdographie Neighborhood of Aswan," Egy. . Inst. d'tgypte (BS[R]GE [Cairo, 1879 ff.]), and, Desert VI (Egypt 1956) No. 1, pp. 209-48; more recently, the Bulletin de l'Institut A. Rittmann, "Some Remarks on the Geo- (Fouad I) du Ddaert d'gypte (BIDE [Cairo, logy of Aswan," BIDE, III, No. 2 (July, 1951 ff.]). Impprtant articles on the same 1953), 35-64; N. M. Shukri and R. Said's subjects have appeared in The Geographical "Contribution to the Geology of the Nubian Journal (GJ [London, 1893 ff.)], The Geo- Sandstone," BIE, XXVII (1946), 229-64, oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND 31

451; N. M. Shukri and M. K. El Ayouti, "The 2. THE NILE VALLEY Mineralogy of the Nubian Sandstone in Aswan," BIDE, III, No. 2 (1953), 65-88; Ball. (Contributions, pp. 74-84), is inclined S. E. Nakkady's "The Foraminiferal Fauna to believe that until Upper Paleolithic of the Esna Shales of Egypt," BIE, XXXI (Lower Sebilian) times the Nile system (1949), 209-47; G. Andrew's "The Grey- consisted, "not of a single river, but two wackes of the Eastern Desert," BIE, XXI separate rivers, one coming from Lake (1939), 153-90; etc. Victoria and ending in a lake to the south of On Gebel Abu Roash there is a definitive Khartoum, the other having the Atbara for study by H. J. Beadnell ("The Cretaceous its head-waters and discharging into the sea." Region of Abu Roash, near the Pyramids of According to G. Andrew (Agriculture and the Giza") in the Geological Survey Report for Sudan, p. 106) "it seems probable that the 1900, Part II (Cairo, 1902). See also Said, White Nile basin had no outlet north for a Geology, pp. 197-201. Descriptions of the considerable time in the Pleistocene"; but Moqattam Hills, where for millenniums the that conditions "around the juncture of the Egyptians have quarried the fine white lime- Atbara with the Nile" and "in the Khashm stone of Tura and Masaara, are given by Said el girba area suggest a natural of (Geology, pp. 97, 136, 317), by Hume (Geo- the Atbara river" by Lower Paleolithic logy, I, 7), by Blanckenhorn (Aegypten, ("Chellean") times. A. J. Arkell (Sudan pp. 81 ff.), by Sandford (PrehistoricSurvey, Antiquities Service, Occasional Papers, No. 1, III, 2, 4; IV, 4), and by many other writers. pp. 47, 48, 51) believes that, while "the Blue The approximate positions of the Mediter- Nile may be a comparatively recent river," ranean shorelines of Egypt during successive which probably came into existence "since periods of the Tertiary appear in maps the Lower Paleolithic, the drainage of the prepared by Ball (Contributions, Pl. VIII), Lake Tana area.., originally reached the Myres (Cambridge Ancient History [1924 ed.], Nile via the Atbara" and that by Acheulian I, Map 1, opp. p. 16), and Beadnell (Topo- times "there must have been a considerable graphy and Geology of the Faym Province, White Nile which was running at approxi- p. 67, fig. 6). On the Middle Miocene shore- mately the present level to the Nile." On line see also Blanckenhorn, Aegypten, p. 187; the same subject see also Butzer, "Die and on the shoreline "in the further course Naturlandschaft," pp. 55-56, 59, 62-63; of the late Tertiary," Butzer, "Die Natur- Blanckenhorn, Aegypten, p. 187; Sandford landschaft," p. 54. See also, more recently, and Arkell, Prehistoric Survey, I, 7; II, K. W. Butzer, "On the Pleistocene Shore 23-24, 82. Lines of Arabs' Gulf, Egypt," The Journalof The expression Urnil, "Primeval Nile," Geology (Chicago), LXVIII (1960), 626-37, and the concept of a huge predecessor of and "Pleistocene Stratigraphy and Pre- the present river flowing through what is history in Egypt," Quaternaria, VI (Rome, now the Libyan desert were originated by 1962), pp. 451-56. Blanckenhorn in two articles called "Die In his presentation of the geology of Geschichte der Nilstroms in der Tertiar- und Egypt, Said divides the land into four Quartairperiode..." published in the Zeit- geologic provinces: (1) the Arabo-Nubian schrift der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde (Berlin) massif of igneous and metamorphic rock for 1902 (pp. 694-722, 753-62). T. Arldt in formations which comprises the Sinai Penin- 1915 ("Aus der Entwicklungsgeschichte der sula and the area between the Nile and the Landenge von Suez und ihrer Nachbarge- Red Sea; (2) the Stable Shelf, adjoining biets," Naturen (Bergen), X, 287) and portions of this massif and characterized by again in 1918 ("Zur Palaographie des minor faulting and doming, where the Nillandes in Kreide und Tertiir," Geo- Nubian sandstone and overlying rocks were logische Rundschau, 1918, pp. 47, 104) laid down in Cretaceous and early Tertiary elaborated upon Blanckenhorn's thesis and times; (3) the Unstable Shelf, largely within attempted to trace the course of the Urnil 150 miles of the Mediterranean coast, where from the Sudan northward through the line subsidence and folding led to the accumula- of Libyan oases (cf. also R. Uhden, Geol. tion of sediments of Carboniferous to Miocene Rundschau, XX [1929], 180-86; M. Pfan- age up to 14,000 feet in thickness; and (4) nenstiel, Abh. Akad. Wiss. Liter. Math.. the Gulf of Suez Taphrogeosyncline, where, naturw. Kl., 1953, Nr. 7, pp. 369 f.). Belief in the paraphrasing of Conant, (1963), "exten- in the existence of an ancient Libyan Nile sive and irregular block faulting" "has per- with a course well to the west of the present mitted the accumulation of great thicknesses river was subsequently reaffirmed by of sediments ranging in age from at least Blanckenhorn in 1921 (Aegypten, pp. 186- the Carboniferous to the present." 87); and has been shared by other geologists oi.uchicago.edu

32 FORMATION OF THE LAND

including Beadnell (Topography... of the more recently, Butzer, "Naturlandschaft," Fayum Province [1905], p. 67, Fig. 6), and pp. 54-56, 58, 60; Science, CXXXII (1960), Said (Geology [1962]): but was firmly rejected 1618. by Ball (The Geographical Journal, LXX The periods, or stages, in the geohistory [1927], 28-32) and by Sandford and Arkell of the Mediterranean area ("Mediterran- (Prehistoric Survey, IV [19391, 17). The word stufe") as drawn up by Edward Suess for "Urnil," however, has been retained here, the latter half of the Tertiary period are as elsewhere, as a convenient term for defined by him in the first volume (pp. 363 ff.) describing the Upper Eocene and Oligocene of his classic work, Das Antlitz der Erde (3d ancestor of the present Nile. ed. 5 vols. [Leipzig, 1885-1909])-available A theory that the wood which comprises also in an English translation by H. G. E. the "Petrified Forests" was silicified before Sollas: The Face of the Earth (5 vols. [Oxford, being carried downstream by the river is 1904-1909]). advanced by M. M. Ibrahim, and N. M. The mid-Tertiary crustal movements and Shukri, in BIE, XXV (1943), 159-82; XXVI the resulting physiographical features in (1944), 71-75; and XXXIV (1951-52), 317- Egypt are discussed, with ample references, 19. See, however, Said, The Geology of Egypt by Arkell and Sandford in Prehistoric (1962), p. 220. Survey, IV, 4-10. See also Sandford, Pre- The animal remains recovered from the historic Survey, III, 3-8. For a description of Upper Eocene estuarine and Oligocene delta the hot springs at Helwan see Hume, deposits are discussed by Blanckenhorn in Geology, I, 138 if. Aegypten, pp. 103-105, 110-11. To the numerous references cited by Blanckenhorn 3. THE RED SEA AND THE RED SEA HILLS may be added C. W. Andrews, "Notes on an The Expedition to the Fayim, Egypt, with material presented in this section is drawn chiefly Description of some New ," The from Blanckenhorn, Aegypten, pp. 143 (the Red Sea), 191-94 (the Eastern Geological Magazine, X (1903), 337-43; Y. S. Desert Moustafa, "An Interpretation of Arsinoe- and the Red Sea Hills), and 194-96 (Sinai); therium," BIE, XXXVI (1955), 111-18; and from Sandford and Arkell, Pre- hi8toric Survey, IV, 7-10 (on the Red Sea, and "The Fayum Fossil Field," Ibid., see especially pp. 119-27. See also Keldani, Bibliography, pp. 8-10), 22-36, 45-46, 60-67, Nos. 44-72, 713, 760, 1761-65, 1798, 1978-90. 92-96, and 98; and from Said, Geology, pp. 15-16, 35-36, 107-26, 151 f.). Blanckenhorn (Aegypten, pp. 187-90) was Excellent descriptions of Egypt's Eastern Desert and also one of the principal proponents of the its chain of mountains will be found in theory that the present Nile Valley is of the first volume of Hume's Geology (pp. 5-6, tectonic, or rift, origin. This theory was 84-87, 108); and for a detailed study of a contested by Ball and Hume in The Geo. large part of the region the reader logical Magazine for 1910, pp. 71-76, 385-89 may consult T. Barron (see also Hume, BSRGE, XVII [1929], 1-11); and W. F. Hume, Topo. graphy and Geology of the Eastern Desert of and is rejected by Sandford and Arkell in the introductory chapters to the four Egypt, Central Portion (Survey Department, Public volumes of their PrehistoricSurvey. Though Works Ministry: Geological Survey Report [Cairo, not subscribing to the rift theory, Huzayyin 1902]); Shukri, BIDE III; No. 2 (1953), and Gindy, BIE, XXXVII, (Place of Egypt, p. 150) has suggested that Fasc. 2 (1956). the erosion of the Lower Nile Valley "might have worked along some favorable line (or lines) of structural weakness," and this 4. THE PLIOCENE GULF appears to be admitted also by Sandford in This subject is thoroughly dealt with by Prehistoric Survey, III, 2, 4-8. According to Sandford and Arkell in the chapters devoted Said (The Geology of Egypt [1962], p. 26) to the Pliocene period in the four volumes of "available evidence shows that the course the Prehistoric Survey. The extent of the of the river was largely governed by a waters of the gulf to the south, east, and crustal disturbance," and (p. 87) that "the west and the possibilities of a connection at Nile was probably eroded on a line of this time between the Nile Valley and the faulting and rifting." An interesting explana- oasis of Kharga are discussed in Vol. II, tion of the manner in which the cutting of pp. 6 if. On the Pliocene gulf deposits in the Egyptian Nile Valley may have been general and the formation of the low desert inaugurated is given by Sandford and Arkell in particular see also Butzer, "Naturland. in their "First Report," pp. 6-7, and, in schaft," pp. 55 if. slightly modified forms, in the successive Among the detached masses of Eocene volumes of the Prehistoric Survey. See also, limestone slipped down from the valley sides oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND 33 is the great rock of Gebelein, a prominent variations in sea-level"; and McBurney feature of the river landscape some seventeen (p. 128) summed up the situation as follows: miles upstream from Luxor. "If the older chronology for Europe and North- be adopted, then we are virtually compelled to reject the Nile 5. THE RIVER AND WADI TERRACES evidence at its face value; either the correla- Here again the principal reference is tion between the upper and lower reaches is Sandford and Arkell's Prehistoric Survey, defective, or else that between the lower the greater part of which is devoted to a reaches and the former sea-levels. On the study of the Plio-Pleistocene and Pleistocene whole the latter seems to be the more likely terraces and to the Paleolithic implements alternative." found in the 100-foot and lower terraces. A The clearest and most convincing solution short account of the terraces and of the of the problems presented by the Nile problems connected with them, couched in terraces-and the one adopted here-is that non-technical language, is given by the same given by K. W. Butzer in his important authors in their "First Report," pp. 10-17 "Contributions to the Pleistocene Geology (see also pp. 18-24) and includes on p. 12 of the Nile Valley," in Erdkunde, XIII (Fig. 7) a diagrammatic cross-section of the (1959), 46-67. See also the same author's Nile Valley showing the relationship of Quaternary Stratigraphy and Climate in the the terraces to one another and to the Near East (Bonner Geographieche Abhand- present alluvial plain (see also Ball, Contribu- lungen, Heft 24 [Bonn, 1958]), pp. 60-64, 75, tions, pp. 41 ff., fig. 3). An article published 97-98, and "Naturlandschaft Agyptens," in 1929 by Sandford in The QuarterlyJournal pp. 56 f.; "Pleistocene Stratigraphy and of the Geological Society of London (LXXXV, Prehistory in Egypt," Quaternaria, VI 493-548) deals in some detail with "The (1962, Rome), 456-65. Pliocene and Pleistocene Deposits of Wadi The implementiferous gravels of the Qena and of the Nile Valley between Luxor ballast-pits of Abbassiya are published by and Assiut (Qau)"-that is, with the pre- P. Bovier-Lapierre ("Le Paldolithique stratifid terrace, terrace, and post-terrace develop- des environs du Caire," L'Anthropologie ments of that particular region. [Paris], XXXV [1925], 37-46; "Les gisements Since the appearance of these publications, paldolithiques de la plaine de l'Abassieh," however, it has become clear that important BIE, n.s. VIII (1926), 257-72) and are dis- revisions must be made in their over- cussed by numerous writers including Sand- simplified picture of a single eustatically ford and Arkell, Prehistoric Survey, I, 29; controlled series of terraces extending from II, 14, 28, 73; III, 42, 55, 110; IV, passim the Second Cataract to the sea and in their (see especially p. 95); Huzayyin, Place of correlation of the Paleolithic industries of Egypt, pp. 182-85, 192, Pls. VI-VIII; Egypt with the successive terraces (Pre- Butzer, Erdkunde, XIII, 49-51, cf. 53, historic Survey, III, 126) and Mediterranean 55, 65; Butzer, Quaternaria, VI, 465-66; sea-levels. See, for example, H. Alimen, The Alimen, Prehistory, pp. 80-81, 88-92; Prehistory of Africa (London, 1957), pp. 80- McBurney, Stone Age, pp. 125-26. 82; C. B. M. McBurney, The Stone Age of The fossil soil profiles of the Pleistocene Northern Africa (Pelican Books, A 342 terraces are described, with ample references, [Harmondsworth, 1960]), pp. 127-28; W. B. by Butzer in Erdkunde, XIII, 61-65, and in Wright, Tools and the Man (London, 1939), his "Naturlandschaft," pp. 61-62; Quater- pp. 157-58, 213-14; Huzayyin, Place of naria, VI, 460-65 and the occurrence of Egypt, pp. 153 if. In 1941 Huzayyin (loc. augite in the 100-foot terrace deposits of cit.) felt that local climatic changes may northern Egypt is noted (again with ref- have played a more important role in the erences) by the same author on p. 55 of the formation of the terraces than is conceded first of these three publications. by Sandford and Arkell; and in 1946 G. Caton-Thompson presented a somewhat 6. "RECENT" DEVELOPMENTS IN revised picture of the industries and chrono- logy of the 30-foot terrace and the ensuing THE NILE VALLEY phases of Egyptian prehistory ("The Leval- In the last three volumes of their Pre- loisian Industries of Egypt," Proceedings of historic Survey Sandford and Arkell deal in the Prehistoric Society [Cambridge], new considerable detail with the "post-terrace" series, XII, No. 4, 57-120, see especially phases of silt deposition and erosion as these pp. 68-84). Alimen (loc. cit.) expressed the phases were observed and studied by them belief that "only the terraces in Lower in successive sections of the lower Nile Egypt can be reasonably equated with Valley: Nubia and southern Upper Egypt oi.uchicago.edu

34 FORMATION OF THE LAND

(Vol. II, Chap. V-VII); Upper and Middle Butzer's well supported contention that the Egypt, Sandford (Vol. III, Chap. VII, rate of silt deposition was anything but con- VIII); and Lower Egypt, Sandford and stant over the whole of the period involved Arkell (Vol. IV, Chap. V, VI). The same invalidates to a great extent the use of this phases and their chronological, geographical, rate as a time scale, as proposed, for example, and climatic relationships one to another are by J. H. Breasted in his article on "The summarized by Sandford in AJSL, XLVIII Origins of Civilization" in The Scientific (1932), 174-83 (see especially the diagram of Monthly, IX (1919), 306-308 (cf. Ball, pp. 182-83), by Ball (Contributions, p. 45); Contributions, p. 176). Butzer in "Die by Huzayyin (Place of Egypt, pp. 152-54, Naturlandschaft," p. 68, n. 1, and Geogr. 157); and more recently and from a sig. Journ., CXXV, 78, n. 6, also casts serious nificantly fresh point of view by Butzer doubts on the evidence advanced by Huzay- ("Naturlandschaft," pp. 57-58, 60, 62-66; yin (Place of Egypt, pp. 153, n. 2, 158-59, Erdkunde, XIII, 55, 66; Quaternaria, VI, 322-23. Cf. I. Rizkana, Bull. Inst. Desert, 459 ff.). II, 2 [1952], 117-30) for an interval of high The contemporaneous storm beaches of aggradation followed by degradation in the Fayum lake and the scarp deposits of Neolithic and early Chalcolithic times, the Kharga Oasis have been studied at length by evidence in question being the presence of G. Caton-Thompson, E. W. Gardner, H. J. Final Paleolithic or Pre-Neolithic implements L. Beadnell, and others (see below, under beneath a deposit of "Abyssinian silt" rising the sections devoted to "The Fayum Lake to a height of 50 ft. above present alluvium Basin" and "The Oases of the Libyan in the neighborhood of Maadi. Desert"). The expression "terre vegdtale" was coined The term "Sebilian," used as a con- by R. Fourtau, whose "Contribution & venient, if somewhat loose, designation of l'6tude des dep6ts nilotiques" (MIE, VIII the industries, fauna, and deposits of final [1915], 57-94) is outstanding among the Middle Paleolithic and Late Paleolithic times works devoted to the study of the current in Egypt, is derived from the name of a silt-deposition stage in Nile history. The modern settlement (Ezbet el-Sebil) in the chemical composition and other charac- Kom Ombo basin, near which cultural teristics of the silts are discussed also by remains regarded as particularly charac- S. Passarge in Die Urlandschaft Agyptens teristic of this period were found (E. Vignard, (Halle, 1940), pp. 13-15 (87-89), and their "Une nouvelle industrie lithique, le 'Sdbi- mineralogical content by N. M. Shukri and lien,' " BIFAO, XXII (1923), 1-104; etc.). N. Azer, "Mineralogy of Pliocene and More On the late Pleistocene (Sebilian) fauna of Recent Sediments in the Fayum," Bull. Inst. the Kom Ombo basin and the secondary Desert, II, 1 (1952), 10-53. Chaps. V-VII of deposits of Qau and Asyut see especially C. Ball's Contributions provide valuable, de- Gaillard, "Contribution k l'6tude de la faune tailed descriptions and discussions of "The prdhistorique de l'IEgypte," Arch. Mus. hist. Solid Matter Transported. . . by the Nile" nat. Lyon, XIV (1934), 1-125 (see pp. 3-58); and "The Alluvial Land of Egypt." Sandford, Prehistoric Survey, III, 84-87; The early history of the Nile inundation, Huzayyin, Place of Egypt, p. 81; and Butzer, with special reference to the initial establish- "Naturlandschaft," pp. 63-64. ment of communication between the lower Naturally enough, neither aggradation nor Nile and the Abyssinian and equatorial river degradation were uniform at any one time systems, is discussed by Passarge, Urland- over the whole stretch of the river from the schaft, pp. 11 (85), 20 (94), 22 (96); by Second Cataract to the sea, bed erosion con- Butzer, "Naturlandschaft," pp. 55-57, 59, tinuing in the north long after silt deposition 60, 62-64, 66; Geogr. Journ., CXXV, 77; had commenced in the south, and vice versa. Erdkunde, XIII, 55; and by Ball, Contribu- We find, for example, that until the construc- tions, pp. 74-84. Valuable data on the same tion of the modern dam at Shellal the Nile subject is incorporated in the works of A. J. was still degrading its channel in Nubia, Arkell and others on the prehistory of the though north of the First Cataract silt Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (see, for example, aggradation has been in progress for approxi- Arkell, Sudan Antiquities Service, Occasional mately ten thousand years. Papers, No. 1 [1949], pp. 47, 48, 51; Andrew, A lucid and interesting picture of this Agriculture in the Sudan, p. 106; Sandford, latest aggradation phase is presented by Geological Magazine, LXXXVI [1949], 97 ff.; Butzer in "Die Naturlandschaft," pp. 65-71, Geogr. Rev., XXVI, 67-76). The present-day and in The Geographical Journal, CXXV relationships of these systems to the main (1959), 75-79 ("Some Recent Geological river may be studied in H. G. Lyons' The Deposits in the Egyptian Nile Valley"). Physiography of the River Nile and its Basin oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND 35

(Survey Department: Finance Ministry, also by the same author, "On the Pleistocene Egypt [Cairo, 1906]) (see also Passarge, Shorelines of Arabs' Gulf, Egypt," The Urlandschaft, pp. 8-10 [82-84]). To the same Journal of Geology, Chicago LXVIII (1960), author we owe a brief, but valuable, account and Quaternaria VI (Rome, 1962) 451-56. of the inundation contributed to the 1929 Among the classical writers who list and edition of Baedeker's Egypt and the Suddn discuss the ancient mouths of the Nile are (pp. lxvi-lxvii). Additional information on Herodotus (II. 17), Diodorus Siculus (I. the subject will be found in abundance in, for xxxiii. 8-9), Strabo (XVII. i. 4), and Pliny example, H. E. Hurst, The Nile (London, the Elder (Hist. Nat., V. 10). See J. Ball, 1957) F. R. Cana's article on the "Nile" in Egypt in the Classical Geographers (Cairo, the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia 1942), pp. 22-28, 48-49, 57-59, 69-70, 74-76; Britannica, XIX, 695-96; A. Reim's article, 0. Toussoun, Mimoire sur les anciennes "Nilschwelle," in Pauly-Wissowa, Real- branches du Nil (MIE, IV [Cairo, 1922]); and Encyclopeidie der class. Alterumswissenschaft, Mdmoire sur l'histoire du Nil (MIE, VIII XVII, 1 (1936), Cols. 571-90; Passarge's [Cairo, 1925]), Chap. VIII. Urlandschaft, pp. 11-12 (85-86); Breasted's On the vertebrate fauna of the Pliocene History of Egypt, pp. 7-8; C. E. P. Brooks' beds of the Wadi el-Natrun the basic Climate throughout the Ages (rev. ed., 1949), reference is E. Stromer, "Mitteilungen fiber pp. 329-33; and W. Pietsch's Das Abflussge- die Wirbeltierreste aus dem Mittelpliociin biet des Nils (Dr. Phil. Dissertation. Berlin, des Natrontales," Zeitschrift der Deutschen 1910). Geologischen Gesellschaft, LXV (1913), 350- On the late and post-Pleistocene aeolian 72; LXVI (1914), 1-33, 420-25. deposits of the Egyptian Nile Valley our principal reference is Butzer, The Geo. graphical Journal, CXXV (1959), 75-77. 8. THE NUBIAN NILE VALLEY AND ITS CATARACTS Besides Sandford and Arkell's Paleolithic 7. LOWER EGYPT AND THE DELTA OF THE NILE Man and the Nile Valley in Nubia and Upper Our picture of the geohistory and physio- Egypt (Prehistoric Survey, Vol. II: "OIP," graphy of Lower Egypt in late Tertiary, Vol. XVII [Chicago, 1933]) the principal Pleistocene, and post-Pleistocene times is works consulted in the preparation of this drawn to a very great extent from Sandford section were J. Ball's The Semna Cataract or and Arkell's Paleolithic Man and the Nile Rapid of the Nile: A Study in River Erosion Valley in Lower Egypt-the fourth and last (London, 1903); the same author's A volume of their Prehistoric Survey (OIP, Description of the First or Aswan Cataract of vol. XLVI [Chicago, 1939])-; from Said's the Nile (Cairo, 1907); 0. H. Little and M. I. Geology, pp. 151-225 passim; and from Attia's The Development of Aswan District Butzer's "Die Naturlandschaft Agyptens," with Notes on South Eastern Egypt (Geological pp. 71-78 (see also pp. 53-58, 61-62, 66; Survey of Egypt [Cairo, 1944-45]); reports Erdkunde, XIII, 47, 50, 52-55). To these by Ball and H. J. L. Beadnell on the Kalab. have been added data on Egypt's Mediter- sha and Silsila gorges and the Kom Ombo ranean coast given by Blanckenhorn in his plain in The Quarterly Journal of the Geo. Aegypten, pp. 13-14; and information on logical Society, Vols. LIX (p. 75) and LXI the modern Delta provided by J. Lozach in (pp. 670-71); Said's Geology, pp. 9, 50-54, Le Delta du Nil, a publication of the Soci6te 88 if., 129 ff.; and Hume's Geology, Vol. II, Royale de G6ographie d'1gypte (Cairo, 1935). Part II, pp. 589 if., 604 (also I, 8). A good A theory on the growth of the Delta brief account of the geology of the Aswan advanced by Ball (Contributions, pp. 51 ff.) region, with a useful bibliography, is incor. has been challenged by Zeuner (Dating the porated in the Report on the Safeguarding of Past, p. 233) who, in describing the ancient the Monuments, prepared for UNESCO marine bars of Arabs Gulf, notes that the by order of the Netherlands Government positions of these bars "indicate clearly that (November, 1960. See pp. 19-24). the shoreline has advanced relatively little" A. Rittmann in "Some Remarks on the and that "the size of the delta, therefore, has Geology of Aswan" (Bull. Inst. Desert, III, increased but moderately since early Pleisto- No. 2 (July 1953), 35-64) disagrees with cene times." On the Pleistocene shorelines of previous authorities in contending that the Egypt's Mediterranean coast see especially coarse-grained granite and the dioritic rocks Shukri, Philip and Said (1956), Butzer in of the Aswan area are not of plutonic, but of Quaternary Stratigraphy and Climate in the metamorphic origin; and in this he is joined Near East (Bonner Geographische Abhand- by A. R. Gindy (BIE, XXVII, Fasc. 2, 83- lungen, Heft 24. Bonn, 1958); pp. 36-38; 120), N. W. Shukri, and others. See, how. oi.uchicago.edu

36 36FORMATION OF THE LAND ever, more recently, Butzer, "Naturland- Ball, J., Contributions to the Geography of Egypt schaft," pp. 51-52. (Cairo, 1939), pp. 178-289. The relatively late period to which Huzayyin, S. A., The Place of Egypt in Prehistory Sandford and Arkell (op. cit., pp. 7-8, 23-24, (Cairo, 1941), pp. 82-88. Caton-Thompson, G., "The Levalloisian In- 26, 54-59) assign the cutting of the Nubian dustries of Egypt," Proceedings of the Pre- Nile Valley and the river's initial encounter historic Society, new series, XII, No. 4 (1946), with the granite barrier of the First Cataract pp. 75, 83, 90, 97, 100 if. disposes of the old and frequently expressed Huzayyin, S. A., "Le depression de Fayyoum: theory that the so-called "rupture" of this un exemple d'erosion eolienne," C.R. Congr. barrier determined the course of the Egyp- .It. Geogr. (Lisbon, 1949), pp. 731-33. tian Nile and led to the cutting of its valley Caton-Thompson, G., Kharga Oasis in Prehistory (see, for example, J. de Morgan, Recherches (London, 1952), pp. 18-19, 33, 143. Pfannenstiel, M., "Die Entstehung der agyp- sur 1e8 origine8 de l'Agypte, I, 22-23; tischen Oasendepressionen. Das Quartar der P. Bovier-Lapierre in Preci8 de l'histoire Levante II," Abh. Akad. Wiss. Liter. Math.- d'fIgypte, I, 11; I-. Drioton and J. Vandier, Naturw. Kl., 1953, Nr. 7, pp. 344-406 passim. L'Egypte ["Clio," I, II], p. 1). Butzer, K. W., Quaternary Stratigraphy and Climate in the Near East (Bonner Geographische 9. THE FAYUM LAKE BASIN Abhandlungen, Heft 24. Bonn, 1958), pp. 68- 71, 75, 99. The observations made and views held Forde-Johnston, J. L., Neolithic Cultures of during the last seventy years by leading North Africa (Liverpool, 1959), p. 7. geologists and prehistorians in connection McBurney, C. B. M., The Stone Age of Northern with the origin and development of the Africa (Harmondsworth, 1960), pp. 78-80, Fayum and its lake may be studied in the 125, 145-49, 233-40. following publications, listed here in chrono- Said, R., The Geology of Egypt (Amsterdam-New logical order: York, 1962), pp. 14, 99-106. Butzer, K. W., "Pleistocene Stratigraphy and Brown, R H., The Payim and Prehistory in Egypt," QuaternariaVI (Rome, (London, 1892). 1962) 467. Beadnell, H. J. L., The Topography and Geology of the Fayum Province of Egypt (Survey of Egypt) (Cairo, 1905). 10. THE OASES OF THE LIBYAN DESERT Blanckenhorn, M., Aegypten (1921), pp. 182-83. Among the more comprehensive and Caton-Thompson, G., and Gardner, E. W., "The valuable general works on the Libyan Recent Geology and Neolithic Industry of the Desert and its oases is the three-volume Northern Fayum Desert," Journal of the report of the Rohlfs Expedition of Royal Anthropological Institute, LVI (1926), 1873-74: pp. 301-32. G. Rohlfs, P. Ascherson, W. , and - "The Recent Geology of the Northern K. A. Zittel, Expedition zur Erforschung der Fayum Desert," Geological Magazine, LXIV libyschen Wuste (Cassel, 1875-1883. See also (1927), 386-410. Zittel, "Beitriige zur Geologie und Palaeonto- -"Recent Work on the Problem of Lake logie der Likyschen Wuiste ...," Palaeonto- Moeris," The Geographical Journal, LXXIII graphica, XXX [1883], 1-238). Of more (1929), 20-60. recent date are E. Stromer's "Geograph- Sandford, K. S., and Arkell, W. J., Paleolithic Man and the Nile- Divide (= Pre- ische Beobachtungen in der Wulsten historic Survey, vol. I) (Chicago, 1929). Agyptens," Mitteilungen F. von Richthofen, Gardner, E. W., "The Origin of the Faiyum 1913 (Berlin, 1914) and his Ergebnisse der Depression: A Critical Commentary on a New Forschungsreioen Prof. E. Stromers in View of its Origin," The GeographicalJournal, Wusten Agyptens (3 parts. Munich, 1914-19); LXXIV (1929), 371-83. portions of Said's Geology (pp. 11-14, 67-86, Sandford, K. S., and Arkell, W. J., "The Origin 197--215) and of the first volume of Hume's of the Faiyum Depression : The Faiyum and (pp. 4, 7, 36, 83); J. Ball's Uganda," The Geographical Journal, LXXIV Geology 73-74, (1929), 578-84. "Problems of the Libyan Desert," The Caton-Thompson, G., and Gardner, E. W., The Geographical Journal, LXX (1927), 21-38, Desert Fayum (Royal Anthropological In- 105-28, 209-24; K. S.' Sandford's "Geology stitute). 2 vols. (London, 1934). and Geomorphology of the Southern Libyan Little, 0. H., "Recent Geological Work in the Desert," The GeographicalJournal, LXXXII Faiyukm and in the Adjoining Portion of the (1933), 213-19 (see also pp. 219-22); H. Nile Valley," BI E, XVIII (1936), 201-40. Schmitthenner's "Die Stufenlandschaft am Caton-Thompson, G., Gardner, E. W., and Nil und in der Libyschen Wicaste," Geogr. Huzayyin, S. A., "Lake Moeris: Re-investiga- Zeitschrift (Leipzig), XXXVII (1931), 526- tions and Some Comments," DIE, XIX (1937), 243-303. 40; and M. Pfannenstiel's "Die Entstehung Sandford, K. S., and Arkell, W. J., Prehistoric der agyptisehen Oasendepressionen. Das .aSursyTV;(Chiagon939)%99 Quart~r der Lea-unte II.," Abh. Ak ad. Wiss. oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND 37

Liter. Math.-Naturw. Kl., 1953, Nr. 7, statements by Caton-Thompson concerning pp. 337-411. The opinions quoted in the first the oasis of Kharga will be found in two paragraph of the text of this section regard- articles published in 1946 and cited in the ing the origin of the oases are those of Hume notes to our succeeding section on Climate. (Geology, I, p. 73). The most recent exponent The topography and geology of the Wadi of early fluviatile ("Urnil") erosion as an el-Natrun are discussed by Blanckenhorn important factor in the formation of the (Aegypten, pp. 181-82), Hume (Geology, I, Fayum, Bahria, and the southern group of 161 ff.), and Sandford and Arkell (Pre. oases is Pfannenstiel (op. cit. See especially historic Survey, IV, 17, 92, etc.); and those pp. 361-62, 367-79, 382, 403-405. See also of the oasis of Siwa by R. H. Forbes, "Siwa R. Uhden, "Der libysche Urnil in Oberigyp- Oasis: Geology, Water Supply, Soils, etc.," ten," Geol. Rundschau, XX [1929], 180-86; Cairo Scientific Journal, X (1921), 1-8. See Blanckenhorn, Aegypten [1921], pp. 186-87; also M. A. Azadian, "L'Oasis de Siouah et ses Beadnell, Topography . . . of the Fayum sources," BIE, IX (1927), 105-14. Province [1905], p. 67; and cf. Ball, op. cit., Blanckenhorn's treatment of the oases p. 32). (Aegypten, pp. 180-82) is colored by his On five of the individual oases-Kharga, belief that the depressions are primarily the Dakhla, Farafra, Bahria, and Kukur-there products of faulting-a view not held by are excellent topographical and geological most of the geologists who have studied reports drawn up by H. J. L. Beadnell and/or them. J. Ball and published by the Survey Depart- A series of books and articles on the Wadi ment of the Public Works Ministry of Egypt el-Natrun and the oases of Siwa, Bahria, and during the years 1900-1903. Beadnell's well Farafra prepared by A. Fakhry and pub- known book, An Egyptian Oasis. An Account lished by the Service des Antiquitds de of the Oasis of Kharga in the Libyan Desert, l'1igypte deal chiefly with the dynastic and etc. made its appearance a few years later later histories, antiquities, and modern (London, 1909). H. E. Winlock's Ed Dakhleh aspects of the depressions. Oasis (New York, 1936), though chiefly taken up with the journal of a camel trip made to the oasis in 1908, contains much of 11. CLIMATE interest to the geographer and prehistorian Since 1900 when Lt.-Col. James A. Grant (e.g., pp. 53 ff.). ("Grant Bey") published his frequently cited In 1930-31, 1931-32, and 1932-33 the article, "The Climate of Egypt in Geological, geography, geology, hydrography, paleonto- Prehistoric, and Ancient Times" (Victoria logy, and prehistory of Kharga oasis were Institute, Journal of Transactions, XXXII, re-examined by G. Caton-Thompson and 87-105) a wealth of new evidence on Egypt's E. W: Gardner, Kharga Oasis in Prehistory climate during the Pleistocene epoch and (London, 1952, quoted in the fourth para- the periods preceding and following it has graph of this section) and in a succession of been brought to light, both in the Nile Valley articles in Antiquity (V [1931], 221-26), The itself and in other portions of the Egyptian Geographical Journal (LXXX [1932] 396- tableland. The bulk of this material will be 409; LXXXI [1933], 134-39, 528-30), The found collected and discussed in S. A. Geological Magazine (LXIX [ 1932], 386-421), Huzayyin's The Place of Egypt in Pre- Man (XXXI [1931], 77-84; XXXII [1932], history: A Correlated Study of Climate and 129-59; XXXIII [1933], 178-80; and The Cultures in the Old World (MIE, Vol. XLIII Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of [Cairo, 1941]); less recently, but in somewhat London (XCI [1935], 479-518). Differences more concise form in the same author's "The between the findings of Caton-Thompson Place of the Saharo-Arabian Area in the and Gardner and those of Beadnell (notably, Palaeolithic Culture-Sequence of the Old as regards the evidence for the existence or World: A Synoptic Review of Recent Data" non-existence of a great prehistoric lake or (BIE, XX [1938], ..263-95); in S. Passarge's lakes inside the depression) drew some Die Urlandschaft Agyptens und die Lokalisie- "Remarks" by the latter in The Geographical rung der Wiege der altagyptischen Kultur Journal, LXXXI (1933), 128-34. "Further (Nova Acta Leopoldina: Abhandlungen der Remarks on the Kharga Oasis" were contri- Kaiserlich Leopolidinisch-Carolinisch Deut- buted to the same periodical (LXXXI schen Akademie der Naturforscher, neue [1933], 526-32) by O. H. Little, E. W. Folge, Band 9, No. 58 [Halle, 1940], pp. 75- Gardner, K. S. Sandford, and J. Ball. The 152 [1-78]); and in G. W. Murray's "The problems involved in these discussions are Egyptian Climate: an Historical Outline," conveniently summarized by Huzayyin, Geogr. Journ., CXVII (1951), 422-34. Place of Egypt, pp. 89-94. Subsequent Since 1957 past climatic developments in oi.uchicago.edu

38 FORMATION OF THE LAND

Egypt, the Saharan region, and the Near intervening periods of erosion, but never East in general have been re-studied by Karl reaching the amount typical of a Mediter- W. Butzer and his findings-on which our ranean climate" (see, however, Butzer, present section is to a great extent based- Bonn. Geogr. Abh., XXIV, p. 73). In the have been published in a series of important same year (Geogr. Journ., LXXX, 400) articles and monographs: "Mediterranean Caton-Thompson and Gardner together felt Pluvials and the General Circulation of the that "in Kharga there were no 'pluvial Pleistocene," Geograftska Annaler [Stock- periods' except in a strictly limited sense, holm], XXXIX (1957), 48-53; "The Recent the area remaining throughout prehistoric Climatic Fluctuations in Lower Latitudes times an arid region varying from full desert and the General Circulation of the Pleisto- to poor steppe," but with "moist periods at cene," ibid., pp. 105-13; "Late Glacial and intervals in the Paleolithic." In 1946, how- Postglacial Climatic Variation in the Near ever, Caton-Thompson (Proc. Preh. Soc., East," Erdkunde, XI (1957), 21-35; "Das XII, 58, 60) represented the Pleistocene okologische Problem der neolithischen Fels- climate of the oasis scarp as embracing a bilder der ostlichen ," Abh. Akad. first, and major, pluvial and a second Wise. Liter. Math.-naturw. Kl., 1958, Nr. 1, pluvial, separated from one another by a pp. 20-49; Quaternary Stratigraphy and period of aridity. Climate in the Near East (Bonner Geo- Climatic developments in the lower Nile graphiche Abhandlungen, Heft 24. Bonn, Valley from Pliocene times onward have 1958); "Contributions to the Pleistocene been discussed in some detail by Sandford Geology of the Nile Valley," Erdkunde, XIII and Arkell, PrehistoricSurvey, I, 72; II, 85- (1959), 46-67 (see especially pp. 61-66); 86; III, 125-26; IV, 97-98. See also Sand- "Some Recent Geological Deposits in the ford, AJSL, XLVIII (1932), 178-79; and Egyptian Nile Valley," The Geographical "Past Climate and Early Man in the Southern Journal, CXXV (1959), 75-79; "Die Natur- Libyan Desert," The Geographical Journal, landschaft Agyptens," pp. 56, 57, 59, 61-65, LXXXII (1933), 219-22. It is Sandford and 78-116; "Environment and Human Ecology Arkell who most stoutly refuse to recognize the in Egypt during Predynastic and Early alternation here of Pleistocene "pluvial" and Dynastic Times," Bulletin de la Socidtd de "interpluvial" phases. See, for example, Gdographie d'4gypt, XXXII (1959), 43-87; Sandford's concluding remarks on "Climate" and "Archaeology and Geology in Ancient in his PrehistoricSurvey, III, 126. Egypt," Science, CXXXII (1960), 1617-24 Huzayyin (Place of Egypt [1941]), on the (see especially pp. 1619, 1620, 1624); "Pleisto- other hand, finds evidence in Egypt for the cene Stratigraphy and Prehistory in Egypt," existence of a First, and major, Pluvial Quaternaria, VI (1962, Rome) 456-65; "The extending from late Pliocene times to the end Pleistocene Sequence in Egypt and Its of the Lower Paleolithic stage of human Implication for Pluvial Glacial Correlation development, an Interpluvial spanning the in the Sahara," Acts. Fourth Pan African end of the Lower and the beginning of the Congress on Prehistory (1962). The words Middle Paleolithic periods, and a Second quoted in our third paragraph are from Pluvial, of Middle Paleolithic date, embracing QuaternaryStratigraphy, p. 138. two or three sub-maxima and one or two The development of Egypt's climate as "intrapluvials" (see also Blanckenhorn, reconstructed by G. Caton-Thompson and Aegypten, pp. 152, 241-42). These phases he E. W. Gardner from their work in the Fayum regards as sufficiently well established to and in the oasis of Kharga is discussed by permit an approximate correlation, not only them in the works cited in the notes to the with the pluvials and interpluvials observed two preceding sections of this chapter and is in other parts of Africa and in western Asia, referred to again by Miss Caton-Thompson but also with the glacial and interglacial in her article on "The Industry: Its periods of the Great Ice Age in Europe. Place and Significance in the Palaeolithic Thus, he is inclined to extend his Egyptian World," The Journal of the Royal Anthropo- First Pluvial over both the Alpine Mindel logical Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, and Riss glaciations including the Mindel- LXXVI (1946), 87-130 (see especially Riss Interglacial, to correlate the Interpluvial pp. 103 ff.). See also Caton-Thompson, Kharga in Egypt and Palestine with the Riss-Wirm Oasis in Prehistory, pp. 14-21. Interglacial, and to distribute the successive The Pleistocene rainfall on the Kharga sub-phases of the Second Pluvial over the scarp was believed by Gardner in 1932 (Geol. last glaciation (Wirm) and the early stages Mag., LXIX, 405) to have been "small in of the Late (Achen, Bikhl, etc.). amount and seasonal in type during the The post-pluvial dry phase would then fall periods of tufa formation, increasing in the in the latter part of the Late Glacial period oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE IAND 39 and the Neolithic Wet Phase of the Saharo- p. 60); "On the Pleistocene Shore Lines of Arabian belt would correspond to the post- Arabs' Gulf, Egypt," The Journal of Geology Glacial warm phase of Europe. (Chicago) LXVIII (1960); "Pleistocene In the fourth edition of his Dating the Past Stratigraphy and Prehistory in Egypt," (1958) F. E. Zeuner felt (p. 232) that the Quaternaria, VI (Rome, 1960) while the Pleistocene chronology of Egypt is "still not absolute dates are in part those of Zeuner clear" and (p. 229) that: "Among the (see especially Dating the Past,4 "Table of countries bordering the Mediterranean on Dates," p. 145) and in part those of Butzer the south, Palestine stands out as the only (see Quaternary Stratigraphy, pp. 14-18; one where, up to the present, thorough work "Naturlandschaft," p. 60), emended on the has established a sequence of pluvial phases basis of a recent article by H. L. Movius in with which the succession of prehistoric Current Anthropology, I (1960), 355 ff. (see industries can be correlated." below). Interesting discussions of the climatic The astronomical method of dating the developments in other portions of North phases of the Ice Age is based on periodical Africa and in the Saharan belt as a whole perturbations in the orbit of the earth as will be found in Zeuner, op. cit., pp. 246 if., reflected in fluctuations "in the amount of 423; L. Balout, Prdhistoire de l'Afrique du radiation received by the earth from the Nord (Arts et Matiers Graphiques [Paris, sun." As formulated by M. Milankovitch 1955]), pp. 37 ff., 76-82, 185; Alimen, Prd. and his predecessors its value has been histoire de l'Afrique (Paris, 1955), pp. 63, questioned by M. Schwarzbach (1950), 105 ff.,112, 203-205, etc.; J. L. Forde- P. Woldstedt (1954), and others (see Butzer, Johnston, Neolithic Cultures of North Africa op. cit., pp. 14, 138); but has been reaffirmed (Liverpool, 1959), pp. 7-12; O. Davies, by Zeuner in the most recent edition (1958) "African Pleistocene Pluvials," Man, LIX of his Dating the Past (pp. 412-15). (1959), 100-101; and McBurney, The Stone Although Huzayyin's correlation of his Age of Northern Africa (1960), pp. 16, 21, 24, Egyptian "pluvials" and "interpluvials" 47-48, 57, 76, 165. with the European glacial phases has not A useful general treatment of ancient been accepted by Zeuner, Butzer, and other climate the world over is given by C. E. P. students of Pleistocene geochronology, the Brooks in the revised edition of his Climate dating of the 50-foot and earlier terraces through the Ages. A Study of the Climatic obtainable from Huzayyin's reconstruction Factors and their Variations (New York and (Place of Egypt, pp. 156 if. See also pp. 186- Toronto, 1949). For Butzer's unfavorable 89) does not differ materially from that comment on the 1926 edition of this work derived from Zeuner's tables (Dating the see Erdkunde, XI (1957), 21. Past, pp. 145 and 235). It is with the 30-foot terrace, which Zeuner assigns to the Last Interglacial and Huzayyin to the First Stage 12. CHRONOLOGY of the Last Glaciation, that the differences of dating between the two systems begin to The general conclusions and much of the become striking. material presented in this section are taken Other, often widely divergent, views of from the works of K. W. Butzer cited in the alternation of Mediterranean high and the notes to the preceding section on Climate low sea-levels, the alternation of African and from the fourth edition of F. E. Zeuner's pluvials and interpluvials, and their relation- Dating the Past. An Introduction to Geo- ships to the glacials and interglacials of chronology (London, 1958)--see especially Europe and to the various Paleolithic human pp. 128 (fig. 46), 133 (fig. 47), 134-45, 229, industries are given by Blanckenhorn, 232-35, 246-48, 292, 341-46, 410 if., 421-22, Aegypten (1921), pp. 152, 241-42; by R. 423, 425, and the Bibliographies, pp. 433-90. Neuville and A. Ruhlmann, "La place du Some additional details will be found in the Paldolithique ancien dans le Quaternaire first edition of the latter work, published in marocain," Coll. He8peris (Inst. des Hautes April 1946, and in Zeuner's The Pleistocene Itudes marocains), No. VIII (1941), p. 124 Period. Its Climate, Chronology, and Faunal (marine transgression = glacial period; ma- Successions (London, 1945). See also Brooks, rine regression = interglacial! See, however, Climate through the Ages, pp. 95, 263-65, Butzer, Geografiska Annaler, XXXIX [1957], 269-71, 273, 276-77. 110); by L. Balout, Prdhistoire de l'Afrique Our correlation of Egyptian and European du Nord (1955), pp. 30 if., 35-37, 76-82, 178, phases follows Butzer (see especially Quater- 486; and by O. Menghin in his Weltgeschichte nary Stratigraph , pp. 36-38, 41, 52 if., der Steinzeit (Vienna, 1931), pp. 21 if. (see Tables IV, VIII, and IX; "Naturlandschaft," especially p. 24); and an interesting discus. oi.uchicago.edu

40 FORMATION OF THE LAND sion of the absolute chronology of the C. B. M. McBurney, "Radio-carbon Readings Paleolithic and succeeding periods will be and the Spread of the Upper Palaeolithic in found on pp. 42 if. of the last-named volume. Europe and the ," Pro. Also of interest are the chronologies of the I. N. Qu. A. (Madrid, 1957); The Stone Age Ice Age and early post-glacial times drawn of Northern Africa (1960), pp. 51-52, 168, up by R. Turner, The Great Cultural Tradi- 203-204, 234; F. Johnson, "Radiocarbon tions, vol. I (New York and London, 1941), Dating," American Antiquity, XVII, Part II opp. p. 44; and by B. A. Proosdij, "Kennen (July, 1951), 1-63; R. J. Braidwood, "tber en Erkennen onze houding tegenover de die Anwendung der Radio-Karbon-Chrono. Praehistorie," Jaarbericht. . . "Ex Oriente logie fiir das Verstandnis der ersten Lux," No. 13 (1953-1954), pp. 271-72. Dorfkultur-Gemeinschaften in Sildwest- Besides its treatment by Zeuner in Dating Asien," Anzeiger der Osterr. Akademie d. the Past, the important subject of the Wissenschaften, 1958, Nr. 19; H. Junker, relationship of the Nile terraces to the "Die Geisteshaltung der Agypter in der Mediterranean high sea-levels of Plio- Friihzeit," Sitzungsberichte der Osterr. Aka- Pleistocene and Pleistocene date is discussed demie der Wissenschaften, 237. Band, 1. at some length by Ball in his Contributions to Abhandlung (Vienna, 1961), pp. 1-148 (see the Geography of Egypt, pp. 46 if., fig. 16; by pp. 55-60); E. L. Kohler, and E. K. Ralph, Sandford in PrehistoricSurvey, III, 43, 51-52 "C-14 Dates for Sites in the Mediterranean (fig. 13), 57; and Sandford and Arkell, Pre- Area," AJA, LXV (1961), 357-67. See also historic Survey, I, 26-27, 31; IV, 39 (fig. 9), A. J. Arkell, Shaheinab (London, 1953), 46-47, 53, 59-60; and by Huzayyin, Place p. 107; Bibliotheca Orientalis, XIII (1956), of Egypt, pp. 48 ff., 55-56. For our present 123, 126; R. Pittioni, "Der Beitrag der understanding of the extent of this relation- Radiokarbon Methode zur absoluten Datie- ship see Butzer, Erdkunde, XIII (1959), rung Urzeitlichen Quellen", Forschungen pp. 52-53; The Journal of Geology (Chicago, and Fortschritte, XXXI (1957), 357-64. 1960); Quaternaria, VI (Rome, 1962) and J. Leclant, Kush, V (1957), 95. For the limita- "The Pleistocene Sequence in Egypt and Its tions and shortcomings of the method see Implication for Pluvial Glacial Correlation especially W. S. Broecker and J. L. Kulp- in the Sahara," Acts Fourth Pan African "The Radiocarbon Method of Age Deter, Congress of Prehistory (1962). mination," American Antiquity, XXII (1956), The late Pleistocene chronology of Egypt 1-11; and E. K. Ralph, "Double Trouble," has been carefully studied by G. Caton- Expedition (Bulletin of the University Museum Thompson in her article on "The Levalloisian of the University of Pennsylvania), I (1959), Industries of Egypt," Proceedings of the Pre- No. 3, 24-25, and for an examination of its historic Society, new series, vol. XII (1946), accuracy see W. F. Libby, Science, CXXXX 57-120 (see especially pp. 68-84 and the (1963) 278. table on p. 97). See also Journ. Roy. Anthr. The date 3100 B.c. for the beginning of Inst., LXXVI (1946), 104, 107, 116; Butzer, the historic period is based largely on Quaternaria,VI, 459, 462. documentary evidence of historic time and The radiocarbon method of age determina- can be explained to greater advantage in a tion is based on the slow disintegration in later chapter. organic matter of a radioactive carbon of atomic weight 14 (C1 4 ) and a known half-life of about 5700 (5568 or 5800) years. The 13. EGYPT AT THE BEGINNING method is described and lists of radiocarbon OF HUMAN PREHISTORY dates are given by W. F. Libby, Radio- carbon Dating (2d ed [Chicago, 1959]); The reconstruction attempted here is "Radiocarbon Dates," Science, vols. CXIII drawn in large part from the studies of (1951)-CXX (1955); "Radiocarbon Dating," S. Passarge (Die UrlandschaftAgyptens [ 1940]) ibid., CXXXIII (1961), 621-29; and F. E. and, above all, from those of K. W. Butzer Zeuner, Dating the Past (4th ed., 1958), ("Die Naturlandschaft Agyptens" [1959), pp. 341-46, 426-27. Of the many other works see especially pp. 47, 56-65; Erdkunde, XIII on the subject the following are of special [1959], 47-67, see especially pp. 61-66, etc. interest: H. L. Movius, "Radiocarbon Dates [see the references listed above under and Upper Palaeolithic Archaeology in "Climate"]). Also consulted were the works Central and Western Europe," Current of Sandford, Caton-Thompson, Ball, and Anthropology, I (1960), 355-91; H. Godwin, Huzayyin cited in the notes to the preceding R. P. Suggate, and E. H. Willis, "Radio. sections. To these may be added J. Bar- carbon Dating of the Eustatic Rise in Ocean thoux's "Palboglographie de l'Egypte," a Level," Nature, CLXXXI (1958), 1518-19; paper read in Cairo in 1925 at the Congres oi.uchicago.edu

FORMATION OF THE LAND 41 International de G6ographie and published College, XXVI (1928), No. 5; V. G. Childe, in the Compte rendu of the congress, Vol. III, New Light on the Moat Ancient East, pp. 24ff.; pp. 68-100. McBurney, The Stone Age of Northern Africa The levels of precipitation required by (1960), pp. 16, 20, 73, 82, 88-94, 275 if. "four indicative species" of vertebrate fauna On pp. 172-74 of his Place of Egypt are listed by Butzer in Abh. Akad. Wins. Huzayyin discusses the question of Pleisto- Liter. Math.-naturw. KI., 1958, Nr. 1, pp. 20, cene land-bridges between Africa and Europe, 34-35. On the Pleistocene fauna of northern with special reference on p. 174 to the Strait Africa and adjoining areas in general see of Gibraltar (see also Ball, Contributions, Huzayyin, Place of Egypt, pp. 62, 64 if., 72- pp. 39-40, 62-64; Leakey, Stone Age Africa, 73, 99-102, and the references cited there. p. 5); and on pp. 201-12 presents a case in See also L. S. B. Leakey, Stone Age Africa, favor of the Saharo-Arabian area, including pp. 22-25; A. S. Romer, "Pleistocene Mam- Egypt, having been the principal "kernel. mals of ," Bulletin of the Beloit zone" of Lower Paleolithic culture. oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu

2 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT

1. THE "ABBEVILLIANS" practice to designate the earliest Egyptian core-tools as Abbevillian or Chellean and the accompanying flake-tools as THE rather sudden appearance of and to extend the use of these names, in a -making man in the region of the lower very broad and loose sense, to the group Nile at a period believed to have coincided or groups of hominids responsible for their with the beginning of the second, or production and use. Essentially the same Mindel, glaciation is attested by the primitive types of implements are found presence in the lower sands and gravels of at this or a slightly earlier period (Giinz- the 100-foot wadi and river terraces of Mindel Interglacial) in many other parts Upper Egypt and Nubia of an impressive of Africa and western Asia, notably, along series of primitive hand-, flake-tools, the Lebanese littoral, near Oran in Algeria and "cores" resembling in their typology and Casablanca in , in the Nilotic and those of the well-known gravels of the Republic of the Sudan, and Lower Paleolithic river gravels of Abbeville in Bed II of the famous Olduvai Gorge and Chelles in northern France and of deposits in northern Tanganyika, where, Clacton-on-Sea in Essex. Without imply- as on a number of other African sites, they ing a derivation from or other direct are preceded by even more primitive association with their French and English "pebble-tool" industries, the so-called counterparts it has become the general Kafuan and .

43 oi.uchicago.edu

44 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT

In Egypt, as elsewhere, the lithic tool- their lenticular mates and no reason for kit and armory of Abbevillian Man applying to them the name Chalossian, consisted in the main of a single multiple- derived from a doubtfully dated group of purpose implement variously known today implements found at La Chalosse in south- as a hand-, a fist-wedge, a , a western France. "Marked recesses" in the coup-de-poing, a core-biface, and a edges of a few of the early hand-axes have Boucher, the last in honour of the Nine- suggested the possibility of their having teenth Century French prehistorian, been lashed to a wooden haft, but as a Boucher de Perthes, who himself called it general rule there is no evidence of . a "hache diluvienne." As First encountered On the contrary, a major advantage of the in the lower levels of the 100-foot Nile implement is that it can be held in the hand gravels it is a thick triangular or ellipsoidal in several different ways and so made to implement, lenticular or triangular in perform a variety of different tasks. Its cross-section and some five to ten inches uses, in any case, were evidently many in length, provided around the greater and various-cleaving, chopping, digging, part of its perimeter with a serviceable, if scraping, sawing, skinning, crushing, and somewhat wavy, working edge and ending stabbing-and it is not surprising that in in a more or less pronounced point-more, Egypt it remained throughout the whole in fact, like an edged pick than what we of the Lower Paleolithic period Man's should normally describe as an axe. favorite tool and . Basically the tool is a natural nodule or It was not, however, his only chunk of , chert, quartzite, or other, nor was the technique which produced it usually siliceous, stone, worked to shape the only one employed by the earliest on both faces by the removal from its Egyptian tool-makers. Not only were the margins-evidently by direct blows from flakes sheared off in the process of pro- a -of a few short, massive ducing the hand-axes themselves used as flakes, the marginal flake-scars on one side implements, but similar flakes were pro- falling between those on the other side so duced for their own sakes from cores as to produce the characteristic zigzag which were subsequently either discarded working edge already referred to. Often on or retained as reserves of . In these early hand-axes the butt-end of the the early, "block-on-block," or Clactonian nodule is left unworked to provide a method of flake-tool production the flakes comfortable, rounded grip for the user's were simply struck from the margins of hand. The shaping of the implements natural, unworked cores, probably by depended almost entirely on simple, but striking the latter against the edge of a skillful, primary flaking, and there are large anvil-stone, the flake-scars left on only rarely any signs of secondary working, one side of the core serving as the "striking- or retouching, of the points or edges. Their platforms" for the flakes removed from exact forms were determined primarily by the opposite side. The resulting, for the the shapes of the nodules or chunks of most part unretouched, tools, though stone selected, some being long trihedrons capable of performing tasks for which the with prominent rounded butts, others bi- massive hand-axe was unsuited, are facial and more pear-shaped or oval in usually clumsy and irregularly shaped outline. There appears to be little basis for and the Clactonian technique in general is the belief that the trihedral hand-axes are primitive and wasteful of raw material. an earlier and more primitive form than Less copiously represented in the 100-foot oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 45

Nile gravels than the hand-axes with to beyond Khartoum have produced a which they occur, the flake-tools represent fine series of Clacto-Abbevillian (Pre- at this time a subsidiary, though by Chellean and Chellean) implements, no- no means negligible, Lower Paleolithic tably in the stratified gravels of the Khor industry. Abu Anga, an ancient tributary which From the cultural point of view the joins the main river a short distance most significant aspect of both the hand- below the confluence of the Blue and White axes and the flake-tools is that they were Niles. Also reported are "rough flake predetermined forms made in accordance artifacts in situ" in the 150-foot terrace with set traditions which we have no near Wadi Halfa "with pebble tools of difficulty in identifying and relating to Pre-Chelles-Acheul type on the surface" those followed in other parts of the ancient and "a little above present high river" world. As such they reflect a definite and near the mouth of the Atbara. From north widely recognized step forward in Man's of Mallawi in Middle Egypt to the tip of early struggles toward developing a civil- the Delta Abbevillian hand-axes and ized mode of existence. This is not the case Clactonian flakes and cores occur in with the so-called eoliths, or "dawn- heavily rolled condition in redeposited stones," alleged predecessors of the sands and gravels of the 100-foot Upper Paleolithic implements, which in the Nile Egyptian stage which in the Rus Channel, Valley, as elsewhere, appear for the most beside the Fayum, have been built up part to have been produced by purely eustatically to a level of 70-85 feet above natural agencies, such as "thermal flaking modern alluvium and in the plain of or abrasion against their neighbors." Abbassiya, east of Cairo, to a maximum Even if it were possible to substantiate height of 104 feet. Since, however, these the claims that these "haphazardly flaked implements and the deposits containing stones" were used by an ancestor of them appear to have been carried down Paleolithic Man, the infinite and aimless by the river at a later time and from variety of their forms and their presence considerable distances upstream they are in deposits of almost every conceivable not in themselves evidence that Abbevil- date make them of little value as docu- lian Man ever reached northern Egypt. ments in the story of human progress. That he did is indicated by numerous The expansion of the makers of the surface finds of Abbevillian and Clactonian Clacto-Abbevillian implements throughout implements, usually mixed with those of the Egyptian area is to some extent later date, in both the Libyan and Eastern reflected by the geographic distribution of Deserts in the region of Cairo. Such finds, their artifacts. From Tumas in middle often described as "stations," occur on the Nubia to Beni Adi, near Asyut, the latter slopes of the Gebel el-Ahmar, in the Wadi have been found in situ in the 100-foot Lablab, on the crest of the Gebel Moqat- Nile and wadi gravels and in rolled condi- tam, and in the Wadi el-Tih, east of Tura, tion in the 50-foot terrace. At Ashkeit, on and, on the west side of the Nile, between the east side of the river, just north of Saqqara and Abu Roash, including a Wadi Halfa, 50-foot wadi gravels contain stretch of desert surface north of the numerous well rolled Abbevillian hand.- pyramids of Giza. Collections of flint axes, presumably derived originally from a implements picked up on the desert higher level. The fluviatile deposits of the fringes along the east and west sides Republic of the Sudan from Wadi Halfa of the Delta by members of the Deutsches oi.uchicago.edu

46 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT

Institut fuir iigyptische Altertumskunde in stone implements are found over a vast Cairo include hand-axes of "Chellean" area extending from the sand-masses and "Chalossian" type. In Upper Egypt beyond the western confines of the most Abbevillian and later Lower Paleolithic distant oases to the barren shores of implements, often deeply patinated by the Red Sea." long exposure to the elements, litter the Much of our story of the earliest surfaces of the valley sides and the heights recognizable human inhabitants of the above. They are particularly numerous in Egyptian tableland and its river valley western Thebes, where Arcelin, Schwein- must at present be based on what we furth, Seton-Karr, Currelly, and others know of their contemporaries in other por- have identified a number of "stations"- tions of the Old World, for until Late some perhaps halting places of early Paleolithic times all that has survived of Paleolithic Man, others undoubtedly these ancient sojourners on the Lower Nile dumps of implements abandoned by are their stone implements. Even the modern peasant flint-collectors. Several latter, as we have just seen, have been Lower Paleolithic surface groups have found only in geological deposits or been recorded by Vignard near Nag scattered over the surfaces of the river Hammadi, including, on the slopes of the terraces and the high desert without eastern cliffs opposite Khoderat, what he culturally significant groupings or con- calls a "Chelleo- encampment." texts which would permit them to be Bovier-Lapierre describes a Clactonian spoken of as "assemblages" or "in- "atelier" and both he and Schweinfurth dustries." have noted several stations with crude Lacking skeletal remains, graves, habita- hand-axes of quartz and quartzite to the tion sites, works of art, and all tools and south and east of Aswan. Among the weapons save only those made of flint and numerous finds of Lower Paleolithic other hard stones, the task of drawing a implements in the Eastern Desert mention significant and trustworthy picture of may be made of groups of Chellean hand- the Nilotic peoples of the early Old Stone axes discovered not many years ago on Age would seem to be well nigh hopeless. the heights around the wells of Laqeita. The stone implements themselves, how- The spread of Abbevillian Man over what ever, tell us much of the men who made is now the Libyan Desert is attested by and used them. Furthermore, the simi- finds of his implements and those of his larity of these implements in type and successors not only scattered throughout technique of manufacture to those of early the broad area between the Nile and the Paleolithic sites in other parts of Africa, in Great Oases, but also in the wadis leading western Europe, and southwestern and from the river to the Nubian oasis of south central Asia suggests that in all Kurkur, in the Wadi Abu el-Agag, north these areas we are dealing with men of Aswan, around the springs of Dalla, endowed with similar mental capacity and west of the oasis of Farafra, between similar manual dexterity, standing at the northern oases of Bahria and Siwa, much the same level of cultural develop- and westward all the way to Gebel ment, and adhering to the same general Uweinat. Huzayyin's map showing the habits of life. Add to these clues the in- distribution of the early hand-axe in- dications which we possess concerning the dustries over the present-day deserts natural conditions amid which the pri- confirms Hume's statement that "Worked maeval "Egyptian" lived-the type of oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 47 country, the climate, the probable fauna characterized by a receding chin and and flora-and we find that we have still enormous teeth, Rabat Man has also been another means of reconstructing with some linked with the Sinanthropus-Pithecanthro- degree of accuracy the nature of his pus group and with the slightly later existence. Atlanthropus mauritanicus of Morocco and Though there is no local evidence, there Algeria. is some probability that the Lower Paleo- In common with their contemporaries lithic inhabitants of northeastern Africa- the world over these earliest tool-making the creatures whose stone artifacts are inhabitants of Egypt and Nubia un- found imbedded in the gravels of the questionably possessed the power of ex- 100-foot Nile terrace-closely resembled, changing ideas through some form of if, indeed, they were not identical with, speech and perhaps the ability to control, the so-called "Chellean Man" of northern if not actually to produce, . Otherwise Tanganyika, a sub-human contemporary they appear to have lived in a state of of (Pithecanthropuserectus) and savagery not far above that of some of the Pekin Man (Sinanthropuspekinensis), but other species of animals. Like all Paleo- with a larger head and somewhat less lithic peoples they were certainly incapable ape-like appearance than these early far of producing their own food supply and eastern hominids. The upper part of a were-to borrow Professor Childe's ex- skull of this predecessor of Homo sapiens, pression-merely "food-gatherers." This found in Bed II of the Olduvai Gorge means that they depended for their deposits in association with implements of sustenance entirely upon what they could Chellean (Abbevillian) type, shows him to find and collect among the wild plant and have had a "wide forehead," an "im. animal life about them; and that when for mense" brow ridge, and a "relatively any reason these sources failed or were straight" face without the projecting exhausted in the locality which they muzzle characteristic of the so-called happened to be occupying it was necessary ape-men. A thick neck and massive jaw for them to move on to another part of the are suggested "by the formation of the country or even to another part of the skull at the points of attachment" for world. Other causes aside from imminent the jaw and neck muscles, and two starvation could also have prompted their gigantic teeth belonging to a child of wanderings, such as influxes of large the same species show that he "must have numbers of dangerous, predatory animals had permanent dentition of huge dimen- against which their primitive weapons sions." Rabat Man, another near- would have afforded them little or no contemporary and likely relative of our protection. Egypto-Abbevillian tool-maker, is repre- Within the pluvial periods which wit- sented by a mandible and a fragmentary nessed the formation of the Pleistocene maxilla found near Rabat in the coastal river terraces of Upper Egypt the varia- area of Morocco in a geological deposit tions in the generally warm and pleasant datable to the period of the Post-Sicilian climate of northeastern Africa would (Mindel) Regression. Though in this case probably have been insufficient to occasion there was no directly associated industry, wholesale emigrations of men and animals implements of Chelleo-Acheulian and from the area; and the population of this Tayacian types were discovered at the part of the world during the early stages same general level. An archaic type of the European glaciations, though oi.uchicago.edu

48 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT nomadic, was presumably fairly constant. caught and relatively defenseless types of There is every probability that, as else- animals or of young, aged, or sick in- where in these early times, it was also dividuals of the more formidable or extremely sparse. The hunter and food- elusive species. In the case of a big gatherer requires a large foraging area in carnivorous beast like the lion it is prob- which to live, and a few relatively small able that Man was not infrequently the groups of such people can, and un- quarry rather than the hunter. Thus, doubtedly did, occupy a very considerable though meat may have been the Paleolithic amount of territory. Though thousands of Egyptian's favorite food, it would seem Abbevillian and Clactonian stone imple- that a substantial part of his diet must ments have been found in Egypt and have consisted of fruits, nuts, and berries Nubia, these may well represent an average which he---or, more likely, his womenfolk output by each inhabitant of as many as -gathered from trees and shrubs, tubers three or four implements a week over a and grubs dug out of the ground, eggs period of some sixty thousand years. stolen from birds' nests, shell-fish, and The equipment of the earlier Old Stone perhaps other types of fish caught in the Age people of Egypt almost certainly shallows of the river and its subsidiary comprised, besides their stone tools, streams and lakes. Happily for him he had weapons and implements made of wood found a region which for the time being and of the bones of antelopes and other appears to have been richly endowed with large animals. These would have included natural foods of many different kinds, and the pointed wooden throwing-, a was, like his modern descendants, practi- most effective weapon in the hands of an cally omnivorous. expert, and formidable clubs made of the Blessed during Pleistocene times with a shoulderblades and thigh bones of some warm and never excessively rainy climate of the bigger animals, as well as smaller it is unlikely that the Paleolithic in- and more delicate implements of the same habitants of northern Africa ever felt the materials. By "mid-Chellean" times the need for clothing or for covered shelters people of Olduvai in northern Tanganyika in which to live, but went about "in a state seem to have developed the bola, a missile of nature" and camped for the most part weapon used to entangle the legs of fast- under the open sky. Though natural moving animals and comprising rough are fairly numerous in the cliffs bordering stone balls tied together in groups of two the Nile, in the Red Sea hills, and in other or three by lengths of sinew or hide. parts of Egypt and Nubia none of these Provided with such an armory and has as yet yielded any evidence of pre- with a cunning and ability to plan and historic human occupancy. To escape the organize superior to those of other animals, strong winds of the plateau and to have it is probable that the Clacto-Abbevillians ready access to supplies of water the early were fairly successful as hunters, capable camps were probably more often than not on occasion of laying low even such beasts pitched in the lee of the rocky scarps as the huge and dangerous elephant and which fringe the valley of the Nile and the fleet and wary antelope. Operating on those of its ancient tributaries, on sheltered foot without long-range missile weapons lake or sea beaches, or in the rain-pans we may suppose, however, that their daily and larger depressions which dotted the bag was for the most part small and un- surface of the tableland. It is, in any case, certain and consisted chiefly of easily along the river valley and its lateral oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 49

wadis and, later, around the Fayum and able that northeastern Africa, except for other ancient lake basins and in the the coastal area, was uninhabited and vicinity of the fossil springs in the oases that tool-making Man first entered the that the greater number of Paleolithic region in early Mindel times bringing with stone implements have been found. The him already standardized methods of pro- presence of Abbevillian hand-axes and ducing implements and weapons of hard Clactonian flakes and cores in what were stone. Whence he came is of course un- then the subaqueous bottom gravels of the certain, but investigations of recent years Nile and its tributaries indicates a popula- point more and more clearly to East tion living immediately along the banks Africa (Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika) of the river and the lateral streams, well as the "kernel zone" and dispersal point within the confines of their sheltering of the hand-axe industry and of one group, valleys, and evidently venturing fre- at least, of its earliest users. From the quently into their shallows. Similar arti- great lakes in the center of this area facts scattered far and wide over open the Albert and White Niles must have and featureless terrain show, however, provided, even in those remote times, an that during the earlier Paleolithic phases almost unbroken thoroughfare to the of his existence Man did not confine his north, along which men and animals could activities to specific localities, but with have traveled with relative ease. In Egypt the changing seasons ranged as freely over the apparently greater concentration of the grassy uplands as the herds of wild Abbevillian and Clactonian implements in game which he hunted. the southern portions of the country may For protection and for greater success also be indicative of the direction from in and other pursuits calling for which their originators came, though here co-operation and concerted action Paleo- allowances must be made for the con- lithic Man in this part of the world, as tinued denudation and less extensive elsewhere, undoubtedly lived and traveled exploration of early Paleolithic sites in the in groups which have been variously north. It is significant, in any case, that described as tribes, clans, hordes, packs, the earliest stone implements found in situ and even herds. Whatever the exact in the Egypto-Nubian area occur in the nature of these primitive social units it is gravels of the 150-foot terrace near Wadi generally believed that by Lower Paleo- Halfa, at the extreme southern limit of lithic times they were already larger and that area. more complicated than the simple family; and were probably composed of a number 2. GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF of families related by blood or drawn to- THE ACHEULIAN TRADITION gether by mutual interests or mutual In the course of the Mindel Pluvial, a fears. We know nothing of the internal period involving tens of thousands of organization of these units or of their years, Paleolithic Man in the Nile Valley group or tribal customs and beliefs. It is, followed a pattern of development dis- for example, entirely uncertain whether cernible in many other parts of the Old Lower Paleolithic Man buried his dead or, World and passed very gradually from like most other animals, left them to be the initial Abbevillian level into a slightly disposed of by nature's scavengers. more advanced cultural stage. For us this During the period of aridity preceding advance is evidenced chiefly by improve- the onset of the Mindel Pluvial it is prob- ments and refinements in the form of his oi.uchicago.edu

50 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT principal stone tool, the hand-axe, which, of the core-tool concept," and a number of thanks to a growing sense of design and an those found in the Nile terraces have been increased use of secondary flaking, or re- described by Sandford and Arkell as of touching, became more symmetrical in "beautiful workmanship and symmetry," shape, straighter edged, and somewhat showing "a real mastery" of the craft and thinner in cross-section-in general a "complete mastery of the material," or as handsomer and more efficient implement. "beautiful example(s) of Acheulean skill," As the Nile and its tributaries in Upper recalling "some of the more highly Egypt and Nubia slowly aggraded their developed forms of Europe." Clearly the beds to the 100-foot level, this develop- Paleolithic tool-maker had reached the ment of the hand-axe can be followed stage where he was interested not only in through transitional stages which pre- the functional efficiency of his implements, historians classify as evolved Abbevillian, but also in their appearance-had, indeed, or Chellean, Chelleo-Acheulian, and, achieved an aesthetic approach to his finally, early, or Lower, Acheulian. product which allows us to see in the crea- Named for the type-site of St. Acheul tion of these superb artifacts the begin- on the Somme near Amiens, the Acheulian nings of world art. Writers on prehistory tradition was destined to cover "by far do not hesitate to refer to some of the the longest time span of any of the various Acheulian core-tools and even to some of Paleolithic subdivisions," surviving in their evolved Abbevillian predecessors as Egypt for approximately 300,000 years, "works of art," and to this the majority from the latter part of the Mindel Pluvial of their readers will probably not take until the final stage of the Riss Pluvial and exception. being represented in the 100-, 50-, and 30- By no means all Lower Paleolithic bi- foot terraces of Upper Egypt, the 100-foot faces were made from pebbles, nodules, or gravels of the north, the Wadi el-Natrun, nuclei of flint. Where these were not avail- the Fayum lake basin, the spring, and able tabular chert was used (Kharga) or scarp deposits of Kharga Oasis, and simply rough chunks of stone broken numerous surface finds in both the eastern away from the standing rock and- and western deserts. It is characterized in especially in Upper Acheulian times- general by the use of two additional there was a tendency to fashion the small, techniques in the finishing of core-tools, thin hand-axes out of large flakes. Besides namely, the flaking of the edges of the flint and chert the materials used in roughed-out tool "in order to build up various parts of the Egyptian area include preliminary striking platforms set at the quartz (near el-Kab), quartzite (Gebel correct angle to the face to be flaked" and el-Ahmar, Aswan), and ferricrete sand- the use of a baton of hard wood, bone, or stone, or ironstone (Republic of the Su- horn, which, being of softer material than dan), the last being an exceedingly stone, could be "struck directly against difficult stone to work. the edge of the nodule without crushing The Chelleo-Acheulian and earliest it." The flakes detached in this manner are Acheulian implements of the 100-foot wadi long and shallow and the resulting and river terraces of Upper Egypt consist implement is straight-edged, thin in cross- chiefly of plano-convex hand-axes, still section, and evenly tapered. "Some of the rather coarse in appearance, but showing later Acheulian bifaces," says Jacques definite efforts to straighten the edges, Bordaz, "are the most perfect expressions develop the point, and achieve bilateral oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 51 symmetry of shape by secondary flaking probably in early Riss times, that the of Acheulian type. With these were found Acheulian tradition in Egypt reached its somewhat more advanced almond-shaped, full expression. In the gravels of this ovate, and semi-ovate () forms terrace from Ashkeit on the Sudan with lenticular cross-sections and one frontier to Beni Adi, north of Asyut, occurs extraordinary three-sided "pick" which a rich variety of developed Acheulian bi- has been compared with the so-called facial implements-ovates, limandes, disks, "anvils" of the upper gravels of Abbas- waisted points, and miniature hand-axes- siya. Occasionally the heels, or butts, of exhibiting the remarkably thin sections, the hand-axes are left unworked, a carry- the sharp, straight edges, the complete over from Abbevillian times. This stage is bilateral symmetry, the fine "fish-scale" best represented in the gravels of the Wadi flaking, and the meticulous retouching Qena, at Bir Arras, between Abydos and characteristic of good "evolved" Acheulean , and at Beni Adi, near Manfalut. work the world over. The capping of the 100-foot terrace in The Upper Acheulian industry is best Upper Egypt was followed, as we have represented and best recorded in Kharga seen, by a prolonged interpluvial, or arid Oasis and constitutes there the earliest period, during which the Nile eroded its evidence of human occupation of the great bed in the south and, under the influence depression. An "assemblage" of Upper of the Mindel-Riss, or Tyrrhenian, high Acheulian implements in the deposits of a sea-level, redeposited the same imple- fossil mound-spring on the floor of the mentiferous gravels in the north to levels depression comprises a great variety of of 70 feet and more above modern al- forms, among which lanceolate and pear- luvium, notably in the Rus Channel and shaped bifaces predominate, followed in at Abbassiya. Above these ancient gravels order of frequency by limandes, "V-shape with their heavily rolled Abbevillian, butted" tools, and triangular hand-axes. Chelleo-Acheulian, and early Acheulian The mound-spring referred to (KO 10) artifacts lie wadi and river deposits of probably represents a "home site, to more recent (Mindel-Riss) origin con- which the large majority of the hand-axes taining fresh or only slightly rolled were brought ready-made," but the Acheu- implements of typical Lower and even lian finds around the other mound-springs Middle Acheulian forms. These forms, and in the gravel-silt-tufa deposits of the which indicate an Acheulian date for the passes of the eastern scarp consist chiefly 70-100-foot terrace of northern Egypt, of flaking sites with cores and "waste include symmetrically pointed ovates with parings" forming a high percentage of the slightly sinuous edges and thin, evenly material and finished implements being tapered cross-sections, which are described relatively few in number. Here, as in the by their finders as "rare examples of earlier stages of the Acheulian in Egypt, beautiful Acheulean work" bringing "us the hand-axes and other bifacial tools are to a fairly advanced stage of Acheulean accompanied by small and rather thick culture." To the same stage probably also flake-tools (scrapers, piercers, notched belongs a somewhat elongated hand-axe blades) still produced by the old block-on- with a reverse S-twist from the floor of the block, or Clactonian, method, but showing Wadi el-Natrun near Bir Hooker. occasionally extensive re-woirking of the It was during the formation of the 50- points and edges. In this Upper Acheulian foot terrace of Upper Egypt and Nubia, horizon we also encounter a few specimens oi.uchicago.edu

52 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT with traces of incipient Levallois, or discoid cores, flakes with faceted butts, "faceted platform," technique, an ad- and flake-blades of rudimentary but vanced method of flake-tool production distinct Levalloisian character. Much the which, as we shall see, dominates the same industry is found in the 30-foot Nile industries of the Middle and Late Paleo- terrace, which is preserved today chiefly lithic phases of Egyptian prehistory. between Luxor and Asyut and which The Upper Acheulian of Kharga has appears to have been formed during the been compared with that of Tabun in second stage of the penultimate glaciation Palestine; but Miss Caton-Thompson, who (Riss II). The gravels of this terrace con- makes the comparison, also insists that tain not only small triangular hand-axes "Egypt's palaeolithic sequence is an auto- of advanced Acheulian type, but also chthonous, auto-generic development, par- characteristic Levalloisian tortoise-core taking of certain generalised African flakes and flake-blades. Here, then, we characteristics in its earlier stages, but take leave of Lower Paleolithic man and becoming increasingly Nilotic in a specific pass gradually into the milieu of his sense later on; untroubled by rival dis- Middle Paleolithic successor. coveries and inventions by eastern neigh- To judge from the surface finds on bours . .. " Huzayyin, on the other hand, either side of the Nile Valley the Acheulian has this to say: "A comparative study of tool-maker seems to have covered much this industry and the Up. Acheulean of the same area and used in general the same Palestine (especially that of the Umm stopping places and flaking sites as his Qatafa ) reveals a remarkable degree Abbevillian predecessor. Their implements of similarity between the two. Apart from are found together at Gebel el-Ahmar, ordinary similarities in the technique, the Gebel Moqattam, the cliffs at Thebes, and most characteristic (new) feature of the the quarry of Abu el-Nur, near Nag two industries is the coup de on some Hammadi. In the Eastern Desert the of the coups-de-poing. So far as is known Acheulian is encountered alone near this is the earliest occurrence of the burin Aswan, above Gebel Silsila, at Mahamid, technique, and in all probability it near el-Kab, and at Rabah and Wassif, in corresponded to some technological con- the vicinity of the Red Sea; and, in the nection between Egypt and Palestine." Libyan Desert, north and west of Abydos The Micoquian, a Final Acheulian and between the Nile Valley and Gebel industry named after the site of La Uweinat. Micoque in the Dordogne section of A survey of the Republic of the Sudan France, is not clearly represented in Egypt, has disclosed the presence of the Acheulian but handsome hand-axes of Micoque type industry in one or more of its stages at have been found at Kharga "in Upper many different points along the river Acheulian typological contexts" and on or valley, all the way from the region of the just below the surface in the plain of Second Cataract to Wadi Afu on the White Abbassiya. Nile, fifty miles upstream from Omdurman, At Kharga the Upper Acheulian stage is and also at a number of sites on the lower followed by a mixed and evidently transi- reaches of the Atbara. Paleolithic imple- tional industry described as "Acheulio.- ments have not been recorded south of Levalloisian," in which Acheulian Wadi Afu as far as the Uganda border or hand-axes "showing less directional re- anywhere west of the Nile in Kordofan or touch than formerly" occur together with Darfur; and, further north, Lower Paleo- oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 53 lithic industries are lacking between the is seen to develop gradually out of the pre- Second Cataract and Abri and between ceding Abbevillian and over most of its the mouth of the Atbara and the Sixth long history to exhibit recognizable local Cataract; but in the Ennedi region of characteristics it would seem to be un- northern Chad, six hundred and fifty miles necessary to look for a source of this west of Dongola, ancient stream and lake tradition and its practitioners outside of beds have yielded spreads of hand-axes the Egyptian area itself. During the and an occasional cleaver of developed Acheulian period, however, it is practi- Acheulian type as well as "small hand- cally certain that Egypt's food-gathering axes intermediate between Acheulean and human population was not constant, but Aterian." came and went, retreating to more Egypt has as yet produced no human hospitable climatic zones during the long, remains of either Abbevillian or Acheulian dry Mindel-Riss Interpluvial and the Riss date; but off to the west, in Algeria, Lower Interstadial and returning in force at the Acheulian Man, in the person of Atlanthro- beginnings of the Riss pluvial phases, pus mauritanicus, is represented by three bringing with them-perhaps from great mandibles and a parietal bone found at distances-new methods of making stone Ternifine, near Palikao. Possessed of tools. There would appear, then, to be "teeth of great size" and being in general some justification for attributing the "nearer the condition of the apes than marked typological and technological ad- either modern man or the Neander- vances in the manufacture of bifacial thaloids," this ancient tool-maker has implements to outside influences or to been linked "very closely indeed to the intrusions of new groups of tool-making Sinanthropus-Pithecanthropusgroup of the hominids. If we choose to do so we should " and is described as belonging to probably once again look southward to a "widespread evolutionary stage in the great center of the hand-axe industries the emergence of man." In 1955 the in , where the Acheulian tradi- mandible of a more evolved specimen "of tion, like its forerunners, is represented in the same generic type" was found near all its stages by a concentration of material Casablanca, in Morocco, "associated with unparalleled in any other part of the numerous bifaces or hand-axes of classical world. A southern source for the Egyptian Mid-Acheulian type." At Swanscombe in Acheulian is further suggested by the Kent, tools of Upper Acheulian type are extraordinary richness and wide distribu- linked with what has been thought to be tion of this industry in the Republic of the an early form of Homo sapiens, or modern Sudan. In Upper Acheulian times "star- man. In view, however, of the Ternifine tling resemblances" are seen to exist remains McBurney, for one, regards it as between the Sudanese implement forms doubtful if the makers of the hand-axe in- and those of Kharga Oasis, both areas dustries were "precocious Homo sapiens." having yielded the rare ovate celtiform Serious doubts, in any case, have been tools and "choppers of... Oldowan tech- raised regarding the dating of the Homo nique." Less significance is probably to be sapiens remains of Kanam and Kanjera in attached to the already-mentioned re- Kenya which were once associated with, semblances between the Upper Acheulian respectively, the Kafuan and Acheulian of Kharga and that of Palestine, where industries of that part of Africa. the hand-axe industries seem never to Since in Egypt the Acheulian tradition have been very firmly established and the oi.uchicago.edu

54 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT

Acheulian tradition occurs only in its (which Cole thinks "must have tasted very evolved stage. nasty"), a large "and probably very It is an enlightening commentary on the tough" horse, and an enormous pig about tempo of early cultural development that the size of a rhinoceros; and at Torralba in during a period sixty times as long as all Spain his quarry included the rhinoceros, recorded history Acheulian man adhered the wild ox, the stag, the horse, and the with little change to the food-gathering elephant. These he apparently ate raw, economy and nomadic existence of his splitting the bones to extract the marrow Abbevillian forbears. Our picture of him and smashing the skulls to remove the may well be distorted by our lack of brains. In Egypt the teeth of a wild ox knowledge; but it would appear that, and an equine animal, probably a zebra, despite his more varied and more efficient have been found in deposits of Acheulian tool-kit and an awakening aesthetic sense and early post-Acheulian date. reflected in the symmetry and beauty of some of his implements, he remained at a 3. THE MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC AGE cultural level generally classified as "the The advent of the Middle Paleolithic lower savagery." He was, however, evi- stage of Egyptian pre-history is charac- dently a more accomplished and successful terized, as elsewhere, by the gradual trapper and hunter than his predecessors, disappearance of the hand-axe and other and this may be attributed in part to a bifacial core-tools from man's lithic equip- slowly increasing ability to plan and ment and the widespread use of the organize his projects and in part to his "faceted platform," or Levalloisian, tech- development of important additions to his nique of flake-tool production. The latter, hunting armory. Evolved Acheulian lan- named for the Parisian suburb of Levallois, ceolates and other elongated points with consists of preparing the convex dorsal waisted sides or tapered butts, found at surface of each flake and adjusting the Kharga and near Nag Hammadi, for angle and shape of its example, were almost certainly designed by minute faceting before it is detached, to be provided with hafts of wood, bone, or by a single blow, from its core. The horn which would have added immeasur- resulting flake is large and characteristi- ably to their range and effectiveness. cally oval or circular (polygonal) in out- Faceted stone balls of Acheulian date line, though triangular and elongated occur on a number of sites in Europe and forms also occur; and the resulting core, Africa-including an example in quartzite being typically oval and plano-convex, is from Kharga-and their presence in groups called a "tortoise-core." In western Europe of three at Olorgesaillie in Kenya has Levalloisian flakes and tortoise-cores have suggested their use in bolas. This missile been found "in direct and indisputable weapon, attested at Olduvai in mid- association with Early-Middle Acheulian Chellean times, enjoyed apparently a materials," and Movius has been led to ask greatly expanded use in the hands of the whether there the "concept of a Leval- Acheulian hunters. Large animals were loisian tradition as an entity separate and probably captured in drop-traps, or game- distinct from an Acheulian tradition" has pits, or by being driven into swamps "any real validity." "where they could easily be despatched." In Egypt a "latent Levalloisian tech- At Olorgesaillie the Acheulian hunter's nique," represented by a single "triangular favourite food-animals were a giant baboon tortoise-core and two thin flakes with oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 55 faceted butts," crops up first during the The 10-15-foot pluvial terrace of Upper early stage of the Riss Glaciation (Riss I) Egypt is assigned to the early phase of the in the Upper Acheulian deposits of Last Glaciation (Wiirm I) and its con- Kharga oasis. Definite early Levalloisian tained industry is identified as Late forms, as we have seen, occur in late Riss Lower Levalloisian. Here, as McBurney times (Riss II) in the 30-foot wadi gravels of points out, "the Levalloisian flaking Upper Egypt and in the Refuf Pass of the technique has reached a mature stage of Kharga scarp in association with hand- development" in "a varied assemblage of axes of very late Acheulian type. In this light and effective flake tools," including "Acheulio-Levalloisian" horizon, which we now the elongated flake-, a significant have already had occasion to discuss, the Middle Paleolithic innovation destined to adoption of the new method of producing survive far down into historic times. flake-tools is accented by the complete Movius summarizes this industry, which absence of Clactonesque flakes and cores. he prefers to call Middle Levalloisian, as The Lower Levalloisian industry of one "in which a reduction in size and an Kharga is described by Miss Caton- increase in the delicacy of the flakes may Thompson as "of normal Egyptian charac- be noted." Among the abundant imple- ter, with a large proportion of tortoise- ments found in the 10-foot terrace cores of skilled technique, and a Sandford draws special attention to "thin, contradictory poverty in the range and leaf-shaped flakes of great beauty" and retouch of flake implements." No hand- the cores from which they were produced; axes or other bifacial tools were found in and goes on to say, "In these flakes and association with it and, as represented at cores artistic skill seems to find by simple Locus IV in the Refuf Pass, the industry form-lines as high an expression as it does is seen to have "freed itself from the last in Acheulian technique." Some of the cores vestiges of Acheulian influence." The were prepared on both sides and their earlier Lower Levalloisian has not yet points subsequently used for boring or been recorded in situ in the Nile Valley, chipping, while others may have served as but the physiographical features in which scrapers. It is evident, then, that in we should expect to find it are the 50-foot certain instances the cores as well as the terrace of northern Middle Egypt and the flakes are to be regarded as implements. beach of the 131-foot Fayum lake, both of In Nubia, where the 10-15-foot gravels which appear to have been formed during either were never formed or are now the Last, or Riss-Wirm, Interglacial hidden beneath the later silts, Leval- period. In view of their date it is, in any loisian implements typical of this stage are case, unlikely that these two features found in the base of the silts and in flaking belong, as has been thought, to the Upper sites on the surfaces of the higher terraces Acheulian or "evolved hand-axe" stage of and the slopes of the adjoining hills, Egyptian industrial development; and the notably in the neighborhood of Abu presence in the Fayum of some low-level Simbel, , and Ashkeit. At Kharga Levalloisian surface finds would not seem the "Earlier" (Late Lower) Levalloisian to warrant the invention of a 40-foot is characterized, as in the Nile Valley, lake of Lower Levalloisian date to fill an by triangular and sub-triangular cores, assumed cultural gap between the 131-foot narrow flake-blades, broad pointed, sub- beach and its 112-foot Upper Levalloisian rectangular, and sub-discoidal flakes, successor. and end-scrapers, all except the last oi.uchicago.edu

56 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT distinguished by a general absence of favor of the more accurate "Levalloisian." retouch. One of the more significant characteristics By Upper Levalloisian times (Wirm of Egypt's Upper, or Late, Levalloisian Interstadial?) conditions in the Nile Valley industry is the now marked tendency both climatically and physiographically towards a reduction in the average size of had begun to approximate those of the the implements-a tendency which heralds present day (see Chapter I). Fine gravels the approach of the so-called "diminutive and silts brought down by the annual Levalloisian," or Epi-Levalloisian, indus- summer floods from the Abyssinian high- tries of Late Paleolithic times. lands were beginning to cover the valley The wide distribution of Levalloisian bottom in Nubia and Upper Egypt and flaking sites and other surface finds over downstream, north of Sedment, were areas which are now absolute desert building up into a terrace-like feature 25- confirms the physiographical evidence 30 feet above modern alluvium. The latter that in northeast Africa portions of the can be traced through the Hawara immensely long span of time which we Channel into the Fayum, where the corre- call the Middle Paleolithic period were sponding level is represented by the beach substantially moister than the present of a lake 112 feet above sea-level. In all of day. In the vicinity of the Nile Valley these deposits and in the passes of the important groups of Levallosian or Kharga scarp are found implements of "Levalloiso-" implements have highly evolved Levallois type and distinct been recorded by Bovier-Lapierre in local Egyptian character. Oval and discoid "ateliers" at Abbassiya, Gebel el-Ahmar, cores of relatively small size now tend to and Wadi el-Tih, by members of the replace the triangular forms and among German Institute along the eastern fringe the flakes the more interesting shapes of the Delta, by Vignard at Abu el-Nur include thin, sharp points with constricted (west of Nag Hammadi) and Gebel Silsila, butts, evidently designed as missile or and by Seligman and others in the neigh- lance heads. A bifacial lanceolate from the borhood of Thebes. Middle Paleolithic 112-foot Fayum beach resembles the work work- or camp-sites in the Eastern Desert of the so-called Aterian industry of north- have been observed northeast of Aswan, western Africa (see below) without, how- near an outcrop of quartz at the mouth of ever, any suggestion of "formal corre- the Wadi Abu Agag, in the vicinity spondence." "Sporadic examples" of of Gebel el-Silsila and Naga ed-Deir, and "Mousterian typology and technique" at Rabah and Wassif, near the coast of occur in the Upper Levalloisian of Kharga the Red Sea. In the Libyan Desert evidence and the Fayum, notably in a series of of the Levalloisian tool-maker's presence "neatly made cutting or scraping tools" is found to the west of el-Sebaiya, Esna, showing a well-developed secondary re- Sohag, and Abydos, on the heights of touch and inviting comparison with the western Thebes, north of the Fayum and so-called Levalloisian-Mousterian of Pales- north of the Giza pyramids, off to the west tine and Cyrenaica. On the whole, however, in the oasis of Siwa and between Siwa and the term Mousterian, derived from the Bahria, near wells to the north and south French village of Le Moustier and formerly of the oasis of Farafra, a few miles east of applied somewhat indiscriminately to the the village of Kharga, and along the rail- Middle Paleolithic industries of Egypt has way line extending between the Nile in recent years been generally abandoned in Valley and the oasis of Kharga. oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT5 57

The identification of some of the groups Middle Paleolithic man found it both of Levallois surface finds as flaking sites, possible and profitable to seek his liveli- where implements were actually manu- hood on the present-day desert plateaux factured, rests on more substantial evi- may be correlated with the late Kanjeran dence than is the case with many of the and early Gamblian Pluvials of East Africa so-called "stations" of Lower Paleolithic and assigned to late Riss and early Worm times. On the surface at Abbassiya times, the industrial stages embraced Bovier-Lapierre found not only as yet within these periods being, respectively, unretouched flakes, but also the cores the Acheulio-Levalloisian and the Middle from which they had been detached and Levalloisian. During the dry Riss-Wiirm the used in their produc- Interpluvial and the Wirm I--II Inter- tion, the latter showing numerous evi- stadial (Lower and Upper Levalloisian, dences of use. Middle Paleolithic flaking respectively) it is unlikely that men and sites on the surfaces of the higher-level animals could have survived for any length terraces in western Thebes contained dis- of time away from the river, the shores of carded flakes which, according to Sandford the Fayum lake, or the springs and scarp and Arkell, "may sometimes be fitted valleys of the oases. together round the core from which they The absence of securely dated human were struck off" and which undeniably remains, the fallacy of tying a particular "have lain undisturbed since the day they type of stone industry to any one species were made." In general the Levalloisian of early man, and the fact that both working floors both in and near the Nile Acheulian and early Levalloisian imple- Valley and at Kharga are characterized, ments appear to have been produced and as would be expected, by a sparsity of used by the same groups of people should finished flakes and an abundance of cores warn us against being too positive in and broken pieces of cortex. identifying the makers of the Egypto- A similarly broad expansion of the Levalloisian artifacts or in differentiating practitioners of the "faceted-platform between them and their Lower Paleolithic technique" has been noted in the Repub- predecessors. There are, however, not lic of the Sudan. Here, besides Ashkeit, entirely negligible reasons for supposing Tangasi, and other sites in the river valley, them to have belonged to the most areas far from the Nile in what is now "100 prominent and most widely-distributed per cent desert" have produced implements stock of Middle Paleolithic hominids, the of Levalloisian types, notably the Neanderthaloids. In Europe region between Nuri and Dongola and Man, a thickset, large-brained predecessor the neighborhood of the Abu Tabari well, of Homo sapiens named for the Neander the latter lying a good three hundred and valley in western , is firmly sixty miles out in the Libyan Desert. That associated with flake-tools of Mousterian none have been found further to the west, technique and "the early neanderthaloids in the well-explored vicinity of Ennedi, of Steinheim and Ehringsdorf were ac- suggests that conditions there were less companied by 'Levalloisian' industries." favorable than in the late Lower Paleolithic In both Palestine and Cyrenaica a taller, period, which is represented in that area, hybrid or transitional form of the same as we have seen, by hand-axes and other human species is linked with a Levalloiso- artifacts of developed Acheulian type. Mousterian industry, which McBurney The relatively moist periods when believes to have been "a tradition of oi.uchicago.edu

58 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT

African ancestry," "superimposed by a generalized implements of Lower Paleo- process of migration on a belated hand-axe lithic times. Under a chapter heading, culture in Palestine." Since such a migra- "Man Begins to Specialize," Cole notes tion could only have taken place by way that in Upper Pleistocene times ", of Egypt the presence in this area of both gouges, and awls were invented; the industry and its Neanderthaloid pro- blades undoubtedly had as many uses ducers seems assured. Moreover, in the then as they have today; hollow-scrapers spring of 1958 Dr. Andrej Wiercinski of were used as spoke-shaves, while end- and the University of Warsaw announced the side-scrapers were more finely finished for discovery in a wadi near Maadi, a suburb dressing leather for bags or clothing." of Cairo, of "three fossilized skulls of very Equipped with the hafted and the primitive nature," the "general features" stone-tipped lance, as well as with bolas of which "resemble those of Neanderthal and perhaps other missile weapons, the man." Elsewhere in Africa human remains Neanderthaloid hunter did not hesitate to of Neanderthal or Neanderthaloid type, tackle the most formidable of animals, usually in association with a Levalloisian including on the icy slopes of western or Levalloiso-Mousterian industry, have Europe the mammoth and the huge and been found not only in Cyrenaica, but also fierce cave-bear with which he successfully near Tangier in Morocco, near Lake Eyasi disputed the possession of the caves them- in Tanganyika, and at Broken Hill in selves. On Egypt's western plateau his Northern . The Neanderthaloid quarry is known to have comprised a fleet jawbone of Cyrenaica comes from the horse-like animal, perhaps a zebra, and stratified cave deposits of Haua Fteah, either a wild ox or a large antelope with less than 500 miles west of Alexandria, bovine characteristics. The ample brain where it was found together with Lower which devised the Levallois and Mous- Levalloiso-Mousterian stone implements terian techniques of tool manufacture and and some charcoal which has been dated designed the many implements produced by radiocarbon tests to approximately by these methods led its owner forward in 43,000 B.c. As McBurney points out, other and diverse ways along the long, the Haua Fteah mandible is "the first slow road toward civilization. In Europe human fossil securely associated with the and Asia Neanderthal men "made regular Middle Paleolithic in Northern Africa, use of fire" to keep themselves warm and and the only human fossil at the time perhaps even to cook their food, and may of writing" (1960) "to be dated in have worn simple clothing made of animal years." skins. They buried their dead in the caves Occupying the long and loosely defined in which they lived, ceremonially pre- zone of human development transitional served and stacked the skulls and limb- between the lower and upper savagery bones of the great beasts which they had Middle Paleolithic man's most notable killed, practiced simple surgery, and cared advance over his predecessors was his for the aged and infirm members of their new-found ability to produce, by a communities. These evidences of solicitude complicated and sophisticated technical for the welfare of both the living and the method, a wide variety of specialized tools dead, of a belief in the efficacy of ritual and weapons, each designed and produced and magic, and of anxiety and speculation for an individual purpose and therefore regarding the denote, as Coon has infinitely more efficient than the few repeatedly pointed out, beings already far oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 59 removed from the "insensate brutes" of cultural stage, as represented at Helwan the popular Neanderthal image. and elsewhere, comprising a microlithic Far from lagging behind their European industry of very late glacial (post-pluvial) and Asiatic contemporaries in the climb age and Mesolithic type. Thanks to a series to this new cultural plateau, the peoples of of radiocarbon readings from associated Africa in general and of northern Africa areas the "Late Paleolithic" period in in particular seem, to judge from the Egypt can be dated in terms of years from quality and originality of their stone in- approximately 30,000 (before 23,000) to dustries, to have been among its leaders. approximately 10,000 B.C. "It is probably true," says McBurney, The so-called Sebilian cultures are, "that nowhere in the Palaeolithic world as properly speaking, confined to southern at present known did this 'Middle Palaeo- Upper Egypt and Nubia, the type site lithic' evolution of flake-tool traditions lying, as we have had occasion to remark, reach a higher state of development than near the Ezbet el-Sebil in the Kom Ombo in North Africa. This is perhaps the one basin, some thirty miles downstream from stage at which this area was the scene of the First Cataract. Here in 1920 Edmond cultural innovations in advance of similarly Vignard found the chipping floors and derived traditions elsewhere." camp sites of groups of Late Paleolithic people who occupied the area toward the 4. THE CULTURES OF LATE PALEOLITHIC TIMEs end of the late Pleistocene silt aggradation phase and during the ensuing stages of In Egypt the industrial and artistic riverbed degradation and whose activities, achievements of the great Upper Paleo- owing to an increasingly arid climate, seem lithic cultures of Europe-the Perigordian, to have been restricted to the immediate the , the , and the vicinity of the Nile and its subsidiary -are for the most part streams, lakes, and marshes. The first lacking, and we find, instead, a number of group of "Sebilians" lived apparently on indigenous local industries, sharing, in the margins of the great reed swamp which common a Levalloisian ancestry and at that time filled a large part of the basin, retaining throughout a Levalloisian and their implements are found in the character, but exhibiting with time pro- uppermost levels of the aggradation silts, nounced and clearly differentiated regional separated by a great thickness of sterile developments. McBurney deals with these silt-and an evidently considerable inter- "Epi-Levalloisian" industries in his chap- val of time-from the Upper Levalloisian ter on "The Middle Palaeolithic" and Miss implements at the base of the same Caton-Thompson includes them in her deposits. Their stone industry, generally monograph on "The Levalloisian In- designated as Lower Sebilian or Sebilian I, dustries of Egypt." The period during differs from the parent Levalloisian in which they flourished, however, corre- several respects. These include the use of a sponded approximately with that of the steep secondary retouch along the lateral Upper Paleolithic elsewhere, extending edge of the normal Upper Levalloisian from the Wiirm I-II Interpluvial (Gott- flake to produce a triangular or trapezoidal weig Interstadial) to Late Wurm times "backed" tool or other geometric form, a and covering, therefore, the closing phases tendency to shorten the striking platform of both the glacial epoch and the Old and to trim, or truncate, the bases of the Stone Age, the immediately succeeding flakes, and a notable increase in the oi.uchicago.edu

60 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT production of flake-points and elongated deposited in thousands by the waters of flake-blades. Breuil is inclined to derive the annual inundation, on fish caught in this industry from the Mousterian, but the river and its backwaters, on river McBurney and others have pointed out animals and on plains animals which came that "the secondary work appears to be down from the now parched plateaux to more abrupt and discontinuous" than that drink. Their camp sites are marked by of either the Mousterian of Europe or the quantities of burned clay , by Levalloiso-Mousterian of Palestine. Des- sandstone mills with grinding stones for pite a further marked reduction in the grinding apparently not only coloring average size of the tools and cores, as matter (ochre, limonite) but also wild- compared with those of the Upper growing grains, and by mounds of Levalloisian, Sebilian I remains an in- refuse, or kitchen , several yards dustry of fairly large implements and can in height, composed of mollusk shells, fish in no wise be described as microlithic. bones, broken and sometimes burnt animal Disks occur and on the high-level sites bones, human bones, ashes, flint chips, and Vignard also found a number of hammer- fragments of hard stone and Red Sea stones, a sandstone anvil, some animal coral, but no -in short, the typi- bones, and fragments of burnt clay which cal living debris of a pre-Neolithic riverside he took to be portions of hearths. population of hunters and fishermen. The The materials used by the Lower Sebilian Middle Sebilian, or Sebilian II, stone-tool tool-maker are confined, in rather striking industry which has been associated with fashion, to quartzite, quartz, and diorite. this level is made up in general of smaller Outside of the Kom Ombo basin his and more varied implements than those of handiwork occurs in the high silts at Sebilian I. The true Levalloisian flake has several places between Luxor and the disappeared and in its place we find the Second Cataract, notably, near Wadi now very common flake-point and various Halfa in the northern Sudan and Toshka sub-geometric forms "steeply retouched in Nubia and near and el-Kab in on one or more margins." Triangles, southern Upper Egypt. The northward trapezoids, and semicircular or crescentic expansion of the earlier Sebilian culture shapes were produced by suppression, or seems to have ended in the vicinity of el- truncation, of both the bases and the tops Kab and the use of the name to designate of the flakes and a number of flakes and the more or less contemporaneous, but flake-blades were evidently deliberately otherwise distinct, Epi-Levalloisian in- broken to shorten them. Of the new forms dustries of Middle and northern Egypt is the lunate backed implements are perhaps inaccurate. the most striking. Double-ended flake- As the Nile in response to the Main blade cores and multiple cores worked on Wiirm marine regression lowered its bed both sides are found, but true blades are in the recently aggraded silts men followed rare until late Middle Sebilian times. the declining waters far out into the great Implements identified by Alimen as burins, Kom Ombo marsh and by Middle Sebilian or small graving chisels, have been com- times had established their camps "around pared by her with those of the Tardenoisian channels and swampy lakes and ponds" at industry of Mesolithic Europe, but Vignard a general level somewhat below that doubts that the flakes in question are in occupied by the earliest Sebilians. Here fact real burins. McBurney is inclined to they subsisted on fresh-water mollusks regard many of the geometric forms of oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 61

both Sebilian I and II, classified and Fayum lake and the springs and scarp illustrated by Vignard, as "dubious," valleys of the Great Oasis. Near Sebil the "arbitrary," and of "fortuitous," or un- stieams from the east which had for so intentional, origin. Flint is now the long fed the great marsh had dried up and favorite material, being evidently readily to find water men were forced still further available locally and having gradually down into the Kom Ombo plain where taken the place of the harder stones what McBurney cautiously refers to as employed by the earliest Sebilians. Though "surface concentrations more or less sug- Caton-Thompson in 1946 limited the ex- gestive of individual camping sites" are pansion of the Middle Sebilians to the area found grouped around a series of small, between Wadi Halfa and Esna their low-lying basins. The work and habitation implements have in fact been found in sites of the Sebilian III people are generally wadi deposits as far north as Qurna in similar to those of Sebilian II, comprising, western Thebes. At Dibeira West in Nubia besides the flaking floors themselves, large they occur at a level of 68-73 feet above hearths ringed with lumps of ochreous clay modern alluvium and in the district of and containing red or black depending Edfu a Middle Sebilian flaking site has on whether the fuel used was grass or been identified at an elevation of 45 feet. wood, and kitchen middens built up The so-called Middle Sebilian implements largely of broken and charred bones, the found by Sandford at el-Sheikh Timai in opened shells of freshwater mollusks, bits Middle Egypt and at el-Hibah, south of the of flint, sandstone, and various hard entrance to the Fayum, are considered by stones, and ashes. Mixed in with the latter Caton-Thompson as "not characteristic" were sandstone mills and grinding stones, or, at best, doubtful; and it would appear pebbles stained red, shells pierced with that this culture, like its predecessor, was holes for suspension as ornaments (?), a confined to southern Upper Egypt and slab of schist also drilled with a hole which Nubia. In the Eastern Desert near Laqeita, Vandier has taken to be a , Debono has found small groups of Epi- fragments of red ochre coloring matter, Levalloisian implements which he com- what Vignard describes as small vases and pares with those of Levels I and II of cups of sandstone, and quantities of Kom Ombo. smoothed but undecorated bone points, By Upper Sebilian, or Late Glacial, perhaps the tips of javelins or , times (16,000-10,000 B.C.) the Nile in perhaps implements used in the pressure Upper Egypt had lowered its bed to more flaking of stone tools. There are still no than 100 feet below its present level and traces of pottery vessels or of ground or desert conditions in northeastern Africa polished stone implements. The kitchen had reached a degree of severity as great, middens are neither as large nor as if not greater, than at the present day. numerous as those of the Sebilian II en- The region had long since ceased to attract campments, and this suggests that the immigrants from other parts of Africa and sojourn in this area of the Upper Sebilian from western Asia, and the dwindling hunters and fishermen-though estimated, native population, more or less cut off as we have seen, at six thousand years- from the rest of the world, clung pre- was not as long as that of their pre- cariously to the much reduced habitable decessors. areas along the Mediterranean coastline, The stone implements of this lowest and on the banks of the river, and around the latest level, made exclusively of flint or oi.uchicago.edu

62 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT chalcedony and designated generally as so-called "micro-burins" on which (to Sebilian III, are such a disparate lot that quote Huzayyin) "Vignard bases his McBurney feels that "in the absence of assumption that the Kom Ombo Basin stratigraphical proof or of circumstantial was the centre of dispersal for the whole details, photographs, etc., of individual of the Final Palaeolithic (Mesolithic) sites," "the true association of these cultures of the Old World" are identified diverse elements may well be doubted." by Caton-Thompson as by-products, or Caton-Thompson, on the other hand, , of the triangular and trapezoidal accepts them as a single "backed blade implements; and it is the opinion of the and trapeze industry" of "microlithic English prehistorian that from beginning character," "derived from Sebilian II," to end the Sebilian culture "is valid only and Huzayyin sees in them "essentially a for Upper Egypt and Nubia" and that "to continuation and perfection of the industry regard it as the vehicle of transmission of of Level II." There are miniature cores of Asiatic blade and burin culture to north- Levalloisian type, others from which small west Africa is both fantastic and repre- flake-blades were evidently produced, and hensible." McBurney also casts doubt on still others designed for the production of Vignard's belief that there is evidence elongated blades and bladelets. True here of "an actual transition from a flake- blades occur and both these and the flakes industry to a blade industry" of true are in many cases of such small size as to Upper Paleolithic type, since such a be justifiably described as "submicro- transition would on the geological evidence lithic." Many have been converted into a be "actually later than the earliest Upper variety of geometric forms by the same Palaeolithic of Europe." At the same time steep marginal retouch and the same he points out that "in Europe, Asia, and mutilation (truncation) of the bases and elsewhere in Northern Africa" the micro- tops noted in the preceding Sebilian stage. lithic elements of the so-called Sebilian III The types include notched blades, tanged assemblage "only make their appearance blades, lunates, end-scrapers, and augers, at the very end of the blade succession, in some of the fine, specialized small tools the post-glacial epoch"; and Huzayyin being quite evidently intended for working remarks that the preparation of the in ivory, bone, or wood. Small rectangular striking platforms of some of the Sebilian blades with one serrated edge may have III cores by means of a single blow been set into primitive wooden for (" transversal facet") "is a Final reaping the wild cereal grains which Palaeolithic (Mesolithic) rather than a apparently formed part of the Upper true Up. Palaeolithic feature." All in all, Sebilian's diet and small points and spurs it seems wisest to regard the implements of flint are believed by Vignard to have of Vignard's Level III as representing, in been imbedded in lumps of gum or clay to part, the terminal phase of a local Late form composite heads. Notched or Paleolithic industry of Levalloisian ante- tanged arrow heads of both unilateral and cedents and, in part, groups of "intrusive" bilateral type suggest, in any case, that and other artifacts of possibly the Sebilians-thanks perhaps to the Mesolithic or pre-Neolithic date. recent Aterian invasion of the Libyan In the Fayum and in the stretches of the oases (see below)-were by now in posses- Nile Valley adjoining it we find another sion of that most of all Late Paleolithic culture developing in a ancient weapons, the . The more conservative and quite different oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 63 fashion towards a microlithic and/or hollow-based and the large pre-Neolithic culmination. Geologically axes, tranchets, , and other bifacial and chronologically the 92- and 74-foot tools of the Fayum Neolithic, and in them Fayum lake beaches, some wadi terraces he is inclined to see a local evolution from in the northern rim of the depression, and the Upper Paleolithic into the Neolithic the corresponding Hawara Channel and without an intermediate microlithic-i.e., Nile gravels and silts belong to the Lower Final Paleolithic, or Mesolithic-phase. and Middle Sebilian periods, but typo- With the fall of its lake to eighteen feet or logically the industry found in these more below present sea-level the Paleo- deposits and designated by G. Caton- lithic history of the Fayum is. "lost to Thompson as Fayum Epi-Levalloisian, view" and with it the final stage of the exhibits clear differences from the Sebilian. local industry, Miss Caton-Thompson's Small double-ended oval cores of Leval- largely hypothetical "Epi-Levalloisian loisian type, pointed, triangular, and ovoid III." flakes, and narrow "flake-blade-like forms" Other local facies of essentially the same show none of the special features-the Late Paleolithic industry of northern reduced butts and other mutilations, the Egypt have been exposed in wadi deposits backed lateral edges, and the steep retouch and surface washes on the eastern fringes -which characterize the Sebilian. Indeed, of the Delta, the sites including Abu retouch of any type is rare in these Suwair, on the northern rim of the Wadi implements. The prevalence of double- Tumilat, Shibeem el Qanatir, near the ended cores might be taken as a link with Ismailia canal, and Heliopolis and Abbas- the earlier Sebilian, but even here there is siya, northeast of Cairo. Here, too, we find no exact correspondence. Miss Caton- what would appear to be two lines of Thompson finds a monotonous lack of development, one a diminutive or "pro- variety in the implement types and is longed" Levalloisian flake tradition prone to regard the industry as "a stage characterized by small but broad flakes of attested development from the Late with faceted butts and tending in its Levalloisian of the 34 m. [112 ft.] lake latest phase towards the microlithic, the level" with "no innovations whatsoever." other a reversion to a bifacial core-tool The "Epi-Levalloisian II" industry of the tradition featuring ancestral forms of the 74-foot Fayum beach and associated "axes and similar implements of the Neo- Nilotic deposits is seen as a direct descend- lithic and later cultures." Among the four ant of that of the 92-foot level with the thousand artifacts found in 1940 at Abu diminution in the average size of the imple- Suwair are cores with microlithic features, ments having now become more marked, such as the single-faceted striking plat- but without having as yet attained a true form, others showing axe or chopper-tool microlithic character. tendencies, and still others prepared in Huzayyin, on the other hand, notes a such a way as to suggest possible use as pronounced tendency in this industry, sling-stones. The industry is relatively which he proposes to call the "Qarounian," poor in flakes and among the latter the toward the production of core tools, bi- proportion of narrow blades is somewhat facially flaked and including triangular higher than it is, for example, at Sebil in core-points, choppers, and primitive forms southern Egypt. Burins are almost of axes and adzes. These he believes may completely lacking. At Heliopolis and be the precursors of the triangular and Abbassiya cores and core-tools are less oi.uchicago.edu

64 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT predominant and microlithic tendencies tion, steep marginal trimming, improvisa- less clear than at Abu Suwair. Bifacial tion of forms, and an addiction to snapping axes, reminiscent of typologically similar larger flakes and multilating them." tools of Neolithic and later times, occur, Though it is conceded that many of the as do also "re-edging flakes," struck off diminutive implements may be merely transversally from the working edges of the results of prolonged use and that on such axes. the whole they are typologically unrelated Collections of implements made by to true blade-microliths, it is suggested Junker and Menghin in the vicinity of Abu that they may have given rise to some of Ghalib, on the western edge of the Delta, the thick, backed microliths produced in and variously described as Sebilian, Cap- Egypt at a later period. The implements sian, or Neolithic, have, upon further designated as Levalloiso-Khargan were study, proved to be either Upper Leval- found in situ in the gravels of Kharga's loisian or, in the case of a microlithic eastern scarp valleys, below the Aterian industry, of protodynastic, early Old level, and can be dated to the latest period Kingdom, or even Middle Kingdom date. of stream activity in these wadis. Those Debono has reported the discovery of Epi- classed as Khargan, however, are surface Levalloisian implements in eastern Sinai, finds, picked up in and around solution 180 miles from the Nile Valley, but, so pans and water-sheds of the scarp valleys, far as is known, has not yet published his as well as near Qara in the Nile Valley, finds. and cannot be positively dated, even their In general, it is felt that, despite some chronological relationship to the intrusive local differences, the Delta industries and Aterian industry being a matter of un- those of the Fayum can be grouped to- certainty. Miss Caton-Thompson feels sure gether and regarded as jointly representa- "that both Aterian and Khargan lay at or tive of the last surviving stages of the near the end of the Paleolithic succession Paleolithic in northern Egypt. in the scarp" and suggests the possibility The third principal sub-area of Late that the Khargan is "that final degenera- Paleolithic regional specialization centers tion of the local Levalloisian sequence" around the oasis of Kharga and the which "gave way before the higher adjoining portions of the Nile Valley in intrusion," i.e.,the Aterian. Because of its southern Middle Egypt. Here there existed "progressive" character and the nature of in Sebilian times a diminutive Levalloisian its "secondary work" both Miss Caton- industry to which Miss Caton-Thompson Thompson and Huzayyin are inclined to has given the name "Khargan" and which associate the Khargan with the Sebilian she describes as being made up for the most and to bracket the two industries together part of "very thick, short flakes, reduced as a "southern group," distinct from the by steep or even vertical retouch of their more conservative, or backward, cultures edges to a variety of usually asymmetric of northern Egypt. McBurney, on the forms." Besides normal Levalloisian flakes, other hand, points out that the distinctive cores, and discs and some well-developed secondary "work" of the "Khargan" end- and side-scrapers the "Khargan" and implements "wears a singularly haphazard a preceding, transitional stage, the so- appearance," exhibits a multiple patina- called "Levalloiso-Khargan," are repre- tion, and could, as in the case of other sented as including "diminutive types, surface finds, have been produced by characterized by bulb reduction or trunca- accidental or natural agencies over ex- oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 65 tended periods of time. He is therefore reminiscent of the highest achievements inclined to place both the Khargan and of the Levalloiso-Mousterian of Palestine the Levalloiso-Khargan "in a suspense or the Mousterian of Europe. Using for account," conceding only "the survival the most part tabular chert the Aterian of into the final stage of major activity in Kharga shaped his thin, flat cores with the wadis of a well-characterized Leval- great precision and from them produced loisian of small dimensions." his famous tanged and laurel-leaf points, It was apparently during this phase of large and expertly retouched end-scrapers, Kharga's prehistory that the oasis was and magnificent bifacial spear-blades up invaded by a colony of desert dwellers to nine inches in length. The last, which who had migrated eastward from their are of elongated foliate form, were finished homeland around the not only by shallow percussion scaling but bringing with them the bow and arrow also by fine marginal "pressure flaking," a and a highly developed stone industry recently developed technique in which of Levalloiso-Mousterian type generally small, carefully controlled flakes were known as the Aterian after the type-site detached from the edges of an implement of in southern Tunisia. Having simply by pressing against them the end or passed through Cyrenaica, the Oasis of edge of a flaking tool of stone or, more Siwa, and the Oasis of Dakhla, the frequently, of wood, bone, or horn. The intruders entered the Kharga depression great spearheads and the tanged javelin near its extreme northwest corner, leaving points, designed for efficient hafting to examples of their remarkable tanged shafts of wood or reed, are accompanied, points on the surface near Ain el Amur, in the words of Miss Caton-Thompson, an uninviting region, avoided by other "by unmistakable arrow-heads of more Paleolithic peoples less well versed than than one sort," some provided with stem the in the art of desert living. barbs or wings, "the certain criterion of a Elsewhere the intrusive industry is widely stone arrow-head." With the distributed over the oasis, occurring in situ and Upper of Europe the on the floor of the depression, at mound- Aterians may, then, lay claim to the dis- spring KO 6E, and on the eastern scarp, covery and earliest use of the bow and at Site A of the Bulaq Pass, where, as we arrow, a weapon of far greater range and have seen, it overlies the local "Levalloiso- accuracy than the slings and bolas of the Khargan" industry. The eastward expan- earlier Paleolithic peoples and one which sion of this relatively late phase of the endowed its inventors with an over- Aterian culture does not seem to have whelming superiority both in warfare and extended much beyond the region of in hunting over their less ingenious Kharga, Aterian implements being ex- contemporaries. There can, in any case, ceedingly rare in the Nile Valley, though be little doubt that the Aterians were a few have been picked up at scattered responsible for introducing this formidable sites between Thebes and Asyut and near arm into northeastern Africa, where it the Laqeita Wells, to the east of . was to remain throughout the rest of pre- The industry in general is characterized history and most of recorded history the not only by highly evolved methods of principal weapon of the Egyptian warrior core preparation in the best Levalloisian and huntsman. Moreover, in the Aterian tradition, but also by extraordinarily foliates Miss Caton-Thompson is "tempted skillful secondary work, or trimming, to see the origins of the Egyptian Neolithic oi.uchicago.edu

66 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT and early Predynastic (Badarian) bifacial handle, are the prevailing forms, the last- tools." Though they do not seem to have named degenerating with time into the reached the Nile Valley itself in any minute sections of blade known as micro- numbers, it is clear that this vigorous and liths. Among the leading blade cultures of obviously highly intelligent people exerted Upper Paleolithic times we may cite the a not inconsiderable influence on the future Aurignacian of Europe and western Asia, course of Egyptian civilization. the Capsian of southern Tunisia and At Kharga their arrival brought to a Algeria, and the Oranian, or Ibero- premature end the development of the Maurusian, of the North African coastal local diminutive Levalloisian tradition, region from the to Cyrenaica. the adherents of which appear to have Despite the assertions of a number of emigrated or been driven from the oasis writers on Egyptian prehistory neither before their industry reached a microlithic the Aurignacian nor the Capsian, sensu or sub-microlithic stage. Moundspring stricto, have yet been found in north- KO 5B, in the Bellaida area, has produced eastern Africa. The industry of the Champ a puzzling mixed industry of very small de Bagasse, near Nag Hammadi, identified flakes and flake-blades, backed-blade trans- by Vignard as Aurignacian, is probably verse arrow-heads, and large tubular arti- Neolithic or Predynastic, the absence of facts, which seems to be not directly pottery notwithstanding. Though the related to either the "Khargan" or the Capsian may at one time have crossed Sebilian, but which, in theory, is what is northernmost Egypt en route between needed "to bridge the transition from Cyrenaica and the , true Capsian epi-Levalloisian to Microlithic culture tool types and techniques are not present groups." The next recorded industry in in the existing Late or Final Paleolithic the Kharga succession, the so-called industries of the lower Nile Valley and the Microlithic, belongs well down in immediately adjoining desert areas. Mc- post-Paleolithic times, having flourished in Burney believes that the Earlier Oranian all probability during the interval of spread "eastward along the coast as far as slightly increased rainfall known as the Cyrenaica, ...ultimately, perhaps, colo- Neolithic Wet Phase. nizing Lower Egypt"; but he points out, Though blades, as we have seen, occur at the same time, that "no significant with some frequency among the flake-tools finds of blade-industry have yet been which are the dominant elements of recorded" between Cyrenaica and the Nile Egypt's Late Paleolithic, or Epi- Delta and notes in general "the absence of Levalloisian, industries, there is at present adequate surface collections from the no positive evidence for the existence in coastal regions east and west of" the Delta. the Egyptian area of a true blade industry What we find, then, in Late Paleolithic before Final Paleolithic, or "Mesolithic," Egypt are chiefly Epi-Levalloisian flake times. In such an industry the elongated industries "with restricted blade element," flakes, or blades, are produced, usually some of which, in northern Egypt, tend from conical or cylindrical cores, with the gradually to revert to a bifacial core-tool aid of a wood or called a flaking tradition of "pre-Neolithic" type. All (in punch, which is either struck with a the words of H. L. Movius) "developed or operated by pressure. The end- along indigenous lines almost completely , the burin, and the blade, often undisturbed by contemporary develop- "backed" for mounting in a wooden ments from outside the area except for the oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 67 appearance of the Aterian in the Kharga remains, which comprise "portions of oasis," and because, according to G. human skulls, jaws and other bones," Caton-Thompson, "increasingly Nilotic in have, upon examination by a number of a specific sense..., untroubled by rival eminent anatomists, proved to be "more discoveries and inventions by eastern akin to the predynastic Egyptian than to neighbours.. ." From their latest, or any other race of which we have full sub-microlithic, phases some of these knowledge"--a fact striking not only industries, like the more or less contem- because of the great span of time sep- poraneous Capsian and Oranian, seem arating the Late Paleolithic from the to have passed gradually, and without a earliest Predynastic, but also because it discernible gap, into the microlithic stage implies the existence at this early period which in Egypt characterizes the so-called of identifiable racial types, in this case a Final Paleolithic, or Mesolithic, cultures of Hamitic or semi-Hamitic branch of the so- late Glacial and post-Glacial times, the called Mediterranean Race. Elsewhere in latter, in turn, continuing until "the onset North and East Africa more completely of the Neolithic, or , and preserved skeletal remains attest the the so-called 'rise of civilisation."'" Others, presence of tall, dolicocephalic men of non- in the north, appear to have graded negroid type, related to the Cro-Magnon directly into the large bifacial tool tradi- people of Upper and, tion of the pre-Neolithic and Neolithic like them, "often interred in a flexed without passing through a Mesolithic position and sprinkled with red ochre." stage. To Miss Caton-Thompson the At both Kom Ombo and Qau the bones regional differences in Egypt's Late Paleo- of Homo sapiens were accompanied by lithic industries reflect the disintegration those of the animals which he hunted of the country at this time into "district and among which he lived. This in- tribal groups," and in the existence of a terestingly varied fauna of both river- southern and a northern group of cultures valley and marginal desert types included she discerns "the origins of Predynastic the cave hyena (Hyaena crocuta), the lion dyarchy and the beginnings of the strongly (Felis leo), the donkey (Equus asinus), the local flavour of the tribal and religious horse (Equus caballus), great quantities of systems of pre-Menic civilisation." hippopotami (Hippopotamus amphibius), By Late Paleolithic times Homo sapiens, the pig (Sus sp.), an early type of ox, now or "Modern Man," moving into the area extinct (Bos primigenius), the long-horned from western Asia and southwestern African ox (Bos Africanus), the short- Europe, had ousted and replaced his horned ox (Bos brachyceros), and another Neanderthaloid predecessor throughout breed (Bos cf. Laini), two extinct species the greater part of northern and eastern of buffalo (Bubalus nov. sp.* and Bubalus Africa. In Cyrenaica, where he is associated vignardi), a variety of hartebeest (Bubalie with Upper Paleolithic blade industries, buselaphus) and a similar large antelope his advent can be dated to between 29,000 (Bubalis sp.), the Isabella gazelle (Gazellas and 26,000 B.c. In Egypt his fossilized isabella), the ostrich (Struthio sp.), the Nile and waterworn remains have been found crocodile (Crocodilus niloticus) and a in the Sebilian silts of the Kom Ombo second species (Crocodilusnov. sp.), turtles plain and, in association with gravel (Testudo sp.), and several kinds of fish, deposits of apparently similar date, near including Synodontis schall, Clariasanguil- Qau el Kebir, in Middle Egypt. These laris, and Clarias lazera. The list as drawn oi.uchicago.edu

68 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT up by LAonce Joleaud comprises also the -- the Late Paleolithic inhabitants of camel (Camelus sp.), the deer (Cervu8 sp.), Egypt, like their European contempor- and a number of small , and con- aries, the and the Mag- tains such variants as Hippopotamus dalenians, formed a less nomadic, more (Hexaprotodon) cf. 8ivalen8is, Equus8ival- settled population than had the far- ensi8, Crocodilus (cf. indicus), Sus cf. ranging hunting bands of the Lower and hysudricus, Bos (Bibos), and Emys cf. Middle Old Stone Age. Their habitation sivalensi. Near el Sheikh Timai, between sites in the Kom Ombo basin, with their Asyut and Samalut, the blackened, min- large clay-walled hearths, heavy stone eralized, and water-worn bones of hippo- mills, and towering mounds of food refuse potami, crocodiles, oxen (Bos sp.), and give evidence of prolonged and continuous siluroid fish were found in gravels of occupation by sizeable communities of Lower or Middle Sebilian date, accom- people and constitute logical forerunners panied by water-worn stone implements of of the permanent settlements of Neolithic Epi-Levalloisian types; and near Edfu times. On these sites the growth and the silt fifteen feet above the Middle development of new industries is attested Paleolithic level yielded the remains of by the number and variety of new and Hippopotamus, Equus sp., Bos sp., siluroid highly specialized types of small tools, fish, and the dermal plates of a crocodile. including, perhaps, in the pointed bone Fauna from silt deposits southwest of implements of the Upper Sebilian level, Wadi Halfa includes "Equus sp., a gigantic tools for making tools. Unlike the more or hippopotamus, a deer, and an antelope." less contemporaneous cave dwellings of The Nubian and Upper Egyptian silts and France, Spain, and , however, the the Sebilian kitchen middens also con- open camps of Egypt's Late Paleolithic tained, as we have seen, innumerable people have preserved no paintings or shells of edible, fresh-water mollusks: reliefs nor any of the small works of Unio willcocksi, Unio (Caelatura)nilotica, sculpture and decorative art carved of Nodularia (caelatura) nilotica, Viviparus bone, tusk, or antler for which the Upper unicolor, Corbicula consobrina artini, Cleo- Paleolithic cultures of Europe are de- patra bulimoides, and the so-called Nile servedly famous. Their failure to develop "oyster," Aetheria elliptica. At Qau the an effective graving tool, or burin, suggests only shell found was that of Aetheria that they did not, in fact, work in bone, elliptica. Butzer characterizes this fauna ivory, or horn to any notable extent. It is as of "gallery-woodland" or "- possible that the mere struggle for woodland" type-"forest and marsh ani- existence of these hunting and food- mals with some species which are more gathering communities in a land where a likely to be encountered on the edge of the deteriorating climate was making the wild desert"-and Professor D. M. S. Watson fauna and flora increasingly sparse left describes some of the mammals from Qau them little or no leisure for the develop- as "northern forms of southern and ment of the arts or any but the simplest central African types." of the crafts. The fact that they were able Confined by similar climatic conditions to survive at all is attributable in part to to those areas where water is still found marked advances in their hunting tech- today-the banks of the river and its niques and hunting weapons, which in- backwaters, the shores of the Fayum lake, cluded by Upper Epi-Levalloisian times the springs and scarp ravines of the oases the bow and the stone-tipped arrow, and oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 69 in part to other improvements in methods fish in the Sebilian refuse heaps suggests of food-gathering and food preparation, that cannibalism was among their less such as the use of the stone-edged attractive and less progressive institutions. for harvesting wild-growing cereal grasses Since the neanthropic colonizers of or other edible plants and of sandstone northeastern Africa did not bring with mills for converting the grain into flour. them from their homeland in western Asia That such mills were used also for grinding one of the characteristically Upper Paleo- red ochre and other mineral lithic blade industries, but simply adopted suggests that, like other Upper Paleolithic and maintained, with some alterations and peoples, the Egyptians of this time were in additions, a local Middle Paleolithic tradi- the habit of painting their bodies and tion of tool making, it would appear that perhaps their faces either for adornment their immigration into the Egyptian area or, more likely, to indicate their tribe, must have taken place before Upper affiliation, sex, or social status. In the Paleolithic times. In this connection it is colored pebbles and pierced shells of the interesting to note the discovery at Singa Upper Sebilian kitchen middens we may on the Blue Nile of a "primitive sapiens- perhaps recognize a primitive form of like skull apparently associated with jewelry and in the presence in these mid- Levalloisoid industrial material." Follow- dens of bits of Red Sea coral the beginnings ing their establishment in the Nile Valley of trade with adjoining areas. Unfortu- and the oases the newcomers evidently nately, none of the many rock drawings lost touch with neighboring areas of the which flank the desert trails to the east Near East and remained largely unaffected and west of the Nile Valley can with any by the significant cultural developments assurance be assigned to this period, few if which were taking place in these areas. any of them being pre-Neolithic in date. Until Final Paleolithic times their own No have been preserved and, as cultural evolution, as we have seen, was to we have already noted, there are no traces a great extent independent, indigenous, on any of the Egyptian sites of this time and determined, not by foreign influences, of pottery vessels or ground and polished but by changing natural conditions within stone implements. Food production the boundaries of the land itself, such as through agriculture and the the steady encroachment of the desert on and breeding of animals was apparently the already narrow strips of habitable as yet undreamed of. As elsewhere, the land, the gradual decline in the vegetation, Late Paleolithic inhabitants of the Kom and the decrease in the quantity, character, Ombo basin, the Libyan oases, the Fayum, and size of the wild fauna. To Miss Caton- and the fringes of the Delta lived in a Thompson Egypt at this period provides state which has been described as "the "instances of the capacity of a specific higher savagery," a stage transitional Stone Age industry to transform itself" between the nomadic "lower savagery" of without outside human influence "into earlier Paleolithic times and the sedentary something totally different." To Vaufrey, "barbarism" of the Neolithic period. Lest on the other hand, "the cultures of it be felt that "savagery" is too strong a the Egyptian Upper Paleolithic are, like word to apply to groups of people at this those of the Maghreb, delayed cultures stage of development, it should be pointed displaying the characteristics of long out that the presence of human bones lasting survivals"; and to Grahame Clark among the remains of game animals and Upper Paleolithic Africa as a whole oi.uchicago.edu

70 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT appears as "something of a backwater, the edges of the river and other remaining where cultures of Middle Paleolithic origin bodies of water. Like his European con- continued to develop, throwing off variants temporaries he had probably reverted to a like the Aterian and Sebilian, ... inspired, migratory existence, moving frequently it may be, to a greater or lesser degree by from one place to another in search of neoanthropic influences." The most strik- food. He was fortunate, however, in ing of the Late Paleolithic trends in Egypt possessing the bow and arrow and probably -and on this there is no disagreement- by this time that most expert of hunting was the emergence of clearly differentiated companions, the dog, the domestication or regional cultures associated with geo- semi-domestication of which is well at- graphically definable division of the tested on Mesolithic sites elsewhere in the country: Upper Egypt and Nubia, the world. Fayum and northern Egypt, and Middle The type and size of quarry hunted by Egypt and the Libyan oases; for herein lie, the Egyptian of late glacial and early post- without doubt, the origins of the local glacial times, his other sources of liveli- cultural, religious, and, eventually, politi- hood, his nomadic habits, and, indeed, the cal units which throughout most of her whole mode and pattern of his life are subsequent history so deeply influenced reflected in his stone implements, the more the course of Egypt's development. typical of which are microliths evidently used as points, cutting edges, or barbs in

5. THE FINAL PALEOLITHIC, OR composite tools and weapons made chiefly MESOLITHIC, STAGE of wood, bone, or horn. As in the Upper In Egypt the stage of cultural develop- Capsian and Oranian of northern and ment which corresponded in a general way northwestern Africa these miniature points to the so-called Mesolithic, or Middle and blades are likely to be mingled, on the Stone Age, of other portions of the ancient same sites, with larger implements of world began about 10,000 B.c.-toward Neolithic form and technique. the end of the glacial period-and ex- This is the case with the best known of tended, in some localities, well down into Egypt's mesolithic industries, that of Neolithic and even post-Neolithic times. Helwan, on the east side of the Nile some As in Europe, it witnessed a dwindling sixteen miles south of Cairo. Here, in the population of "terminal food-gatherers" plain between the river and the town of struggling to sustain itself in a natural Helwan, Dr. Wilhelm Reil in 1871 dis- environment no longer suited to this covered the first of a series of surface fundamentally parasitic mode of existence. stations, or camps, containing for the most Despite an interval of slightly increased part minute blades of both irregular and rainfall extending from about 9500 to sub-geometric forms, some showing little about 8500 B.c. and corresponding to the or no retouch, others with deliberately final re-advance of the disappearing Wirm blunted backs or ends. Among the more glaciers, northeast Africa was now largely characteristic geometrical shapes, which desert, abandoned by the larger plains include trapezes and triangles, are slender animals; and the hapless Nilot was lunates, or segments of circles, their reduced to subsisting chiefly on small curved backs blunted for mounting (as game, wildfowl, fish, mollusks, and the arrow barbs?), their cutting edges straight scanty plant life which still survived in and sharp. Sickle blades with serrated the much reduced habitable areas along edges occur in some quantity as do also oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 71 minute implements made from the "waste" Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic camp sites (dichets de taille) of the geometric forms near Helwan are marked by kitchen mid. and identified by Debono as microburins, dens, or refuse heaps, made up chiefly of or miniature graving tools, a typical meso- ashes, flint implements, and animal bones, lithic form which, however, happens to be among which have been recognized those extremely rare on most of the Egyptian of a pig and of a horse-like quadruped. No sites so far explored. Some of these micro- pottery vessels were found, but in their liths show affiliations with the terminal stead these pre-Neolithic hunters and Upper Paleolithic, or Epi-Levallosian, of fishermen used as containers and cookpots the region. Associated with them on a the shells of ostrich eggs, many of which station now covered by the rapidly ex- were charred from the heat of the cooking panding town of Helwan was found a . Like their Natufian contemporaries distinctive type of elongated bifacial the Helwan people wore jewelry made up of decidedly Neolithic aspect, of strings of marine shells, pierced or trim- provided near the base with a pair of deep, med for the purpose, the favorite type being skillfully formed lateral notches, evidently the tubular Dentalium, or tooth-shell. for the lashing by means of which the Similar camps with comparable stone long, graceful point was attached to its industries of apparently both Upper shaft. Since this type of point has not been Paleolithic and Mesolithic age have been found on other Egyptian sites it has come noted by Debono in the neighborhood of to be known as "the Helwan arrowhead." the Laqeita Wells, in the desert to the east It occurs, however, in the Mesolithic of of Qus in Upper Egypt. Here the imple- nearby Palestine, the so-called Natufian, ment types included, according to their together with bifacially trimmed micro- discoverer, both burins and microburins, liths and other forms which seem to link sickle , tanged arrowheads of seem- the two industries and which in both ingly Aterian ancestry, plain and re- areas survived into Neolithic times. J. de touched blades and bladelets of various Morgan and D. A. E. Garrod are inclined geometric forms, and the cores from which to attribute the Helwan industry to they were struck. Hearths were found and, immigrants from Palestine. S. A. Huzayyin near them, beads and receptacles of concedes the resemblance between the two ostrich eggshell, the last, as at Helwan, industries, but points out that the Natufian often blackened by fire. Groups of micro- of Palestine "was somewhat more spe- liths from the vicinity of Aswan and from cialized" and tends to favor "a spreading the depression of Ain Dalla in the Libyan from Egypt into Palestine." Since, how- Desert, where they were associated with ever, it is difficult to derive the industry small hearths and fragments of ostrich of Helwan directly from the Diminutive eggshell, are said by P. Bovier-Lapierre to Levalloisian of northern Egypt and since resemble closely those of Helwan. it differs in a number of important respects Microlithic implements from a site im- from the Capsian of North Africa and the mediately north of Helwan-now usually Sebilian of southern Upper Egypt, we called "el-Omari" in honor of its dis- would seem to be left with no choice but coverer-from the Wadi Angabiya, on to regard it, with Garrod, de Morgan, the Suez Road, sixteen miles east-north- McBurney, and others, as-in part at least east of Cairo, and from the Fayum lake -- an importation from southwestern Asia. basin show similarities with those of As in the Kom Ombo plain some of the Helwan and, being in all instances surface oi.uchicago.edu

72 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT

finds, are similarly difficult to date. Like out of the local Epi-Levalloisian flake the Helwan sub-facies these other northern tradition. At Kharga this tradition was industries persisted into the cut short by the Aterian invasion, and the or post-Neolithic cultural phase without, somewhat belated microlithic industries of in the words of Huzayyin, becoming the area, though evidently also of Leval- "overwhelmed by the contemporary and loisian ancestry, are distinct in many more advanced culture." They are charac- details from their counterpart in the Kom terized by small blades, either simple or Ombo basin. In the north affiliations with "backed," and by the absence of burins, the Egypto-Levalloisian flake-tool tradi- microburins, and true geometric forms of tion can still be recognized, but the Capsian type. In the Wadi Angabiya the closest association of the partly microlithic shapes include lunates and elongated tri- and partly pre-Neolithic cultures of the angles and, in the Fayum, single-backed region was, as we have seen, with the Meso- shanked, or tanged, blades and blade- lithic of Palestine, whence, indeed, at least points, and slender little trihedral rods, one of the interrelated industries, that of pointed at both ends. Far off to the west, Helwan, may have been brought into the near the border of Libya, the oasis of Siwa country by "a final wave of hunters from has yielded microlithic, or semi-microlithic, the Levant." implements of comparable type and date, The Mesolithic population of Egypt among which long backed blades and seems, then, to have comprised a number elongated triangles tend to predominate. of different groups or tribes of semi- Of the more or less contemporaneous nomadic fisher-folk and hunters, each of cultures of the northeastern African region which tended to confine its activities to an in general the most remarkable and most individual section of the land and did not completely preserved is the Mesolithic of under normal circumstances come into Khartoum in the Republic of the Sudan. prolonged or frequent contact with the Here were found the riverside settlements other groups. Within the general confines of a negroid fishing people whose industries of their own territories, however, all included the production of multi-barbed the groups seem to have moved about bone and decorated pottery freely in search of game and other sources vessels and among whose microlithic stone of food, everything which has survived of implements are -shaped arrowheads their material equipment, from their light, of a type favored by the Egyptians of composite tools to their ostrich-egg con- Neolithic and later times. tainers and cooking vessels, being of either A comparison of the groups of imple- a disposable or readily portable nature. ments from northern Egypt with the Despite the hardships and precariousness already discussed microlithic and, in part of their existence these relics of the Old at least, Mesolithic industries of the Kom Stone Age survived the stretch of extreme Ombo basin ("Sebilian III"), the oasis of aridity which marked the post-pluvial Kharga, and the adjacent portions of the stages of Egypt's climatic history and Upper Egyptian Nile Valley discloses, if were still present in the Egyptian area anything, an even more pronounced long after the advent of the so-called "regionalism" than was apparent during Neolithic Wet Phase, or Subpluvial, had the preceding stages of the Late Paleolithic brought into the land a new and sedentary era. At Sebil the microlithic facies appears population of herdsmen and . By to have developed more or less directly 5000 B.C., however, it has been estimated oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 73

that the total population of the Egyptian incised with a pointed tool, on the surfaces Nile Valley and Delta had dropped to one of the desert rocks, have been recorded at thousand; and it is believed that when several places in the Eastern Desert in Neolithic man first reached the newly re- the vicinity of the Laqeita Wells, at five established Fayum lake he found its sites on the west side of the Nile between shores uninhabited. While it serves to Hosh and Aswan, in the Libyan Desert bridge the chronological "gap between sixteen miles west of Naqada, and at three the end of the Palaeolithic and the rise points along the desert track between the of civilisation," in no sense does the Meso- Libyan oases of Kharga and Dakhla. The lithic phase in Egypt or elsewhere con- naked hunters portrayed in these drawings stitute a stage of transition from the Old are equipped with large, C-shaped bows to the New Stone Age; but, rather, the and elaborately fletched arrows with prolongation of an essentially Paleolithic broad, probably poisoned points, which, mode of life and industrial tradition into a for lack of quivers, they sometimes carry new cultural milieu of quite a different stuck into their evidently long, thick hair. nature and origin. The co-existence of the For capturing and killing the giraffe use two traditions, however, was not without was also made of the lasso and a mace its lasting effect, for, as Butzer has pointed with a heavy circular head. Some of the out, the Egyptian civilisation was the figures wear feathers in their hair and the "product of a fruitful contact between an heads of others are surmounted by endemic Final Palaeolithic hunting and curious horizontal wavy lines. Occasionally fishing folk on the one hand, and new the huntsmen are accompanied by large cultural and ethnic groups originating dogs, in one instance held on a leash. In from the area of the on the spasmodically rainswept hills to the the other." Furthermore, though the use east of the Nile the favorite quarry is of microliths "tended to become more ex- the African elephant, while on the more tensive during the Final Palaeolithic (or barren plains to the west the giraffe, less Mesolithic) stage," they are by no means demanding in its need for food and water, confined to this era, recurring frequently is the animal most frequently represented. in Egypt from Upper Paleolithic times Other beasts encountered in these draw- well down into the New Kingdom, when ings are the antelope, the gazelle, the ibex, we find them still being employed as the the barbary , the ostrich, a wolf-like points and barbs of hunting arrows. animal, a lizard, a snake, a bird with four It is tempting to identify the late claws, and the crocodile, the prevalence survivors of the Mesolithic hunting bands and evident importance of the last-named with the authors of the oldest series of indicating a people of riverain origin and rock drawings preserved to us on the cliffs affinities. Large rectangular objects have edging the Nile Valley and along the desert been thought to be game-nets and heart- trails of southern Upper Egypt and Lower shaped enclosures may well be fish-traps. Nubia. The people in question, Winkler's A belief in magic as a means of achieving "Earliest Hunters," Caton-Thompson's success in hunting is reflected in the fre- "Bedouin Microlithic" folk, lived ap- quent representation of the tracks of parently during the Neolithic or early animals and of their entrails, or "spirits," Predynastic ("Amratian") stage of Egyp- in the form of spirals issuing from their tian prehistory. Their crude pictures, mouths, such pictures presumably giving usually hammered out, but sometimes also the hunters "control" over their prey in oi.uchicago.edu

74 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT accordance with a familiar primitive tenet. (Chicago, 1929-1939). Here the treatment is Parts of animals, such as the bushy tails regional, starting with the Nile-Faiyum of giraffes, depicted in exaggerated detail, Divide ("OIP," Vol. X) and proceeding may have been used as amulets or orna- thence to Nubia and Upper Egypt ("OIP," ments. A group of eight men surrounding Vol. XVII), Upper and Middle Egypt ("OIP," Vol. XVIII), and Lower Egypt a larger man apparently wearing an ("OIP," Vol. XLVI). Brief but valuable animal mask has been interpreted as a discussions of the subject, with important magical dance, the central masked figure, re-assessessments and re-interpretations of the in any case, recalling the well-known material, have more recently appeared in Magdalenian "sorcerer" of a painted S. A. Huzayyin's The Place of Egypt in Pre- engraving in the cave of the Trois Freres history (Cairo, 1941). See pp. 151 if., 164-65, at Aridge in France. The adoption by the 181-94, 221-23, 225-26, 251-64) and in such Earliest Hunters of a pregnant female general books on African prehistory as L. S. deity (?) found chiefly in the drawings of B. Leakey's Stone Age Africa (London, Winkler's "Early Oasis Dwellers" (Caton- 1936), pp. 114-20; H. Alimen's The Pre- Thompson's "Peasant Neolithic" people) (London, 1957), pp. 77-103; may reflect the type of religious tolerance and C. B. M. McBurney's The Stone Age of Northern Africa (Harmondsworth, 1960), and hospitality toward "foreign" divinities pp. 121-28, 135-62. Useful compilations which characterizes the Egyptians of later of the material, with particular accent on times and, with other bits of evidence, the work of the French prehistorians in speaks for the existence of a close and Egypt, are provided by P. Bovier-Lapierre, friendly relationship between the nomadic "L'Egypte prdhistorique" (Precis de l'hist- hunting folk and the more settled peasant oire d',gypte, I [Cairo, 1932], pp. 6 ff.; population of this formative period. R. Cottevieille-Giraudet, "L'lgypte avant Regrettably, not much can be said for the l'histoire. Paldolithique-Ndolithique-Ages du former's artistic achievements. Unlike Cuivre," BIFAO, XXXIII (1933), 16-36, some of the spirited, naturalistic, and 42, 46; 0. Menghin, "The Stone Ages of admirably executed engravings and - North Africa with Special Reference to Egypt," ings of the western and southern fringes of Bull. Soc. roy. Gdogr. d'1Egypte, XVIII (1934), 9-15; E. Massoulard, Pr.- the Sahara, these earliest Egyptian draw- histoire et protohistoire d']gypte (Travaux ings are coarse, crudely schematized, and et rnmoires de l'Institut d'ethnologie [Uni- lacking in detail. In the words of Winkler, versitd de Paris], LIII [Paris, 1949]), they seem to have been produced by a pp. 1-27; and J. Vandier, Manuel d'archd- people "devoid of any artistic sense"; ologie egyptienne, I (Paris, 1952), 25-61. See while McBurney finds them "suggestive of also A. Scharff, GrundziLge der aegyptischen an impoverished marginal tradition far Vorgeschichte (Morgenland, Heft 12 [Leipzig, removed from the main centre of 1927]), pp. 10-15; Die Altertimer der Vor- development." und Fruhzeit Agyptens (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Mitteilungen aus der agypti8chen NOTES Sammlung, IV, 1 [Berlin, 1931]), pp. 1-7, CHAPTER II P1. 1. Among the more significant of the earlier GENERAL works on the Paleolithic period in Egypt are At present the most extensive and detailed those of such pioneers in the field of Egyp- accounts of Paleolithic Man in the Nile tian prehistory as Godefroy Arcelin (1869), Valley are those provided by K. S. Sandford Ernest Hamy and Francois Lenormant and W. J. Arkell in the four volumes of their (1869) (See Keldani, Bibliography, Nos. 98- Prehistoric Survey of Egypt and Western Asia 101, 1182-87); Augustus Pitt-Rivers ("On oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 757 the Discovery of Chert Implements in 1924), Vol. I; W. J. Sollas, Ancient Hunters Stratified Gravel in the Nile Valley, near and their Modern Representatives (3d ed. Thebes," Journal of the Royal Anthropological [London, 1924]); 0. Menghin, Weltgeschichte Institute, XII [1882], 382-400); Haynes. der Steinzeit (Vienna, 1931), pp. 87-135; M. "Jiscovery of Palaeolithic Flint imple- C. Burkitt, The Old Stone Age. A Study of inents in Upper Egypt,"Alemoires of the Palaeolithic Times (Cambridge, 1933), pp. 7- American Academy of Arts and Sciences 113 passim; V. G. Childe, Man Makes Him- (Cambridge, Mass.). I Part 2 (1882), pp. self (Library of Science and Culture, No. 5 357-61; Jacques de Morgan (Recherches sur [London, 1936]), pp. 9-72; What Happened in les ortgines de l'Egypte, 1 [1896], 47-66); History (Pelican Books, A 108 [Harmonds- Georg Schweinfurth ("Kiesel-Artefacte in worth, 1942]), pp. 23-47; W. B. Wright, der diluvialen Schotter-Terrasse und auf den Tools and thc Man (London, 1939), pp. 8-195 Plateau-Hohen von Theben," Zeitschrift fi r passim; R. Turner, The Great Cultural Ethnologie, XXXIV [1902], 293-310; "Stein- Traditions. The Foundationsof Civilization, I zeitliche Forsehungen in Obergypten," (New York and London, 1941), 22-26; G. ibid., XXXV [1903], 799-822; XXXVI Clark, From Savagery to Civilization (London, [1904], 766-830 [devoted chiefly to the so- 1946), pp. 26-68; R. J. Braidwood, Pre- called "eoliths"]; XLIV [1912], 627-58); historic Men (Chicago Natural History Mu- Max Blanckenhorn ("Die Geschichte des seum, PopularSeries, No. 37. 2(1 ed. [Chicago, Nil-Stroms . . . sowie des paldolithischen 1951]), pp. 19-61; H. Shapiro (ed.), Man, Menschen in Agypten," Zeitschrift der Gesell- Culture, and Society (New York, 1956), schaft Erdkunde zu Berlin, XXXVII Chaps. I-III, VII; C. S. Coon, The Jaces [1902], 694-722, 753-62; Die Steinzeit of Europe (New York, 1939), pp. 16-55; Palastina-Syriensund Nordafrikas. [Land d. The Story of Man (New York, 1958), , III Leipzig, 1921]); Charles Currelly pp. 9-113 passim; M. Ebert (ed.), Real- (Stone Implements [CC, Nos. 63001-64906] lexikon der Vorgeschichte (15 vols. [1924- Cairo, 1913); and Charles Seligman ("The 1932]). Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt," Journal Also consulted was a series of articles of of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LI more general scope which appeared in the [1921], 115-53). Scientific American for September 1960, The materials and techniques employed under the title "The Human Species" and by the Paleolithic toolmakers are described which include E. S. 1)eevey, Jr.'s "The in detail by Jacques Bordaz, "First Tools of Human Population"; C. 1). Hockett's "The Mankind," Natural History Magazine (New Origin of Speech"; M. D. Sahlin's "The Origin York), January, 1959, pp. 36-51; by K. P. of Society"; and S. L. Washburn's "Tools Oakley, Man the Tool-.Maker (London, and ." 1950), pp. 5-49; by H. L. Movius, "The Old To the bibliographies of E. H. Keldani Stone Age" (in H. Shapiro, Man, Culture, and S. A. Huzayyin cited in the notes to and Society [New York, 1956], pp. 49-93), Chapter I may now be added: H. L. Movius, pp. 52 if.; and by C. B. M. McBurney, The Recent Publications, Mainly in Old World Stone Age of Northern Africa, pp. 26-30, Paleolithic Archaeology and Paleo-Anthropo- 130-32. See also A. J. Arkell, "The Sudan. logy (American School of PrehistoricResearch, Archaeology and Excavation," The Archaeo- Old World Bibliography), 1948-1956 (mimeo- logical News Letter, Vol. II, No. 8 (January, graphed); and C. Bachatly, Bibliographie de 1950), pp. 124 if. la prehistoire egyptienne (1869-1938) (Pub. Out of the rich general literature on the lications de la ,Societe royale de Geographie), Old Stone Age and succeeding periods of Cairo, 1942. Recent publications, chiefly in world prehistory the following books were the field of anthropology and related subjects, consulted in the preparation of this chapter: are listed two or three times a year in the oi.uchicago.edu

76 76PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT

in recent years by W. Gieseler andIE. and of. pp. 12, 35; Leakey, Stone Age Africa, Breitinger and published in Stuttgart, pp. 22, 26, 41ff., 47, 100ff., 104, 115ff., Germany. 121 ff., 181 ff.; H. Fleisch, "Depots pre- historiques do la cote libanaise et lear place 1. THE "ABBEvILLIANS" dans la chronologie baste sur le Quaternaire The European type-sites of Abbeville, mann," Qvaternaria, III (1956), 101-32; Chelles, and Clacton-on-Sea are situated, and K. W. Butzer, Quaternary Stratigraphy respectively, on the lower Somne, the Marne ... in the Near East, p. 97 and Table II. The near Paris, and the Thames estuary. The Kafuan and Oldowan industries (named for sites themselves and the classes of imple- the Kafu valley in Uganda and the Olduvai ments found on them have been studied and [Oldoway gorge in northern Tanganyika) discussed by Boucher do Perthes in his epoch- are discussed and their distribution indicated making Antiquite'8 celtiques et antidiluviennes by Alimen, Prehistory of Africa, pp. 210 if., (Paris, 1847), and the Abbe (H.) Breuil in a 433, 436, and by Cole, Prehistory of East series of important articles, including "be Africa, pp. 125 if., 131 if., 298, 300. See also vrai nivoau de l'industrie abbevillionne de la Siave-Soderbrgh, "Preliminary Report of Porte du Bois (Abbeville)," L'Anthropologie, the Scandinavian Joint Expedition: Archaeo- XLIX (1939), 13-34; "be gisement do logical Survey between Faras and Gamai, Chelles; see phenornenes, sos industries," ~January-March, 1961," Kush X 1962), Quartar,II (1939), 1-21; and "Les industries 84-85. iteclats du paleolithiqiio ancien. I. be Descriptions, drawings, and photographs Clactonien," Pre'histoire, I (1932), 125-90. of the Abbevillian and Clactonian implements See also Zeunor, Dating the Past, pp. 166 ff.; of the 100-toot Nile gravels will be found in Movius, "The Old Stone Age" (Shapiro, Sandford and Arkell, Prehistoric Survey, I, Man, Culture, and Society, Chap. III), 29-31, figs. 8-9; II, 26, 29-31, 72-75, 86, pp. 55-59; Wright, Tools and the Man, Plates XIII-XIX; III, 110-12, 126, Plates 8 9 pp. 8-9, 38-45, 87if.; H. Obermaier, Der XV-XIX; IV,pp. -91, Plates XVII, XVIII; Mensch der Vorzeit (Der Mensek alter Zeit, in Huzayyin, Place of Egypt, pp. 181-94, I. Berlin-Munich [1912]), pp. 113-22, 149; Plates VI-VIII; in Massoulard, Prehistoire Sollas, Ancient Hunters, pp. 68 if.; MBBurney, .. . d'gypte, pp. 1-10; and in Alimen, Stone Age of Northern Africa, pp. 27-30; Prehistory of Africa, pp. 88-90, fig. 35. On Huzayyin, Place of Egypt. pp. 166 if.; etc. the re-deposited lower gravels of the Rus On the numerous sites in Africa and Channel and the rolled Abbevillian imple- southwestern Asia which have yielded in- ments contained in them see Sandford dustries of Abbevillian ("Pre-Chellean" and and Arkell, PrehistoricSurvey, I, 28-3 1, and "Chellean") and Clactonian type see es- Butzer, Erdkunde, XIII (1959), 52-53; and pecially: A. J. Arkell, The Old Stone Age in on those of the ballast-pits of the plain of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (Sudan Antiquities Abbassiya: P. Bovier-Lapierre, "be Paleo- Service, Occasional Papers, No. 1), Khartoum, lithique stratifie des environs du Caire," 1949; "The Sudan. Archaeology and Excava- L'Anthropologie, XXXV (1925), 37-46; "Les tion," The Archaeological News Letter, Vol. II, gisements paleolithiques de la plaine de No. 8 (Jan., 1950), pp. 124-28; L. Balout, l'Abassieh," BIE, n.s. VIII (1926), 257-72; Prihistoire de l'Afrique du Nord, Part II, Sandford and Arkell, Prehistoric Survey, I, Chap. VI (pp. 159-268); McBurney, Stone 29; II, 14, 28, 73; III, 42, 55, 110; IV, Age of Northern Africa. pp. 88-128 passim; passirn (especially p. 95): Huzayyin, Place of S. Cole, The Prehistory of East Africa Egypt, pp. 182-85, 192; Butzer, Erdkunde, (Pelican Books, A 316 [Harmondsworth, X.III, 49-51; Alimen, Prehistory, pp. 80-81; 1954] ), pp. 121-48; Alimen, Prehistory of MoBurney, Stone Age, pp. 125-26. Africa, see Index (p. 431) under "Chellean," The distribution and nature of the surface oi.uchicago.edu

7 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 77 in the Egyptian area are recorded in the The largest group of Egyptian "eoliths" is "earlier works" cited above, in the General published by G. Schweinfurth, "Steinzeitliche notes, and by P. Bovier-Lapierre, "Stations Forschungen in Oberihgypten," Zeitschrift prehistoriques des environs du Caire," fiir Ethnologie, XXXVI (1904), 766-825. Congres International de Glographie, Cornpte The problem of the eoliths has been discussed rendu, IV (Cairo, 1926), 298-308 (see 301- by many writers, including Sandford and 308); "Industries prehistoriques dans l'ile Arkell, PrehistoricSurvey, II, 15-16; Bovier- d' lephantine et aux environs d'Assouan," Lapierre, L'A nthropologie, XXXV (1925), BIE, XVI (1934), 115-31; "Les explorations 39; BIE, VIII (1926), 265; Braidwood, Pre- de S. A. S. le Prince Kemal el Din Hussein: historic Men, pp. 37-38; Burkitt, The Old Contribution k la prehistoire du desert Stone Age, pp. 99-109; MacCurdy, Human libyque," BIE, X (1929), 33-44 (see pp. 38- Origins, I, 25, 86-102; Menghin, Welt- 39); "Recentes explorations do S. A. S. le geschichte der Steinzeit, pp. 88-89; Movius, Prince Kemal el-Din Hussein dans le desert "The 01(1 Stone Age," p. 51; Oakley, Man libyque: Contribution h la prehistoire," the Tool-maker, pp. 5-10; Obermaier, Der BIE, XII (1930), 121-28 (see p. 125); Mensch der Vorzeit, pp. 383-84; Sollas, "L'1 gypte prdhistorique" (Prici8de l'histoire Ancient Hunters, pp. 68-106 passim; Huzay. d'1gypte, I, 1-50), pp. 22-25; S. Schott, E. yin, Place of Egypt, pp. 164-65; C. H. Read, Neuffer, K. Bittel, "Bericht uber die zweite in The Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed.), ... nach Ostdelta-Rand und in das Wadi II, 344-45. See also Ebert, Reallexikon, Tumilat unternommene Erkundungsfahrt," III, 99-107. MDJK, II (1931), 39-73 (see pp. 45 if.); E. The so-called "Chellean Man" of the Vignard, "Stations pakeolithiques do la Olduvai gorge deposits of Tanganyika has carrire d'Abou el-Nour pre's do Nag. been the subject of a preliminary report by Hamadi (Haute gypte)," BIFAO, XX L. S. B. Leakey in The Illustrated London (1922), 89-109 (see pp. 92 if.); Sandford and News for March 4, 1961 (No. 6344, Vol. 238), Arkell, Prehistoric Survey, II, 30; IV, 90; pp. 335, 347-48 ("New Links in the Chain of F. Dobono, "Expedition archeologique roy. Human Evolution: Three Major IDiscoveries ale au desert oriental (Keft-Kosseir)," ASAE, from the Olduvai (orge, Tanganyika"). See LI (1951), 59-110 (see 60-61); R. Cottevicille- also Leakey in ILN for June 28, 1958; and Giraudet, "L'egypte avant l'histoire," the National GeographicMagazine for October BIFAO, XXXIII (1933), 1-168 (see figs. 26 1961, pp. 576 if. Also Leakey in Nature and 29); J. Vandier, Manuel d'archeologie CLXXXIX, 649 (1961); National Geographic igyptienne, I, 27-33; Massoulard, Prehistoire CXXIII. 132 (1963) and The Progress and . .. d' gypte, p. 9; MacCurdy, Human Evolution of Man in Africa (Oxford Univer- Origin, I, 124-29; Ebert, Reallexikon, I, 48. sity Press [1962]); G. H. Curtis and J. F. The possibility of some of the early hand. Everden, Nature CLXXXXIV, 610 (1962); axes having been hafted is discussed by R. L. Hay, "Stratigraphy of Beds I through Sandford and Arkell, PrehistoricSurvey, III, IV, Olduvai Gorge, Tanganyika," Science, 111; and the techniques which produced the CXXXIX, No. 3557 (1963), pp. 829-33. Abbevillian and Clactonian implements are The skull of this man, which Leakey com- described by the same authors, op. cit., pares not only with that of Java Man and Vol. II, pp. 72--75; III, 110-12; IV, 89-91; , but also with the Steinheim by J. Bordaz, Natural Hietory (Magazine), skull and the Broken Hill skull of Rhodesia, January, 1959, pp. 38-42; by Oakley, Man was found at "Site LLK II" in Chellean the Tool-maker, pp. 23 if., 40 if., 48 if.; Stage 3 of Bed II. The Chelleo-Acheulian Burkitt, The Old Stone Age, pp. 33 if., 110- man of Rabat in Morocco is discussed by 13; McBurney, Stone Age of Northern Africa, Alimen, Prehistory of Africa, pp. 329-30 pp. 26-27, 30, 130-32; and Arkell, Archaeo- (see also the bibliography, p. 350, under "ogcalNewT Lt..ter, 1,No.8, p.124.1 Mariais J., _adVai7_11 .); by M.urney oi.uchicago.edu

78 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT

Stone Age of Northern Africa, p. 118; and by species of hominids, but, on the other hand, Balout, Prdhistoire de l'Afrique du Nord, it certainly does not militate against the pp. 202-208. supposition that this was the case. The life and activities of Lower Paleolithic The occurrence of Pre-Chellean pebble- Man have been convincingly reconstructed tools and other early implements in the 150- for us by a number of prehistorians, among foot river terrace in the Egyptian-Sudanese whom may be cited H. Obermaier, Der border area is reported by A. J. Arkell, Mensch der Vorzeit (1912), pp. 418 ff.; W. J. Archaeological News Letter, II, No. 8, p. 124; Sollas, Ancient Hunters (1924), pp. 107-39; The Old Stone Age in the Anglo-Egyptian M. C. Burkitt, The Old Stone Age (1933), Sudan, pp. 2-3, 45. pp. 7 ff., 33, 54; R. Turner, The Great Cultural Traditions, I (1941), 22-26; G. 2. GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF Clark, From Savagery to Civilization (1946), THE ACHEULIAN TRADITION pp. 26-39; S. Piggott, Prehistoric to Brief general treatments of the Acheulian 1000 B.C. (Pelican Books, A 205 [Harmonds- stage of Egyptian prehistory are provided worth, 1950]), pp. 23-24, 33-34; V. G. Childe, by Pt. Massoulard in his Prdhistoire et What Happened in History (Pelican Books, protohistoired']gypte (Paris, 1949), pp. 10-12 A 108 [Harmondsworth, 1952]), pp. 27-33; (with a useful listing of the sites on which Man Makes Himself (A Mentor Book. 7th the industry occurs), and by S. A. Huzayyin, printing [New York, 1960]), pp. 45-49; C. S. The Place of Egypt, pp. 188-91. Selected Coon, The Story of Man (New York, 1958), implements and the geological settings in pp. 43-69. An interesting account of the which they were found are dealt with in bone tools and weapons used by the earliest some detail in the four volumes of Sandford man-like inhabitants of was and Arkell's Prehistoric Survey (I, 28, 29, contributed by R. A. Dart to the Illustrated 31, 36, 71; II, 25, 30, 32, 34, 37, 44, 74-77, London News for May 9, 1959, pp. 798-801 83, 85, 86; III, 59, 61, 63, 64, 66, 69, 74, 76, ("The Ape-Men Tool-Makers of a Million 110-14, 123; IV, 50-53, 59, 89, 90, 95, 98); Years Ago: South African Australopithecus but, as we have seen, the dating of the 100-, -His Life, Habits, and Skills"). On the use 50-, and 30-foot terraces by these authors of the bola by Chellean man at Olduvai see and their identification of the industry of Leakey, National Geographic, CXX, No. 4 the 30-foot terrace require revision (Butzer, (October 1961), 579, 583-84. Erdkunde, XIII, 52-53; "Naturlandschaft," The probability that the "kernel zone" of p. 57; Caton-Thompson, Proc. Preh. Soc., the hand-axe industry lay within Africa XII, 80). For discussions of the Acheulian itself is discussed by Huzayyin, Place of tradition as a whole and the techniques Egypt, pp. 205-12. See also McBurney, Stone which characterize it we may turn to some Age of Northern Africa, pp. 53-54. On p. 128 of the general works cited in the preceding of the latter work MeBurney expresses the sections, notably, Movius, "The Old Stone opinion now generally held by prehistorians Age," pp. 59-60; Bordaz, "First Tools of when he says: "Although the case cannot Mankind," pp. 39-43; Oakley, Man the Tool- perhaps be regarded as yet absolutely maker, pp. 43-46; MacCurdy, Human Origins, proved, it will probably be admitted by I, 116-29; Burkitt, The Old Stone Age, pp. most readers that the evidence in favour of 110-12. See also Vignard, BIFAO, XX, a centre of dispersal of hand-axe industries 93 if., fig. 2. On the duration of the Acheu- somewhere in Central Africa is certainly very lian phase in Egypt see especially Butzer, strong." The presence of the same types of QuaternaryStratigraphy, pp. 64, 75, 100-102 implements in Cerntral and Northeastern (Tables IV, VIII, and IX); and on its Africa at approximately the same time does duration in general, Zeuner, .Dating the not necessarily imply the presence in these Past4 , pp. 285-92. two widely separated areas of the same An Acheulian hand-axe from the floor of oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 79 the Wadi el-Natrun is published by Sand- Egypt, pp. 190-91, 193), McBurney (Stone ford and Arkell, PrehistoricSurvey, IV, 50, Age, pp. 135-38, 153-55, figs. 9, 14), Butzer Plate XXII, 7; and the few scattered ex- (Erdkunde, XIII, 55, 66), and others. amples from the Fayum are referred to by For the Acheulian finds in the Republic O. H. Little, BIE, XVIII (1936), 207-208; of the Sudan and in the vicinity of by Caton-Thompson and others, BIE, XIX, Ennedi the principal references are A. J. 249, 287; and by Caton-Thompson, Proc. Arkell, The Old Stone Age in the Anglo. Preh. Soc., XII, 92, n. 6. To the references Egyptian Sudan (1949), passim; The Archaeo- on the Lower Paleolithic surface finds in logical News Letter, vol. II, No. 8 (1950), the Eastern Desert given in the preceding pp. 124 ff.; A History of the Sudan from the section may now be added F. H. Sterns, Earliest Times to 1821 (London, 1955), "The Paleoliths of the Eastern Desert," pp. 8-9; "Preliminary Report on the Harvard African Studies, I (1917), 48-82, Archaeological Results of the British Ennedi which deals in particular with implements Expedition, 1957," Kush, VII (1959), 15-26 from the sites at Hammamat, Wassif, and (see pp. 16-19, 21, 23). Rabah. Massoulard discusses Sandford's The hominid remains from Ternifine in three-sided Acheulian pick and the anvils of Algeria and the Sidi Abderrahman quarry, Abbassiya on p. 12 of his Prdhistoire... near Casablanca, are discussed, with ref- d'4gypte. erences, by Alimen, Prehistory, pp. 330-31 The Upper Acheulian industry of Kharga (see the Bibliography, p. 349, under "Aram- is described in detail and fully illustrated by bourg, C."); Balout, Prdhistoire, pp. 123-24, G. Caton-Thompson in her Kharga Oasis in 262; and McBurney, Stone Age, pp. 99-101, Prehistory (London, 1952), pp. 22-26, 54-73, 118 (see the Bibliography, p. 275, under 95-98, Plates X-LVI. See also McBurney, "Arambourg, C."). On the Kanam mandible Stone Age of Northern Africa, pp. 59 f.; and the Kanjera skull fragments see Cole, Alimen, Prehistory of Africa, pp. 90-92. The Prehistory of East Africa, pp. 82-88; The opinions of Miss Caton-Thompson and Leakey, Stone Age Africa, pp. 165-66; and, S. A. Huzayyin quoted in the seventh on the question of their dating, P. 0. H. paragraph of this section are from Proc. Boswell, "Human Remains from Kanam Preh. Soc., XII (1946), 58, and Place of Egypt and Kanjera, Kenya Colony," Nature, in Prehistory, p. 190, respectively. March 9, 1935. See also Alimen, Prehistory, The existence in Egypt of a well-defined pp. 331-32. Micoquian industry (Bovier-Lapierre, BIE, The fluctuations in Egypt's climate re- VIII, 268; Vandier, Manuel d'archdologie ferred to in relation to the comings and dgyptienne, I, 37) has been questioned by goings of Acheulian man have been outlined Sandford and Arkell (PrehistoricSurvey, II, in Chapter I, above (see especially the text 75), by Caton-Thompson (Kharga Oasis, pp. and notes of the sections on Climate and 19-20), and by Massoulard (Prdhistoire... Chronology). On the important hand-axe d'Egypte, p. 12). See also Huzayyin, Place of industries of East Africa we may consult Egypt, p. 188, n. 4; Alimen, Prehistory, p. 92. Alimen, Prehistory, pp. 201-202, 212-14; The industry of the 30-foot Nile terrace, Leakey, Stone Age Africa, pp. 41-47; Cole, described by Sandford and Arkell (Pre- Prehistory, pp. 117-49; Huzayyin, Place of historic Survey, III, 114, 126) as Early Egypt, pp. 196-97, 206-209; and, on that of Mousterian or Levalloisian, has been re- the Republic of the Sudan, the works of A. identified by Miss Caton-Thompson as J. Arkell cited above. The quotations Acheulio-Levalloisian and compared to the regarding the points of resemblance between similar industry of Kharga (Proc. Preh. Soc., the Upper Acheulian of Kharga and that of XII [1946], 61, 69-81; Kharga Oasis, pp. viii, the Sudan are taken from Caton-Thompson, 20, 26-28, 92-94, 99-103). Her conclusions Kharga Oasis, pp. 26, n. 2, 67, 72, n. 2. The have been accepted by Huzayyin (Place of Lower Paleolithic of and Palestine is oi.uchicago.edu

80 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT conveniently summarized by Huzayyin, PrehistoricSociety, XII (1946), No. 4, pp. 57- Place of Egypt, pp. 191-92. See also the 120 (see pp. 57-98); and the same author's references cited in an earlier paragraph in Kharga Oasis in Prehistory, pp. 26-29, 54, connection with the Upper Acheulian of 57, 58, 73-80, 108-16, 139-44, 148, Plates Kharga. 57-72. See also Huzayyin, Place of Egypt Under the heading, "the Lower Savagery," pp. 212-29, Plates IX, X. Chapter IV Grahame Clark (From Savagery to Civiliza- (pp. 129-89) of McBurney's Stone Age of tion, pp. 26-43) groups all the pre-Upper Northern Africa contains a valuable discus- Paleolithic stages of man's development, sion of the Middle Paleolithic of this area including the Acheulian and the succeeding with sections devoted to "Egypt" (pp. 135- Mousterian or Levalloisian. On the hafting 49) and "The Egyptian Oases" (pp. 149-62), of certain types of Acheulian implements or preceded on pp. 31-34 by a survey of the weapons the clearest statements are those Levalloisian and Mousterian industries in of Caton-Thompson, Kharga Oasis, p. 62 general. Massoulard deals with "Le Pal6o- of ("It is impossible to avoid the conclusion lithique moyen" on pp. 13-15 and 25-26 that these forms were for hafting") and his Prdhistoire et protohistoire d',gypte Vignard, BIFAO, XX, 94-98. The use of the (Pls. II-III); as does Vandier on pp. 37-43 bolas by Acheulian hunters is discussed by of his Manuel d'archdologie gyptienne, Vol. I Cole, Prehistory of East Africa, pp. 142-43, (figs. 18-24). Among the more important and by Oakley, Man the Tool-maker, pp. 43- works on individual sites with Middle 45. See also Balout, Prdhistoire, p. 166 (cf. Paleolithic material are Vignard, "Stations pp. 164-72; Alimen, Prehistory, pp. 28-29, paleolithiques de la carrire d'Abou el. 33, 213; Arkell, Old Stone Age in the... Nour," BIFAO, XX (1922), 96-105, figs. 4- Sudan, p. 10). The Upper Acheulian deposits 12, Plates X-XIX; Seligman, "The Older around mound-spring KO 10 at Kharga Palaeolithic in Egypt," Journal of the Royal yielded a quartzite ball, 2J-3 in. in diameter Anthropological Institute, LI (1921), 115-43; -perhaps a bola or a sling-stone (Caton- and the reports of Bovier-Lapierre on the Thompson, Kharga Oasis, p. 71). On Acheu- plain of Abbassiya (BIE, VIII [1926], 268- lian man's methods of hunting, his probable 70, 274, 275; L'Anthropologie, XXXV [1925], use of drop-traps, or game-pits, and the 43 ff.; etc.). formidable animals which in Kenya and in The views of H. L. Movius, cited in the Spain formed part of his diet see Cole, Pre- first and third paragraphs of our text and history, p. 144; Oakley, Man the Tool-maker, based in part on the indices obtained by F. pp. 43-46; and Clark, From Savagery ... , Bordes on Paleolithic techniques in Europe, p. 38; and on the animal remains found in are drawn from his chapters on "Old World Paleolithic deposits at Kharga, Caton- Prehistory: Paleolithic" (in Anthropology Thompson, Kharga Oasis, pp. 72, 79, Today, an Encyclopedic Inventory, ed. by A. 146, n. 1. L. Kroeber [Chicago, 1953], pp. 163-92), p. 164, and "The Old Stone Age" (in Man, 3. THE MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC AGE Culture, and Society, ed. by H. L. Shapiro Our three principal sources of material on [New York, 1956], pp. 49-93), pp. 60 if. To the Middle Paleolithic age in the lower Nile be noted is the fact that Movius groups the Valley and adjoining areas are Sandford and Levalloisian tradition under "Lower Paleo- Arkell's PrehistoricSurvey (I, 28, 34-52, 71, lithic." See also Cole, Prehistory of East figs. 12-19; II, 16, 17, 25, 35-46, 57, 59, Africa, p. 156. Other good general treat- 76-78, 84, 86, Plates XXIX-XL; III, 64, ments of the Levalloisian technique and in- 66-80, 114-18, 126, Plates XXXI-XXXVII; dustries will be found in Oakley, Man the IV, 54-68, 89-91, 98, Plates XXII-XXX); Tool-maker, pp. 49-52; Bordaz, Natural "The Levalloisian In- History Magazine for February 1959, pp. 43- Caton-Thompson, 4 dustries of Egypt," Proceedings of the 46; Zeuner, Dating the Past , pp. 288 ft.; oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 81

Cole, op. cit., pp. 154 ff.; and McBurney, No. 3482 (Sept. 22, 1961), pp. 803-810. Stone Age of Northern Africa, pp. 132 if. Alimen (Prehistory of Africa, p. 92) remarks On the probability of a Lower Levalloisian that in Egypt "generally speaking, real (Riss-Wiirm) date for the 50-foot terrace of Mousterian artifacts with fine secondary re- northern Middle Egypt and the 131-foot touching are not to be found"; Caton- Fayum beach see above, Chapter I, pp. 90, Thompson (Proc. Prehist. Soc., XII, 58) 94, 98, 106; and cf. Butzer, Quaternary states that "'Mousterian' typology and Stratigraphy, Table IV (p. 75), Egyptian technique" are "on the whole absent in Stage 7, and Table VIII (p. 100), "Riss/ Egyptian groups"; and, according to Huzay- Wiirm" (= "Lower Levallois") and "Riss yin (Place of Egypt, pp. 221-22), "The II" (= "Upper Acheulian" = Egyptian Mousterian technique sensu stricto appears to Stages 8 and 9 of Tables IV and IX). Miss be very little represented (if at all) in Caton-Thompson's sequence of Fayum lakes, Egypt" and "Among the various finds from including her hypothetical 40-foot (10-metre) Egypt, hardly any (or only very rare) flakes Lower Levalloisian lake, is presented in some exhibit the typical surface retouch of the detail in Proc. Prehist. Soc., XII (1946), 90- Mousterian proper." Prior, however, to 97 (see also Huzayyin, Place of Egypt, pp. 1930, when the Abb6 H. Breuil (L'Afrique 84 ff.). It has been accepted by, among prehistorique [Cahiers d'Art. Paris, 1930, others, McBurney, Stone Age of Northern 1931], p. 71) suggested the terms Levalloisian Africa, p. 146; Alimen, Prehistory of Africa, and Levalloiso-Mousterian as the appropriate p. 82 (for "40-metre beach" read "10-metre designations of Egypt's Middle Paleolithic [or 40-foot] beach"); and Ball, Contributions industries, the latter were generally referred to the Geography of Egypt, pp. 192-94. Cf., to as Mousterian and are so described in the however, Sandford and Arkell, Prehistoric works of Bovier-Lapierre, Vignard, Selig- Survey, I, 73; Butzer, op. cit., pp. 68, 71. man, and Sandford cited above (see, however, The quotations in the fourth paragraph Sandford and Arkell, PrehistoricSurvey, IV, of our text come, respectively, from Mc. 89). The expression is still retained by Burney, op. cit., p. 139; Movius, "Old World Massoulard for reasons set forth in his Prd- Prehistory: Paleolithic" (in Anthropology histoire et protohistoire d'Agypte, p. 13, and- Today), p. 176; and Sandford and Arkell, perhaps inadvertently-by Vandier in his Prehistoric Survey, II, 77; and those in the Manuel d'archdologieegyptienne, I, 37 if. fifth paragraph from Caton-Thompson, op. Between them the two last-named works cit., pp. 58, 84; and McBurney, op. cit., pretty well cover the distribution of Middle p. 155. Paleolithic implements (especially surface The Mousterian, or "discoidal nucleus," finds) in the Egyptian area, the references technique of flake-tool production has "very cited being in the main those listed above, little in common" with the Levalloisian in the notes to our section on the "Abbevil- technique and at least "in its developed form lians" (p. 178). To these may be added represents a distinctly different process" Sandford and Arkell, Prehistoric Survey, II, (Movius, "The Old Stone Age," pp. 62-63; 16, 17, 35, 37; III, 64, 66; IV, 90, 91; McBurney, Stone Age of Northern Africa, Vignard, "Le Levalloisien du Gu6bel- pp. 133-34). It is described in some detail by Silsild ... ," Bull. Soc. prdh. frang., LII Bordaz, NaturalHistory Magazine, February (1955), 214-18; Alimen, Prehistory, p. 92; 1959, pp. 43-46; by Movius, loc. cit.; and by MeBurney, Stone Age, p. 161; Butzer, McBurney, loc. cit.; and the differences "Naturlandschaft," p. 62; Caton-Thompson, between it and the generally earlier and to Man, XXXI (1931), 77-84; Huzayyin, some extent ancestral Levallois method are Place of Egypt, Plate II. clearly pointed out by these authors. See Details of the Levalloisian flaking sites, or also, more recently, F. Bordes, "Mousterian working floors, at Abbassiya, Abu el.Nur, Cultures in France," Science, Vol. CXXXIV, Thebes, and Kharga are provided by Bovier- oi.uchicago.edu

82 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT

Lapierre, BIE, VIII, 274-75; Vignard, of Africa, pp. 88, 206-207, 216, 424-25. BIFAO, XX, 96 ff.; Sandford and Arkell, Among the many articles on Neanderthal Prehistoric Survey, II, 29 (see also I, 45); man which make up the Neanderthal McBurney, op. cit., p. 125; and Caton- Centenary 1856-1956 volume (Wenner Gren Thompson, Kharga Oasis in Prehistory, Foundation, Kemink en Zoon. Utrecht, pp. 76-78, 96-97, 104, 109 ff., 142. 1956) is one by C. B. M. MeBurney (pp. 253- On the character and distribution of the 64) on "Evidence for the Distribution in Middle Paleolithic industries of the Repub- Space and Time of Neanderthaloids and lic of the Sudan we may refer to A. J. Allied Strains in Northern Africa." Here and Arkell, The Old Stone Age in the Anglo. in his Stone Age of Northern Africa (pp. 168, Egyptian Sudan, pp. 2-3 (map and table), 171, 187) McBurney discusses the association 37, 45; The Archaeological News Letter, Vol. of the Levalloiso-Mousterian industries of II, No. 8, p. 124; Cole, Prehistory of East Cyrenaica and Palestine with the Neander- Africa, pp. 37, 45, 160. Arkell's "Preliminary thaloid remains of Haua Fteah and Mount Report on... the British Ennedi Expedi- Carmel, and speaks of "biological intercourse tion, 1957" was published in Kush, VII across now formidable deserts, particularly (1959), 15-26. Here no Levalloisian finds are those separating the Nile Delta on the east recorded, but only implements described on from the hills of ," arriving at the con- pp. 19, 21, and 23 as "early Aterian" or as clusion that: "In a word, everything points "intermediate between the Acheulean and to a close community between the human the Aterian." Incidentally, it should be populations of the Gebel Akhdar and western noted that at the First Pan-African Congress Asia at this time" (Neanderthal Centenary, on Prehistory, held at Nairobi in 1947, "it pp. 260-61. Cf. Arkell, History of the Sudan, was decided... to use the term 'faceted p.. 9). Dr. Wiercinski's preliminary announce- platform"' to describe what we have been ment of the three Neanderthaloid skulls calling the Levalloisian technique (Cole, op. from Maadi is reported by Edward Wente in cit., p. 154) and that this is the expression "Newsletter Number Twenty-nine" of the employed by Arkell in the works just cited. American Research Center in Egypt (May, Cole, however, retains the more convenient 1958, p. 2). A search through the biblio- term "Levalloisian" (op. cit., pp. 155 ff.). graphical lists of the Anthropologischer For our purposes the related Middle and Anzeiger for 1958-1961 has failed to disclose post-Middle Paleolithic industries of Central, any additional publication of these skulls by East, and South Africa-the so-called Proto- Dr. Wiercinski. Besides the works of Mc- Stillbay, Stillbay, Fauresmith, and Burney, just referred to, the Neanderthaloids (Tumbian)-are adequately dealt with by of Africa are described and discussed by Cole in the sixth chapter of her Prehistory of Alimen, Prehistory of Africa, pp. 333-37; by East Africa, pp. 152-82). Cole, Prehistory of East Africa, pp. 74-76, 82, The relationship of the activities of Middle 89-94; and by Leakey, Stone Age Africa, Paleolithic man-i.e., the successive stages pp. 169-70, 194, 195. See also P. Oakley, of the Levalloisian and Levalloiso-Mousterian "The Dating of Broken Hill (Rhodesian industries-to the pluvial and interpluvial Man)," Neanderthal Centenary, pp. 265-66. periods of Egypt and of East Africa and to In this article Oakley concludes that the the glacial and interglacial periods of alpine Broken Hill remains are of Upper Pleisto- Europe are summarized by Butzer, Quater. cene, post-Acheulian date. The quotation nary Stratigraphy, pp. 64-71, 98, 102, regarding the Steinheim and Ehringsdorf Tables IV, VIII, and IX; and by Cole, Neanderthaloids is from Cole, op. cit., p. 156; Prehistory of East Africa, pp. 152 ff. (on and that concerning the dating of the Haua the naming, characteristics, and dating of Fteah mandible from McBurney, Stone Age the Kanjeran and Gamblian Pluvials see of Northern Africa, p. 168. pp. 29, 47-52). See also Alimen, Prehistory Cole's remarks on Upper Pleistocene oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 83 man's tendency toward specialization in 4. THE CULTURES OF LATE the forms of his implements is from her PALEOLITHIC TIMES Prehistory of East Africa, p. 151. The The last nineteen pages of G. Caton. physical characteristics of Neanderthal man Thompson's much-cited article in the and his relationship to Homo sapiens are Proceedings of the PrehistoricSociety for 1946 discussed by H. L. Shapiro in Man, Culture, (Vol. XII, No. 4, pp. 57-120. See pp. 100- and Society (New York, 1956), pp. 14-15, 118) are devoted to a detailed discussion of and by C. S. Coon in The Races of Europe "The Epi-Levalloisian Industries of Upper (New York, 1939), pp. 14, 17, 23, 25-28. The and Lower Egypt." Earlier in the same material on his cultural level, living habits, article (p. 59) she refers to the Epi- and hunting prowess is drawn from G. Levalloisian as "those varied regional in- Clark, From Savagery to Civilization, pp. 39- dustries of Levalloisian technique and 43; C. S. Coon, The History of Man (London, descent which anachronistically occupy the 1955), pp. 60ff.; The Story of Man (New Upper Palaeolithic period, and are physio- York, 1958), pp. 57-69; "There are Neander- graphically linked with the silt r6gime in thals among Us," New York Times Magazine, the Nile Valley which succeeded the gravel March 12, 1961, pp. 32, 84, 86; V. G. Childe, regime." C. B. M. McBurney's brief, but Man Makes Himself (2d impression [London, interestingly critical, treatment of the same 1937]), pp. 56-60; Braidwood, Prehistoric industries occupies pp. 139-49 and 155 if. of Men (2d ed. [Chicago, 1951]), pp. 25, 26, his Stone Age of Northern Africa; and S. A. 32-36; Turner, The Great Cultural Traditions, Huzayyin's thoughtful assessment of them, I, 26-29; K. P. Oakley, Man the Tool- pp. 251-63 of his Place of Egypt in Prehistory maker, pp. 49-56; and from other publica- (Pls. X-XII). The great wealth of material tions, including the Neanderthal Centenary collected in Egypt and Nubia by Sandford volume cited above. The equine and bovine and Arkell and classified by them as "Late teeth discovered in Upper Acheulian and Paleolithic" (the term adopted here) or, less Levalloisian contexts at Kharga are reported accurately, as "Sebilian" (without due by Caton-Thompson in Kharga Oasis in regard for regional differentiation) is pub- Prehistory, pp. 72, 79, 146, n. 1. lished in their PrehistoricSurvey, I, 52, 54-56, According to Oakley ("Use of Fire by 58-66, 71, 72, figs. 22-25; II, 38-52, 79-80, Neanderthal Man and his Precursors," 86-87, Plates XL-XLII; III, 81-96, 116-20, Neanderthal Centenary, pp. 267-69) Paleo. 124-26, Plates XXXVIII, XXXIX; IV, 70, lithic man used fire as a weapon of defense 72-74, 89, 97, 98. Useful descriptions of against dangerous carnivores, for driving Egypt's Late Paleolithic cultures, which, game into pitfalls or corrals, for fire-hardening however, must to some extent be emended wooden spear tips, and in Middle Paleolithic in the light of the studies cited above, are times probably for cooking his food (contra provided by 1. Massoulard, Prdhistoire et Coon, History of Man, p. 62). On the same protohistoire d']gypte, pp. 16-23, 26-27; R. subject see also Oakley, "Fire as a Palaeo. Cottevieille-Giraudet, "L'Egypte avant lithic Tool and Weapon," Proc. Prehist.Soc., l'histoire" (BIFAO, XXXIII [1933], 1-168), N.S., XXI (1955), 36-48; and L. C. Eiseley, pp. 19-46; J. Vandier, Manuel d'archiologie "Man the Fire.Maker," Scientific American, 9gyptienne, I, 43-61; A. Scharff, Grundztige CXCI, 52-57. der aegyptischen Vorgeschichte (Morgenland, The words of McBurney cited in the last Heft 12 [Leipzig, 1927]), pp. 12-15; Die paragraph of this section will be found on Altertumer der Vor. und Frihzeit Agyptens p. 129 of his Stone Age of Northern Africa. (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Mitteilungen With this statement may be compared those aus der agyptischen Sammlung, Band IV of Caton-Thompson in the opening para- [Berlin, 1931]), pp. 4-7; H. Obermaier, graphs of her "The Levalloisian Industries of "Agypten. A. Paliaolithikum, 52" (in M. Egypt" (Proc. Prehist. Soc., XII, 57-58). Ebert [ed.] ReleIkon der Vorgeschichte, I oi.uchicago.edu

84 84PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT

[Berlin, 1924]), 49-50. Also to be consulted "Expedition archeologique royale au desert are Movius, "Old World Prehistory: Paleo- oriental ...," ASAE, LI (1951), 59-91 (see lithic" (in Anthropology Today), 175-76; pp. 61-64, 87-88, fig. 1). In 1956 Vignard "The Old Stone Age" (in Man, Culture, and published his discovery in the plain northeast Society), pp. 86-87; Leakey, Stone Age Africa, of Kom Ombo of flaking sites of a post- pp. 114, 119, 177-78, 193; Butzer, "Natur- Levalloisian ("Upper Paleolithic") industry landschaft," pp. 57, 58, 62-65. made up to a great extent of "large blades" Our dating of the Late Paleolithic period (l. Vignard, "Les stations de taille de la is derived from Butzer, Quaternary Strati- plaine nord-est de Kom Ombo [Haute graphy (1958), pp. 15, 17, 41, 64-71, 75, 98- 1 gypte]," Bull. Soc. Preh. franc., LIII 101, 103, 127, 128, 142; Geografiska Annaler, [1956], 588-98). So far as is known, the XXXIX (1957), 49; Erdkunde, XI (1957), position of this industry in the Late Paleo- 25; "Naturlandschaft," (1959), pp. 57, 60, lithic prehistory of Upper Egypt-if that, 62, 63; Caton-Thompson, Proc. Prehi8t. indeed, is where it belongs-has not been Soc., XII, 117, 118; McBurney, "Radio- established. carbon Readings and the Spread of the On the Late Paleolithic industries and Upper Palaeolithic in Europe and the sites of northern Egypt there are, besides Mediterranean Basin," Pro. I. N. Qu. A. the important general works cited in the first (Madrid), 1957; Neanderthal Centenary, p. paragraph of these notes, a number of 263; Stone Age of Northern Africa, pp. 42 n. 1, reports on and discussions of individual 51, 52, 203, 204; McBurney and Hey (R. W.), localities and groups of implements. See Prehistory and Plei8tocene Geology in Cyren- especially S. A. Huzayyin, "New Light on aican Libya (Cambridge, 1955), pp. 218, n. 1; the Upper Palaeolithic of Egypt," Pro- 234, 235. Cf. Zeuner, Dating the Past4, ceedings of the Fan-African Congress on pp. 229-48, 286-87, 291-97, 421-23; and Prehistory, 1947 (Oxford, 1952), pp. 202-204; see the references to radiocarbon dates "Recent Studies on the Technological Evolu- cited above in the notes of Chapter I tion of the Upper Palaeolithic of Egypt," ("Chronology"). Congres International des Sciences Pre- On the Sebilian cultures of the Kom Ombo histortques et Protohistoriques,Actes de la lI basin the source publications are P. Vignard, Session, Zurich 1950 (Zurich, 1953), pp. 174- "Une nouvelle industrie lithique: le 'Sbi- 76; R. Vaufrey, "Vari tSs. Section II. lien,"' BIFAO, XXII (1923). 1-76, Cartes Paldolithique et Mesolithique," L'Anthropo- Nos. 1, 2, Plates I-XXIV; "Une nouvelle logie, LV (1951), 288-90 (see p. 290); Alimen, industrie lithique: le 'S6bilien,"' Bulletin de Prehistory, p. 95; A. M. Montet, "Les Societe~ pr~historique francaise, XXV industries levalloisiennes d'Heliopolis et (1928), 200-220, Plates I-XX; "Le Pal6o- d'Abu Suwair (egypte)," Bulletin de la lithique en egypte," MIFAO, LXVI (1935- Soci~i Prehistorique f ranf~aise, LIV (1957), 1938 =Afllangee Maspero, I), pp. 165-75 329-39. The microliths collected by H. (see pp. 170-75); "Les mnicroburins Tarde- Junker at Abu Ghalib are published by him noisiens du Sebilien: fabrication; emplois; in Bertcht caber die von der Akademie der origine du microburin," Extrait du CongrAis Wissenschaften in Wien mach dem Westdelta prihistorique de France, Xe session (1934), enisendete Expedition (20. Dezember 1927 bis pp. 66--106. The presence of Middle Sebilian 25. Februar 1928), (Vienna and Leipzig, implements in wadi deposits near the village 1928), pp. 5-14, Pls. I, II, XI-XIII; of Qurna in western Thebes was reported hy and their dating is discussed by Caton- Butzer in 1959 (Erdkunde, XIII, 55 f.; Thompson, Proc. Preh. Soc., XII (1946), "Naturlandschaft," p. 63); and the "Sebil- 116-17; H. Larsen, "Vorbericht uiber die ian" surface stations of the region of Laqeita, schwedischen Grabungen in Abu Ghalib some twenty-five miles east of the modern 1932--1934," MDIK, VI (1935), 41-87 (see village of Qu a,a r iscussed by1 F. Deono pp. 44-50) oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 885

The Late Paleolithic cultures of Kharga BIFAO, XVIII [1921], 1-20; "Station Oasis, including the Aterian, are discussed aurignacienne de Champ de Bagasse b and illustrated by G. Caton-Thompson in Nag-Hamadi [Haute Egypte]," Bull. Soc. her Kharga Oasis in Prehistory (London, Prdhist. franc., XXVI [1929], 199-306; J. 1952), pp. 11, 29-32, 106-107, 116-39, Vandier, Manuel d'archdologie dgyptienne, I, Pls. 73-93. Of basic importance is the same 54-57, 59 ff.) see especially Huzayyin, Place author's lecture on "The Aterian Industry: of Egypt, pp. 236-37; Alimen, Prehistory of Its Place and Significance in the Palaeolithic Africa, p. 101; and Massoulard, Prdhistoire et World (The Huxley Memorial Lecture for protohistoire d'lAgypte, pp. 16-17. 1946)," published in The Journalof the Royal The application of the term "Capsian" Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and (from a site near Gafsa, Roman Capsa, in Ireland, LXXVI (1946), 87-130. Valuable southern Tunisia) to one or more of the Late and often divergent assessments of the same Paleolithic industries of Egypt is, un- material are provided by C. B. M. McBurney fortunately, fairly widespread in books and in The Stone Age of Northern Africa articles on Egyptian prehistory (e.g., Scharff, (Harmondsworth, 1960), pp. 155-61, 177- Grundziige der aegyptischen Vorgeschichte, 89, 223. Some points of evolved Aterian type pp. 14-15; Die Altertimer der Vor- und found in the vicinity of Laqeita in the Frihzeit Agyptens, pp. 4-7; Cottevieille- Eastern Desert are illustrated by F. Debono, Giraudet, BIFAO, XXXIII, 19-38; Junker, ASAE, LI (1951), 64-65, 88, Pls. IIb and Westdelta, pp. 8-14; Vandier, Manuel, I, IIIb. Miss Caton-Thompson (Kharga Oasis, 53-61). According, however, to Huzayyin pp. 32-36, 159-64, Pls. 94-100) favors a ("Recent Studies," p. 174; Place of Egypt, pre-Neolithic date for the Bedouin Micro- pp. 247, 259, 267) ". .. the Upper Palaeo- lithic, which, however, must be one of the lithic of Egypt has no affinities with the cultures assigned by McBurney (op. cit., Aurgnacian or the Capsian..."; "... it is p. 161) to a time not "earlier than the third certain that the Capsian sensu stricto has not or fourth millennia B.c., during a widely so far been recorded in N. Libya or Egypt attested period of slight recovery of the (or Palestine)"; the small narrow blades rainfall." which occur at Abu Suwair "are different Excellent and, for our purpose, wholly from the blades of either the Aurignacian or adequate accounts of the Upper Paleolithic the Capsian, ... "; and the Capsian does not blade-industries of Europe, Africa, and "seem to have spread, to any appreciable Western Asia are provided by Movius extent, along the Mediterranean Belt in the ("The Old Stone Age," pp. 64-74, 86 ff.), direction of N.E. Africa or Palestine, The Up. Balout, Prdhistoire de l'Afrique du Nord, and Final Palaeolithic cultures of these latter pp. 339-448; McBurney (Stone Age of regions (especially N.E. Africa) had a Northern Africa, pp. 34-44, 48-52, 56-60, different technique." McBurney (Stone Age of 190-228. The words quoted in our text are Northern Africa, pp. 223-28 passim) notes from p. 226), Cole (Prehistory of East Africa, that the small-scale backed-blade-industries pp. 182 ff.), Alimen (Prehistory of Africa, of the Fayum and Kharga are "totally pp. 50-64, 157-60, 188-91, 214-16, 301 ff.), lacking in the evolved geometrical forms of and Huzayyin (Place of Egypt, pp. 243-51, the Typical Capsian and Upper Capsian . . ."; 263-68). The techniques of blade-tool pro- that the Sirtican microlithic culture "pro- duction are described in some detail by vides the most easterly versions" of the Bordaz, Natural History Magazine for Upper Capsian trapeze "among hunting January 1959, pp. 46-51. peoples north of the Sahara"; that while a On the so-called "Upper Aurignacian" of very late (Mesolithic) hunting culture near the Champ de Bagasse (E. Vignard, "Une Khartoum "does offer some of the forms of station aurignacienne a Nag-Hamadi [Haute the Latest Capsian and its Neolithic deriva- gypte]: Station du Champ de Bagasse," tives" and the Capsian may possibly have oi.uchicago.edu

86 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT

passed "undetected" along the Delta coast history of Africa, p. 425), for example, says: en route from the Levant to the Gebel "The Palaeolithic-Mesolithic gap, so marked Akhdar "no trace of such an event has yet in western Europe, does not exist in Africa. been detected in the desert near Cairo, In varying ways, but, all the same, almost further south, or in the region between the everywhere, there is an insensible transition Delta and Suez"; and that "during the final to microlithism, whether it be from Capsian, hunting period the cleavage lies, in essence, Levalloiso-Khargan, Sebilian, Magosian, between the predominantly Upper Capsian Smithfield or Lupemban." Butzer (Quater- province in the west" and "the Cyrenaican nary Stratigraphy, p. 99), referring to the traditions dominated by burins, end-scrapers, "Diminutive Levalloisian" of Egypt, says: and non-geometric microliths most clearly "This graded into a microlithic stage that pointing to the Levant." On the so-called can be observed until the onset of the Neo- Capsian sites near Aswan and Luxor, the lithic." Caton-Thompson (Proc. Preh. Soc., Gebel Uweinat, and the oases of Baharia XII, 117, 118) speaks of the "earlier micro. and Farafra (Vandier, Manuel, I, 57-58) lithic industries of Egypt which directly Alimen (Prehistory of Africa, p. 101 [for succeed Epi-Levalloisian II," and notes that "Aterian" read "Capsian" (see Prdhi8toire the Sebilian industry develops "through the de l'Afrique, p. 127)]) has this to say: "The medium of steep marginal retouch, into one industries from these sites are characterized of a backed-blade, microlithic character," by backed blades and microburins and by a adding that this "probably happened else- general tendency towards microlithism where too," the "regional microlithic groups" which, perhaps, do not constitute a real resulting from the "needs for new tools Capsian." It may also be noted, in passing, common throughout Egypt." that according to D. A. E. Garrod and D. M. The appearance and earliest examples of A. Bate (The Stone Age of Mount Carmel Homo sapiens in North and East Africa are [Oxford, 1937], p. 119) there is no true discussed, with references, by McBurney, Capsian in Palestine. Stone Age of Northern Africa, pp. 35-37, 46, The conclusions of Movius and Caton. 48, 186-87; Cole, Prehistory of East Africa, Thompson on the Late Paleolithic industries pp. 74, 80-82, 101, 157; and Alimen, Pre- of Egypt are taken, respectively, from the history of Africa, pp. 337-40, 348. The former's "Old World Prehistory: Palaeo- human remains from Kom Ombo in Upper lithic" (Anthropology Today), p. 176, and Egypt and Qau in Middle Egypt were from the latter's "Levalloisian Industries" examined by Dr. Douglas E. Derry of Cairo, (Proc. Preh. Soc., XII), pp. 57, 100, and Sir Arthur Keith of the Royal College of Kharga Oasis, p. 30. Huzayyin's important Surgeons, London, and Sir Elliot Smith. reassessment of the Late Paleolithic in- They have not been adequately published, dustries of northern Egypt is contained in but are referred to in varying degrees of his already cited "Recent Studies on... the detail by K. S. Sandford, PrehistoricSurvey, Upper Palaeolithic of Egypt" (Congr. In- III, 85, 86; "The Fossil Bones found at

ternat. Sciences Prdh. et Protohist., Acte8 de Qau .. .," The Quarterly Journal of the la IIIH Session Zurich 1950, pp. 174-76). GeologicalSociety of London, LXXXV (1929), The same author (Place of Egypt, p. 260, n. 3) 536; F. Petrie, "Early Man in Egypt," Man, speaks of "an unknown gap in technological XXV (1925), 130; S. A. Huzayyin, Place of evolution between the late Diminutive Egypt, pp. 272, 273; and Massoulard, Prd. Levallois" and the "industry of Hilwan," histoire et protohistoire d'fgypte, pp. 391-92, and A. J. Arkell (Archaeological News 417. Letter, II, No. 8, p. 124) of the "gap between On the associated fauna our principal the end of the Palaeolithic and the rise of references are: C. Gaillard, "Contribution & Civilisation"; but to some prehistorians this l'6tude de la faune prdhistorique del hiatus is not discernible. Alimen (Pre. l'fgypte," Archive du Mued-m d'Histoire oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 887 Nat urelle de Lyon, XIV (1934), M6moire III, Wadi ol Arab in Nubia. Alimen (Prehistory pp. 13-56; L. Joleaud, "Progres recents de of Africa, p. 372), however, has this to say nos connaissances sur la geologie du Quater- on the subject: "Various authorities (such as naire et sur La Prehistoire do 1'lgypte," G. B. M. Flamand and H. Kuhn) have Revue generale des Sciences pures et appliquees, assigned the most ancient engravings to the XLIV (1933), 601-608 (see pp. 602-606); late Paleolithic. However, the tendency, K. S. Sandford, "The Pliocene and Pleisto- nowadays, is to follow the lead of the late cene Deposits of Wadi Qena and of the Nile H. Obermaier and of R. Vaufrey and to Valley between Luxor and Assiut (Qau). consider the earliest of the rock-engravings VIII. The Fossil Bones found at Qau, and as Neolithic." See also McBurney, Stone Age Beds proved in Borings," The Quarterly of Northern Africa, pp. 258-74 (especially Journal of the Geological Society of Lowdon, pp. 272-74); Huzayyin (1939), Bull. Soc. LXXXV (1929), 536-41; Prehistoric Survey, Roy. Giog. d'tgypte, XX, 213-15. III, 84-88, 125; K. S. Sandford and W. J. The term "(higher) savagery" and "(Neo. Arkell, Prehistoric Survey, II, 38 (n. 5), 46, lithic) barbarism" to describe, respectively, 52; Huzayyin, Place of Egypt, pp. 81-82; the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic levels of Vignard, BIFAO, XXII (1923), 12, 27, 64- human existence are used by, among others, 65; Bull. Soc. Prehist. franc., XXV (1928), G. Clark, Fron Savagery to Civilization 203, 207, 216; Butzer, "Naturlandschaft," (London, 1946), pp. 43ff., 69ff.; and G. pp. 63-64. On the secondary deposits of Childe, What Happened in History (Har- animal bones at Qau see also G. Brunton, mondsworth, 1952), pp. 36 ff., 48 ff. Qau and Badari III (British School of On the practice of cannibalism among Archaeology in Egypt, 1926), p. 20; Massou- Upper Paleolithic peoples see, for example, lard, Prehistoire..., pp. 391-92. Clark, op. cit., pp. 60--6. The probability of a western Asiatic The quotations in the final paragraph of origin for the Homo sapiens population of our text are from G. Caton-Thompson, Proc. northeastern Africa is discussed by Me- Preh. Soc., XII (1946), 59; Alimen, Pre- Burney, Neanderthal Centenary, p. 263; hiatory of Africa, p. 103; and Clark, op. Stone Age of Northern Africa, pp. 46, 48. See cit., p. 44. also Oakley, Man the Tool-maker, pp. 56- 57, 74. 5. THE FINAL PALEOLITHIC, OR The pro- or proto-Bushman skull found at MESOLITHIC, STAGE Singa has been published by A. S. Woodward, Approximate absolute dates for the Meso- "A Fossil Skull of an Ancestral Bushman,"~ lithic phase of human prehistory in the Near Antiquity, XII (1938), 190-95; and has been East are supplied by K. W. Butzer, Quater- discussed by A. J. Arkell, The Old Stone Age nary Stratigraphy (1958), pp. 99-103 (see in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, pp. 45, 47; also pp. 17, 128). These agree well with the Cole, Prehistory of East Africa, pp. 95-96; more recent findings of H. L. Movius, Alimen, Prehistory of Africa, pp. 342-43. CurrentAnthropology, I (1960), 374 (1 and in), The remarks on this skull cited in our text though, as the latter points out, Carbon-14 are those of McBurney (Neanderthal Cent- dates are still lacking for the early Mesolithic. enary, p. 262). Movius in his "Old Stone Age" (pp. 75 ff.) H. Breuil ("Les gravures rupestres du gives a brief but clear picture of the Meso- Djebel Ouenat," Revue Scientifique, LXVI lithic stage in general, which may be ampli- [1928], 106) would attribute some early rock fied by referring to such works as Bordaz, drawings of giraffes and ostriches found by Natural History Magazine, Feb. 1959, pp. Hassanein Bey at Uweinat to Upper Paleo- 93 ff.; Coon, The Races of Europe, pp. 56-77; lithic hunters, and Sandford and Arkell Clark, From Savagery to Civilization, pp. (Prehistoric Survey, II, 70-7 1) favor an 62 ff.; Burkitt, The Old Stone Age, pp. 240- 42.4 6;Mttakley, Ma__n/ the. Tol-maer,.. oi.uchicago.edu

88 88PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT pp. 68, 84; MacCurdy, Human Origins, II, d'Assouan"), and in BIE, XII (1930), 126 3-20; Turner, The Great Cultural Traditions, ("Recentes explorations de S. A. S. le Prince I, 51 if., 58; and Cole, Prehistory of East Kemal el-Din Hussein dans le Desert Africa, pp. 195-214. Libyque"). See also Vandier, Manuel A good bibliography on the much ex- d'arch*5ologie egyptienne, I, 57. 58. plored and much published Mesolithic The microlithic industry of the site now stations at Helwan is provided by Massoulard generally known as el-, a mile and in his Prghistoire et protohistoire d'gypte, three-quarters to the north of Heiwan, at pp. 29-30, 52, nn. 3 if. To the references the mouth of the Wadi el-Hof, is referred to given there may now be added Huzayyin, by Bovier-Lapierre in the Compte rendu of BSRGE, XX (1939), 210, 211, 224-26; the Congrs International de G#ographie, Le Place of Egypt, pp. 260, 263, 289-90, 294; Caire, Avril, 1925, Vol. IV (Cairo, 1926), Alimen, Prehistory of Africa, pp. 101-103; p. 306; "L'Egypte prehistorique" (in Prcis Cottevieille-Giraudet, BIFAO, XXXIII de l'histoire d'Agypte, I), 34; by Cottevieille- (1933), 38-40; Vandier, Manuel d'archeologie Giraudet, BIFAO, XXXIII (1933), 40; and egyptienne, I, 57 if.; and Movius, "Old World by Butzer, BSGE, XXXII (1959), 49. On Prehistory: Paleolithic," p. 176. In 1936 the the naming of the site see Bovier-Lapierre, site was re-explored by Fernand Debono Compte rendu.. .,pp. 268-270. The industry and the interesting results of his investiga- of the Wadi Angabiya has not been published tions are incorporated in his report, "Le in extenso, but is briefly described and Paleolithique final et le M6solithique l illustrated by Huzayyin in BSRGE, XX Helouan," ASAE, XLVIII (1948), 629-37. (1939), 210, 211, P1. II, Nos. 25-32 ("Some The possibility of the Heiwan industry's New Light on the Beginnings of Egyptian having been an importation from Palestine Civilisation .. ."); and in The Place of Egypt, is discussed by J. de Morgan, La prlhistoire pp. 257 n. 2, 260, 297, 430, P1. XII, Nos. 33- orientate, II (1926), 69; D. A. E. Garrod, "A 37. See also Caton-Thompson, Proc. Preh. New Mesolithic Industry, the Natufian of Soc., XII (1946), 116. The Fayum microliths Palestine," JRAI, LXXII (1932), 268; D. A. are published by G. Caton-Thompson and E. Garrod and D. M. A. Bate, The Stone Age E. X. Gardner, The Desert Fayum, pp. 30, of Mount Carmel (1937), pp. 30-37; Massou- 55, 58, 59, 67, 68, Pls. XLVIII, XLIX; and lard, Pr#histoire et protohistoire d'Egypte, are discussed by Caton-Thompson, Proc. p. 30; McBurney, Stone Age of Northern Preh. Soc., XII (1946), 117-18; Sandford Africa, p. 226; and Debono, ASAE, XLVIII, and Arkell, Prehistoric Survey, I, 60-61, 66; 636. Huzayyin's somewhat divergent views Huzayyin, BSRGE, XX, 210, 226, 232-34; on the subject are expressed in BSRGE, XX, Place of Egypt, pp. 290, 296-98; and Mc- 224-26; and Place of Egypt, pp. 260, 263, Burney, Stone Age of Northern Africa, p. 223. 289-90, 294. On the Egyptian Mesolithic in Though apparently contemporaneous with general see also Butzer, BSGE, XXXII the "Fayum A" and "Fayum B" cultures (1959), 49--50, 79-82. of late Neolithic and post-Neolithic times To Debono we owe a report on the Upper they are described by Huzayyin (Place of Paleolithic and Mesolithic of the Laqeita Egypt, p. 290) as "of definite Final Palaeo- area in the Eastern Desert in ASAE, LI lithic descent." On the surface finds of (1951), 64-66 ("Expedition archeologique microliths at Siwa see especially Huzayyin, royale au Desert Oriental [Keft.Kosseir] ... BSRGE, XX, 234; Place of Egypt, p. 298; 3. Paleolithique sup rieur et M6solithique" ); McBurney, Stone Age of Northern Africa, and to P. Bovier-Lapierre similar reports on pp. 224-25; McBurney, Prehistory and the microlithic industries and associated Pleistocene Geology in Cyreniaican Libya finds at Aswan and Ain Dalla in BI E, (Cambridge, 1955), pp. 251-62. XVI (1934), 128 ("Industries prdhistoriques The Mesolithic culture of Khartoum is dans l'1e_d1'1_lephant eaxenirn pubisedbyA. .ArkelEalyKrt1m oi.uchicago.edu

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT8 89

An Account of the Excavation of an Early stages and developments in the Near East Occupation Site carried out by the Sudan in some detail in his Quaternary Stratigraphy, Government Antiquities Service in 1944-5 pp. 101, 127-28; and it is he who suggests a (Oxford, 1949); and is discussed in varying population of 1000 for the Nile Valley and degrees of detail by C. B. M. McBurney, Proc. Delta about 5000 B.c. (BSGE, XXXII Preh. Soc., XV (1949), 197-99; Stone Age of [1959], 50). Butzer's assertion that "die Northern Africa, pp. 59 n. 1, 242-44; Cole, einladenden Ufer des Fayumsees waren Prehistory of East Africa, pp. 104, 211-14; R. anscheinend 5000 v. Chr. zuerst noch Vaufrey, L'Anthropologie, LIV (1950), 478- unbesiedelt" ("Naturlandschaft," p. 65) is 81; and others (see J. M. A. Janssen, Annual derived from Caton-Thompson and Gardner, Egyptological Bibliography, Indexes 1947- The Desert Fayum (see especially pp. 1 and 1956 [Leiden, 1960], p. 20). See also Myers, 88). The phrase "gap between the end of Kush, VIII (1960); Cesnola, Kush, VIII the Palaeolithic and the rise of civilisation" (1960); Save-Soderbergh, Kush, X (1962). is used by A. J. Arkell in Archaeological Because of the continuity which exists News Letter, vol. II, No. 8, p. 124. The co- between the Late and Final Paleolithic existence of Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures (sub-microlithic and microlithic) industries in Egypt is discussed by Huzayyin, BSRGE, of Sebil and Kharga the latter have been XX (1939), 211,212, 216, 218, 219, 226, 232- discussed and documented in the text and 35, 258; "Recent Studies.. .," pp. 175-76; notes of our preceding section. The in- Caton-Thompson and Gardner, The Desert tensification of regional differences in Final Fayum, p. 30. The relationship of the Meso- Paleolithic times is referred to by Huzayyin, lithic in general to the preceding Paleolithic Place of Egypt, pp. 263, 269-70; "Recent and the succeeding Neolithic is clearly Studies ... ," p. 211; and by Caton- defined by Movius, "The Old Stone Age" (in Thompson, Proc. Preh. Soc., XII (1946), Shapiro, Man, Culture, and Society), p. 75. 117. In the first reference Huzayyin remarks Butzer's cited comment on the effect of the that the cultural isolation of the various contact between the Final Paleolithic and sections of Egypt maintained itself although early Neolithic peoples of Egypt will be "the Nile continued to facilitate migrations." found in BSGE, XXXII (1959), 44. At Sebil the derivation of Sebilian III from On the recurrence of microlithic industries Sebilian II is noted by Caton-Thompson, in Egypt in later prehistoric and historic Proc. Preh. Soc., XII (1946), 117; and times see especially Huzayyin, Place of Huzayyin, Place of Egypt, p. 253. Huzayyin Egypt, pp. 270-71; Caton-Thompson, Proc. (op. cit., p. 260) suggests that "it was perhaps Preh. Soc., XII, 116-17; and Larsen, MDIK, from" the "Diminutive Levalloisian" of VI (1935), 44-50; and on the use of tiny northern Egypt "that the microlithic (partly blades and barbs of quartz and flint on Final Palaeolithic? and certainly later) facies hunting arrows of the Eighteenth Dynasty discovered on the surface (and so of rather see, for example, H. Bonnet, Die Waffen der uncertain date) at Hilwan and Wadi cAnga- Volker des alten Orients (Leipzig, 1926), biya (Pl. XII, 33-45) was evolved (though p. 161; W. Wolf, Die Bewaffnung des alt. only indirectly)." See also Butzer, Quaternary tgyptischen Heere8 (Leipzig, 1926), p. 85; G. Stratigraphy, p. 99. The quotation at the end Daressy, Fouilles de la Vallde des Rois of our antepenultimate paragraph is from (COG, Nos. 24001-24990), Nos. 24083, McBurney (Stone Age of Northern Africa, 24085, Pl. XII; A. Lansing and W. C. Hayes, p. 226), who says: "A final wave of hunters BMMA, XXXII (1937), January, Sect. II, from the Levant brought the Natufian p. 12, fig. 21. culture as far as the eastern Delta, but did The rock-engravings of the so-called not apparently penetrate further west." Earliest Hunters are published by H. A. K. W. Butzer studies the "Postpluvial"- Winkler, Rock Drawings of Southern Upper i.e., Final Paleolithic to Neolithic---climatic Egypt (Sir Robert Mond Desert Expedition. oi.uchicago.edu

90 PALEOLITHIC MAN IN EGYPT 2 vols. London, 1938, 1939), I, 28-29, 31-32, the "cultural impetus of rock drawings from 49, Pis. XXVI-XXXII; H, 31--35, Pis. Mesolithic Spain." LI-LXI. See also Winkler, Valker und Groups of large flint implements from the Volkerbewegungen im vorgeschichtlichen Ober- Wadi el-Sheikh, in Middle Egypt, have been agypten im Lichte neuer Feisbilderfunde compared to those of the Mesolithic culture (Stuttgart, 1937); J. H. Dunbar, The Rock- of Campigny in northern France (Seton- Picture8 of (Service des Anti- Karr, JRAI, XXVII [1898], 90 if.; Scharif, quits de l'1Egypte [Cairo, 1941]); Sandford Altertiimer der Vor- und Frizhzeit Agyptens, and Arkell, Prehistoric Survey, II, 63-71; pp. 7-8), but the resemblance seems to be Caton-Thompson, Kharga Oasis in Pre- superficial and without immediate cultural history, pp. vi-vii; Alimen, Prehistory of or chronological significance (Caton- Africa, pp. 371-74; McBurney, Stone Age of Thompson, Kharga Oasis in Prehistory, pp. Northern Africa, pp. 271--72. The association 187-96; Huzayyin, Place of Egypt, p. 307, of these drawings with a "Mesolithic rather n. 2. See also Vandier, Manuel d'archiologie than a Neolithic culture" is discussed by egyptienne, I, 62-63). The implements in Butzer, BSGE, XXXII (1959), 81-82. In question apparently range in date from the his discussion Butzer points out that there Predynastic Period to the Middle Kingdom is no evidence that these people "kept (Baumgartel and Brotzen, Prah. Zeitschrift, domestic animals" and draws attention to XVIII, 100 ff.). oi.uchicago.edu

3

THE NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COM- MUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT

1. NEAR EASTERN ORIGINS the use of both flaking and grinding (or polishing) in the preparation of stone tools and weapons, by the inauguration of food IT will have become apparent that production through stock breeding and such terms as "Paleolithic" and "Mesolith- agriculture, and by the adoption, thanks ic" do not imply "absolute periods of to this new economy, of an increasingly time," but are simply designations of broad sedentary type of existence in more or and often overlapping stages of cultural less permanent dwellings grouped together development as observed at various times to form settlements ranging in size from in various individual localities. This is small farming villages to good-sized towns. true also, and to an equal degree, of the It is also characterized, thanks in part to so-called Neolithic, or New Stone Age, a the security and the leisure provided by phase in man's cultural evolution which the new form of livelihood, by notable in the Near East extended roughly from increases in the population and by marked 7500 to 3000 B.C., in Britain from 2500 to developments in the fields of religion, 1800 B.C., and in some of the world's more , commerce, science, craftsmanship, secluded backwaters down into modemrn and art-the components of what we are times. The stage itself is characterized by accustomed to call "civilization."

91 oi.uchicago.edu

92 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT

In the Near East the earliest evidences of hand, well made pottery appears to have man's transition from the nomadic life been present from the very beginning of of the hunter to the more settled existence Neolithic times. of the are found in southwestern lies a scant two hundred miles Asia, in the long arc of grassy uplands to the east of the Nile Delta, and it would which form the outer flanks of Breasted's seem inevitable that a Neolithic, food- "Fertile Crescent," curving around from producing, village culture of the type the Iranian plateau, through northern Iraq attested there before 7000 B.C. should have and southern Armenia, and down into reached northern Egypt from this immedi- Syria and Palestine. Here the and the ately adjacent southwest Asian area in the sheep, the first food animals to be domesti- course of the seventh or, at the latest, the cated by man, occur in profusion in a wild sixth millennium B.C. This assumption is state, and at Qalat in Iraq a form supported by a radiocarbon date from the intermediate between the wild bezoar and Haua Fteah cave in Cyrenaica which the later domestic species of goat has been indicates that by 4850 B.C. immigrants found in an early Neolithic context. Here from the east bringing with them a also grow the wild ancestors of and primitive Neolithic culture had already , the Neolithic farmer's basic crops, traversed the Delta and settled further the cultivation of which probably origi- to the west in the coastal region of Libya. nated in Palestine and is attested in Iraq The earliest settlement remains so far by 6000 B.C., early forms of cultivated discovered in Egypt-on the northern wheat and two-row barley having been fringe of the Fayum and at the west Delta found in the pre-pottery Neolithic village site of Merimda Beni Salama-seem to at Jarmo. Encampments partaking of the date, however, from the fifth millennium nature of villages, with sunken, plaster- B.C. and, though primitive in some respects, lined shelters and storage bins, are already contain numerous pottery vessels and known in the Mesolithic (Natufian) of other elements of fairly well developed Jordan and in the contemporaneous types. Butzer is inclined to push the Karim Shahir culture of Iraqi Kurdistan. Fayum "A" Neolithic back to about 5500 At Tell el - Sultan (Jericho) in southern B.C., and Larsen has suggested a date Palestine a fortified proto-Neolithic village of 5040 B.C. for the lowest level of of mud-brick houses has been dated by the Merimda settlement, disregarding or radiocarbon tests to before 6800 B.c., at emending the evidently somewhat low Ras Shamra () in northern Syria radiocarbon readings of 4440 and 4145 similar houses solidly constructed on B.C. obtained for the former and 4130 B.C. foundations of large stones are assigned to for the latter. Dr. Baumgartel, on the the seventh millennium B.C., and at Jarmo other hand, repudiates the use of the term rectangular houses of packed mud or pis6 Neolithic in connection with either of these construction range back in time into the sites and would see in the Fayum and west latter part of the same millennium. On Delta settlements retarded, marginal these sites the earlier settlement levels cultures of Chalcolithic times, contempo- have produced no trace of pottery vessels raneous, respectively, with the so-called and the cultures which they represent are Predynastic (Naqada I and II) cultures of accordingly designated as pre-pottery, or Upper Egypt. With this it is difficult to preceramic, Neolithic. In southern agree, especially in view of the Carbon 14 and the mainland of Greece, on the other results so far obtained, which tend to place oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 93 the Predynastic finds five hundred to a sandrock "buttes" which ring the north thousand years later in absolute time than shore of the lake, usually near an inlet or the metal-free and generally more primitive other indentation in the shoreline, where assemblages of the Fayum and Merimda. the fishing would have been good, and never very far from the level stretches of 2. THE FAYUM SETTLEMENTS old lake bed upon which they grew their modest crops of wheat and barley. Of their It was apparently during the eighth flimsy or shelters, built probably millennium B.C. that the lower Nile, in against the protective masses of sandrock, response to the rise in sea level known as nothing now remains; but the village sites the Flandrian Transgression, began to are marked by sunken hearths, or fire- aggrade its bed and send its waters once holes, ranging in number up to between again through the Hawara Channel into two and three hundred for a single the Fayum, reflooding the depression and settlement (Kom W) and having occasion- creating a new, post-Paleolithic lake which ally coarse pottery cooking vessels, con- in the course of time reached an elevation taining the bones of fish and animals, still of 59 feet (18 meters) above present sea in position in them. It is clear that fishing level. Two of the small Neolithic encamp- and hunting in and along the shores of the ments strung out along the northern rim lake itself provided an important part of of the depression from Dimai to a point the 's food supply, the wild game north of Kom Aushim may have been available locally including hippopotamus, established on the shore of this high-level elephant, crocodile, pig, Bubalis, and lake; but most of the settlements of the several carnivores. There is no evidence so-called Fayum "A" culture, to which that domestic animals "played much, if these two camps ("M" and "Zl") also any part in this lake-side economy"; and belong, date from a slightly later period the scanty remains of sheep or goat found when, owing to the silting up of the may belong to wild species, such as the Hawara Channel, the lake had sunk to Ammotragus, the same being true of the 33 feet (10 metres) above sea level, leaving remains of cattle. Groups of grain storage along its margins expanses of rich lacustrine pits, or silos, sunk in the high ground silt, suitable for cultivation of the adjoining the settlements and often lined primitive type practiced by the first with coiled matting, indicate, how- Neolithic in the region. The long ever, not only that food production by period of equilibrium maintained by the agriculture was well advanced, but that, lake at this level is undoubtedly to be locally at least, it was organized on a associated with the increase in rainfall community basis; and the fact that grains and general betterment of climatic condi- of wheat (Triticum dicoccum) and tions which, toward the end of the sixth six-row barley ( hexastichum) millennium B.c., ushered in the so-called found in the silos are practically identical Neolithic Sub-pluvial, or Moist Interval, with those grown in Egypt today suggests facilitated agriculture and stock farming, that a very long time had already elapsed and led to "the resumption of widespread since the cultivation of the wild ancestors cultural contacts and intercommunica- of these grains was first undertaken-in tions" throughout the Near East. short, that agriculture had been practiced For their settlements the Fayum-A in the Near East for millenniums before its people selected sites in the lee of the low introduction into the Fayum. Well made oi.uchicago.edu

94 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT grass-coil found in the long wings sweeping back on either side were probably used for sowing grain, of the point of attachment of the shaft. several silos yielded what look like These the lake-dwellers apparently used threshers' flails, and two contained sickles against even such formidable beasts as the composed of straight, tapered shafts of African elephant and the hippopotamus, tamarisk wood, in one case with three two such arrowheads having been actually serrated flint blades imbedded in resin in found in the carcasses of an elephant and a in its cutting edge. For a hippo. This type of arrowhead, known grain there were saddle querns of lime- also from the Badarian sites of Middle and stone with gritstone grinders, which, Upper Egypt, is thought by some to have however, could also have been used for evolved locally from the Late Paleolithic grinding red ochre used as a . core-point and the triangular arrowhead, by Chipping, pressure-flaking, and grinding, others to be a deyelopment of the Aterian or polishing, with an were tanged arrowhead borrowed by the Nilotic employed singly or conjointly in the peoples from their Saharan neighbors. production of the Fayum-A people's Kom W, the largest of the A-group extensive repertory of stone implements settlement sites, also produced adzes of and weapons, nearly all of which were flint and banded volcanic ash, a few worked bifacially in accordance with a triangular arrowheads, ground points of tradition now believed to have been translucent chert and leaf-shaped points revived in northern Egypt-perhaps with used as , javelins, and , some stimulus from the Aterian-in of tabular chert worked by pressure- Final Paleolithic and pre-Neolithic times. flaking, a small number of pebble-butted Most characteristic are the axes of chert, and pebble-backed tools, a twisted bifacial limestone, dolerite, and volcanic ash blade, and an elaborate halberd-like point, which comprise over forty percent of all perhaps a forerunner of the Predynastic the tools found. They are for the most part "fish-tail." In the same area, but not in pounded or flaked to an elongated tri- situ and probably belonging to the later angular, conoid, or trapezoidal form with B-group, were found chipped axes, planes, a narrow butt and a straight cutting edge, and gouges, leaf-shaped arrowheads, and the latter sharpened by grinding following a curious type of concavo-convex flake- the initial flaking, but not apparently tool detached from its core by a blow re-flaked after grinding except to repair a delivered on the side of the latter. The damage or in a later re-use of the axe. presence in Kom W of a small number of Next in frequency are the sickle blades, blade-tools, including plain blades and thirty-one of which were recovered from microlithic backed blades and cores, the settlement of Kom W alone. They are suggests a partial intrusion by one of the serrated on one edge only and are usually surviving North African or Palestinian pointed at one end, only three of the blade cultures of Final Paleolithic ante- examples found being square at both ends. cedents. Hammerstones of flint, quartz, In nearly every case the edge of the blade fossil wood, grit, and limestone were has acquired a "silica-polish," or gloss, found in large quantities as were also from cutting the stalks of wheat or barley. smooth waterworn pebbles of flint and Easily the most striking of the Neolithic volcanic ash used as burnishers, and Fayumis' hunting weapons are the superbly pebbles apparently collected by the settlers worked hollow-based arrowheads with because of their odd forms. oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 95

A pierced discoid object of limestone which may have served as a paint- and another of diorite have been identified, container, a needle-case, or the foreshaft perhaps correctly, as maceheads, though of a beveled bone point or . Fresh- the possibility that they are weights for water mussels were gathered from the lake loaded digging sticks of the kind used by as food and their shells, especially those of primitive today should not Spatha cailliaudi, were used as scoops, or be overlooked. ladles, being frequently found stacked Similar objects, but smaller and more together, either in pottery vessels or in spherical in shape, made of limestone and, hearthside rubbish with sherds, fish bones, in one case, of dolerite, are almost certainly and splintered animal bones. Similar shells spindle whorls, employed in the spinning with nicked or serrated rims may have of thread, which we know from a piece of been employed for scaling or skinning fish. coarse cloth found near one of the Ochre, presumably destined for use as a A-group silos the Neolithic Fayumis were pigment or cosmetic, was ground on oval not only able to produce, but were also or irregularly rounded palettes of banded able to weave into fabrics on simple looms limestone and Nubian diorite with bevelled of, presumably, the primitive horizontal edges and plano-convex or concavo-convex type. The fibre used in the manufacture of cross sections, a smooth pebble being used this cloth is quite definitely , though as the grinder. Among the strikingly few not necessarily Linum usitatissima, seeds items of personal adornment recovered of the latter having been found, however, from the settlements are marine shells in two adjoining silos. The weave of the acquired, apparently through trade, from cloth is fairly even, the thread "lightly the Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts and spun," and the fibre evidently retted, usually pierced for suspension or stringing, beaten, scraped, and combed before the varieties of shell so employed including spinning. Other spindle whorls recovered Pectunculus, Cardium edule, two species of from the settlements are simply perforated cowries, Nerita, Conus, Turritella, and disks of pottery of the type common in Columbella, as well as 08initu8 turbinatus Predynastic times. and Helix desertorum, the last obtained For catching fish in the clear, shallow locally. A shell bracelet, evidently made waters of the lake the Fayum people seem to be worn by an infant, measures only not to have used fish-hooks but to have 1.7 inches in its inside diameter. A few relied chiefly on fish-spears and harpoons primitive stone beads and pendants of tipped with heads of fish-bone (Lates banded volcanic ash, limestone, and niloticus) which are beveled at their butts microcline felspar, or green amazonite- to fit into the wood or reed shafts and are the last material probably imported from either barbed or grooved to receive small the Eastern Desert or from the Libyan barbed points, now missing. Being, as we massifs north of Tibesti-range in form have seen, expert makers, they from rough perforated pebbles to discoid probably also fashioned fish-traps of and barrel-shaped beads and drop-shaped basketwork and may have used knotted pendants. Despite their crudity, the cord fish-nets weighted with grooved shaping and drilling of these minute stone limestone sinkers of which a considerable ornaments reflect the notable advances in number have been found. technical ability achieved by the Neolithic The settlement of Kom W yielded bone craftsmen of northern Egypt. Turquoise pins and awls and a tubular length of bone nuggets, presumably for use as beads, may oi.uchicago.edu

96 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT have been brought from the western vessels. In the case of one pot and a massifs or possibly from as far away as number of sherds of brown ware a smooth Sinai, the locale of the principal turquoise but not polished surface was achieved by mines of the dynastic Egyptians. Beads of the application of a slip or by wet hand- a type peculiar to the Fayum settlements smoothing, or "creaming," of the damp consist of discs of ostrich eggshell, half clay. The fragments of nine pots show an inch in diameter, pierced with a hole small holes drilled from the outside of the through the center. Miniature axes of vessels and intended either for their volcanic ash and fossil shark teeth were suspension or repair. "No traces of worn as amuletic pendants and show in incised, combed or painted pottery was several cases incomplete perforations for found," the only decorated pieces being a stringing. Garments, bags, vessels, and the solitary sherd with a row of studs below like were apparently made of dressed the rim and another with a single large animal skins, a "dark glutinous substance" boss on its surface. The primitive character found in one of the granaries having been and poor development of the Fayum-A identified as the remains of a piece of hide pottery may be attributed in part to its or leather. relatively early date and in part to the The numerous pottery vessels found in "high perfection" attained by the con- the Fayum-A settlements are for the most temporaneous basketwork. part of simple forms, without handles, Stone vessels appear not to have been necks, mouldings, or projecting rims, and manufactured in any quantity, the only are made in the majority of cases of a examples recovered being an oval, boat- coarse, ill-fired clay containing a binder of shaped of nummilitic limestone chopped straw. They are entirely hand- and a fragment of diorite which may have made and are often asymmetrical in been part of a bowl. shape. Among the larger cooking and The complete lack of any articles carved storage pots deep round-bottomed bowls of ivory is not only striking, but puzzling, and wide-mouthed bulbous jars of rough- since both the elephant and the hippo- faced brown ware predominate. A few potamus were common in the area and fiat-bottomed pedestaled cups and one were hunted by the Fayum people, as small cup resting on three knobbed feet attested, among other indications, by a are surprisingly sophisticated forms. number of decayed hippo tusks found in a Particularly characteristic of the Fayum pot and in one of the middens of Kom W. Neolithic A culture are rectangular basins Except for a few lumps of red ochre no of polished red ware with the rims pressed trace of metal or any metalliferous ore has up at the corners to form pronounced peaks. been found in an A-group context, even The surfaces of these platters, which do malachite, so common in prehistoric and not occur again in Egypt until much later later times as a pigment and cosmetic Pan-grave times, preserve "patches of a being entirely lacking. thin ferruginous slip of purply-red colour Whatever artistic tendencies the Neo- applied in horizontal smears below the lithic Fayumis may have possessed seem rim." Vessels of polished black ware are to have been confined to their superbly exceedingly rare, and in several of the fashioned and often beautiful stone tools examples found the black is probably and weapons. Decoration of any sort is accidental, the result of improper firing of exceedingly rare on any of the other what were to have been red-polished classes of objects found, being confined to oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 97 the two boss-studded potsherds referred technique of the Fayum and the Nile to above, an engraved line on a diorite Valley in general from the Aterian; and palette fragment, and groups of incised Arkell feels that "the neolithic features of rings around some of the bone points. the Fayum Neolithic were brought to the The total absence of burials in the Fayum" from "a dispersal area well to the low-lying, lakeside settlements, though west of the Nile Valley" ("perhaps understandable, has deprived us of any Tibesti)." McBurney, on the other hand, information not only on the physical and draws attention to the near-identity of ethnic character of the Neolithic inhabi- the Fayum A and Natufian sickle forms tants of the Fayum, but also on their and to the marked similarity which exists funerary customs and beliefs. Unless they between the burnished pottery of the were otherwise disposed of, it is probable Fayum and that of the coastal areas of the that the dead were buried in cemeteries in Levant, and thinks that "there is a very the higher ground some distance from the strong prima facie case for an ultimate villages, but to date no graves have been Levantine derivation of the [Fayum A] found which can with confidence be culture"; while Childe, after discussing the assigned to this period. possibilities of a western or southern Though the initial impetus toward a origin, concludes by pointing out the many semi-agricultural village life of the type "northern or Asiatic elements in the seen here is almost certainly to be sought neolithic cultures at least of Lower for in southwestern Asia, there is no general Egypt"; and Butzer, as we have seen, agreement among modern authorities on describes the Neolithic immigrants as the origin of the earliest Neolithic settlers "new cultural and ethnic groups originating in the Fayum or on the principal source of from the area of the Fertile Crescent ... " the cultural tradition reflected in their The occurrence in the middens of the villages and areas. Huzayyin, as A-group people of a few small blade-tools we have seen in Chapter II, would recog- and cores of Final Paleolithic or Mesolithic nize the prototypes of the more charac- type (see above) would seem to indicate teristic tool-forms of the Fayum Neolithic the survival in the area of bands of semi- (axes, tranchets, adzes, hollow-based nomadic hunters and fishermen at a far less arrowheads) in a local Upper Paleolithic advanced stage of economic and cultural industry, for which he has suggested the development than the contemporaneous name "Fayyoumian," or "Qarounian," inhabitants of the recently established and which he describes as a unique agricultural communities. As the Fayum development starting in the Levalloisian, lake continued its downward trend, first but "specializing more in the core than to 13 feet (four metres) above sea-level and in the flake and reviving the truly bifacial then to seven feet (two metres) below sea- technique." Having in 1934 favored "the level, this somewhat backward element possibility of an autochthonous Delta evidently became a more and more origin" for the Fayum Neolithic, Miss dominant factor in the local population, Caton-Thompson in 1952 was "tempted to to the detriment of the once flourishing see the origins of the Egyptian Neolithic Neolithic settlements and their culture. and early Predynastic bifaced tools" "in Degenerate forms of some of the A-group the Aterian foliates." Forde-Johnston also stone implements, however, continued to is inclined to derive the hollow-based be produced and are found, together with arrowhead and the Neolithic bifacial increasingly large numbers of microlithic oi.uchicago.edu

98 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT blades and points, on the surfaces of the B-group context. A flaked or plane village middens and at a series of evidently of piano-convex cross section, evidently temporary camp and chipping sites along intended for , is of a form not the northern rim of the ancient lake basin, found in situ in the A-group mounds, both above and below the level occupied but is known in the Predynastic middens by the Neolithic villagers. The resulting of the Nile Valley, in the oasis of Siwa, and mixed and essentially retrogressive culture, in the so-called Peasant Neolithic of now generally known as the Fayum "B" Kharga oasis. The microliths found either phase, is seen to have extended in time in association with these A-group survivals from the interval between the formation or in separate patches, or "swarms," of the 33- and 13-foot lake beaches to the constitute a "monotonous little repertory" earliest stage of the - 7-foot shoreline, that of single-backed straight blades, double- is, from the period of decline of the Fayum backed blades, partially backed or shanked A-culture to the establishment in the forms, trihedral rods, and small conical, Fayum area (notably near Qasr Qarun) rectangular, or amorphous cores. Having of outposts of a developed Predynastic comprised only a minute percentage of (chalcolithic) culture of Nile Valley origin. the implements present in the earlier Since it seems locally to have been generally Neolithic village sites, they now form a earlier than the latter culture and since it majority of all the tools found, while exhibits no trace of metal tools or the number of Fayum A implements has metalliferous substances of any kind it is decreased to such a striking degree as usually classed as "Later Neolithic," the to suggest "a drastic reduction in the term, however, being in this case a con- neolithic population as between A and B venient rather than a wholly accurate group times." description of the material involved. The later phase of the Fayum B culture In its earlier stage the Fayum B culture is associated with a well-defined beach at is characterized by a marked diminution seven feet below modern sea-level, a in the types of A-group implements still height apparently maintained by the lake produced and by the substitution of throughout the rest of Egyptian pre- variant or new forms for those abandoned. history and down into the time of the Old The temporary encampments of the Kingdom. Little change is apparent in the B-group people at the 13-foot lake level typology of the stone implements, but the yielded pebble-butted and pebble-backed degeneration of the Neolithic forms has knives and scrapers of A-group types, five progressed still further and the proportion abnormally small bifacial sickle-flints, of microliths to larger tools has increased. and the tip of a concavo-convex scraper, The now complete absence of sickle-flints, or "side-blow flake." Polished axes, so granaries, and millstones suggests that numerous in the A-group settlements and agriculture had been temporarily aban- granaries, no longer occur, their place doned as a means of livelihood and that having been more or less taken by chipped the inhabitants of the Fayum had reverted celtiform tools, including ovate and hoe- for the time being to an outmoded food- shaped forms. Tanged and winged arrow- gathering economy; and the absence of heads of a type attested elsewhere in the pottery, cosmetic palettes, and beads Egyptian area have largely replaced the bespeaks the poverty of the B-group concave-base type, only one example of encampments and the low level of the which has been recovered in an early culture represented by them. A few oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 99 beveled bone points were still being made miles to the north, show much the same and the majority of the grooved pebbles mixture of microlithic and developed used as net-weights are probably to be Neolithic forms which characterizes the assigned to this phase. At a late camp site Fayum B culture and include a number called by its excavators Moeris I and at of the more distinctive types of tools and "Site H, some two miles west of Dimai," weapons associated with that culture. "Fayum neolithic" types and a large We find, for example, among the number of Fayum micro-blades and other Siwa collections now in Cambridge and wind-worn microliths were found together Alexandria the concavo-convex scraper, with larger, coarse unifacial blades which or side-blow flake, known elsewhere only seem to be related both chronologically in the Fayum and at Kharga, the plano- and typologically, as well as in the convex adze or "plane," small pressure- technique of their manufacture, to the fine flaked tanged, leaf-shaped, and elongated unifacial blades of the Predynastic settle- arrowheads, all of which can be matched ment near Qasr Qarun. in Fayum B and at Kharga, trihedral rod-shaped "," miscellaneous pressure 3. THE OASES OF SIwA AND KHAROA flaked tools including planes, small leaf- Whereas the Neolithic settlements at shaped knives, and points, the "general Merimda Beni Salama, on the western effect" of which is "closely similar" to fringe of the Delta, and at Shaheinab in pieces from the Fayum, oval or slightly the Sudan show marked parallelisms with pointed bifacial tools "not unknown in the the Fayum Neolithic A, in the Libyan Neolithic of the Fayum," "though less Desert areas to the west of the Nile Valley conspicuous" there than further west, the affinities are chiefly with the later, B straw-polished bifacial sickle-blades like culture. For this reason it seems desirable those of the Fayum and other Egyptian to discuss the Neolithic remains in these sites, and spherical calcite maceheads or areas while the picture of the latter culture spindle whorls known also among the is still fresh in our minds, though much Fayum surface finds. As in the B culture of the material involved is of relatively single-backed, double-backed, and shanked late date, being partly, if not wholly, blades predominate among the Siwa contemporaneous with the Predynastic microliths. "Virtually all the charac- cultures of Upper Egypt. teristics of Stage 'B,"'" says McBurney, "are The oasis of Siwa, a depression some represented, but none of those which are fifty miles in length from east to west and the exclusive of 'A."'" The same twenty miles in width, lies approximately writer also notes the absence of "specimens two hundred and seventy-five miles due displaying traits peculiar to the later west of the Fayum, near the modern Pre-dynastic or early Dynastic flint boundary line between Egypt and Libya, working traditions." and roughly one hundred and seventy Aside from its many links with the miles south of the Mediterranean coast. Fayum B-group the stone industry of Surface collections of stone implements Siwa exhibits one or two "western traits," from small farming(?) settlements on the such as the Sirtican round-based arrow- slopes and terraces of the depression's head with micro-burin finish and the oval northern escarpment and from hunting biface which, though known in Egypt, is camps grouped around small pond-like far more abundant in nearby Cyrenaica basins on the desert plateau, nineteen and, further to the west, in the Maghreb. oi.uchicago.edu

100 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT

Heavy stone querns were found at hunting culture to which Miss Caton- several of the chipping sites on the Thompson has given the name Bedouin northern escarpment of the oasis. They Microlithic and of a settled agricultural range in size up to a foot in diameter and population whom she describes as Peasant are provided with flat circular pebble Neolithic. The two groups have further rubbers or grinders. They could have been been identified with the authors of the used, as in the Maghreb, for grinding ochre, rock-drawings assigned by Winkler, re- but are more likely to have been mills for spectively, to his so-called Earliest Hunters grain. Their presence together with that and to his Early Oasis Dwellers (see above, of the well-worn sickle blades suggests p. 73). Though widely divergent in their that catch-crops of wheat and barley mode of life and cultural level they are may have been grown by the Neolithic found occasionally in the same localities Siwans on the terraces of the escarpment and appear to have been, partially at least, and their weight implies settlements of a contemporaneous with one another and somewhat more permanent nature than with the earlier Predynastic (Naqada I) the hunting camps of the northern plateau culture of Upper Egypt. surface. Pottery is represented by a The Bedouin Microlithic folk are seen fragment of a thick-walled hand-made as a roving people still in an essentially vessel with bands of impressed ornamenta- "Mesolithic" stage of existence. Their tion on the exterior and by a piece of a small-scale stone industry is comprised heavy round-based pot of somewhat entirely of narrow blades and backed indefinite, though probably prehistoric, bladelets suitable for composite mounting, date. A cobble of speckled green crystalline small leather borers, and a multiplicity of rock, from which a few flakes have been arrow tips, including transverse, shanked- removed, must have been imported from blade, lozenge, foliate, winged, and tanged some distance away, since the stone is not forms. Burins, microburins, and trapezes local to Siwa or its vicinity. are lacking and geometric forms of any Following a reference to "the pastoral type are exceedingly rare. Aside from their and primitive agricultural economy" which stone implements and weapons the halting had been implanted in the eastern Libyan places of these hunting tribes around some area at this time McBurney concludes by of the silty basins of the Kharga depression remarking that "as far as Siwa is concerned and the silt pans of the adjoining Libyan its close affinity with Kharga and the Plateau yielded only a few small discoid Fayum is probably sufficiently explained hand-mills of sandstone, intended perhaps by the fairly uniform nature of the oasis for grinding colocynth seeds and light and plateau environment which... forms enough to be readily portable, and some a not ill-defined geographical unit whose bits of ostrich eggshell including pierced westerly extremity lies at Jaghbub." disks of shell apparently strung and worn At Kharga, four hundred miles to the as beads. A Cardium shell found on one of southeast of Siwa and only eighty to the Bedouin Microlithic camp sites may ninety miles from the Nile Valley in have come from the Fayum with which, southern Upper Egypt, the microlithic according to McBurney, the culture in and Neolithic elements are not mingled as general offers "a remarkably consistent in the Fayum B and Siwan assemblages, typological picture," showing, on the but form two separate industries, the other hand, few points of contact with products, respectively, of a nomadic either the Typical or Upper Capsian or oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 101 with the Sebil III culture of nearby gravers, and a variety of arrowheads, southern Upper Egypt. Small groups of including a kind of concave-based point, much the same hunting people were not dissimilar from those of the Fayum A spread out over wide areas of what is now and Badarian cultures, but with angled the Libyan Desert, occupying mud- instead of rounded or pointed extremities. bottomed depressions along the route Hand-mills of diorite and sandstone, from Kharga and Dakhla to Gilf Kebir, fragments of undecorated reddish brown on the track between Uweinat and Selima, pottery vessels with plain rims, the and, to the north, in an area to the west of imprint of a woven straw or grass platter, Abu Mungar. Their crude but highly and a rough of green microcline informative rock-drawings have been dis- felspar serve to round out our picture of cussed in some detail at the end of Chapter the material culture and "home life" of II, above. the Neolithic Khargans, and the remains In contrast to these lightly equipped of hyenas, two kinds of gazelle, and the and wide-ranging the Peasant fish Lates niloticus tell us something of the Neolithic population of Kharga made their fauna and climatic conditions amid which habitations on the floor of the depression they lived. in the immediate vicinity of the moribund At the chert workings on the high Pleistocene mound-springs, some of which plateau between the Refuf and Abu they re-opened by digging, and confined Sighawal passes the same people have left their activities to the areas around these us massive mauls, choppers, and hoes (or springs and to a seam of tabular chert coarse adzes), gigantic oval or discoidal on the Eastern Scarp edge of the Libyan plaque scrapers, a few light picks or Plateau where they mined the material punches, and many of the distinctive for their often massive stone implements. concavo-convex side-blow flakes-for the In both areas are found the remains of most part unfinished. That some of these their big circular hearths or fire-pits, implements were stone-masons' or quarry- lined with heavy slabs of a bluish lime- men's tools seems not unlikely, though stone brought from the scarp and once there is little area of agreement between surrounded, to judge from the presence of the Kharga series and the equally massive tamarisk roots, by circles of scrubby but generally later (Predynastic and vegetation. There are no traces of houses Dynastic) implements from the well known in the settlement areas, but the craters of flint mines of the Wadi el Sheikh in Middle already dried-up mound-springs were Egypt. apparently used as shelters. Here, in situ In the Peasant Neolithic folk of Kharga in the sandrock cappings of the spring we see, then, more or less sedentary mounds or on the surface round about, are communities of cultivators possessed of a found flaked chert axes with transverse highly developed "heavy industry" of edging, axes of nummilitic limestone, and stone tools and of sufficient imagination lugged scutiform axes of chert, chisels, and initiative to attempt, by sinking planes, and scrapers, including the concavo- shallow, funnel-shaped shafts into the convex, or side-blow, type of scraper, nearly defunct mound-springs, to resurrect massive bifacial and unifacial knives, and control a failing water supply and in so serrated sickle-blades and other saw- doing to take what may well be one of the toothed tools, light picks or punches, earliest recorded steps in "the age-long retouched bulbar flakes, a few burins, or development of hydraulic engineering." oi.uchicago.edu

102 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT

If, as seems likely, the Peasant Neolithic and the appearance of the Oasis Dwellers' cultivators of Kharga and the "Early pregnant "goddess" in the drawings of the Oasis Dwellers" of a group of rock drawings latter indicates that the two peoples-the observed by Winkler and others in an settled cultivators and the roving bands ancient depression to the east of the oasis of hunters-lived amicably side by side of Dakhla are one and the same people, and exchanged ideas one with the other. we know something of their magico- The distinctive zigzag treatment of the religious beliefs and of their association body of an elephant in a drawing of the with the more or less contemporaneous Earliest Hunters points to the at least hunting tribes of the area. The drawings partial contemporaneity of both them in question, carved in a primitive form of and their associates, the Early Oasis sunk relief on and around a series of small Dwellers (= Peasant Neolithic people) sandstone hills, portray almost without with the "Amratian," or Naqada I, exception crude mud(?) statuettes of a culture of the Nile Valley. pregnant female with exaggeratedly large Associations of the Khargan Peasant hips and buttocks, thought by Winkler Neolithic with the Fayum (B-culture), to have been a fertility goddess and Siwa, and, above all, the Predynastic bringer of rain. Unlike her naked devotees, settlement at Armant in the Nile Valley the "goddess" is clad in a skirt adorned immediately opposite "the Great Oasis," with woven patterns and occasionally are readily apparent, the agreement of the wears patterned sandals, a necklace(?), stone implements in the last instance and a high cap or radiate headdress above being sufficiently close to permit us to date her long plaited hair, her costume reflecting the Khargan settlements to Early-Middle a high degree of skill in the of Predynastic times and to suggest a cloth and production of other garments migration of the same groups of people among the prehistoric inhabitants of the either from the Nile Valley westward to oasis. In one scene cattle are being the oasis or from the oasis to the riverine presented to the deity either as zone. or for her blessing; but are otherwise very In marshaling the evidence for the rarely represented in these drawings and existence of a Neolithic subpluvial, or evidently played no important role in the relatively moist interval, extending from economy of their authors. Other animals about 5000 to approximately 2350 B.C., known and depicted by the Early Oasis Karl Butzer refers to the "innumerable Dwellers are the giraffe, the antelope, the Neolithic... sites... still preserved along ibex, the ostrich, and the dog. Hand-mills the desert margins of the Valley from for grinding grain are found in the vicinity Merimde to Upper Nubia" and of "the of the drawings, and the desert surface wealth of New Stone Age artifacts round about is strewn with Neolithic stone seemingly scattered over the desert surfaces implements described by Winkler as of the greater part of Egypt," which "do "typical of the Faiyim" and assumed by not only occur at oases such as the Gilf Miss Caton-Thompson to be Peasant Kebir and Kharga but along the routes Neolithic. The style of the drawings is a across the Libyan Desert." Among such combination of that of the cattle-breeding surface concentrations of Neolithic "Autochthonous Mountain Dwellers of implements may be mentioned the ones Uweinat" and that of the "Earliest found by Georges Legrain in 1897 some Hunters" (= Bedouin Microlithic folk?), forty to forty-nine hours by camel along oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 103 the desert track leading from Rizeiqat in Nile Delta indicate that about 5000 B.C. southern Upper Egypt to the Oasis of large areas of relatively high ground in Kharga and the similar groups observed and around the southern half of the broad by Miss Caton-Thompson at three or four and fertile triangle were not only habitable points along the light railway line con- but were in all probability dotted with necting Abydos with the oasis. Stone- village farming communities similar to lined hearths, hand-mills of sandstone, those of the Fayum and of the adjoining and quantities of "very finely worked" areas of southwestern Asia. Most of these implements strongly reminiscent of those villages appear either to have been sub- of the Fayum were seen by the expedition merged in relatively recent times beneath of Prince Kemal el-Din Hussein on the the rising silts of the Nile's alluvial plain plateau surface between Ain Dalla and or to have remained unexplored. A notable Alam el- Ghard, to the northwest of the exception is a great settlement at a site oases of Farafra and Baharia. In or near called Merimda ("Place of Ashes") on the the Nile Valley surface finds of Neolithic southwestern fringe of the Delta one and flints have been recorded at Aswan, a third miles south of the modern village Qurna, and Medamud in southern Upper of Beni Salama and an equal distance Egypt, at the flint mines of the Wadi el from the Rosetta arm of the Nile, which Sheikh, and near Maasara in the Eastern probably at one time flowed close beside Desert ten miles south of Cairo. the ancient town. The ground on which Like the Fayum, Siwa, Kharga, and the latter was founded, now part of the the other Libyan Desert sites now under so-called Low Desert, is composed of consideration belong to the eastern of the Middle Paleolithic silts rising some ten two culture provinces into which McBurney feet above the level of the modern divides the Neolithic of North Africa, a alluvium and banked against bluffs of province wherein "a remarkably constant Lower Pleistocene (pre-Paleolithic?) sandy culture pattern of incipient food-producing gravels. With an area of over 215,000 type seems to have been established square yards, an average depth of seven starting as early as the late fifth millennium feet of cultural debris, and a lifetime of B.C." This can be ascribed, the same author some six centuries, the town, if fully goes on to say, "to culture contact between occupied at any one time, would have the indigenous using hunters, supported a population of 16,000 and and intrusive food-producing groups would, thus, have been one of the largest ultimately deriving from South West Asia. prehistoric settlements in Egypt, rivaled The special character of this province, only by the big Predynastic town at already noticeable in the later hunting Hierakonpolis. Three layers or stages in cultures, seems to have been maintained the settlement of the site have been locally well into historical times, to judge distinguished, the lowest and earliest from the uniformity and consistency of the layer dated by radiocarbon tests to 4130 archaeological material." B.C., the uppermost layer to 3530 B.C. These dates, according to Hjalmar Larsen, who is followed in his conclusions by 4. THE WEST DELTA SETTLEMENT Hermann Junker, the excavator of the OF MERIMDA BENI SALAMA site, are much too low and are to be raised, Reconstructions by Passarge and by analogy with later, obviously low Butzer of the ancient landscape of the Carbon-14 readings from Egypt, to 5040 oi.uchicago.edu

104 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT

(or 5290) B.C. and to 4350 (or 4570) B.C., are such sophisticated forms as footed respectively. vases, carinated vases, pottery ring-stands The firstcomers to the site of Merimda for jars, and pottery ladles. In general, settled on a gentle sandy rise near the there is a predilection at this stage for river's edge in the midst of what were hard red ware, sometimes with a slight then probably seasonal pasturelands and admixture of chopped straw; but bowls not far removed, we may be sure, from of greyish yellow ware are also found, as arable stretches of Nile silt. Their flimsily well as the large, coarse basins or pans, constructed and evidently sparsely which are common to all three layers. scattered shelters and windbreaks have Noteworthy is the absence in the first been engulfed or swept away by sand- level of the fine polished black ware and storms and by sheetflooding during the decorative knobs or bosses charac- intervals of "appreciable rainfall," the teristic of the pottery of the upper strata. latter having left a "thin but fairly Rows of post-holes and fragments of continuous" spread of gravel over the the wooden posts themselves show that whole of "the lowest settlement stratum." the villagers of Layer II lived in oval A few of their hearths, however, still huts of wood-frame and wickerwork survive, showing black in the midst of construction, perhaps covered.with hides, the yellowish soil, and, in the same and in horseshoe-shaped shelters of similar habitation area, fifteen shallow oval construction with the open end normally graves filled with grey earth and contain- toward the southeast, away from the ing in each case a human skeleton, usually strong westerly winds which prevail in that of a young child or a woman, lying this region. In some instances the roof of on its side in more or less contracted the had been supported by a stout position and normally not provided with wooden column at the centre of the any kind of personal adornment or food dwelling and in one case a partition, offering. There are as yet no traces of marked by a row of post-holes, had divided granaries, but one of the hearths yielded the house into two rooms of unequal size, grains of cultivated emmer wheat (Triticum reminiscent of the entranceway and main dicoccumrn) altogether similar to that found chamber of modern African huts. The in the basketry silos of the layers above. hearths which are prominent features of The implements of the earliest settlers these dwellings exhibit several different differ in no essential respect from those of forms, including the simple round or oval their descendants, comprising, among fire-pit, smeared inside with mud, the other forms, bone awls and harpoons, fire-tray of Nile-mud clods with a smooth, flint knives, and cylindrical axeheads of flat surface for heating cakes, the grooved flint and other hard stones. Their pottery, with a hollow in the middle for a on the other hand, exhibits certain forms cookpot, and pairs of conical mud fire- and wares which are either rare or lacking dogs or "andirons," designed to raise the in the upper levels of the settlement. cooking vessel above the level of the mud Particularly characteristic are bowls of or beaten earth floors. Smaller holes in the fine hard polished red ware, having below floors served as supports for the round- the rim a mat band adorned with an bottomed household vessels. Besides these incised horizontal herringbone pattern, some of the dwellings contained pottery usually without a midrib. Also present in water-jars sunk in the floors, heavy mud- the first stage of the Merimda settlement lined mortars for crushing fruit or the like, oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 105 and large circular or oval baskets woven settlers; but among the pottery vessels of rush (arundo donax) or wheat straw the fine polished red ware bowls with and evidently used for storing grain. In herringbone patterns, so characteristic of the upper sub-strata of this layer are Layer I, have all but disappeared and have found for the first time traces of similar been largely replaced by vessels of polished large baskets coated on the outside with black pottery and of various coarse wares, clay and sunk into pits in the earth to not infrequently provided with knobs or form silos of much the same type as those bosses below the rim to serve as handles already seen in the Fayum. At Merimda, and elsewhere purely as decoration. High- however, the granaries are not normally footed vases and chalice-shaped vessels segregated in groups off by them- are among the new forms which begin to selves away from the village, but are put in an appearance in the second phase scattered through it and are associated of the settlement's evidently extended with the individual dwelling places. A occupation. number of them preserved portions of The uppermost layer at Merimda is a their woven matwork covers and, below dark grey mass of settlement debris far and between these, a few blackened deeper and denser than the earlier strata. grains of Triticum dicoccum, or emmer, Here we are confronted by the remains of and of a globular grain which has been a large closed village of mud buildings, identified as a small-leafed fodder-vetch huts, and work places, which, though not (Vicia sativa augustifolia). Larger but apparently surrounded by a wall or shallower circular cavities up to thirteen embankment, was, like the Egyptian feet in diameter, their sides revetted with village of today, protected against the spiral matting, may have been threshing intrusion of wind-blown sand by the floors, especially since grain was found in number and close juxtaposition of its them and in receptacles nearby. Also houses. The latter, laid out in ragged rows scattered among the houses and granaries on either side of what appear to have been of this level are contracted burials of the winding streets, are for the most part oval same simple type seen in Layer I and chambers, five to ten and a half feet across, presently to be encountered in Layer III, sunk a foot and a half into the ground and normally unprovided with offerings except continued above ground by walls more for a few wheat grains placed near the than three feet high built up of super- mouth or strewn over the body. Despite imposed rings of Nile mud or constructed the improvements in house construction of rough blocks or clods of the same and grain storage achieved during the material containing a binder of chopped second stage of its history the town straw and, like the interiors and floors of remained throughout this stage an open the houses, covered with a coating of mud settlement of sparsely scattered dwelling- plaster. There may have been upper walls groups, or little "farmsteads," not yet and roofs of rush or reed matting; pairs of sufficiently closely grouped to prevent the post-holes at the ends of some of the ovals infiltration into every substratum of the suggest that the roof in these cases may settlement area of massive quantities of have been double pitched. Access to the wind-blown sand. No very striking changes house was gained by means of a crude step have taken place in the household, consisting of the leg-bone (tibia) of a farming, and hunting implements of the hippopotamus or a short wooden post set people since the time of the original upright against the inside surface of the oi.uchicago.edu

106 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT mud wall. A pottery jar embedded either let into the ground and resembling great in the floor or against the wall was bowls and in huge flat-bottomed cordiform evidently intended to hold a supply of pottery jars, or pithoi, over three feet high drinking water rather than to serve as a and two feet in diameter at the shoulder, drain, as was once thought. Such houses also buried in the ground up to the level would have provided ample protection of their evidently narrow mouths. The against the rain, cold, and winds of the earlier examples of these pithoi are northern Egyptian winter; and it is clear ineptly made of a coarse red ware and tend from the presence in them of hearths, to be irregular and asymmetrical in shape, ring-stands for platters, and bits of animal suggesting that a mastery of the technique bones that meals were sometimes eaten of their manufacture had not yet been in their interiors. Since the prehistoric attained; but those of the uppermost sub- Egyptian, like his more recent descendants, strata of the layer, a reddish light brown normally slept in curled-up, or contracted, in color, are thin-walled and regular in position the larger houses at Merimda form. The other pottery of Layer III is could have accommodated entire families. characterized by the extensive use, for Their oval form is undoubtedly reflected the finer pieces, of a soft black polished in that of the contemporaneous and later ware and by the complete disappearance prehistoric graves-shallow oval pits of the fine red-ware vessels with incised wherein the dead also lie on one side, in herringbone ornament, found in the contracted position, as if in sleep. Though earliest levels. The decoration now consists primitive in many respects, these houses of groups of simple incised lines, rows of are solidly and painstakingly built and small circular hollows, applied bosses, and were evidently designed to last a long small rib-like ornaments, as well as time, suggesting in their construction and vertical, horizontal, and horseshoe-shaped arrangement an urban community of a rolls, the last serving as hand-grips for permanent nature rather than a desert- lifting the vessels. fringe encampment of semi-nomadic tribes- In general, the pottery of Merimda, men. Their alignment in rows to form though comparable to that of the Fayum streets almost certainly reflects the "A" settlements, differs from the latter in existence of some form of local govern- a number of significant details and seems, ment, headed probably by a town or on the whole, to be more evolved. It tends, district chieftain. for example, less to the simple bag-like Oval huts and horseshoe-shaped shelters forms seen in the Fayum and more of light construction still continued to be to flat-bottomed and concave-bottomed built for use by day and in warm weather dishes, bowls, and jars, and comprises a as temporary residences, kitchens, work- number of quite elaborate footed and shops, and the like. A more or less complete multi-legged forms, including bowls and made of long bunches of reeds bound jars standing on human feet modeled of together by cross-bundles of the same clay, vessels with tapered tubular spouts material resembles the present-day bus- or open spouts, carinated vases, double fence, or zeriba, used as an enclosure for vases, conical beakers, chalices, oval and small cattle and grain. Besides the now boat-shaped bowls, ring-stands for round- numerous sunken basketry granaries, grain, bottomed jars, and well developed if fruit, and other commodities were stored somewhat coarse terra cotta ladles, spoons, in hemispherical, mud-lined storage bins and scoops, the last occurring also on oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 107 early Chalcolithic sites in Palestine. Besides hollow interiors small pebbles. They were the fragments of vessels with the horseshoe- perhaps children's toys, though larger shaped grips below the rim there are others examples found in the same part of the with thumb-sockets, projecting knob- settlement have been thought to be cult handles and conical handles and at least implements used in some form of religious one example with a stirrup handle. Holes ceremonial. The mid-section of a human for suspension cords occur near the rims figure modeled of Nile clay and lightly of a number of potsherds from Merimda, fired probably represents a woman or while others show similar holes used for goddess, a pair of protuberances rather lashing together the pieces of vessels which low on the figure being taken as breasts had been broken. Miniature jars and and a loop of incised dots above and bowls found during the season of 1931-1932 between them as a bead necklace. The have been thought to be children's toys clay of which the figure is made contains ("doll's dishes"), but are more likely to a binder of chopped straw and tiny have been containers for or glittering particles, possibly mica. Like perhaps even votive vessels like the model the ivory figures of Badari in Upper Egypt vases found in tomb-chapels and founda- it would appear to have been an idol of tion deposits of the dynastic period. Many some sort rather than a doll. A bull's head, of the larger narrow-mouthed jars were also modeled of dried Nile mud, has also provided with lids composed of potsherds been identified as a cult object, rather or, more rarely, thin slabs of stone trimmed than a toy, and has been compared with to form flat disks and in one case grooved other prehistoric and Early Dynastic on the under side for a cord lifting device. heads of animal divinities. On the other At Merimda the wares, polished, hand- hand, a Nile mud model of a boat, pointed smoothed, and coarse, include red, black, at both ends and having a low freeboard, red-black speckled, reddish and yellowish since it was found, not in a grave, but grey, and light or grey brown with a red loose in the settlement debris, some five slip, or . With the exception of the feet below the surface, can hardly have finest polished red and black wares most had the funerary significance later attached of the pottery contains a binder of chopped to such models and may indeed have been straw. There is, as has been suggested, a a child's plaything. Its importance lies in general similarity to the pottery of the the fact that it offers definite evidence Fayum, where, however, the black wares that the Merimdians of this early period played a far less important role than here possessed serviceable boats and would in the western Delta. The great quantity therefore have been able with relative of pottery vessels produced by the ease to cross marshes, Nile arms, and Neolithic inhabitants of Merimda is probably even larger bodies of water in attested by the recovery from a small any hypothetical journey from an eastern portion of the site during the seasons of point of origin to the western fringe of the 1928 to 1932 of over 60,000 sherds and 41 Delta. Finally, there are some curious complete vessels. fragments of Nile mud found in 1928 Exceptional interest attaches to a lying on the surface of the site and some- miscellany of objects, other than vessels, what imaginatively interpreted as parts of made of pottery, clay, and dried Nile mud. headrests, an article of which is Small barrel-shaped rattles of red polished not otherwise attested in Egypt before pottery flecked with black contain in their dynastic times. Since both the true nature oi.uchicago.edu

108 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT of these rather amorphous bits of mud the stalks of grain. A coarse-toothed saw and their association, if any, with the of unusual type has a concave end, like settlement layers below are matters of the an arrowhead, evidently for mounting on utmost uncertainty, it would seem hardly a handle of some sort. Besides the elongated justifiable-as has been done-to regard triangular , retouched on both sides, them as indications of an Early Dynastic there are also fine-toothed unifacial saws date for the uppermost level of the made from blades and having, as in later settlement, especially since the latter has prehistoric and early historic times, been dated by radiocarbon tests to the smooth, unworked undersides. early fourth (or late fifth) millennium B.C. The Merimdian hollow-based arrowhead As in the Fayum A-group settlements often differs from those of the Fayum and the most characteristic and by far the the Upper Egyptian site of Badari in most common type of stone implement having straight sides and rounded or made and used by the villagers of Merimda beveled-not pointed-wing tips. As in was the bifacial axehead, usually of flint the Fayum "A" settlements it is the but also produced in other fine hard prevailing type, the triangular arrowhead stones such as quartzite, granite, chlo- being less common and the tanged arrow- melanite, nephrite, basalt, red jasper, head exceedingly sparse, but including chalcedony(?), and quartzite schist and, several specimens with toothed or barbed in a very few instances, in limestone. The edges and long tangs of a type known also numerous examples in flint are usually in the Fayum, in North Africa, and in chipped to shape from an appropriately western Europe. Among the hollow-based formed nodule and their edges ground to heads is a show-piece, described by its an often knife-like sharpness, the rest of finders as the "most beautiful known the tool being sometimes left untouched, Neolithic arrowhead." Three and a half with the cortex intact, when the nodule inches long and very thin, it was polished chosen already had the form desired. on both sides and then skillfully retouched Those made of other stones are of two along the edges. Several handsome polished general forms: the elongated "cylindrical" lanceheads of elongated foliate or triangular axehead with more or less rounded cross- form, in one case with lateral barbs near section and the smaller and more trape- the point of attachment, range in length zoidal head with a wider edge in proportion up to six and a quarter inches. to its length and usually with a fine over- A thick, ground and retouched point of all polish. The latter, evidently for the unusual nature is believed to have been most part "show pieces," include two mounted at right angles to its shaft and, superb examples of haematite, the polished if so, must have constituted a formidable surfaces of which have a lustrous metallic weapon of the type called in German a sheen. "Dolchstab" or "Dolchbeil." The point At Merimda saw-toothed sickle flints, in question "has two close relatives in the closely similar to those from the Fayum, Fayum culture" which, according to Miss occur in matched and close-fitting sets of Caton-Thompson, "do more to strengthen three, a rectangular element flanked by the essential unity of the two groups than two pointed ones to form a continuous, a host of minor differences due to local double-ended cutting edge. The serrated environment, independent development, edges of these copiously represented or the caprices of discovery can do to implements are usually glossy from cutting weaken it." oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 109

The knife blades of Merimda show a possibly serpentine or greywacke, and a variety of forms, among the more common black and white stone, probably some type of which are broad, sharply curved with of diorite. rounded or pointed tips, sometimes tanged Interesting is the identification of a and sometimes with a finely serrated large number of small roundish flints, cutting edge. A long dagger blade with ground to a conical point on one side, as slightly convex edges is waisted near the sling-stones, since the sling, though popular butt end for attachment to its haft; a in western Asia and, later, in Libya, was curious tanged implement has a broad not a weapon much used by the Egyptians chisel-like cutting edge at right angles to of any age. its long axis; and a flat halberd-like blade Besides a number of true Paleolithic is reminiscent of several found in the stone implements, derived mainly from Fayum. Small stone awls and scrapers of gravel slopes to the west and southwest various types, the latter often showing of the site, the settlement yielded a a steep secondary retouch, are fairly considerable quantity of implements of numerous in the settlement but are not Paleolithic character and appearance, but among its more distinctive implement of Neolithic or later origin, their presence forms. reflecting a tendency noted elsewhere in The stone-headed mace, a favored the Egyptian Neolithic and post-Neolithic battle and hunting weapon of the pre- industries to reproduce certain primitive historic peoples of the eastern Medi- forms-hand-axes, coarse cleavers, crude terranean world, is well represented at boring tools, and flat scrapers-originated Merimda, where the heads, like those of in or reminiscent of the Old Stone Age. Palestine and Anatolia, are invariably The dating of these implements, believed pear-shaped or, less frequently, spheroid. by Junker and Menghin to have been This form is not found in Upper Egypt contemporaneous with the settlement until Naqada II times and is somewhat itself, presents something of a problem, doubtfully represented in the Fayum, the so-called "hand-axes of pronounced two so-called maceheads found there Chalossian type" being, in Caton- having the discoid form popular in the Thompson's opinion, identical with the earlier Predynastic culture of southern "pebble hand-picks" of Old Kingdom age Egypt (Naqada I), while a number of found in the gypsum quarries along the rather small spheroid objects of limestone northern rim of the Fayum depression. and dolerite would appear to have been For shaping and polishing his stone spindle whorls rather than weapons. For implements and weapons the Neolithic attachment to their shafts the hard stone Merimdian used hammerstones of flint, heads are drilled longitudinally from white quartzite, and other hard rocks in either end, the elongated conical holes various shapes and sizes, including flat meeting in centers of the heads. An -shaped specimens with indentations unfinished specimen, only half drilled for the users' fingers and slender examples through, indicates that manufacture was with small striking surfaces for more carried out on the site of Merimda itself, delicate work; slipstones and polishing though some of the materials used were stones, chiefly of petrified wood, also in a certainly imported from considerable dis- variety of sizes, most of them worn tances away. The latter include basalt, concave on both working surfaces; and granite, volcanic rock, a grey-green stone, pointed or edged stone retouching tools of oi.uchicago.edu

110 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT many forms. The purpose for which a fourth at a depth of less than twenty great quantity of smooth round white inches below the surface. Of the complete pebbles, all of about the same size, was vessels a deep, flat-footed little bowl of collected and stored in a circular pit near diorite, now in Stockholm, measures only one of the village's dwelling houses "is four inches in height and has borrowed not evident." its form from pottery bowls of the same Numerous oval and irregularly shaped uppermost level. A tiny beaker, two and hand-mills and grinding stones of sand- three-quarters inches high, made of basalt, stone, basalt, and granite were found calls to mind the pottery beakers of strewn over the whole of the settlement Badari in Upper Egypt. The minute size, area. They were evidently household irregularity of profile, and heaviness of objects, used both for milling the wheat these vessels indicate clearly that, locally and other cereal grains which are assumed at least, the art of making them was still to have supplied an important part of the in its infancy. villagers' diet and for grinding the ruddle, Two or three hundred implements of or red ochre, used to adorn their owners' bone, ivory, and horn were recovered bodies. Small, flat palettes of "alabaster" from the ruins of the settlement at (i.e., calcite), granite, and a dark basaltic Merimda. Most of these, it would seem, stone were perhaps designed for grinding were used in the dressing and stitching the smaller amounts of pigment used as together of animal skins for the production face and eye cosmetics. Characteristic of of leather garments, bags and other these cosmetic palettes is a complete containers, the coverings of shelters, and example in black basalt found together the like. The dominant types, in any case, with a small brown grinding pebble some are knife-like implements provided five and a half feet below the surface of the occasionally with holes for suspension, site, not far from the burial of an adult of flat triangular or round-topped scrapers unrecorded sex. It is shield-shaped with a resembling modern leather dressers' small notch in its straight top edge a fleshing-knives, punches, or coarse awls, short distance in from each corner. The fine awls, sewing needles, in some cases type is unknown in either Upper Egypt or with eyes, larger, blunt-ended needles, the Fayum, but is paralleled by an example used perhaps in the making of fish nets, in the museum in Jerusalem and by a slate and a variety of spatulae including an palette of much later date from one of the awl and spatula combined in a single tool. sun-temples at Abusir. An ivory plaque A rib-bone with a rounded end is believed from the lowermost level of the settle- to have served for smoothing either a ment is of the same form, but in view of seam in leather or the surface of an object its material, can hardly be regarded as a of bone or wood. Flat, pointed instruments grinding surface. Possibly, however, it was of bone were probably employed in the for mixing cosmetic colors or other pressure flaking of small flints, such as pigments. arrowheads. The bone harpoons of Merimda A few very small, thick-walled stone have one or more barbs, like those of the vases, of basalt and mottled diorite, were Fayum; but the fish hook, of which, as we produced by the inhabitants of the latest, have seen, none was found in the Fayum, or uppermost, level of the Merimda is without a barb and, though made of settlement, three examples having been horn, resembles in this and in other found on the surface of the site and a respects the shell and ivory fish hooks of oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGY 111IIPT

Tasa, Badari, and Shaheinab as well as where in the eastern Mediterranean area, the earliest copper fish hooks found in notably in the Fayum and in the earliest Egypt. Sections of hollow bone were made Neolithic level at Jericho, and the boar's to serve as pipes, as tubular containers, tusk, an example of which was found in and as handles for other implements, position on the breast of a skeleton and being in the last instances sometimes which may reflect the important role grooved or rebated at one end or provided played by the pig in the economy, if not with a series of incised parallel rings. in the magico-religious beliefs, of the A miscellany of objects in various Merimdians (see below). A pear-shaped materials, though numerically unimpres- pendant is carved from the tusk of a sive, throws considerable additional light hippopotamus, while others consist simply on the industries and other activities of of small bivalve shells notched around the the townspeople of Merimda. Small egg- edges and pierced in each case with a hole shaped weights of limestone are grooved for suspension. A more elaborate pendant longitudinally, almost certainly for attach- amulet has the form of a small plano- ment, as sinkers, to the edges of fishing convex cosmetic palette with a suspension nets. An oval spindle whorl of unfired clay hole near the center of its top edge and a has the form seen in the later hieroglyph semicircular notch in either of its sides for "spindle." Together with several near the top. Roughly tubular, spherical, discoid whorls made of potsherds it lenticular, and disk-shaped beads occur attests a local knowledge, as in the Fayum, in a variety of materials, including black of the spinning of linen thread and, and green stone, alabaster, ivory, bone, presumably, the weaving of cloth. Spatha and clay fired black and polished, and shells were used as scoops or ladles in the small rings of bone and of alabaster seem kitchens of the settlement and are to have formed links in chainlike necklaces. occasionally serrated around the edges for Other narrow sections of tubular bones use as fish scalers in much the same fashion have been identified as finger rings, but as they were in the Fayum. A fragmentary seem in most cases too small for the sieve or strainer in an undesignated purpose, unless the wearers were infant material is referred to by the excavators children. Fragments of several plain, of the site as "the first and only example" ring-shaped bangles of ivory were found, of its kind. in one instance near a burial, as well as a Jewelry and other items of personal wide bracelet of clay, fired black and adornment, though not as rare as in the engraved on the exterior with a series of Fayum settlements, are still scarce, and parallel curved lines. A carved piece of it is clear that, with the exception of an bone has been identified, perhaps correctly, occasional primitive pendant or a few as the top of a hairpin. The curious roughly shaped beads, jewelry was not absence of combs, which are so common generally worn by the people of Merimda. in the prehistoric cemeteries of Upper Twenty bodies found buried in the settle- Egypt, may be attributable to the ment during the first season's excavations extreme fragility of this class of object, to yielded, between them, only one ivory the ravages which the site has undergone bead and one stone pendant. The pendants, at the hands of man and of nature, and evidently worn as amulets, include the to the fact that only a small percentage of miniature axehead of highly polished dark its total area has yet been excavated. green or black stone, which occurs else- The bones and horns of numerous oi.uchicago.edu

112 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT domestic animals found in the hearths, the settlement, for the 125 graves found potholes, storage areas, and general rubbish during the seven seasons of excavation of the settlement show that stock farming can hardly represent the total mortality played a far more important role in the during the prolonged occupation of the life and economy of the Merimdians than huge site or even that which occurred it did with the lakeside population of the within the relatively restricted areas Fayum. Bones of are particularly explored. It has been suggested that the numerous, and it is clear that, like other men of the town, the bodies of only a few prehistoric peoples of northern Egypt (and of whom have been found at Merimda western Asia), the Neolithic villagers of itself, more often than not died or were Merimda were great pork eaters, an killed on campaigns, hunting trips, and apparently regional or even racial charac- other expeditions which took them away teristic, since traces of pig are relatively from home and were normally buried scarce in the settlements and cemeteries where they died, a perfectly understandable of Upper Egypt, Nubia, and the Sudan. procedure for a primitive people possessed The remains of longhorned cattle, sheep, of very limited transport facilities and no and perhaps also occur in some artificial means of preserving a dead body. quantity and the dog is attested at least Undoubtedly, too, the mortality among three times in the village area. Of wild newborn infants and women in child- animals hunted for their meat the most birth was in Neolithic times very much important was the hippopotamus, the higher than among any other segment of bones and tusks of which recur again an the population. We must consider, finally, again throughout the village. The long the probability that the severe denudation bones and spinal vertebrae of this massive of the site by wind and water has destroyed beast and also the articulated vertebrae of many of the graves which at one time a smaller animal, perhaps a steer, are existed within its limits. In any event, found sometimes bound with sinew and the existing evidence together with the cloth and stuck upright in the ground like absence of traces of anything resembling a columns, evidently as offerings to some cemetery or isolated burial ground in the divinity or guiding spirit of the chase who vicinity of the ancient town strongly seems to have been similarly propitiated suggest that here, as in the Natufian and in the later prehistoric settlement at earlier Neolithic settlements of Palestine Maadi. Other quarry successfully pursued and on the Upper Capsian habitation by the hunters and fishermen of Merimda sites of northern Africa the primitive were the crocodile, the polecat, or fitchew, custom of settlement-burial or house- a kind of antelope, numerous turtles burial prevailed. It is, on the other hand, (Testudo sp.), and various species of Nile difficult to agree with the proposition fish. Shell fish gathered from the river advanced by Junker that this type of included Spatha cailliaudiand other types burial in itself is an earmark of a settled of large bivalve mussels. community, while burial in cemeteries At Merimda, as we have seen, it was away from the habitations, as apparently apparently the custom to bury the dead in the Fayum and in Predynastic Upper amid the habitations of the living. The Egypt, is a trait of a nomadic or semi- practice may have been confined to those nomadic population. persons-chiefly women and infant The shallow oval graves of the Merim- children-who died within the confines of dians, occasionally lined with coarse oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 113 matting, are scattered, either singly or in food. It is possible that at mealtimes food groups, throughout every level of the was set aside for the dead or was even settlement, the method of burial having placed on the grave, such a practice evidently remained unchanged from the foreshadowing the funerary banquets and earliest occupation of the site until its periodic feasts held in the cemeteries and abandonment some five or six centuries tomb-chapels of subsequent eras. The later. Within the grave the body usually close and continuing contacts maintained lies on its right side, with knees drawn up, at Merimda between the living and the in the position of sleep. More often than dead shows, in any case, that even at this not the head is to the south and the face early period piety and devotion, rather toward the northeast, the north, or the than fear, characterized the former's east. From this it might be supposed that attitude to the latter and governed the the intent was to direct the gaze of the fiunerary service as a whole. deceased either toward the Nile, the A slender, dolicocephalic people, small principal local source of life, or, as later by modern standards, the Merimdians, in Egyptian history, toward the rising nevertheless, are seen from their skeletal sun. There are, however, so many varia- remains to have been distinctly taller, tions in the positions and orientation of more sturdily built, and endowed with the bodies that there is at least equal larger, better formed, and more capacious reason to believe that the focus of the skulls than the Natufians of Palestine and dead person's gaze was in most cases not the earliest Predynastic population of a distant point outside the settlement, Upper and Middle Egypt. The differences but simply the hearth in the dwelling are sufficient to suggest that they, together house in or near which he or she was with other prehistoric and early historic buried. Here lay the center of the house- peoples of northern Egypt, belonged to a hold of which the deceased had been and different and generally less primitive race was evidently still regarded as a member than the Upper Egyptians. The men of and the principal source of the food Merimda, to judge from the few skeletons conceived of as shared at mealtime by the recovered, averaged five feet five and one- living and the dead members of the family half inches in height, the women, five feet alike. Such a concept would obviate the two inches. The crania are higher in need, so universal in the cemetery type of relation to their breadth than the skulls burial, of providing the grave with supplies of the Naqada people of Upper Egypt and of food, drink, and other equipment and broader, with smoother and more evenly would explain the bareness of the Merimda contoured cranial vault, than those found graves as compared with those of later in the Badarian cemeteries of southern prehistoric times in both Upper and Lower Middle Egypt. The teeth are small and Egypt. Occasionally, to be sure, a body often show abscess cavities at the roots, is adorned with a single crude pendant or "due to exposure of the pulp cavity by bead, is accompanied by one or two flint excessive friction," a condition common implements, and holds to its mouth or in Egypt at all periods. "Certain Armenoid has scattered over it a few grains of characteristics" shared by the Merimdians emmer, the last perhaps more the symbol with the people of El-Omari have suggested of a hoped-for resurrection and immor- the association of these early northern tality, like the germinating " beds" Egyptians (and of two or three of the so- of later times, than an actual offering of called "Tasian" skulls from Upper Egypt) oi.uchicago.edu

114 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT with a race which, fanning out from a The most obvious link lies in the fine hypothetical homeland in the region of Merimdian stone industry with its Turkestan, has been credited with bringing bifacially worked hollow-based, triangular, Neolithic culture to Europe and to north- and tanged arrowheads of types unknown eastern Africa. in western Asia, but without much doubt However that may be, the cultural ties of Saharan origin and probably of Aterian which exist between the settlement at ancestry. Arkell has suggested that the Merimda and the Mesolithic, Neolithic, flaked axehead with only the edge ground and early Chalcolothic sites of south- "may have been invented in the Saharan western Asia-Eynan, Jericho, Tell el - Neolithic"; and Larsen would see in Ghassul, , Ras Shamra, Hassuna, Merimda "a spur of a widely expanded , , , etc.-are sub- Saharan culture." Menghin has pointed stantial. They include, as we have seen, out that the cylindrical axes of Merimda the practice of burying the dead, or, at are similar to those of northwestern Africa least, certain classes of dead, in and among and western Europe, and believes that the the houses of the living, the use of rounded, Merimdian culture "is to be designated as mud-plastered pits as granaries and at proto-Libyan." Kaiser notes that the Eynan and Merimda as dwellings, the stone implements of both Merimda and breeding and eating of pigs, the production the Fayum A settlements seem to be of large numbers of flaked axes and adzes related to finds in the distant Hoggar, Air, with ground edges and a predilection for and Tibesti region; and a number of the globular or pear-shaped macehead, the prehistorians have drawn attention to the use of the sling, a typically Asiatic weapon fact that burial of the dead within the rarely found in Egypt, the wearing of habitation area is known from the Upper pierced animal teeth and 'miniature axe- Capsian rammadyat, or shell-heaps, of the heads of hard green or black stone as Maghreb. For Baumgartel the material amulets, the prevalence in the Pottery "nearest" to that found at Merimda comes Neolithic B of Jericho and the earlier from the "A-Group," or Early Dynastic, levels of Merimda of pottery vessels cemeteries in Nubia, which, following Oric coated with a smooth red slip and adorned Bates, she proposes to identify as with bands of incised herringbone patterns, "Libyan." It has been repeatedly stated the occurrence of footed vases and long- that the cultures of Merimda, the Fayum, handled clay ladles, and the modeling of and El-Omari are "African," derive from small female and animal figures of clay, a common "African substratum," or have reflecting perhaps a magico-religious belief their roots in "the North African mother- in the efficacy of such idols in stimulating soil." They have even been described as the procreative powers and increasing "African-Hamite," though the expression the fertility of the people, their flocks, and "Hamite" is normally reserved for associa- their fields. tions of a linguistic nature, of which at At the same time, we should expect and this period, of course, we know nothing. do in fact find in this west Delta culture The agreement is not complete in the elements which link it to the adjoining case of either southwestern Asia or northern Saharo-Libyan area, to more remote Africa, typological and chronological dis- African regions to the west and southwest, crepancies being in both instances too and, through these, to some aspects, at great to derive the Merimdian culture least, of the Neolithic of western Europe. in its entirety from one of these areas oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOIX)LITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 115 alone. Rather, we must recognize in this discovered or created in its vicinity or large northern Egyptian settlement a that some method of or composite culture which, like the Fayum fallowing had been developed, for without A-group villages, owed its food-producing, such measures the fields adjacent to a semi-urban character, much of its material Neolithic farming community were rapidly equipment and magico-religious beliefs, exhausted and the life of the community and perhaps the salient physical charac- was necessarily brief. The fact that the teristics of its people to immigrants from houses of the uppermost level of the town the north and east, but which, at the same appear to have been lined up along time, exchanged ideas, customs, and winding but nonetheless recognizable implement types with its Libyan and streets bespeaks an orderly community Saharan neighbors on the west and was by life and implies, as we have remarked, the no means wholly out of place in its north presence of some sort of local governmental African setting. Again, as in many authority or administration, centered per- another Neolithic community, we find here haps in a mayor or town council. The the merging of a settled village-farmer religious beliefs of the townspeople are strain of ultimately western Asiatic origin reflected, on the one hand, in the hunters' with a warlike, semi-nomadic hunting offerings which they set up to some spirit element of local Paleolithic antecedents. or spirits of the chase and, on the other The culture and mode of existence which hand, in the crude clay figure of the resulted from the fusion at Merimda of farmers' characteristic fertility or "mother- these ingredients seems, in any case, to earth" goddess, that bringer of rain, rich have persisted during the entire occupation harvests, and increased herds revered also of the site, the differences noted between at Jericho and in other village-farming the earliest and latest habitation layers communities of western Asia. The head of reflecting developments of and within the a bull or (Bos primigenius) culture itself rather than the results of modeled of clay may indicate the existence changes introduced by intrusive foreign in this early settlement of a fetishistic elements. Throughout we find a settled, animal cult and is significant in view of semi-urban population dependent for their the persistence and widespread popularity livelihood to approximately equal degrees of bull-gods in the religion of the dynastic on agriculture, stock-breeding, hunting, Egyptians, especially the northern and fishing. Though the community as a Egyptians. The or rattles used whole may have participated in a primitive extensively in the religious rites of historic form of land irrigation-this being known Egypt may also have had their fore- in some parts of the world to have runners in the crude pottery rattles of the antedated agriculture itself-the crops of Merimdians. The concept of protective emmer and other food-plants were magic inherent in two of the amulets evidently neither the products nor the worn by the people of Merimda is direct property of the community, as was and uncomplicated, the amulets in question apparently the case in the Fayum, but having, quite simply, the forms of natural were raised by the individual villagers and or artificial weapons of defense, in one stored in private granaries adjoining their case the boar's tusk, in another the respective houses. The long occupation of miniature axehead. The notions behind the site suggests either that new plots of the pear- and palette-shaped pendants arable land were from time to time were apparently more complex. Like oi.uchicago.edu

116 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT other ancient peoples among whom the from a common ancestor or combination practice of settlement burial prevailed the of ancestors. Of the two the big settlement Merimdians "lived in the closest associa- at Merimda seems the more advanced, its tion with their dead," shared their meals pottery more evolved, its dependence on with them, and evidently regarded them agriculture and stock farming more pro- as still maintaining their old ties with their nounced, and its social organization of a homes and families. They clearly believed higher order. The radiocarbon dates so far in a life after death and naively pictured obtained for the two sites (pp. 92 and that life as similar to man's earthly 102 suggest that it is also somewhat existence. Like the houses of the living later in date than the Fayum A villages, the graves of the dead are oval cavities with perhaps only its earliest stage scooped out in the ground and like the reaching back into the period when these living the dead were occasionally provided lakeside settlements were still flourishing. with trinkets to wear, implements to use, At the same time, it shows no relationship and with grains of wheat, the latter to whatsoever with the later B-group serve either as food or as a symbolic culture of the Fayum and east Libyan means of inducing the deceased's resurrec- areas. The important fact which emerges tion. Within the settlement the potters from a study of the Fayum A and Merimda and stone-knappers, the carvers of wood, settlements is that, despite the differences bone, horn, and ivory, the jewelers and which exist between them, they are clearly lapidaries, the leatherworkers and basket- parts of a single cultural complex charac- makers, and the spinners and weavers of teristic of and local to northern Egypt cloth, supported now by the excess of and distinct from the earliest groups of food and other commodities produced by post-Paleolithic cultures of Upper Egypt, the farmers, the hunters, and the fishermen, the distinction extending apparently to the practiced their crafts with ever growing races and physical characteristics of the skill, some of the materials which they populations of the two parts of the country used -Red Sea shells and crystalline as well as to their material culture. stones from the Eastern Desert and the Libyan massifs-having been acquired, 5. EL-OMARI: ITS SETTLEMENTS probably through trade, from sometimes AND CEMETERIES fairly remote regions. The relatively Two subsequent stages of the same advanced stage of civilization attained by general northern Egyptian cultural these west Delta villagers is further development belong a series of prehistoric attested by their elaborate and systematic villages and cemeteries clustered in and arrangements for the storage of their around the mouth of the Wadi Hof, some household provisions, which, according to two miles north of Helwan and four and a their types and natures, were consigned, half miles to the east of the Nile, opposite respectively, to baskets, subterranean Abusir. The site, now part of the low granaries, mud-lined storage bins, and desert at the foot of the Gebel Tura, on large pottery pithoi. the eastern edge of the Nile Valley, is The many analogies already noted generally known as El-Omari, in memory of between the Merimdian and the Fayum Amin el Omari, a young Egyptian A cultures leave little room for doubt that mineralogist who in the spring of 1924 they are closely related one to another conducted investigations there with the and are without much question descended aid and advice of the veteran prehistorian, oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 117

Pere Bovier-Lapierre. During the winter there are also the remains of little walls of of 1925, following the death of his protege, dried earth. The hearths or fire holes, excavations were undertaken at El-Omari usually in the centres of the huts, are small by Bovier-Lapierre himself on behalf of rounded depressions blackened by fire and the Egyptian Service des Antiquits, and usually containing or surrounded by were resumed in 1943-1944, 1948, and pottery vessels, potsherds, stone imple- 1952 under the direction of Fernand ments, mills, and grinders, broken and Debono. By and large, however, the charred animal bones, eggshells, mollusk prehistoric remains of El-Omari have not shells, and other household litter. A been as thoroughly explored nor as difference in the lower and upper fill of the extensively published as those of the dwelling and storage pits-the former a Fayum and Merimda, and there is much yellowish detritus, the latter a blackish about the site which still remains obscure, fill-points to two successive periods of especially as regards the dating and occupation, separated by an interval interrelationships of the various settle- when the momentarily abandoned huts ments. and silos were used as dumps before being What would appear to be the earliest recut and re-occupied. Since, however, of these-its beginnings perhaps con- no change is discernible in the stone temporaneous with the final stage of the implements of the two layers, they Merimdian culture-occupies a gravel probably reflect some purely internal terrace which slopes downward from the upheaval or development through which south to join the southwest corner of the the settlement passed during its evidently estuary of the Wadi Hof near the' rocky long period of occupation. spur known as the Ras el-Hof. Here, over The implements in question, made a "very large" area, are scattered the chiefly of flint, include many of the sunken bottoms of more than a hundred bifacially worked forms with which we circular huts as well as the remains of have become familiar in the Fayum A and numerous oval dwellings constructed of Merimda settlements-the flaked axe- posts and wickerwork on the surface of the head with ground cutting edge, the fully ground. The circular hut-bottoms not polished axehead (including an example infrequently cut into one another, the in serpentine), the serrated sickle flint, shallower examples sometimes providing the concave-based and triangular arrow- access to deeper ones. They are lined with head and lancehead, and a few ex- thick, clay-covered matting reinforced on amples of the rare tanged arrowhead. the inside with cords and occasionally On the other hand, the production of plastered against the remains of the wooden flake and blade tools-knives of a new posts which supported the superstructures form with curved and blunted backs and of the huts. Similar, but smaller pits, also well developed tangs, saws, unifacial lined with matting or containing, as at sickle flints, piercers, scrapers, and re- Metimda and in the Fayum, clay-daubed touched blades of miscellaneous types-is baskets, were used as granaries or far more extensive than at Merimda and magazines for provisions. Some of these foreshadows the stone industry of the were cut not in the yellow pebbly surface still later settlement at Maadi, a few miles of the terrace but in the adjoining rock. to the north, where the blade element Larger spaces were inclosed with reed almost entirely replaced the old bifacial fences, like the present-day zeribas, and technique. The presence of cores, flakes, oi.uchicago.edu

118 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT hammerstones, and polishers in the debris "evolved character" in monochrome red, from the hut circles indicates that the brown, or black ware, both fine and coarse, manufacture of stone implements was with surface finishes ranging from coarse carried out in the dwellings themselves. through smoothed and polished to lustrous. The principal stone-knappers' atelier The red pottery seems to have been the seems, however, to have been located on preferred ware and the favorite forms the outskirts of the settlement, where were the straight-sided "flower-pot" with Bovier-Lapierre found large quantities of everted rim and the globular flask; but globular, discoid, and elongated hammer- Debono records at least seventeen different stones of flint and fossil wood together types of vessels, including narrow-mouthed with "innumerable" flint flakes and cores. vases, ovoid vases, goblets, cylindrical The hand mills or saddle querns found in containers, pans with flaring or concave the settlement are mostly of quartzite sides, conical vases, bowls and vases (from the subsequently famous quarries supported on two or three feet, pots with at Gebel el-Ahmar?), the grinders which lug handles, large pithoi or storage jars, accompany them usually of petrified and coarse vessels of a variety of shapes. wood, which is abundant in this region of As evidence for a relatively low dating the old Oligocene delta of the Nile. "Nodule- Baumgartel has drawn attention to parallel picks" of Merimdian type, made of striations which occur on the interiors of indurated limestone, were probably used some of the pots and which suggest that for excavating the hut-bottoms, and they were turned, or rotated, in the process longitudinally grooved ovoid weights of of manufacture, though not necessarily on the same material and of a by now familiar a potter's wheel. Despite some rather form were evidently sinkers for fishing marked differences the pottery of El- nets. In bone there are piercers, punches, Omari bears a general resemblance in its awls, knife-like blades, and needles with wares and in some of its forms-notably, eyes; and in shell and horn a number of the coarse pithoi, the cook-pots with lug finely made fishhooks. handles, and the footed vases and bowls- The spinning and weaving of cloth is to that of Merimda and to that of the later attested to not only by a number of stone prehistoric settlement at Maadi. On the spindle whorls, but also by the presence in other hand, it exhibits no relationship the settlement of actual pieces of linen whatsoever with the pottery of Tasa, cloth up to a foot in length, of both coarse Badari, Naqada, and the other Pre- and fine weave. Finely worked baskets of dynastic sites of Upper Egypt, being a type and quality comparable to those clearly, and in spite of its somewhat of the pharaonic era were produced at El- disconcerting individuality, a product of Omari as were also cords and strings the northern zone of Egyptian culture. exceeding five feet in length and mats of Notable is the complete absence of various kinds, used for lining hut and silo decorated pottery. walls and for wrapping the bodies of the Besides their pottery vessels the people dead. Evidence for leatherworking includes of El - Omari used ostrich eggshells as bits of animal skins found in the graves containers and even as cook-pots, and and a complete skin two and half feet long mollusk shells, especially those of Unio recovered from the bottom of a hut. and Spatha, as scoops and receptacles. Dwellings and graves alike yielded Stone vessels are represented by the pottery vessels of good quality and fragment of a single basalt vase, thought oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 119 to have been imported from elsewhere, Fruits eaten by the inhabitants of the and a few fragments of calcite of uncertain town included sycamore figs and dates date. (Phoenix dactylifera L.), and flowers placed In contrast to the inhabitants of in one of the graves have been identified Merimda and the Fayum the Omarians by Vivi Tiackholm and Elhamy Greiss as were well provided with primitive jewelry Pulicaria undulata Kostel. A pod of flax and other items of personal adornment. (Linum usitatissimum L.) suggests a Pendants and necklace elements were positive identification of the fibres used made of gastropod shells, imported from locally in the spinning and weaving of the Red Sea coast and pierced for stringing, cloth. Stalks of a type of wild sugar cane of ostrich eggshell, animal bone, and the (Saccharum spontaneum L.) appear to be spines of fish, and of mother-of-pearl and the earliest examples of this plant recorded various hard, ornamental stones, some of in Egypt. The specimens of wood found the last-named evidently brought from are chiefly tamarisk (Tamarix sp.). afar. Fossil nummulites were sometimes Among the animals hunted or kept by perforated and worn as pendants. Bits of the inhabitants of El-Omari were the pig, ochre found in and among the huts had hippopotamus, crocodile, snail, ostrich, apparently been used for cosmetic purposes duck(?), antelope, goat, and a type of as well as for coloring the red and brown bovide, the last two probably domesticated. pottery vases. Also recognized were the bones of a Aside from their sickle flints, mills, and canide or dog-like animal. Fish bones are grinders the agricultural activities of the abund include those of the claria people of El- Omari and the important and the synodont, or lizard-fish. role played by cereal grains in their daily Of the ties which exist between the diet is reflected by the presence in the earliest culture of El=Omari and that of dwellings, granaries, and other areas of Merimda none is more significant or more the settlement not only of copious amounts striking than the custom common to of grains and ears of wheat and barley, both-and to no other Egyptian group but also of a cake made of crushed wheat now known-of burying the dead within grains and bits of wheat and barley . the confines of the settlement itself. At The wheat here is emmer (Triticum the Omarian village below the Ras el-Hof dicoccum), as on most other Egyptian sites the burials were made in the huts or near including Merimda and the Fayum, but them, in some instances in adjoining silos Club wheat (Triticum compactum or one or magazines. Graves belonging to the of its varieties), hitherto unrecorded in earlier of the two successive periods of the Near East before the mid-second occupation were sometimes cut into by millennium s.c. and in Egypt before subsequently excavated provision cellars Greco-Roman times, also occurs. The or pierced by the posts of huts built on common, lax-eared barley of El- Omari the surface above. Most of the graves are (Hordeum vulgare L.) is of a different and simple rounded cavities in the ground, more evolved form than that found in the but one grave, discovered in 1948, had its silos of the Fayum A settlements, which, walls revetted with rough blocks of stone. as we have seen, is of the six-rowed type In burial, the body, wrapped in a mat, an (Hordeum hexastichum). Grains of a fodder- animal's skin, or a coarse fabric or pro- vetch (Vicia sativa L.) similar to that tected by a mat spread above it on tree known at Merimda occur at El -Omari. branches, was regularly placed on its left oi.uchicago.edu

120 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT side in contracted position with the head brain capacity far above the average of in almost every case to the south and the the prehistoric Egyptian." face directed to the west. This rule, which Although no trace of copper or other was not followed at Merimda, is, metallic substance has been found in the interestingly enough, generally adhered settlement near the Ras el-Hof there is to in the Predynastic cemeteries of Upper every probability that this town was Egypt and may reflect the intrusion at partly contemporaneous with and certainly this time into northern Egypt of influences not earlier than the Naqada I cemeteries from the south. Almost every grave and settlements of Upper Egypt, where, contained a single pottery jar of common in addition to a highly developed stone- household type placed before the deceased tool industry, small implements and and in one case the bouquet of flowers ornaments of copper were being fashioned referred to above had been laid on the from hammered sheets of the native metal. breast of the dead person, while in another Possibly because in the southern portions a small clay box had been placed behind of the Eastern Desert deposits of native the head of its late owner. copper lay nearer to hand than in the The skeleton of what has been thought north the material culture of Upper to be a local ruler was found holding in its Egypt was, then, already in what is hand a well made wooden staff or scepter, generally called the Chalcolithic or Copper- some fourteen inches long, carved at both and-Stone Age; and it is to this period ends, one of the latter being pointed, the that the earliest culture of El-Omari must other flat. This so-called "baton of be assigned, even though the village itself command" has been compared with the might still reasonably be classed as ames-staff carried by Egyptian kings and Neolithic. A radiocarbon date of 3305 + 230 gods from early historic times and perhaps B.c., derived from a sample of charcoal of prehistoric ancestry and has suggested found on a hut floor in the Ras el -Hof to Childe the rather far-fetched notion settlement, would appear, from the com- that one of the line of Omarian chieftains parative archeological evidence available, may have become King of Lower Egypt. to be several centuries too low. On the evidence of their skeletons the On the northern side of the entrance of people of El-Omari belonged to a relatively the Wadi el-Hof, more than three hundred tall, sturdily built, mesocephalic race, feet up, on one of the highest terraces of related on the one hand to the Merimdians the Gebel Hof, lie the remains of a second and on the other hand to the so-called early Omarian village, evidently roughly Lower Egyptian, or "Giza," type of contemporaneous with the larger settle- Dynastic times, of which, indeed, they, ment to the south and quite clearly together with "other primeval inhabitants forming part of the same cultural ensemble. of the Delta," appear to have been the Here also, even on this lofty plateau, the ancestors. One of their skulls, which could dead are buried in the village itself, their be accurately measured, has a length of bones being frequently found washed out 190 millimetres, a breadth of 145 milli- of the soil by mountain torrents. As in the metres, a height of 138.5 millimetres, and first settlement the stone industry exhibits a cephalic index of 76.3, surpassing in its not only such bifacially worked forms as measurements most of the Giza skulls of the polished axehead, the hollow-based the Fourth Dynasty and pointing, and triangular arrowhead, the larger lance according to Dr. Douglas Derry, "to a or javelin head, and the toothed sickle- oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 121

flint or saw, but also blade-tools (knives, complex at Maadi. The pottery, on the unifacial sickle blades, saws, and narrow other hand, seems related to and is perhaps blades) and implements fashioned out of descended from that of the Ras el-Hof and irregularly shaped flakes. Cores and Gebel Hof settlements. hammerstones abound in the atelier areas, The cemeteries associated with this and millstones with grinders as well as village lie to the west and south of the samples of the cereal grains milled on them settlement proper. They are characterized occur among the rubbish in the dwellings. by graves surmounted by roughly circular Pottery of at least two of the types known tumuli of stones under which the dead in the larger settlement are found, and lie buried in shallow pits in crouched Nerita shells from the Red Sea, perforated position with the hands before the face for stringing in necklaces, bracelets, or, but without, apparently, any standard as at Shaheinab in the Sudan, in girdles. orientation as regards the points of the Despite its strange location the existence . The bodies, which include those in the Gebel Hof village of what appear to of both adults and children (sometimes have been graves suggests a fairly long buried together in the same graves) seem period of habitation, facilitated, pre- to have been wrapped in cloth or in plaited sumably, by the presence in the immediate straw mats and are at times accompanied vicinity of two natural , or rain- by a pottery jar and, more rarely, by catching basins, one to the west, in the snail or mussel shells, small flint blades, Wadi Rayan, the other on the east, in the necklace beads of agate, and bits of Wadi Rahana. Thanks to occasional charcoal and a "brown organic matter." winter rains, which must have been more The skulls of the people buried in one frequent in prehistoric times, the latter cemetery have been described as dolico- still contains water throughout the greater cephalic, while those in another "seemed part of the year. brachycephalic"; but since none was in a Distinct from and apparently later in condition to permit of accurate measure- date than the two settlements just ment, such observations are of relatively described are a small village and one or little value. Hearths and small circles of more adjoining, but separate, cemeteries stones ("miniature cromlechs") scattered discovered by Bovier-Lapierre in a branch among the grave tumuli were undoubtedly of the estuary of the Wadi el-Hof. Of the associated with meals or offerings shared village little now remains except traces by the living with the dead and with of huts in the form of small round post- or ceremonies performed in the latter's pot-holes and some larger cavities taken behalf. to be magazines for provisions, filled in Thus, during the late Neolithic and both cases with a blackish deposit con- Chalcolithic phases of Egyptian prehistory taining flint flakes, a few potsherds, bits we find the gravel terraces in and around of cords or mats, and carbonated grains of the mouth of the Wadi Hof occupied by wheat and barley. The stone industry two distinct and probably successive here is comprised exclusively of small groups of settlers, both of whom raised blade-tools-knives, flat and rounded wheat and barley, lived in circular huts of scrapers, and chisel-shaped arrowheads- light construction, and continued to make which differ markedly not only from those their tools and weapons exclusively of of the earlier Omarian settlements, but stone, wood, bone, and shell, ignoring ap- also from those of the later prehistoric parently the contemporaneous production oi.uchicago.edu

122 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYT in Upper Egypt of implements of beaten a not inconsiderable role in the life of this copper. Though both groups display mark- most easterly of all the prehistoric sites of edly individual, local characteristics, what northern Egypt. appears to have been the earlier of the two shows also certain clear relation- 6. MAADI, WADI DIGLA, HELIOPOLIS, ships with the West Delta culture of AND QASR QARUN Merimda, the most cogent of which is the Four miles northwest of El-Omari, six practice, common in Egypt to these two miles south of Cairo, and a few hundred sites alone, of burying the dead in or yards east of the modern suburban among the dwellings of the living. By community of Maadi lies a low desert contrast, the people of the second Omarian ridge, about a mile in length from west to group, or what is sometimes called the east and one hundred and thirty yards in Omari (or Helwan) B culture, follow the width from north to south, which extends custom, current already in the Fayum and eastward into the mouth of the Wadi el- throughout Upper Egypt, of burial in Tih and separates the latter from its cemeteries separated by some distance smaller southern subsidiary, the Wadi from the areas of habitation. The period Tura. Here have been found the remains of during which this people flourished is a a sprawling town of oval huts, rectangular matter of extreme uncertainty; but if, as houses, and subterranean shelters and seems likely, they did indeed supersede magazines, which appears to have been the Omari A settlers, their occupation of founded in late Predynastic (Naqada the site would date, at the earliest, from II-III) times but which evidently con- the end of the Naqada I or the beginning tinued to flourish well into the proto- of the Naqada II phase in Upper Egypt historic, or Early Dynastic, period. The (ca. 3600 B.c.). The many points of position of the town, at the mouth of the difference between their culture and that principal wadi leading eastward to the of the late prehistoric and protohistoric rich copper deposits of Gebel Ataqa and settlement at Maadi, only a few miles to Sinai and the large amounts of worked the northwest, suggests a terminus ad and unworked copper found within its quem for them well before the rise of the confines has suggested to Dr. Baumgartel first historic dynasty (3100 B.C.). that "a budding copper industry caused Though, with Kaiser and others, we by the first exploitation of the Sinai mines may recognize the cultures of El-Omari, could well have been the reason for Madi's together with those of Merimda and the existence." Be that as it may, it is clear Fayum, as basically "African" in origin that the population of this great settlement and character, the position of the site on included farmers and stockbreeders as well the edge of the Eastern Desert not two as metal workers and that the cultivation hundred miles from the Palestinian border of wheat and barley and the raising of pigs, is a factor not entirely to be overlooked. beef-cattle, sheep, and goats were among The predilection for blade-tools, the burial its essential activities. Hunting and fishing of the dead among the dwellings of the seem, on the other hand, to have been living, and perhaps also the presence of relatively unimportant and to have contri- grains of Club wheat, otherwise first known buted less to the livelihood of the ancient in the Near East in Anatolia, Syria, and Maadians than was the case with Egypt's Palestine, suggest, in any case, that earlier prehistoric peoples. Arrowheads, influences from the north and east played fishhooks, and net-weights are extremely oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 123 rare, and the scanty remains of wild game length from north to south and ten feet recovered in the area of the town are wide, was provided, near the south end of confined to the ibex and to such purely its long eastern side, with a doorway, riverain species as the hippopotamus, the protected from the prevailing northerly beaver(?), turtles, fish, and freshwater winds by a wind-screen. Its walls, springing mollusks. from shallow, mud-filled trenches, appear The houses and shelters of Maadi are to have been of reeds and straw supported concentrated chiefly in the central section on wooden posts. The structure contained of the 45-acre site, with the silos, provision no hearth but had a cruciform partition cellars, and huge, buried store-jars distri- just inside the doorway, a circular pit buted for the most part around its two feet deep near the east wall, and a periphery, the arrangement calling to rectangular pit outside the entrance. mind the segregated granary areas Another rectangular building, of which associated with the Fayum A-group little more than one corner was preserved, settlements (§2). Of the dwellings the most seems to have been built of logs, laid prevalent type is the oval hut or horseshoe- horizontally, and to have been partitioned shaped windbreak constructed of stout on the interior. Several large cave-like tamarisk posts driven deep into the virgin subterranean chambers, dug in the compact soil and supporting walls made of inter- sandy soil to depths of between six and woven tree branches plastered over with eight feet, are roughly circular, oval, or Nile clay. The bottoms of the posts had rectangular in plan with their walls, been neatly pointed, evidently with a either vertical or sloping inward toward a metal axe or adze, but most of them still domed(?) roof, covered with matting or, retain their bark and the projecting stubs in one case, revetted with boulders and of untrimmed branches. The hearths, large blocks of mud. They were entered usually placed near the centers of the by means of steps, cut in the soil and shelters or just inside their entranceways, sometimes faced with flat stones, and are shallow circular or rectangular cavities contained fire-pits or hearths, and holes in the ground, frequently surrounded by for the posts which in some cases supported stones and sometimes lined with fired or the roofs. Such subterranean dwellings are unfired clay, one hearth, in fact, consisting unknown elsewhere in Egypt but are well of the bottom of a large pottery jar attested in Palestine, notably at Bir Abu embedded in the earth. Big store-jars Matar, Bir el- Safadi, and other sites near buried in the ground up to their mouths, Beersheba. Fragments of rectangular sun- small storage-pits, and clay-lined pot-holes dried mud bricks could not be associated and "mortars" were occasionally found with any of the structures described above. inside or closely associated with the huts. The remains of stout post fences, or The oval house or shelter evidently con- palisades, and of long narrow ditches may tinued to be constructed during the entire have formed part of the town's primitive long occupation of the site, the remains defenses against enemy attack--defenses of several being found in the upper- which apparently proved futile, for layers most levels of the six-foot-deep town of ashes, scattered human bones, and the debris and one example having been built scarcity on the site of copper tools and over the ruins of a rectangular structure- weapons and other articles of value suggest house or courtyard-of more advanced that the town was sacked and burned at type. The latter, some seventeen feet in least once in the course of its history. oi.uchicago.edu

124 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOIX)LITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT

A very large circular fireplace has been are of coarse brick-red, reddish brown, identified by the excavators of the site as grey, or black, or solid black ware, with a pottery kiln and some long rectangular surfaces carefully burnished or covered pits are supposed to have been provided with a dull red or whitish wash, the larger for vertical looms, a device, however, examples being made up of superimposed which appears not to have been introduced cylinders of clay joined together. One such into Egypt until the New Kingdom. Small jar has a drawing of a crocodile scratched holes with clay-lined walls and bottoms on its shoulder and a round hole in its consolidated by pebbles and potsherds may bottom. On this rather slender evidence, well have been mortars for crushing fruit it has been identified as an offering or and other foodstuffs, while similar holes, libation vase used in the cult of a local not so reinforced, were evidently for crocodile god. A nearly cylindrical barrel- supporting pots with rounded or pointed shaped pithos has a moulded rim and, bottoms. The storage cellars, concentrated around its shoulder below the rim, a row in the southern sector of the site, are of rounded lug-handles pierced to receive circular pits, three to six feet deep, with a stout cord or . Coated with a shiny sloping or vertical sides, sometimes lined red slip, it is unique at Maadi, but finds a with mud or showing traces of basketwork. faint parallel in the Early Dynastic Their bottoms are not infrequently pro- cemetery of nearby Tura. The contents of vided with one or more pot-holes and their these great jars was generally similar to rims are occasionally rebated to take a lid that of the cellar-holes, including, besides or cover of some sort. Some of the cellars large quantities of grain (emmer and are connected with one another in series. barley), the bones of animals and fish, Their contents included black soil, shells, cooked mutton, masses of a brownish carbonized grain, animal and fish bones, resinous substance, flint implements, flint implements, spindle whorls, potsherds, spindle whorls, small vases, and jar- and groups of as many as six to twelve stoppers of Nile mud, pottery, and wood. complete pottery jars. In one deep cellar- Among the last-named are a pottery disk hole, sunk in the virgin soil and covered pierced with holes near its edges and a with a stone slab, were found seven well carefully made domical cover of wood, made basalt vases, an alabaster vase, a hollowed and rebated on its underside and jar of grey limestone, and twenty-two provided with holes for lashing it in place. beads of carnelian and "a whitish Besides the big store-jars pottery vessels material." Another storage pit contained and potsherds were recovered in vast some twenty large lumps of asphalt, or numbers from the cellars, huts, and bitumen, of a type known chiefly from general debris of the settlement at Maadi. Syria and Palestine. As elsewhere in Lower Egypt at this early A second storage area, in this case given period the pottery is for the most part over chiefly to rows of huge pottery monochrome. Most characteristic are a store-jars or pithoi, buried up to their smooth red ware, a polished black ware, mouths in the sandy soil, occupied the and a mixed red-and-black pottery which northern fringe of the settlement. The resulted apparently from the uneven jars, three to four feet in height and two firing of the black ware. In the first of to three feet in diameter, are usually these wares there are slender ovoid jars cordiform with broad shoulders and with moulded rims and "ring-bases" of a bottoms tapering to rounded points. They type which survived at Tura and elsewhere oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 125 into Early Dynastic times, ovate pots of of incised ornament-gouges, slashes, dots, various proportions with flat, rounded, triangular imprints, cross-hatching, and pointed, and "knobbed" bases, deep and branch and herringbone patterns. Painted wide-mouthed bowls, and conical cups decoration in light or dull brownish red on with moulded rims, thought at Tura to a pinkish yellow or whitish slip occurs on have been jarlids, but often containing, numerous sherds and one or two nearly at Maadi, a cosmetic composed of pigment complete vessels from Maadi. The designs, mixed with a fatty substance. Some of elementary in concept and crudely these forms occur also in the polished executed, consist largely of rough net or black pottery together with globular pots scale patterns, palm-leaf patterns, dots, and bottles, broad ovate vases with crosses, curved strokes, straight lines, and pointed bottoms, cylindrical situlae, and parts of what have been thought-some- conical bowls. We find, in addition, a what imaginatively-to be human figures. highly polished fine red ware, the use of The frequently suggested association of which was confined to little globular pots this pottery with the so-called "decorated" with bands of incised decoration at the ware of the Naqada II culture of Upper base of the neck, middle-sized wide- Egypt is, in fact, somewhat vague, though mouthed bowls with narrow bases, small it may represent a late, debased, and much double vases, and high ring-stands. Vases simplified form of that ware. Menghin and of Syro-Palestinian types, including broad Vandier have compared it with the Thinite "wavy-handled" jars, known also in the (Early Dynastic) vases called by Petrie Gerzean (Naqada II) of Upper Egypt, Aegean and by Hall Syrian, Bonnet ledge- and lug-handled jars, loop-handled believes it to have been "made in Egypt cups, barrel-shaped pots, and squat, by a foreign tribe," and Childe notes that flat-bottomed vases with imprinted decora- the painted sherds from Maadi "are as like tion around the neck were imported Early Palestinian wares as Gerzean into Maadi (as containers of oil, etc.) or Decorated vases." produced there under western Asiatic For jar-lids the Maadians, like the influence in a distinctive white or pink Merimdians before them, used potsherds, clay, often with a whitish surface wash or trimmed to form rough disks, and some- slip. Among a number of special and times the broken and inverted bases of relatively rare types may be mentioned small pots. Pottery disks with a central wide basins of coarse pottery resting on hole were probably spindle whorls and high cylindrical feet, handled jars of deeply scored ringbases of ovoid jars were yellowish pottery, spouted vases and apparently used as scrubbers or burnishers bowls, squat carinated cosmetic pots in the manufacture of limestone vases. containing powdered ochre, very small Crude sculpture in pottery is represented ovoid and conical vases which may have by the heads of animals in red-on-white been toys or models, vases made in the painted ware, perhaps broken away from form of birds with the wings and tail vases and variously identified as camels, clearly indicated, not unlike those found in donkeys, and birds, and by rough T-shaped the Naqada II culture of the south, sherds figures of burnt clay which may have been of black-topped red and brown vessels intended as bulls' heads or possibly as which also suggest a contact with the female idols. Also found were a fragment predynastic culture of Upper Egypt, and of a boat model in red pottery and the sherds and complete vessels with a variety head of a human statuette of the same oi.uchicago.edu

126 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT material, described by its discoverer as and limestone, but rare elsewhere in Egypt, "showing a racial type not uncommon, is known at Arpakhiya in and at even in our own days, in the countries Erech in , where it has been assigned lying north east of the Delta." to the Late -Jemdet Nasr phase. A Stone vessels are more numerous at massive limestone goblet is less carefully Maadi than on the earlier northern finished on the outside than its basalt Egyptian sites and it is probable that their mates but is decorated on its exterior number was at one time swelled by many surface with an incised vertical zigzag other examples which, because of their pattern. It is solid except for a very shallow durability and value, were either buried cavity in its top and was perhaps a ritual or in the graves of their owners or were taken cult vessel used for pouring libations. Other away by plunderers when the town was coarse limestone vessels, obviously manu- sacked. The surviving vessels are chiefly factured at Maadi itself, include deep and of basalt or limestone, with an occasional shallow circular bowls and dishes, a few example or fragment in alabaster, granite, small cups, an oval dish, a boat-shaped or diorite. They show considerable varia- vessel, and several heavy elliptical lime- tion in their shapes, sizes, and workman- stone bowls, blackened with soot on the in- ship. Finest are the polished basalt vessels, teriors and clearly to be identified as lamps, which are thought not to have been the shape, according to Menghin, having produced locally, but in the neighborhood been traditional since Upper Paleolithic of the Fayum where outcrops of the hard times. Carinated cups, cylindrical cups, light grey to black stone are found. with or without projecting rims, and a Slender cylindrical and ovoid vases with number of very small conical vases are flat rims, small ear-like handles, and made of a fine, translucent "limestone" rounded, flat, or spreading conical bases, (or calcite?), their surfaces carefully flat hemispherical bowls or goblets, also smoothed but not usually polished. A vase with splayed conical feet, conical vases of grey limestone has the form of a pottery with a broad flat rim, and small conical jar and was even tinted red to enhance the cups arareamong the more common forms. illusion. Fragments of several large lime- Childe and others have remarked that the stone mortars show that these massive slender footed vases and the squat vessels were smoothed on the interior but chalices go back, in Upper Egypt, to left rough on the outside. In a brief report Naqada I, or "Amratian," times; but on the fifth season of excavations at Baumgartel, while conceding a fairly Maadi (1935) mention is made of a early origin for the vases, points out that "marvelous" vessel of "Libyan" type they continued to be produced in Egypt made of gneiss with rose and dark green during the early historic period and even crystals. Several vases show in their down into the reign of King interiors the marks left by a rotary boring (Mycerinus) of the Fourth Dynasty. The tool, while the asymmetry and crudeness conical cup and the wide-brimmed conical of others testify to the ineptitude of the vase, in both cases, according to Baum- early stoneworkers. gartel, of protodynastic date, have been In contrast to the stone-tool industries found, respectively at Badari in Middle of the earlier northern Egyptian settle- Egypt and at , west of ments, where bifacially worked implements Alexandria; the squat chalice, or "egg- predominate, that of Maadi is primarily cup," occurring at Maadi in both basalt a flake and blade industry related to oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 127 those of western Asia, the few bifacial of cores suggests that the principal atelier tools found on the site-tanged arrow- was elsewhere. Aside from the pebbles of heads, "fishtail" and other lanceheads, Nile-gravel flint and the slabs of mined saws, sickle flints, and one polished stone tabular flint the materials used by the axehead-being perhaps imports from Maadian implement makers included, on the south or west. Despite the Maadians' rare occasions, quartzite and rock crystal. evident familiarity with the smelting and Stone axeheads, with the single exception working of copper their flint implements noted above, are unknown at Maadi, this number well up into the thousands, but implement now being made almost show, as we should expect in so late a exclusively of copper. Only two maceheads stone industry, relatively little variety in have been recovered from the site, one their types and techniques. Oval and piano-convex in form and made of granite, fan-shaped scrapers made of thin slabs the other a conical head of dolerite. of tabular grey flint with the cortex left Though the beautifully worked fish-tail on and closely resembling those found at lanceheads, the fine twisted blades, and Teleilat Ghassul in Transjordania and some of the other forms which crop up Byblos (II) on the Syrian coast are among occasionally at Maadi go back in Upper the more characteristic forms, which Egypt to early Naqada times the industry include also scrapers of other types as a whole has a late and somewhat (convex, keel-shaped, ribbed, double, decadent character, its traditions, as Miss etc.), knives with retouched edges, and Caton-Thompson, Dr. Baumgartel, and fine and coarse awls and punches. A others have pointed out, being more peculiarity of the Maadian flake tools is closely allied to those of the Early Dynastic, that the bulb of precussion-that is, or Protodynastic, period than to those of the point from which the flake was struck the earlier Fayum and West Delta cultures. off-is regularly at the thin, narrow end The stone mills or querns of Maadi differ of the tool, making the achievement of a in no essential respect from those met good point difficult. The characteristic with on the other prehistoric and early sickle flint is a unifacial sharp-edged blade historic sites of northern Egypt and without teeth. True burins, microburins, adjoining areas. They are heavy oval slabs trihedral "rods," and what Petrie has of sandstone or quartzite with slightly called "three-faced twisted blades" are concave, or hollowed-out, upper surfaces also represented. Coarse wedges, choppers, on which were ground the cereal grains scrapers, and borers bearing a superficial which formed a staple item of the towns- resemblance to the rough tools of Lower people's diet. Some of the smaller examples Paleolithic times occur in some quantity were evidently used for pulverizing the in the layers of the settlement debris and ochre from which was produced the much- show the same patination as the other admired red pigments and cosmetics, the Maadian stone implements, with which latter employed, as we have seen, for they are clearly contemporaneous. Natural magical as well as decorative purposes. flint pebbles, much battered and evidently Cosmetic palettes of yellow limestone employed as hammerstones, and slender with beveled edges and burnished upper retouching tools of flint with round or surfaces are usually square, rectangular, polygonal cross-sections indicate that a or irregular in outline. They carry traces certain amount of stone-knapping was not only of red, but also of green and done in the town itself; but the scarcity black pigments and the surfaces of some oi.uchicago.edu

128 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT are worn and hollowed from prolonged blades of oxen or other large animals, and use. Thin ovoid slabs of grey flint with smaller, tongue-shaped palettes used per- finely chipped edges have been classed by haps as pigment rubbers or spatulae. An some modern writers as palettes but are elongated bone point of somewhat irregular probably large scrapers of the Maadian- form has been tentatively identified as an Ghassulian type referred to in the preced- arrowhead, and a small conical object with ing paragraph. The presence in the town a cylindrical base as a playing piece for a ruins at Maadi of fragments of a number game. Sections of small tubular bones, of elongated rectangular and rhomboidal either left cylindrical or cut to prismatic cosmetic palettes of slate characteristic of forms and carefully polished, were strung the Naqada cultures (Amratian and together and worn as beads. Gerzean) of Upper Egypt forms, with the In wood there are, besides a number of fish-tail lanceheads and the black-topped handles for bone and copper punches and pottery fragments, yet another tie with the the domical jar-cover mentioned above, southern predynastic group. Spherical and a crude, short-handled spoon or ladle, a hemispherical polishers of red and white fragmentary bent club or throwstick, a quartzite and limestone were evidently point thought to be an awl but used for burnishing the rounded and flat identical in form with an Early Dynastic surfaces of vessels, boxes, and other manu- arrowhead from Abydos, part of a carefully factured articles, and grooved sandstone carved or beaded staff, some wooden hones for sharpening and polishing bone plates "of fine workmanship," wooden implements. Small pierced discs and balls beads, and several short rods of an aro- of limestone have been identified as matic cedar-like wood, charred at one end spindle whorls or net-weights; and burnt, and perhaps used as incense. fiat stones found in or near the hearths as A single comb, carved of ox-horn, is pot-boilers or fire-dogs. Mention must also unfortunately so badly preserved that the be made of a rather amorphous piece of length of its teeth must remain uncertain. gypsum or baryte which has been thought The shells of river mussels trimmed around to be the leg of a roughly sculptured stone the edges to serve as ladles or scoops are statuette. among the rare examples, aside from Implements and other objects made of jewelry, of the use of this material in the bone, wood, and horn are less numerous at Maadi settlement. Maadi than in the earlier settlements. Though, for any number of reasons- Fine and coarse awls and punches, not pillage, evacuation, melting down for unlike those found at Merimda, were still re-use, disintegration-tools and weapons produced in some quantity from sections of copper have not survived in large of split hollow bones, with the trochlea or numbers at Maadi the site has yielded rounded joint-end of the bone often left in copious evidence that copper ore was place to serve as a handle. One bone awl is imported and worked in some bulk and provided with a wooden handle, evidently that locally a knowledge of smelting, shaped with a metal cutting tool and bound casting, and other metallurgical processes with strips of bast fibre. Another consists had advanced sufficiently for the produc- of a wide, flat piece of bone with a thin, tion of a variety of metal implements, some needle-like point projecting from one of its fairly large and complex in form. These ends. There are also fragments of large included heavy rectangular and trape- oval(?) bone palettes, made of the shoulder zoidal axeheads of copper with fine oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 129 cutting edges, chisels with rectangular important in their magico-religious beliefs cross-sections, copper punches and awls as it was in their economy. Their dwelling (one of the latter provided with a bone areas have also yielded fossil sharks' handle), a copper fish-hook "of excellent teeth pierced for suspension and a few workmanship," another type of hook, drop-shaped, wedge-shaped, and discoid several needles and pins, and some sections pendants of limestone, translucent gypsum, of copper wire. Aside from the more or less and a dark stone, some of the examples well preserved tools and weapons patches being scarcely more than natural pebbles of green oxide, the traces of copper objects drilled for stringing. Disk-, ring-, barrel-, long since disintegrated, occurred with and ball-beads occur in various stones, some frequency in the settlement debris. including gypsum, banded calcite, lime- A copper axehead spoiled in casting and a stone, azurite, baryte, quartz, rock crystal, number of copper ingots and masses of black stone, and carnelian, and there are copper ore found on the site indicate that also beads of wood, tubular beads of bone the metal was processed and the tools and limestone, and small, pierced disks of manufactured in Maadi itself, and a piece ostrich eggshell. Among the river and sea of pyrolusite or natural ore of manganese, shells perforated and worn as beads or found with the copper ore, suggests that pendants by the Maadians are the spiral western Sinai or its vicinity was the source Conus, the small scallop, Pectunculus, the from which the ores were obtained. Here, spiny Murex, and several common mussel, then, as Baumgartel points out, we have conch, and snail shells, chiefly of local in all probability "the earliest evidence of origin. During the third season of excava- interest in the and its tions were found fragments of two bracelets copper and turquoise mines." In view, or armbands, one carved of mussel shell, however, of the scale on which metal tools the other of "red marble." The list sounds and weapons were now being produced and impressive, but, with the exception of used and the relatively high degree of true twenty-one carnelian and white stone metallurgical knowledge implicit in their beads found together in a cache of valuable production, a date for this particular objects, the types are represented by only Maadian activity not earlier than the end one or two examples each, found during of the Naqada II phase of Upper Egypt and twelve seasons of work widely scattered more probably in very late Predynastic and over an extensive area. Red ochre for use Early Dynastic times seems indicated. In as a cosmetic occurs throughout the site this connection it is interesting to note, in lumps, in the form of a crayon or pencil, with Baumgartel, that the flint axehead, as powder contained in a small pottery jar, already replaced at Maadi by its copper as the pigment in a fatty cosmetic sub- successor, is known to have survived on stance kept in little conical pottery cups, other Egyptian sites well into the Dynastic and as smears or traces on the surfaces of Period. cosmetic palettes and grinders. The lump of Either through poverty or personal taste manganese ore referred to above may have the people of Maadi seem to have con- served as a black eye cosmetic. cerned themselves little with jewelry or That the people of Maadi were well other forms of personal adornment. Like acquainted with the spinning and weaving their predecessors at Merimda they wore as of textile fabrics is attested by the presence amuletic pendants the tusks of the male in the settlement debris of pieces of linen pig or boar, an animal apparently as cloth as well as spindle whorls of several oi.uchicago.edu

130 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT different types, including, besides the formed an important part of the towns- already mentioned spherical and discoid people's diet. The cereal grains stored in examples in limestone and pottery, thick, large quantities in the pithoi and provision perforated disks of clay with rounded tops cellars and scattered liberally throughout and slightly concave undersides. Strips of the settlement debris are without excep- a bast fibre were used, as we have seen, to tion those of emmer wheat (Triticum bind the handle of a bone awl and similar dicoccum) and six-row barley (Hordeum strips of fibre were found tied together vulgare hexastichum). Seeds of the castor- in a knot. A section of stout cord or oil plant (Ricinus communis), known rope was made up of twisted strands of also to the Badarians of Upper Egypt, the esparto or halfa grass (Stipa tenacissima remains of a seed- or fodder-vetch (Vicia or Desmostachya). sativa L.) similar to that found at Merimda Animal and plant remains recovered and of a bird-vetch, or field (Vicia from the dwelling and storage areas of the cracca), not previously known in Egypt but ancient town throw abundant light on its now found mixed with grains of emmer and food supply and on the activities of its barley, complete the floral specimens from inhabitants as stock farmers and agricul- Maadi which have so far been identified. turists. Numerous bones of domestic Though burial in the settlement itself animals show that beef-cattle, sheep, was not a normal practice with the people goats, and, above all, swine were bred and of Maadi exceptions were made in the eaten by the people of Maadi and that the cases of premature and newly born infants, donkey, Egypt's most ancient and most which, as in Central Africa, Nubia, and a common beast of burden, was known to few Egyptian villages of the present day, them. A mass of black organic matter were buried under or near the dwellings of found in a large pottery jar turned out, their parents, perhaps as a magical means upon analysis, to be cooked animal flesh, of warding off future miscarriages and probably mutton to judge from the nature stillbirths. The younger foetuses, aged of the fatty portion. Of the local wild fauna five to six months (intra-uterine), were the hippopotamus seems to have been the buried in pottery jars averaging about a Maadian hunters' favorite quarry, and, as foot in height and usually of the familiar at Merimda, the leg bones of this massive ovoid ring-base type made of smooth red animal, evidently with the meat still on ware. A cordiform jar containing the them, were set up in vertical position, skeleton of a foetus is interesting in having braced by pairs of stones, at several places near its inverted base a pair of eye-holes inside the town, where one can only suppose through which the deceased's gaze could them to have been intended as trophies, be directed outwards-in this case toward fetishes, or offerings to some deity or spirit the north, that being the direction toward of the hunt. Also hunted, as we have had which the jar was turned. There can be occasion to note, were the ibex and a little doubt that these small circular large aquatic , probably a beaver. openings form a true parallel to the so- Turtles and fish were caught in the Nile, called "soul-holes" in prehistoric burials the latter in great numbers, several and a predecessor of the pairs of great eyes storejars containing literally hundreds of painted or carved on the sides of Egyptian fish bones, including the fin-bones of the coffins and sarcophagi of the dynastic era. sheat-fish. As in nearly every prehistoric The more developed foetuses, eight to Egyptian settlement fresh-water shellfish nine months old from the time of concep- oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 131 tion, and the newborn babies, usually Our knowledge of the ancient town at under a month old, were buried simply in Maadi suffers from erratic and inadequate small pits or hollows in the virgin soil publication of the work conducted there, below the town debris. By the third season including a lack of even preliminary reports of work (1933) nineteen foetus burials had on the last six seasons of excavation. The been found within the habitation area at same is true to an even greater degree of Maadi and this number was evidently the associated cemeteries. There seem to added to during the succeeding years. have been three of these in the general In the course of the fifth season of excava- vicinity of the settlement. tions (1935), in the western sector of the The first to be recorded was discovered in settlement, the skeleton of a five-year-old 1925 by the R. P. Paul Bovier-Lapierre on child, apparently a girl, was discovered a low plateau in the mouth of the Wadi el squeezed into a pottery jar, surrounded by Tih, some two miles to the northeast of smaller, provision jars and buried beneath the settlement, near the foot of the Gebel the ruins of a rectangular structure, Moqattam. The graves here are shallow presumably a house. circular or oval pits containing skeletons An adult woman, perhaps the mother of in contracted position and occasionally a one of the foetuses who died with it, was single pottery jar. Many are surmounted also buried among the habitations of the by rectangular or cubical structures of town. Her body was found lying in con- rough limestone slabs or blocks which have tracted position in a hollow in the ground been described as "" and advanced and covered by a huge inverted pottery as evidence of an early date for the cem- bowl. The head of the deceased lay to the etery, but which Dr. Baumgartel compares south with the face to the west. The body with the rough limestone-block super- was accompanied by two pots, a limestone structures of the Early Dynastic middle- cosmetic palette, and other grave furnish- class cemetery at Saqqara and the stone ings. Described as larger, wider, "fuller," constructions found in the Early Dynastic and more pentagonoid in form than those tombs at Ezbet el-Walda, near Helwan. of the typical prehistoric inhabitants of The larger, rectangular tomb super- Upper Egypt the woman's skull, like those structures at Wadi el- Tih are usually of the child and two of the foetuses oriented east-west with the open end facing mentioned above, is said to mark her as west, toward the Nile. One of them, belonging to the so-called "Delta-people," perhaps marking the grave of a ruler or or "northern race." chieftain, was surrounded by a circle of The fragmentary skull bones-chiefly the smaller, cubical superstructures. A mandibles-of some ten other adults, number of more modest graves were found scattered in the settlement area, marked simply by lines of stones laid fiat come possibly from graves in the area on the ground. The cemetery, which- itself, but are more likely to have been possibly owing to faulty recording-is dragged thither by jackals or other wild said to be poor in grave equipment, has animals (one jaw-bone has been extensively been dated by its explorers to Middle mauled), collected and worn by the Predynastic (Naqada II, or Gerzean) Maadians as amulets (a known custom), times, but is probably, as Baumgartel has or may be simply the remains of persons suggested, considerably later, perhaps of killed in the fighting when the town early historic date. was captured by an enemy. A second cemetery in the same general oi.uchicago.edu

132 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT area ("Maadi North"), but apparently to Lines of limestone blocks mark the eastern the southwest of the town, "on the slope boundary of the cemetery and rim the to the flood plain," is described as lying edges of some of the richer graves, and "at the foot of the same terrace" on which burnt hearth-stones, brought presumably the settlement was founded. It was ex- from the settlement, were placed under the plored during the years 1942 and 1947 by heads of the deceased to serve as headrests. members of the Egyptian University's The equipment buried with the dead in the expedition and is referred to briefly by Wadi Digla is far richer than in the Maadi- Ibrahim Rizkana and Mustafa Amer in North cemeteries, comprising not only reports written, respectively, in 1952, and numerous pottery vessels of a variety of in 1947 and 1953, and by Childe in the different types, but also an alabaster vase, fourth edition of his New Light on the limestone, basalt, and slate cosmetic Most Ancient East. Like those of the palettes, flint tools and weapons, Nile Wadi el-Tih necropolis its graves, includ- shells (used for mixing pigments), combs, ing that of a dog, are reported to be "very shell bracelets and necklaces, beads of poor" in furnishings, only a few containing carnelian, "coloured stone," and bone, and as much as a single pottery jar for food traces of malachite and manganese evi- and drink. Rizkana implies, though he dently employed as pigments. It is inter- does not actually state, that some of the esting and possibly significant that the pots were of the tall ovoid base-ring type, cemetery yielded not a single object made which, as we have seen, have been found of copper. in Early Dynastic contexts at Tura and else- As in the settlement the pottery is where. The "Maadi-North" graves, too, monochrome-smooth red and polished have been dated by their finders to the Mid- black-the forms including the by-now dle Predynastic period, but, again, there is familiar slender ovoid jars with ring-bases, doubt that they were really that early. squat and elongated ovate vases with Another cemetery, often referred to as rounded or flat bottoms, bottle-shaped "Maadi South," lies on somewhat lower vessels with very narrow necks, globular ground little more than half a mile to the jars with ear-handles (rare), very small southeast of the settlement, on "a little cosmetic(?) vases, and an ovoid jar with eminence" in the estuary of the Wadi two lines of imprinted decoration around Digla. It was discovered in October 1951, the neck and three knobs between the and was excavated for two seasons (1952 lines. A few of the vessels bear indecipher- and 1953) by Amer and Rizkana on behalf able pot-marks, all different, and some of the Egyptian University. Here over an were stoppered with conical cups or with area of more than an acre were found four discoid lids of stone or pottery. Several hundred and sixty-eight human graves pots found lying on the surface of the and those of fourteen animals-thirteen ground, outside of the graves, may have gazelles and a dog. The typical grave is a been brought thither as offerings by the circular or oval hollow scooped out in the families of the deceased on the occasions virgin soil in which, in the case of the of periodical "funerary banquets." human burials, the dead, wrapped in a The stone implements of Maadi South papyrus mat or an animal's skin, was are without exception flakes and blades placed in contracted or semi-contracted showing the same technique and many of posture with the head more often than not the same forms seen in the settlement. to the south and the face to the east. Blades, knives, and scrapers of tabular oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COi MUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 133 flint predominate and there are also a few The last-named cemetery, discovered in flakes with serrated edges. The slate 1950 and excavated from March 20th cosmetic palettes are either trapezoidal onward of that year by Fernand Debono with beveled edges or of the rhomboidal and others, lies near Cairo's well-known type which we associate with the Naqada northeastern suburb, not far from the cultures of Upper Egypt. racetrack of the Heliopolis Racing Club, The skeletons of the men, women, and but at some distance from the site of the infant children buried in this cemetery ancient city and cult center of On- are in many cases well preserved, but no Heliopolis (modern Matariya), with which, anthropological report concerning them is indeed, it may not have been associated. as yet available. They are described in a The fifty graves excavated here occur in brief resume on the site as being taller, three layers of gravel brought down by more heavily built, and more prognathous ancient freshets from the Gebel el-Ahmar, (more negroid?) than the people of Maadi and it would appear from this fact that the North, sharing these characteristics with cemetery covered a considerable period of the occupants of a cemetery near Helio- time. In almost every respect-types of polis, to which we shall presently turn our graves and burials, physical characteristics attention. of the people buried, pottery wares and In the western sector of the Wadi Digla shapes, stone vessels, animal burials (four cemetery lie the more poorly equipped of gazelles, five dogs)-it is so similar to the the human burials and the fourteen animal cemetery of Maadi South (Wadi Digla) burials referred to above. The latter were that la detailed description of the graves provided with graves of their own and and their contents would be little more half of them, including the dog and six of than a repetition of the contents of the the gazelles, with food or drink contained immediately preceding paragraphs. We in pottery jars. One at least of the gazelles, may note, however, the presence of a however, had had its throat cut prior to number of new pottery types-ovoid, burial, and it is probable that we have to globular, and drop-shaped jars with low do here with household pets which the or high cylindrical necks- of an exception- deceased wished to take with them into ally fine basalt vase with two small the afterlife rather than, as has been handles, of a shell bracelet found in posi- suggested, with sacred animals, in which tion on the wrist of a skeleton, and of a dwelt the spirits of divinities. According Nile mollusk shell placed over the mouth to a zo5logist, Dr. Shawki Moustafa, the of one of the deceased. It may be remarked gazelles "belong to the Artiodactyl group of also that, whereas the dog burials were Gazellinae, Coues, as suggested by the unaccompanied by offerings of any sort, nature of the horn cores and the flattened the graves of the gazelles were "filled with roof of the skull" and are probably of "the vases" and the animals themselves were Asian and African Genus Gazella, Blain- oriented in death in the same manner as ville." The remains of the dog have been their human companions, facing east with identified by the same authority as "those their heads to the south. This orientation, of the domesticated dog Canis Familiaris, in the direction of the rising sun, has been specimens of which were discovered.., in thought to reflect the existence at Helio- the Predynastic cemetery of Maadi [North] polis, in Late Predynastic times, of the in 1947, as well as in the Predynastic solar religion of which the town was cemetery of Heliopolis in 1950." shortly to emerge as one of the great oi.uchicago.edu

134 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT centers. It must, however, again be palaeolithic gravels" close to the shoreline pointed out that the distance of the of the Neolithic lake, "covered an area of cemetery from the site of the ancient city 120 by 100 ft." and consisted of a shallow makes their association with one another at deposit "of black powdery sabakh," devoid least dubious and that the same orienta- of any structural elements, but containing tion of the bodies of the deceased is found a few potsherds, some fifty flint implements, in the graves of the Wadi Digla, south of a small pierced discoidal object (spindle Maadi. whorl?) of limestone, a limestone saddle- There seems to be little reason to doubt quern, a few fragments of ostrich eggshell, that the cemeteries of Wadi Digla and a Spatha shell, and the burnt bones of Heliopolis were contemporaneous with one beef cattle, sheep, and fish. The pottery, another and, in part at least, with the of rough brown ware, includes two of the settlement at Maadi, and that the former slender ovate jars with flat bases and was one of the necropolises used by the everted rims so familiar to us at Maadi townspeople of the settlement. The curious itself and the related sites but scarcely absence of copper in both cemeteries, in known in this ware in Upper Egypt. Miss contrast to the frequency with which it Caton-Thompson describes the stone im- occurs in the town, is perhaps to be attrib- plements, which are chiefly unifacial but uted to a natural hesitancy to bury useful include a few bifacial tools and weapons, objects in so valuable and so perishable a as "a typical middle-predynastic series." material with the dead. The belief, shared She goes on to say, however, that "com- by several students of the period, that the parison of the Fayum settlement flints cursively recorded and practically un- with those of Maadi shows the similar published cemeteries of Maadi North are tradition of both." Among the implements earlier in date than those of Wadi Digla occurring at both Maadi and Qasr Qarun and Heliopolis appears to have no basis in are the discoidal scraper of tabular flint, fact, the poverty of the burials being the upper surface of which still retains its inconclusive in this respect and the type of cortex, the unifacial sickle flint, the "three- tomb superstructure in the Wadi el-Tih faced twisted blade," the narrow, pointed pointing, if anything, to a slightly later knife, and the forked or fish-tail lancehead. period. Together the five sites-the settle- Scrapers of other types, narrow blades, ment and the four cemeteries-seem to trimmed flakes, sickle-shaped and handled represent the known remains of a north- knives of bifacial workmanship, and a eastern Egyptian sub-culture of late single tanged arrowhead complete the prehistoric and early historic times, to Qasr Qarun series, which is interesting if which, for want of a better name, we may for no other reason than that it establishes tentatively apply the designation a bridge between the stone industry of the "Maadian." Maadian sites and that of the middle and Though classed on the basis of its flint late Predynastic of Upper Egypt. implements as Predynastic, a small settle- ment four miles southeast of Qasr Qarun, 7. CHARACTER OF THE NORTHERN at the western end of the Fayum, shows EGYPTIAN COMMUNITIES sufficiently strong affinities with the Despite a relatively late date and a Maadian group to warrant its inclusion in pronounced individual character the people the present survey. The remains of the and the culture of Maadi and the associated settlement, "situated on a spur of middle cemeteries exhibit certain traits which we oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 135 recognize as characteristic of the pre- covered an area and had an estimated historic inhabitants and civilization of population less than one-third the size of northern Egypt as a whole-traits which those of either Merimda or Maadi. This from Neolithic to protohistoric times tend may be attributable, in part at least, to a to give the population of this region a closer association with western Asia, degree of racial and cultural homogeneity where the urban tradition and the city and to set it apart from those of neigh- state appear to have originated and were boring areas in general and from the more at this time strongly developed. It would or less contemporaneous Predynastic people not, in any case, seem to be, in itself, and civilization of Upper Egypt in sufficient reason for assuming the existence particular. of a generally more advanced and "exalted The early northern Egyptian, wherever culture" in the North than in the South we encounter him-Merimda, El -Omari, nor of a more typically "Egyptian" Maadi North, Maadi South, and Heliopolis civilization, since, as we shall see, the -appears to have been somewhat taller truly urban community did not bulk large and more sturdily built than his Upper in the life of dynastic Egypt. Egyptian contemporary and to have been Indeed in some fields-notably in the endowed with a broader and better formed arts-the northern Egyptian showed little skull and a generally greater cranial or none of the flair exhibited by his capacity. The prognathism observed in the southern contemporaries. His pottery, skulls from Maadi South and Heliopolis though frequently well made and carefully may or may not indicate the infiltration of finished, is almost uniformly monochrome a negroid strain into the northern region (red, black, or brown), its plainness only and, on the other hand, a few broad, occasionally relieved by a few primitive square-jawed skulls found in a cemetery decorative motifs incised into or applied in near Deir Tasa may point to the existence relief to the surfaces of the vessels. Only of an outpost of the "Northern Race" in in the relatively late settlement at Maadi Middle Egypt. Generally speaking, how- do we encounter pottery with painted ever, the prehistoric northerner seems to decoration and even here the examples are represent a type distinct in race and few in number, crude in concept and physique as well as in culture from the execution, and quite possibly imported people of the south. In him, rather than (from Palestine?) rather than produced in some intrusive group of outlanders, we locally. "Sculpture" is represented by an oc- may perhaps recognize, with Junker, the casional female figure ("fertility goddess"?) ancestor of the so-called Dynastic Race, or or animal head modeled in pottery or Nile Giza type, of Early Dynastic and Old clay but usually so crude as to be scarcely Kingdom times. recognizable, and, at Maadi, by bird- To judge from his surviving settlements shaped vases, probably of Gerzean origin on the fringes of the eastern and western or inspiration. Applied decoration on deserts, the northern Egyptian lived in objects other than pottery is confined to towns of far greater size and of more one or more incised lines on the surface of developed urban character than those a palette or around the neck of a bone presently known to us in Upper Egypt, point. The same austerity or lack of where even the relatively late Predynastic imagination extended also to personal settlement at Hierakonpolis, the most adornment. Jewelry is extremely scarce on extensive yet recorded in this region, all the northern sites, with the exception oi.uchicago.edu

136 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT of El Omari, and when present at all and perhaps also in the physical and comprises only a few sea or river shells racial characteristics of their inhabitants. pierced for stringing, an occasional boar's Of equal importance to an understanding tusk or shark's tooth worn as a pendant, of the early settlements and cemeteries in and a few isolated pendants and beads of the north of Egypt are the ties which quite stone. evidently existed between them and other Distinctive practices and customs found African groups and communities, particu- among the prehistoric inhabitants of larly those generally described as Saharo- northern Egypt, which are attested on Libyan and including the peoples and two or more of the sites explored and which, cultures of the western oases, of the Gilf so far as can be determined, are not preva- Kebir and Uweinat hills, of the more lent south of the Fayum, include the large- remote Hoggar-Air-Tibesti region, and of scale breeding of pigs and a belief in the those stretches of the Nile Valley in Nubia amuletic powers of a boar's tusk when and the northern Sudan which came most worn on the person, the ceremonial setting- strongly under "Libyan" influence from up of the leg of a hippopotamus or other the west. These ties are most readily animal to serve either as a fetish or as an discernible in the bifacially worked stone offering to some divine or semidivine implements of the earlier settlements spirit of the chase, the burial of premature which derive their forms and techniques and infant children and, at Merimda and in part from local Paleolithic antecedents Ras el- Hof (El-Omari), of adult women and, and in part from traditions brought from occasionally, men in and among the the west by the Aterians and other no- dwellings of the living, and the use in the madic groups. They are apparent again, settlements of clay-lined bins for storage in late Neolithic times, in the striking and of trimmed potsherds as jar-covers. coincidences which exist between the From the earliest post-Paleolithic times implement types of the settlements of the relations between northern Egypt and Fayum B-culture and those of the Libyan western Asia, including perhaps occasional oases of Siwa and Kharga. Settlement migrations of groups of people, are readily burial and the cult of a fertility goddess, demonstrable. The initial impulse toward both attested in northern Egypt and the domestication of food-animals and the western Asia, occur also in the Libyan cultivation of food-plants, such as wheat area and further to the west, the former, and barley, and toward the settled mode of as we have seen, in the Upper Capsian existence which goes hand in hand with middens of the Maghreb, the latter among food production apparently came to Egypt, the Early Oasis Dwellers, or Peasant as we have already remarked, from the Neolithic folk, of the Kharga-Dakhla region of the Fertile Crescent. Since region. Arkell has noted significant paral- that moment Egypt's northern settle- lels between a Neolithic settlement near ments seem to have maintained more or Khartoum in the Sudan and the Fayum less continuous contacts, through trade Neolithic "A" culture, and Baumgartel and other activities, with similar but more reports that some material from a proto- advanced urban centers in Palestine and historic, or "A-group," cemetery in Nubia Syria, the effects of these contacts being "is the nearest" she has "seen so far to discernible not only in their material Merimda." That at least desultory trade culture, but also, it would appear, in relations existed between the northern their religious beliefs and burial customs Egyptian settlements and the Predynastic oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 137 people of Upper Egypt is indicated by the that the image of the political, social, presence at Merimda and Maadi of such economic, and religious development of typical Naqada-culture products as black- prehistoric northern Egypt reflected in the topped pottery, forked lanceheads, and archeological material is confirmed and rhomboidal cosmetic palettes of slate. clarified by traditions and records of events Despite the facts that they almost preserved to us in the and other certainly overlapped each other in time, documents of the historic, or dynastic, were not widely separated geographically, period. Before turning to these, however, and belonged to a recognizably "northern it is of the greatest interest and importance Egyptian" culture circle, the settlements to acquaint ourselves with the more or less of the Fayum, Merimda, El-Omari, and contemporaneous developments in Middle Maadi display in every case pronounced and Upper Egypt, that is, in the long individual characteristics which distinguish stretch of river valley extending south- them sharply from one another and lead ward from the Fayum to the great bend of inevitably to the conclusion that each was the Nile at Qena and thence upriver politically, economically, and to a great through the Thebaid and past the First extent culturally and religiously indepen- Cataract into Nubia. dent of its neighbors. There is, in other words, archeological evidence that Lower Egypt consisted at this time of a series of independent townships, each comprising NOTES the town or village proper surrounded by CHAPTER III the fields, pasture-lands, and other rural 1. NEAR EASTERN ORIGINs areas on which it depended for its support and each possessing its own local govern- Of the general works cited in the fourth ment, customs, and religious beliefs and paragraph of the first section of the notes to contain cults. The existence of local governments, Chapter II, above, the following more or less detailed surveys of the New probably centered in each case around a Stone Age and its salient characteristics as town or district ruler, is suggested at observed in various parts of the Old World, Merimda by the laying-out of the settle- including the Near East: MacCurday, Human ment in streets, at El-Omari by the finding Origin, II (1926), 21-132; Menghin, Weltge- in a grave of a body holding in its hand a schichte (1931), pp. 273-477; Childe, Man sceptre or staff of authority, and at Maadi Makes Him8elf (2d impr.; London, 1937), North by a circle of relatively modest pp. 59-86; What Happened in History (1942), graves surrounding an obviously much more pp. 48-68; Childe, "The New Stone Age", in important grave with a massive - Man, Culture, and Society, ed. by Harry L. like superstructure. The contrasting rich- Shapiro (New York, 1956), pp. 94-110; ness and poverty of the graves in the Turner, Great Cultural Traditions, I (1941), 68-122 passim; Clark, From Savagery eastern and western sectors of the cemetery 51-67, to Civilization (1946), pp. 69-87 ("Primitive of the Wadi Digla indicate, too, that Barbarism"); Braidwood, Prehistoric Men, social or, at least, economic different "Chicago Natural History Museum Popular classes existed within a single settlement. Series, Anthropology," No. 37 (1957), pp. We shall find, in a subsequent chapter,' 90-104; Coon, Races of Europe (1939), pp. 78-130; Story of Man (1958), pp. 114-80; 1 This topic, planned by the author for Chap. V, and Ebert, Reallexikon (1924-1932), under was unfrtunately never developed into publishable forrn.-The Editor. "Neolithikum" and other appropriate entries. oi.uchicago.edu

138 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT

To these may be added such-for the most On food production and the early food- part recent-general books, articles, and producing communities of southwestern discussions as Cole, The Neolithic Asia we may consult Helbaek, Science, ( [Natural History], London, CXXX (1959) 365-72; Archaeology, XII 1961. Bibliography on pp. 57-58); Braidwood (1959), 183-89; Queen Ichetis's Wheat; A The Near East and the Foundations for Contribution to the Study of Early Dynastic Civilization (Eugene, Oregon, 1952); Childe, Emmer in Egypt (Copenhagen, 1953); "Stud- "Old World Prehistory: Neolithic" (1953); ying the diet of Ancient Man," Archaeology, New Light on the Most Ancient East (1957), X IV (1961) 95-101; Sauer, Agricultural Ori- pp. 14-49, 102 ff.; Forde-Johnston, Neolithic gins and Dispersals (1952); Wissler, The Cultures of North Africa (1959); Balout, and Civilization (American Museum Prdhistoire de l'Afrique du Nord (1955), see of Natural History [New York 1946]); especially pp. 449-84; McBurney, Stone Age Zeuner, , I, 327-52; of Northern Africa (1960), pp. 229-74; Cole, ibid., pp. 353-75; Reed, "Animal Domestica- Prehistory of North Africa (1954), see Index tion in the Prehistoric Near East," Science, (p. 435) under "Neolithic"; Huzayyin, Place CXXX (1959), 1629-39; Isaac, "On the of Egypt (1941), pp. 275-304. A good general Domestication of Cattle," Science, CXXXVII survey of the technology and typology of (1962), 195-204; Braidwood and Reed, "The Neolithic tools and weapons, especially those Achievement and Early Consequences of made of stone, is provided by Bordaz, Food-production, A Consideration of the "First Tools of Mankind" (1959), pp. 92-106. Archeological and Natural-historical Evi- See also De Morgan, "L'industrie ndolithique dence" (1957); Braidwood, "Reflections on et le proche Orient," Syria, IV (1923), 23-37. the Origin of the Village-farming Commu- Divergent opinions on the use and mean- nity," in Weinberg, The Aegean and the Near ing of the term "Neolithic" are advanced by East (1956); Braidwood, Science, CXXVII Arkell, Kush, VII (1959), 238: "Ground (1958); Braidwood and Braidwood, "The stone is the main criterion, and it occurs at Earliest Village Communities of Southwestern Shaheinab, which is therefore 'neolithic,' Asia," in Cahiers d'histoire mondiale, I, No. 2 while it has not yet appeared at Early (October 1953), 228-310; Frankfort, Birth Khartoum, which is therefore 'mesolithic'"; of Civilization in the Near East (1951), by Balout, op. cit., pp. 450-51: "On pourra pp. 35 ff.; Adams, "Agriculture and Urban done parler de Neolithique, m~me lorsque Life in Early Southwestern ," Science, les pierres polies manquent dans un gisement; CXXXVI (1962), 109-22; Kraeling and mais on se refusera h employer ce terme si Adams, City Invincible (1960); Cole, The aucun des aspects de la civilisation ndoli- (London, 1961), pp. 5-28, thique n'est attest6: Polissage de haches et 57-88; Kenyon, Archaeology in the Holy Land d'herminettes-Pointes de fliches de taille (London, 1960), pp. 20-57; Digging up bifaciale-Cdramique modelde, gdndralement Jericho, (1957), pp. 51-76; Schaeffer, Syria, ornde-Domesticationetllevage-Agriculture"; XXXVIII (1961 [see pp. 8-13]); Mellaart, by Cole, Prehistory of East Africa, p. 215: "The Beginning of Village and Urban Life," "The change from a hunting economy to one in Piggot, ed., The Dawn of Civilization: of food production is the essential difference The First World Survey of Human Cultures between Palaeolithic and Mesolithic stages in Early Times (New York, Toronto, London, and the Neolithic"; and by Braidwood, 1961), pp. 41-64; Barnett, "The Growth of Kush, VII (1959), p. 236: ". . . the word Society," in The Epic of Man (by the editors 'Neolithic' has such a hopeless hodge-podge of Life magazine [New York, 1961]), Chap. of meanings that we should quickly cast it 3, pp. 47-65; Garasinin, "The Neolithic in into oblivion.., we might best name our Anatolia and the ," Antiquity, XXV archaeological materials in terms of the (1961), 276-80; Mellink, AJA, LXVI (1962), subsistence levels .... 71-85; Junker, "Geisteshaltung der Aegypt- oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 139 er," Sitzungsb. der O8terr. Akad. der Wissen- Egypt is followed by Forde-Johnston, sch., 237, 1 (Wien, 1961), 58 if.,70 if.Arkell, Neolithic Culture of North Africa (1959), pp. Kush, V (1957), 9, points out that ". . . the 25, 72, 125. See, however, Arkell, Bibliotheca domestication of plants and animals. .. are Orientalis, XIII (1956), especially pp. 125 ff. two very different things, and did not neces- See also Massoulard, Prdhistoire et proto- sarily originate together, or even at the histoire d'Egypte (Paris, 1949), pp. 30-54; same time or in the same place." He Cottevieille-Giraudet, BIFAO, XXXIII agrees that wheat and barley were probably (1933), 53-70; Vandier, Manuel d'arch. first cultivated in Asia; but remarks (p. 10) dgypt., I (Paris, 1952), 62-188, especially that "hungry wild animals must have sold pp. 181 ff.; Huzayyin, Place of Egypt (1941), themselves over and over again into pp. 294-305; Alimen, op. cit., pp. 103-110; to man in return for a supply of food, and Leakey, Stone Age Africa (1936), p. 120; there must have been numberless places McBurney, Stone Age of Northern Africa, where the has so pp. 233-47; McBurney and Hey, Prehistory originated." and Pleistocene Geology in Cyrenaican Libya The radiocarbon and estimated dates (Cambridge, 1955), pp. 247-51; Menghin, cited in the last two paragraphs of Section 1 "The Stone Ages of North Africa with Special and the chronological picture of the Neolithic Reference to Egypt," BSRGE, XVIII (1932), phase in the Near East reflected there were 17-21; Bovier-Lapierre, "L'ligypte prd- derived from Braidwood, AOA W, No. 19 historique," Pricis de l'histoire d'tgypte par (1958), Pittioni, Forschungen und Fort- divers historien8 et archeologues,I (Cairo, 1932), 8chritte, XXXI (1957); Junker, "Geisteshal- 40-43; Scharff, Die Altertimer der Vor. und tung," pp. 55-60; McBurney, "Radio Carbon FrilhzeitAgyptens (Berlin, 1929-1931),I, 8-16; Readings and the Spread of the Upper Kaiser, "Stand und Probleme der agyptischen Palaeolithic in Europe and the Mediter- Vorgeschichtsforschung," ZAS, LXXXI ranean Basin," (Madrid, 1957); Butzer, (1956), especially pp. 98-100; and the vast QuaternaryStratigraphy (Bonn, 1958), pp. 56, majority of the works cited in the preceding 90-104, 109-12, 128; Kenyon, Archeology in paragraphs. the Holy Land,pp. 35-44,56,59,60; Schaeffer, A convenient listing (with references) of Syria, XXXVIII (1961), 11; Alimen, Pre- the Carbon 14 dates for the Merimda, Fayum, history of Africa (1957), pp. 105, 426; Naqada I, and Naqada II cultures, respect- Larsen, Orientalia Suecana, VII (1958), ively, is given by Junker, "Geisteshaltung," 48-51, 53; Arkell, Shaheinab (London, 1953), pp. 56, 57. pp. 105-107; Kush, V (1957), 11-12; Cole, 2. THE FAYUM SETTLEMENTS The Neolithic Revolution, pp. 2, 9, 11, 40, 47, 48, 55, 56; Mellaart, "Beginning of Village On the Neolithic and early post-Neolithic and Urban Life," pp. 53-60 passim; Kohler cultures of the Fayum lake basin the basic and Ralph, "C-14 Dates for Sites in the work is Caton.Thompson and Gardner, The Mediterranean Area," AJA, LXV (1961), Desert Fayum (London, 1934). A series of see especially pp. 359, 360. preliminary reports by the same authors Baumgartel (Cultures of , include Caton-Thompson, Man, XXV (1925); I [rev. ed.; London 1955], pp. 14 if.,49, 120, Man, XXVIII (1928); Ancient Egypt (Sep- 121; II [Oxford, 1960], 26 if.,objects to the tember 1928); and Caton-Thompson and use of the expression "Neolithic" in connec- Gardner, Royal Anthropological Institute tion with any of the cultures discovered to Journal, LVI (1926); Geological Magazine, date in Egypt. See also De Morgan, La LXIV (1927). Also to be consulted isCaton- prdhistoire orientale (Paris, 1925-1927), II, Thompson, Gardner, and Huzayyin, "Lake 103 if.Dr. Baumgartel's dating of the Fayum Moeris: Re-investigations and Some Com- and Merimda settlements later in time than ments," BIE, XIX (1937), in which they the Tasian- of Upper reaffirm their belief in a falling Neolithic and oi.uchicago.edu

140 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT post-Neolithic Fayum lake, with an initial 4, 28, 31, 40, 55, 57, 79, 102-105, 107; level of 59 feet (18 meters) above sea-level Bibliotheca Orientalis, XIII (1956), 125 if.; and storm beaches piled up to a maximum Baumgartel, Cultures of Prehistoric Egypt, height of 72-79 feet (22-24 meters)-this I (rev. ed.), 15-16; II, 27, 29, 32, 33. last contribution being in part a reply to The opinions cited regarding the origin of Little, "Recent Geological Work in the the Fayum Neolithic A-culture will be found Faiyirm and in the Adjoining Portion of the in Huzayyin, "Recent Studies on the Nile Valley," BIE, XVIII (1936). Technological Evolution of the Upper The association of the post-Paleolithic Palacolithic of Egypt," Congres International reflooding of the Fayum basin and the crea- des Sciences prihistoriques et protohistoriques, tion of the high-level early Neolithic lake Actes de la IIIe Session, Zurich, 1950 with the so-called Flandrian Transgression of (Zurich, 1953), p. 175 (see above, Chap. II, the Mediterranean Sea is proposed by Sec. 4, notes); Caton-Thompson and Gardner, Pfannenstiel, "Entstehung der agyptisehen Desert Fayum, p. 94; Caton-Thompson, The Oasendepressionen," (1953), p. 406, and by Kharga Oasis in Prehistory (1952), p. 31; Butzer, Quaternary Stratigraphy, p. 109. Forde-Johnston, Neolithic Cultures, pp. 73, On the Neolithic Moist Interval, or Sub- 77, cf. pp. 68, 70, 71; Arkell, Shaheinab, p. pluvial II Phase, and its effects in Egypt see 105; see also History of the Sudan from the especially Butzer, Erdkunde, XI (1957), 27; Earliest Times to 1821 (London, 1955), AA WL .Mainz (1958), p. 39; "Naturland- pp. 345-46; Kush, V (1957), 8, 12; Kush, VII schaft Agyptens," AA WVLMainz (1959), (1959), 15-26; MeBurney, Stone Age of No. 2, p. 86; BSIGE, XXXII (1959), Northern Africa, p. 234 (see also p. 245); 63 if., and on the successive levels of the Childe, New Light, pp. 47-49; and Butzer, post-Paleolithic Fayum lake, Ball, Contribu- BSRGE, XXXII (1959), 44. tions to the Geography of Egypt (1939), pp. Earlier finds of Neolithic implements and 197 if. other remains in the Fayum are described More recent discussions of the Fayum and illustrated by Schweinfurth, Bulletin Neolithic settlements and cultures, derived Inst it ut gyptien (Cairo, 1886); Beadnell, for the most part from the reports of the Geological- Magazine (London, 1903); Seton- Misses Caton-Thompson and Gardner, but Karr, Annales du Service, V (1904); VI often incorporating new ideas and interpre- (1905) ; Currelly, Stone Implements (Cairo, tations of the material, will be found in: "Catalogue Generale" [1913]), pp. 68-203 Massoulard, Prehistoireet protoh istoire, pp. 39- (Nos. 63421-64426); De Morgan, La pre- 44; Cottevicille-Giraudet, BIFAO, XXXIII, histoire orientate, II, 54-68. 54-58; Vandier, Manuel, I, 62-94, 184-87; On the animal and plant remains found in Huzayyin, Place of Egypt, pp. 294-98; association with the Fayum A culture settle- Forde-Johnston, Neolithic Cultures, pp. 7, 17, ments see especially Caton-Thompson and 18, 69, 72 f., 108, 109; McBurney and Hey, Gardner, Desert Fayum, pp. 22, 34, 43, Prehi story and Pleistocene Geology in.. 46-49, 72, 84; Andrews, "Notes on an Libya, pp. 242-51; McBurney, Stone Age of Expedition to the Fayfim, Egypt," Geologwcal Northern Africa, pp. 233-38; Childe, New Magazine, X (1903); Butzer, "Naturland- Light on the Most Ancient East, pp. 35 ff. ; schaft Agyptens," p. 78. Butzer, Quaternary Stratigraphy, pp. 111-12; 3. THE OASES SIWA AND KHARGA Larsen, Orientalia Suecana Uppsala, VII OF (1958), 39-41; IX (1960), 49-51; Junker, The largest and best-documented collec- Anzeiger der Akad. der Wissenech. in Wien, tions of stone implements from Siwa were Phil.-Hist. Klasse, 1929, Nos. XVI-XVIII, assembled in 1918 by Dr. C. Willett-Cun- pp. 180-84; "Geisteshaltung," pp. 56, 62; ningham from surface sites on the slopes and Scharff, Altertumer der V'or- und Friihzeit terraces of the northern escarpment of T'ens+IV,1-14;A.rel hhiap.1, then oascis Wadon the ih esert plateau to th oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 141 north of the depression. They are now in the illustrated, and referred to by a number of Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in writers, among whom may be cited Butzer, Cambridge (Reg. Nos. 24.1113 and 24.1114) BSRGE, XXXII (1959), 81 (quoted in our and in the Alexandria Museum (Inv. No. text); De Morgan, Rdcherches sur les origines 21664) together with a small series of imple- de l'Fgypte (Paris, 1897), pp. 46 if., figs. ments collected in the region of Siwa by 29-45; Caton-Thompson, Kharga Oasis, p. H. W. Seton-Karr (registered as "Seton- ix, P1. 126; Caton-Thompson and Gardner, Karr"). The best discussion of the Siwan GeographicalJournal, LXXX (London, 1932), Neolithic and its relationships with the more or 371, 403, Map No. 1; Bovier-Lapierre, less contemporaneous cultures of the Fayum Bulletin Institut d',gypte, XII (Cairo, 1930), and other areas is provided by C. B. M. 126-27; "Stations pr6historiques des environs McBurney in McBurney and Hey, Pre- du Caire," Comp. rend., Congrds International history and Pleistocene Geology, pp. 251-62, de Gdographie (Cairo, 1925), IV (1926), 306; Figs. 35, 36. See also McBurney, Stone Age Cottevieille-Giraudet, BIFAO, XXXIII of Northern Africa, pp. 237-38; Huzayyin, (1933), 58, 63-64, figs. 42, 44; Massoulard, Place of Egypt, pp. 282, n. 1, 298 and n. 2; Prhistoire et protohistoire d'lgypte, p. 31, Caton-Thompson and Gardner, Desert Fayum nn. 10-13; Vandier, Manuel, I, 64. See also p. 94; Fakhry, , its History and Andrew and Delaney, "A Neolithic Site in Antiquities (Cairo, 1944), p. 22. the Sabalaka Gorge," Sudan Notes and The so-called Peasant Neolithic of Kharga Records, XXXIII (1952), 167; Save-Soder- is described in detail and extensively illu- bergh, Kush, X (1962), 76-105. strated in Caton-Thompson, Kharga Oasis in The remarks on the culture provinces of Prehistory (London, 1952), pp. vi-vii, 35-40, North Africa quoted in the last paragraph of 165-96, Pls. 100-19. Further discussions of our section are from McBurney and Hey, its nature, its relationships with the Fayum Prehistory and Pleistocene Geology in Cyren- B culture and the Predynastic of Armant in aican Libya, pp. 272-73. Upper Egypt, and the probable identity of its people with the authors of the rock- 4. THE WEST DELTA SETTLEMENT drawings ascribed by H. A. Winkler to the OF.MERIMDA BENI SALAMA so-called "Early Oasis Dwellers" will be The site of the Neolithic settlement at found in Caton-Thompson and Gardner, Merimda Beni Salama, lying six miles to the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, northwest of Merimda Abu Ghalib and LVI (1926), 319; Desert Fayum, pp. 24, 26, thirty-seven miles northwest of Cairo, 34, 55, 91, 94; Forde-Johnston, Neolithic measures some 660 yards from east to west Cultures of North Africa, pp. 23, 24, 70, 71; and 440 yards from north to south. It was Huzayyin in Mond and Myers, Cemeteries of explored and excavated during the years Armant (London, 1937), pp. 2, 196, 210, 215; 1928 to 1939 by an expedition of the Akademie Huzayyin, Place of Egypt, pp. 309, 317, 438; der Wissenschaften in Vienna under the McBurney, Stone Age of Northern Africa, direction of Professor Hermann Junker, pp. 236-37; McBurney and Hey, Prehistory assisted during the seasons of 1931-1932 and and Pleistocene Geology, pp. 256, 260-62, 1933 by members of the staff of the Medel- 272-73. havsmuseet (then called the "Egyptiska On the rock-drawings of the Early Oasis Museet") in Stockholm. The first season's Dwellers our principal reference is Winkler, work was published by Junker, "Bericht Rock-drawings of Southern Upper Egypt fiber die von der Akadamie der Wissen- (London, 1939), pp. 27-30, 33-36, Pls. schaften in Wien nach dem Westdelta XXXIX-L. See also Caton-Thompson, entsendete Expedition (20. Dezember 1927 Kharga Oasis in Prehistory, pp. vi-vii. bis 25. Februar 1928)," Denkschr. Akad. d. Surface finds of Neolithic stone imple- Wis8en8ch. Wien, Phil.-hist. Klasse, Band ments in the Egyptian area are described. LXVIII, Abh. No. 3 (1928), pp. 14-24 (also oi.uchicago.edu

142 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT

pp. 25.33), Pis. II-VI and XIV-XXV. The physical type and "northern" racial charac- results of the ensuing seven seasons (1929, teristics of the Merimda people, are contri- 1930, 1931-1932, 1933, 1934, 1937, and buted by Dr. Douglas E. Derry to Junker, 1939) were described and discussed by the Anzeiger... Wien, 1930, pp. 53-59, and same author and by Professor Oswald ibid., 1932, pp. 60-61. See also Junker, ibid., Menghin in a series of preliminary reports: LXXXVI (1949), No. 21, pp. 485-93, and Junker, Anzeiger der Akad. der Wi8sensch. in Coon, Races of Europe (New York, 1939), Wien, Phil.-Hist. Kiasse, Nos. XVI-XVIII pp. 93, 94, 99, 105. (1929), pp. 156-250; Nos. V XIII (1930), Among the general works on Egyptian, pp. 21-83; Nos. I IV (1932), pp. 36-97; North African, and Near Eastern prehistory Nos. XVI-XXVII (1933), pp. 54-97; No. X in which the settlement at Merimda is (1934), pp. 118-32; Nos. IV(1940),pp.3-25. discussed and evaluated may be cited: On the Neolithic landscape and population Massoulard, Prehistoire et protohistoire of the Delta see especially Butzer, "Die d''gypte, pp. 33-39; Vandier, Manuel, I, Naturlandschaft Agyptens," pp. 71-78; 95-153, 181-88; Huzayyin, Place of Egypt, BSRGE, XXXII, 50-52, 59 if.,and on the pp. 296-322 passim; Scharff, Altertilmer der geological setting of the settlement at Vor- und Frihzeit Agyptens, IV, 9-12 (see Merimda, Butzer, Science, CXXXII, No. also pp. 13-14); Kaiser, ZAS, LXXXI 3440, pp. 1618-19, Fig. 3. (1956), 87-109 (see also pp. 97-102, 105); The stratification of the settlement site MeBurney, Stone Age of Northern Africa, p. and the Carbon-14 dates obtained from itare 235; McBurney and Hey, Prehistory and discussed by Junker, Anzeiger d. Akad. d. Pleistocene Geology, pp. 244, 246, 249, 250; Wissen8ch. Wien, Nos. 1-V (1940), pp. Forde-Johnston, Neolithic Cultures of North 4-16; "Geisteshaltung(er Agypter," pp. Africa, pp. 17, 18, 24, 72; Alimen, Prehistory 55, 56, and by Larsen, Orientalia Suecana, of Africa, pp. 103 ff.;Childe, New Light, VII (1958), 48-51. See also Childe, New pp. 36-40; Menghin, Welt geschichte der Light (1957), p. 38 and Save-Sdderbergh, Steinzeit (Vienna, 1931), pp. 358 (P1. XLI)- Egypti8k egenart (1962), p. 18. 361; Menghin, "El origen del pueblo del Detailed comparisons between the antiguo Egipto,"Ampurias, IV (1941), 25-41; Merimda and Fayum A cultures are drawn Kantor, JNES, I (1942), 174-77, 199, by Caton-Thompson and Gardner. Desert 202-203. Fayumn, pp. 29, 32-34, 39, 45, 48, 70, 72, 87, For the vast majority of the prehistorians 89-94, and by Junker, Anzeier ... Wien and other writers cited in the foregoing (1929), pp. 180-84. paragraphs the settlement at Merimda is a Larsen, Orientalia Suecana, VI (1957), Neolithic town of considerable importance VII (1958), VIII (1959), IX (1960) has de- closely associated in its earlier stages with voted four articles to the study, respectively, the Fayum A culture and, like it, generally of the decorated pottery, the stone vases, and more primitive in character and earlier in the bone implements from Merimda in the date than the Naqada I and II cultures of Medelhavsmnuseet in Stockholm. Badawy, Uipper Egypt. The principal dissenting opin- History of Egyptian (Cairo, ion, as already noted, is that of Baumgartel, 1954) has provided a section on the "Dom- Cultures of Prehistoric Egypt, I (rev. ed., estic Architecture" of Merimda; and Scharf, 1955) and II (1960)-see especially I, 14-18, "Das Grab als Wohnhaus in der agyptischen 120 f., and other writings, who would see in Friizeit," Sitzungsber. Bay. Akad. d. Wis- the settlement a "rural community" "on the senech., Phil.-hist. Kla.,se, Jahrgang 1944/46, outskirts of Libya," representing "a belated Heft 6, pp. 13 ff., discourses on the settlement- civilization," its earliest phase (Layer I) burials at Merimda and El Omani. contemporaneous with Naqada II, its "upper Preliminary reports on the human remains strata" with "Early Dynastic times." Though from Meimda, with special reference to the some of Dr. Baumgzartel's points are well oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 143 taken and her views in general must be given No. 41 (1946), pp. 50-54; Annalee duService, the most serious consideration, they have XLVIII (1948), 561-69; BIE, XXXVII not-with only one or two exceptions (e.g., (1956), 329-39. In 1949 Hermann Junker Forde-Johnston, Neolithic Cultures of North included the measurements and other charac- Africa, pp. 17, 18, 24, 72)-been accepted by teristics of a skull from E1-Omari in Anzeiger subsequent writers on the settlement (among ... Wien, LXXXVI (1949); and in 1955 a whom must be counted such competent report was published by Elhamy A. M. prehistorians as Alimen, Arkell, Butzer, Greiss, BIE, XXXVI (1955), on the "Ana- McBurney, Kaiser, Kantor, and Larsen) and tomical Identifications of Plant Remains and have been convincingly criticized by Arkell, Other Materials from (1) E1-Omari .. " On Bibliotheca Orientalis, XIII (1956), by the cereal grains from the site (and the false Kantor, AJA, LIII (1949), 76-77, by Larsen, identification of the wheat as einkorn OrientaliaSuecana, VII (1958), 42 if., and by [Triticum monococcum]) see Helbaek, Pro- Vandier, Manuel, I, 81-88. The already- ceedings of the PrehistoricSociety, Cambridge, discussed radiocarbon dates obtained for N. S., XXI (1955), 93-95. the Merimdian and the Naqada I and II El-Omari is briefly discussed in most of the cultures also militate against Dr. Baumgar- general works on Egyptian and North tel's theories, which seem, to a great extent, African prehistory and in a number of articles to spring from the unwarranted assumption and monographs devoted to special aspects that in prehistoric times the Delta proper of the subject. Some of these were written was uninhabitable and that, therefore, the before the existence on the site of several home of the earliest Egyptian cultures must distinct cultural groups and periods had been be sought for exclusively in the south. generally recognized (Debono, BIE, XXXVII The reference in the next-to-last paragraph [1956], 330), and present, therefore, a some- of this section to the pre-agricultural use of what confusing over-all picture of the en- artificial irrigation "by people who do not semble. Others tend to confine themselves cultivate but collect wild-growing plants" solely to the early village near the Ras el- is based on Frankfort, Birth of Civilization Hof. Nearly all, however, are of value for in the Near East, pp. 36-37, who, in turn, their independent and sometimes divergent refers to Forde, Habitat, Economy and Society interpretations of the evidence as a whole and (London, 1934), p. 35. The quotation re- of the typological and technological details garding the close association of the Merim- which go to make up that evidence. The list dians with their dead is taken from Otto, of works is for the most part already familiar Agypten der Weg des Pharaonenreiches to the reader. Included are: Massoulard, (Stuttgart, 1953), p. 21. Prdhistoire et protohistoire, pp. 32-33; Van- dier, Manuel, I, 154-66, 183, 188; Huzayyin, Place of Egypt, pp. 5. EL OMARI: ITS SETTLEMENTS AND 300-301; Baumgartel, Cultures of Prehistoric Egypt, CEMETERIES I, 121; Cotte- vieille-Giraudet, BIFAO, XXXIII, 58-62; In April 1925 Pere Paul Bovier-Lapierre, Scharff, Altertumer, IV, 13; "Das Grab als "Une nouvelle station n6olithique (El Omari) Wohnhaus," pp. 15-17; Junker, Die Agypter au nord d'H6louan (lIgypte)," (Compte rendu, (Volker des antiken Orients, III [Freiburg, Congrds International de Gdographie, 1925, IV 1933]), pp. 7, 9, 18; Wien Anzeiger, LXXXVI [Cairo, 1926])--see also "Stations pr6histor- (1949), 486-87, 492; "Geisteshaltung," p. 65; iques des environs du Cairo," ibid., pp. Rizkana, Bull. Inst. Desert, II, 2 (1952), 298-308--reported the discovery, naming, 119, 121, 130; Larsen, Orientalia Suecana, and initial exploration of the prehistoric site VII, 41-42, 52; ibid., IX (1960), 51-52; (or sites) of El -Omari. Fernand Debono's Kaiser, ZAS, LXXXI, 98-100, 105; apud three seasons of work on the site are described Leclant, Orientalia, XXVIII (1959), 371; and discussed by him in Chronique d'gype, Otto, Agypten der Weg des Pharaonenreiches. oi.uchicago.edu

144 NEZOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT

pp. 19, 21; Kees, Ancient Egypt, A Geo- 6. MAADI, WADI DIGLA, HELIoPoLIs, graphical History of the Nile (Chicago, 1961), AND QASR QARUN pp. 23, 148, 149; Wolf, Kulturgeschichte des alten Agyptens (Stuttgart, 1962), p. 26; Modern surface exploration of the ancient F'orde-Johnston, Neolithic Cultures of North settlement site east of Maadi dates from 1925 Africa, p. 17; Alimen, Irehistory of Africa, p. when Mrs. F. W. Hume, the wife of the well- 104; Childe, New Light, pp. 40, 41, 48, 73, 74, known geologist, and her associate, Mrs. 93, 99; Badawy, History of Egyptian Archi- Lamb, picked up a number of flint imple- tecture, p. 15. ments in the area. In the same year R. P. A considerable range of (ates has been Paul Bovier-Lapierre explored both the ascribed to the Ras el-Hof settlement group settlement area and the cemetery some two or, as it is sometimes callel, the "Oman A" miles to the northeast, in the mouth of the or "Helwan (Neolithic) A" culture. Several Wadi el Tih, and briefly reported his finds writers, including Alimen, Prehistory of there of pottery, stone, and copper objects, Africa, pp. 105, 128, and Rizkana, Bull. animal and human bones (Bovier-Lapierre, Inst. Desert, 11, 2, p. 130, would make it CRCIG 1925, IV [Cairo, 1926], 306; see also earlier than Merimda anl would assign to it Chron. d'Agypte. VII. [1932]. 57-64). In a (late in the neighborhood of 6000 B.C. 1929 the site was visited by Johannes Lukas, Kaiser, ZAS, LXXXI, 99, 100, sees it as whose investigations are described in Lukas, contemporaneous with the late Merimdian Mitteilungen Anthropologische Gesellschaft in and believes both of these cultures, as well Wien, LXI (1931), 203-208. as the Fayum A, to be earlier than Early Excavation of the settlement was inau- Naqada in Upper Egypt. To Debono, BIE, gurated on December 14, 1930, under the XXXVII, 339, the settlement (ates from auspices of the Faculty of Arts of the the beginning of Naqada I and extends into Egyptian University in Cairo and the direc- the secondl part of that cultural phase. tion of Oswald Menghin and Mustafa Amer, l3atumgartel (loc. cit.) does not seem convinced and was carried on thereafter for twelve that El-hnari is predynastic at all and would seasons of one and a half to three months appear to favor a date in early historic times. each. The results of the first three seasons The radiocarbon date of 3305 + 230 B.C. (December 14, 1930, to January 31, 1931; (5256 + 230 B.P. in 1951) for a sample of February 15 to April 8, 1932; and February charcoal "from point 'A--15' of the house 1 to April 4, 1933) were reported on by floors (fonds de cabanes)" of the Ras el-Hof Menghin, "Die Grabung der Universitat settlement was first published by Arnold Kairo bei Maadi," M DIA KII (1931), 143- and Libby, Science, CXLII (1951), p. 111 47; M1DIAK, III (1932), 150-54; MDIAK, (No. 463); and is discussed by Braidwood, V (1934), 111-18; by Menghin and Amer, AO WA W (1958), Nr. 19, p. 257, by Kantor, Exrcavation of the Egyptian University in the Relative Chronologies in Old World Archeology Neolithic Site at Maadi. First Preliminary (Chicago, 1954), pp. 2-3, and by Alimen, Report (Season of 1930--31) (Cairo, 1932), ibid., Prehistory of Africa, p. 106. Junker, "Geist- Second Preliminary Report (Season of 1932) eshaltung der Agypter," p. 57, points out Cairo, 1936) ; and by Amer, Bulletin, Faculty that this date is not compatible with the ar- of Arts, Egyptian University, I (Cairo, 1933), cheological evidence as advanced by Debono, 322-24; those of the fourth season (January 27 bc. cit., and believes that "a substantially to April 16, 1934) by Amer, ibid., II, Part II earlier period must be assumed." (Cairo, 1935), pp. 176-78; and those of the On the identification by Hickmann, fifth season (February 1 to April 29, 1935) in Anynales du Serf.ice, XLIX (1949), 428-31, of LaBourse A'gyptienne for August 8, 1935, the perforated Nerita shells from El-Omani as and Chron. d'eLgypte, XI, No. 21 (January whistles see Arkell, Ansales du Sernice, L 1936), pp. 54-57. See also Amen, Cahiers (195i 0),M5a66 oi.uchicago.edu

NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT 145

Fasc. 5-6 (Cairo, 1952), p. 238, reprinted as The remarks of Petrie and Hall on the Amer, Chron. d'fgypte, XXVIII, No. 56 painted pottery of Abydos and of Bonnet and (1953), p. 280. Amer and Huzayyin, "Some Childe on that of Maadi are cited with Physiographic Problems Related to the references by Vandier, Manuel, I, 481, nn. 1 Pre-dynastic Site at Macadi," Proceedings of and 2, 791, nn. 1 and 2. the First Pan-African Congress on Prehistory, The cemetery of the Wadi el-Tih, north- Nairobi, 1947 (Oxford, 1952), discuss the east of Maadi, is briefly described by Bovier- recent geology and stratigraphy of the site, Lapierre, CRCIG 1925, IV, 306-308; and including an alleged but probably non- Chron. d'1gypte, VII, 60 and is commented existent succession of high aggradation and on by Baumgartel, Cultures, I, 122, 131, renewed degradation in Neolithic and early Massoulard, Prdhistoire et protohistoire, p. Chalcolithic times (cf. Butzer, "Naturland- 261; and Alimen, op. cit., p. 404. schaft Agyptens," pp. 26-27, 68, n. 1; That of Maadi North, as indicated in the GeographicalJournal, CXXV [1959], 78, n. 6; text, is accorded only passing reference by BSRGE, XXXII [1959], 55-56). Rizkana, Bull. Inst. Desert, II, 2, pp. 121, Highly valuable-and often highly critical 122; Amer, Cahiers d'histoire Agyptienne, -discussions of the date and significance of Hdliopolis, Serie IV, Fasc. 5-6 (Cairo, 1952), the settlement at Maadi and of the asso- p. 238; Amer and Rizkana, Bulletin of the ciated cemeteries occur in such general works Faculty of Arts, , XV (1953), as Baumgartel, Cultures of PrehistoricEgypt, 98, 203; Baumgartel, Cultures, I (1960), 122; I (1955), 14, 29, n. 1, 42, 44-46, 51, 105, 109, and Childe, New Light, pp. 73, 75. 110, 121, 122; II (1960), 13, 23, 30, 131-33, Short accounts of their two seasons of 137-39, 154 (cited several times in the text of work in the cemetery of the Wadi Digla this section); Huzayyin, Place of Egypt, pp. (Maadi South) were published by Amer and 301-304, 306, 315; Massoulard, Prihistoireet Rizkana, BFAC, XV (1953), 97-100, 201- protohistoire,pp. 259-68; Vandier, Manuel, I, 205. See also Rizkana, Bull. Inst. Desert, II, 466-96, 508-18, 529-32; Alimen, Prehistory I, pp. 121- 23, Leclant, Orientalia, XXI, 2 of Africa, pp. 111, 112, 123-26, 128; Childe, (Rome, 1952), p. 244; XXII, 1, pp. 97-98; New Light, pp. 73-76, 99, 224, 229, 233, 237; XXIII, 1, pp. 73-74. Kees, Ancient Egypt (Chicago, 1961), pp. 40, On the early cemetery near Heliopolis 42, 148, 149, 189; Scharff, Die Frihkulturen there are brief reports by Debono, Chron. Agyptens und Mesopotamiens, ("Der Alte d'lgypt, XXV (1950), No. 50, pp. 625-52, Orient," Band 41 [Leipzig, 1941]), pp. 12-15; Rizkana, Bull. Inst. Desert, II, 2, 121-23, Debono, BIE,XXXVII (1956), 339. Pls. III, IV-VII (B), VIII (A), and Leclant, Two additional references, which should Orientalia, XIX, 4 (1950), pp. 493-94, and however be used with caution, are Leclercq, comments by Baumgartel, op. cit., I, 121-22, Chron. d'lgypte, VIII, No. 15 (1933), pp. Childe, New Light, p. 75, and Vandier, 227-33, and Rizkana, Bull. Inst. Desert, II, Manuel, I, 496, n. 4. One of the dogs buried 1 (1952), pp. 121 if. in this cemetery is the subject of an article The shelters, huts, and magazines of by Moustafa, Bull. Inst. Desert, II (1952), Maadi are discussed and illustrated by 102-104, who reports that the animal's Badawy, History of Egyptian Architecture, I, skeleton and teeth are very similar to those 17-19, 23, figs. 6-8; and some of the cultural of a modern dog. contacts of the site with Palestine-especially The Predynastic finds in the Fayum, as regards the flints and pottery-by including the settlement near Qasr Qarun Kantor, JNES, I (1942), 177, 180-85, 191, and its relationship to Maadi, are described, 192, 199; and Childe, New Light, pp. 224, discussed, and illustrated by Gertrude Caton- 229, 237. On present.day foetus burials in Thompson, in Caton-Thompson and Gardner, Egyptian villages see Blackman, The Fella- Desert Fayum, pp. 69-71, Pls. LII, LIII. hi of Upper Egypt (London, 1927), p. 67. There can be little doubt that the immense oi.uchicago.edu

146 NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN EGYPT settlement at Maadi and the associated very far into the historic period is indicated cemeteries covered a long period of time, the by the complete absence from them of true former, as Huzayyin, loc. cit., has suggested, mud -brick construction, of any inscribed exhibiting perhaps "some kind of 'later' or object whatsoever, and of most of the charac- 'horizontal' stratification." Such items as the teristic Early Dynastic types of pottery, cylindrical vases of basalt, the black-topped stoneware, ivory carvings, and the like. An potsherds, the rhomboidal slate palettes, the assumed lifetime for the so-called "Maadian forked lanceheads, and some of the other Culture" ranging from somewhere around stone implement types would seem to imply a mid-Naqada II (ca. 3300 B.c.) to about the contemporaneity or partial contemporaneity third or fourth decade of the First Dynasty with the Middle Predynastic culture of (ca. 3070-3060 B.c.) would probably not be Upper Egypt. On the other hand, the fan- far wide of the mark. shaped scrapers, many of the pottery forms, the absence of stone axeheads, the extensive 7. CHARACTER OF THE NORTHERN use of copper for tools and weapons, and the EGYPTIAN COMMUNITIES presence of rough stone superstructures over The material for this summary was drawn some of the graves point certainly to very in its entirety from the preceding sections of late Predynastic and Early Dynastic ("Early the present chapter and from the references- ") times. That, however, neither especially the more general works-cited in the settlement nor the cemeteries survived the notes accompanying these sections. oi.uchicago.edu

4 THE PREDYNASTIC CULTURES OF UPPER AND MIDDLE EGYPT

1. PRELIMINARY SURVEY includes the neighboring sites of Deir Tasa, Nazlet el Mostagedda, and Matmar on the north and El- Hemamieh and SURFACE finds of Neolithic stone Qau el- Kebir on the south. Closely asso- implements at numerous points along the ciated through their combed and burnished fringes of the Upper Egyptian Nile Valley pottery with Nubia and the northern and of habitation sites in the adjoining Sudan the settlements and cemeteries of desert areas as well as in Nubia and the the Badarians do not reach north of the northern Sudan show clearly that this area just described, but typical Badarian part of the land was not, as has been pottery and other products have been suggested, unoccupied by man between found at several places in southern Upper the Final Paleolithic and the Chalcolithic Egypt, notably at Armant and in the basin phases of Egyptian prehistory. To date, of the Wadi Hammamat. In all some one however, no Neolithic settlements or thousand Badarian graves have been cemeteries comparable to those of northern cleared to date and to these may be added Egypt have been identified in or near the forty-odd burials of the so-called "Tasian river valley between the latitude of the culture," evidently an early phase of the Fayum and the First Cataract. Though Badarian found in the same general area, this need not mean that Upper and Middle that is, in the vicinity of Deir Tasa and the Egypt had at that time no settled popula- adjoining sites. Small Badarian settlements tion the fact remains that the earliest are also known in sufficient quantity to be post-Paleolithic habitation and burial sites described by Werner Kaiser as "numerous." in this area belong to two partly contem- Unhappily, the only existing radiocarbon poraneous and related cultures, the Badar- date derived from a Badarian sample ian and the Naqadian, both of which (3150 + 160 B.c.) is so obviously low as from the outset produced small imple- to be useless. Since, however, the Badarian ments and ornaments of hammered copper appears to have been contemporaneous and are therefore classed as Chalcolithic with the earliest phases of the Naqada or, to use a more general and familiar culture (dated by the Carbon 14 method to designation, as "Predynastic." 3790 + 300 B.C.) it may be assigned with In Egypt the "core area" of the Badar- some assurance to the first century or two ian centers around the type-site of Badari, of the fourth millennium. on the east side of the Nile some twenty- The kernel zone of the Naqada culture two miles south of the city of Asyut, and is the area inclosed by the great eastward

147 oi.uchicago.edu

148 PREDYNASTIC CULTURES OF UPPER AND MIDDLE EGYPT loop of the Nile between Gebelein and drawings, those of Winkler's "Eastern Abydos. Here, where a number of desert Invaders" and those of his "Early Nile tracks from the Red Sea on the east and Dwellers." Traces of the Naqada culture from the Great Oases on the west converge in the oases and other areas of the Libyan on the Nile Valley, lay a region much Desert are slight, but an association of the frequented by ancient man from the Predynastic people of Armant and the Middle Paleolithic period onward and Peasant Neolithic folk of Kharga is appa- destined in the course of Egypt's dynastic rent, as has already been remarked (Chap. and subsequent history to retain much of III, § 3), from the close agreement of their its old geo-political importance. In Pre- stone implements. All told it occurs at more dynastic times the focal point of the area than fifty sites, including ten with the re- lay to the north of the present village of mains of settlements, and its cemeteries Naqada, in the important prehistoric number at least fifteen thousand graves. town of Nubt (later Ombos) and in the As time progressed influences both from vast cemeteries of Naqada and Ballas within and without brought about basic which together have yielded more than changes in the character of the culture and three thousand graves. Settlements and its products, the changes taking place in cemeteries belonging to the earlier (and more or less recognizable stages to which subsequent) stages of the culture abound in modern investigators have applied a variety the same general area-at Hu and of designations. Having, in 1901, devised Abadiyeh ("Diospolis Parva"), El-Amrah, a system of relative dating, or "Sequence Abydos, El-Mahasna, Naga el- Deir, and Dates," which is no longer regarded by Mesaeed, to the north of Naqada, and at prehistorians as reliable, Sir Flinders Khozam, Armant, Gebelein, and Hiera- Petrie subsequently divided the Naqadian konpolis to the south. With time the culture into three principal phases, named, with spread northward, first into the Badarian reference to the sites of El-Amrah, Gerzeh, zone (Qau el- Kebir, Hemamieh, Badari, and Semaineh, the "Amratian," the Mostagedda, and Matmar) and thence, "Gerzean," and the "Semainean" and during its later stages, into Middle Egypt otherwise known as Naqada I, Naqada II, (Deir Bisra, Sawada, Zawiyet el-Meitin) and Naqada III. In 1944 Helene Kantor and the region of the Fayum (Harageh, challenged the existence of a Semainean Abusir el:Meleq, Gerzeh, Wadfa), reaching or Naqada III stage and pointed out that the Memphite area (Tarkhan, Giza) not the culture of the First Dynasty arose long before the beginning of the historic immediately out of the late Gerzean. In period. Southward it spread beyond the 1956-57 Werner Kaiser, chiefly on the bounds of Egypt proper into Nubia, where basis of a detailed study of a well-recorded in its middle and final phases it has been Predynastic cemetery at Armant, attemp- found at many sites between the First and ted a new chronological articulation of the Second Cataracts (Bahan, Debod, Dehmit, Naqada culture, dividing it into three Gerf Hussein, Dakka, Amada, Aniba, Abu stages ("Stufe I," "II," and "III"), each Simbel, Faras, Gemnai, etc.). In the subdivided into three to four sub-stages Eastern Desert it is represented by a ("I a," "II c," etc.) which in turn were settlement and graves in the vicinity of sometimes further subdivided ("II d I," the oasis of Laqeita and by graves in the "II d 2," "III a 1," etc.). x Wadi Hammamat and near the Red Sea 1 This fragment of Chap. IV concludes the com- coast, as well as by two series of rock pleted portion of Mr. Hayes' proposed work. oi.uchicago.edu

INDEX OF NAMES

The indexes to this volume were prepared by Miriam P. Arnett. Adams, Robert McC., 138 n. 1 Beadnell, H. J., 31 n. 1, 32 n. 2, 34 n. 6, Alimen, H., 33 n. 5, 39 n. 11, 74, 76n. 1, 35 n. 8, 36 n. 9, 37 n. 10, 140 n. 2 77 n. 1, 79 n. 2, 80 n. 2,81 n. 3, 82 n. 3, Bittel, K., 77 n. 1 84 n. 4, 85 n. 4, 86 n. 4, 87 n. 4, 88 n. 5, Blackman, Winifred S., 145 n. 6 4, 90 n. 5, 139 n. 1, 142n. 4, 143n. Blanekenhorn, M., 13, 30 n., 30 n. 1, 31 n. 1, 144 n. 5, 145 n. 6 31 n. 2, 32 n. 2, 32 n. 3, 35 n. 7, 36 n. 9, Amer, Mustafa, 132, 144 n. 6,145 n. 6 37n. 10, 38n. 11, 39n. 12,75 Andrew, G., 31 n. 1,31 n. 2, 34 n. 6,141 n. 3 Bonnet, H., 89 n. 5, 125, 145 n. 6 Andrews, C. W., 32 n. 2,140 n. 2 Bordaz, Jacques, 50, 75, 77 n. 1, 78 n. 2, Arcelin, Godefroy, 45, 74 80 n. 3, 81 n. 3, 85 n. 4, 87 n. 5,138 n. 1 Arkell, A. J., 76 n. 1, 78 n. 1, 79 n. 2, 80 n. 2, Bordes, F., 80n. 3, 81n.3 82 n. 3, 86 n. 4, 87n.4, 5 88-89n. Boswell, P. G. H., 79 n. 2 Arkell, W. J., 29 n., 30 n., 30 n. 1, 31 n. 2, Bovier-Lapierre, Pre Paul, 33 n. 5, 36 n. 8, 32 n. 2, 32 n. 3, 32 n. 4,33 n. 5,33 n. 6, 9, 46, 56-57, 71, 74, 76n. 1, 77n. 1, 34 n. 6, 35 n. 7, 35 n. 8,36 n. 8,36 n. 79 n.2, 80 n.3, 81 n. 3,88 n. 5,117-18, 37 n. 10, 38 n. 11, 40n. 12, 50, 57, 74- 131, 139n. 1, 141n. 3, 143n. 5, 1, n. 2, 79n. 2, 75, 77 n. 78 80n. 3, 6, 145 n. 6 81 n. 3, 82 n. 3, 83 n.4,87 n.4,88 n.5, 144 n. 90 n. 5, 97, 114, 136,138 n.1,139 n.1, Braidwood, R. J.,40n. 12, 75, 77n. 1, 140 n.2, 143 n.4, 144n.5 83n. 3, 137n. 1, 138 n. 1, 139 n. 1, Arldt, T., 31 n. 2 144 n. 5 Arnold, J. R., 144 n. 5 Breasted, James Henry, 34 n. 6, 35 n. 6 Aseherson, P., 36 n. 10 Breitinger, E., 75-76 Attia, M. I., 35 n. 8 Breuil, Abbe H., 60, 76 n. 1, 81 n. 3, 87 n. 4 Azadian, M. A., 37 n. 10 Broecker, W. S., 40 n. 12 Azer, N., 34 n. 6 Brooks, C. E. P., 35n. 6, 39n. 11, 39n. 12 Brotzen, F., 90 n. 5 Bachatly, C., 75 Brown, R. H., 36 n. 8 5, Badawy, Alexander, 142 n. 4, 144 n. G., 87 n. 4 145 n. 6 Brunton, Baedeker, Karl, 30 n. Burkitt, M. C., 77 n. 1, 78 n. 1, 78 n. 2, 87n.5 Ball, J., 29 n., 30 n. 1, 31 . 1, 31 . 2, 32 n. 2, 33 n. 5, 34 n. 6, 35 n. 7, 35 n. 8, Butzer, Karl W., 21, 24, 29 n., 30 n. 1, 36 n. 9, 36 n. 10, 37 n. 10, 40 n. 12, 31 n. 1, 31 n. 2, 32 n. 2, 32 n. 4, 33 n. 5, 40 n. 13, 41 n. 13, 81 n. 3, 140 n. 2 34 a. 6, 35 n. 6, 35 n. 7, 36 n. 8, 36 n. 9, 38 n. 11, 39 n. 11, 39 n. 12, 40 n. 12, Balout, L., 39 n. 11, 39 n. 12, 76, 78 n. 1, 40 n. 13, 41 n. 13, 68, 72, 76 n. 1, 79 n. 2, 80 n. 2, 85 n. 4, 138 n. 1 78 n. 2, 79 n. 2, 81 n. 3, 82 n. 3, 84 n. 4, Barnett, Lincoln, 138 n. 1 86 n. 4, 87 a. 4, 88 n. 5, 89.n. 5, 90 n. 5, Barron, T., 32 n. 3 92, 97, 102-3, 139 n. 1, 140 n. 2, Barthoux, J., 40 n. 13 141 n. 3, 142 n. 4, 143 n. 4, 145 n. 6 Bate, D. M. A., 86 n. 4, 88 n. 5 Bates, Onec, 114 Cana, F. R., 35 n. 6 Baumgartel, Elise J., 90 n. 5, 92, 114, 118, Caton-Thompson, Gertrude, 33 n. 5,34 n. 6, 122, 126-27, 129, 131, 136, 139 n. 1, 36 n. 9, 37 n. 10, 38 n. 11, 40 n. 12, 140 n. 2, 142 n. 4, 143 n. 4, 143 n. 5, 40 n. 13, 52, 55, 59, 61-67, 69, 74, 144 n. 5, 145 n. 6 78 n. 2, 79 n. 2, 80 n. 2, 80 a. 3, 81 a. 3, 149 oi.uchicago.edu

150 INDEX

150IDE82 n. 3, 83 n. 3, 83 n. 4,841.4,85 n. 4, Gindy, A. R., 30 n. 1, 32 n. 3 86 n. 4, 87 n. 4, 88 n. 5,891n.5,9011.5, Godwin, H., 40 n. 12 97, 102-3, 108-9, 127, 134, 139n. 2, Grant, James A., 37 n. 11 140 n. 2, 141 n. 3, 142n. 4, 145n. 6 Greiss, Elhamy A. M., 143 n. 5 Cesnola, Arturo Palma di, 89n. 5 Childe, V. Gordon, 41 1. 13, 47, 75, 78 n. 1, Hall, A. R., 125, 145 n. 6 1. n. 83 3, 87 4, 97, 120, 125-26, 132, Hamy, Ernest, 74 137 n. 1, 138 n. 1, 140n. 2, 142n. 4, 144 n. 5, 145 n. 6 Hay, R. L., 77 n. Clark, Grahame, 69-70, 75, 78 1. 1, 80 n.2, Hayes, W. C., 89 n. 5 83 n. 3, 87 n. 4, 87 n. 5,137 n. 1 Haynes, John H., 75 Cole, S., 58, 76 n. 1, 79 n.2, 8011. 2, 8011. 3, Helbaek, Hans, 138 n. 1,143 n. 5 82 n. 3, 85 n. 4, 86 n. 4,871.4,8811.5, Herodotus, 35 n. 7 89 n. 5, 138 n. 1, 139n. 1 Hey, R. W., 84 n. 4, 139n. 1, 140n. 2, Coon, C. S., 58-59, 75, 7811. 1, 83 n. 3, 141 n. 3, 142n. 4 87 n. 5, 137 n. 1, 142n.4 Hickmann, Hans, 144 n. 5 Cottevieille-Giraudet, R., 74, 77 1. 1, Higazy, R. A., 30 n. 1 83n. 4, 85n. 4, 88n. 5, 139n. 1, Hockett, C. D., 75 140 1. 2, 141 1. 3,143 1. 5 Currelly, Charles, 75, 14011. 2 Hume, W. F., 30 n., 31 n. 1, 32 n. 2, 32 n. 3, 35n. 8, 36n. 10, 37n. 10, 46, 144n. 6 Curtis, G. H., 77 n. 1 Hurst, H. E., 35n. 6 Daressy, G., 89 n. 5 Huzayyin, S. A., 30 n., 32 n. 2, 33 n. 5, Dart, R. A., 78 n. 1 34n. 6, 36n. 9, 37n. 10, 37n. 11, 38n. 11, 39n. 12, 40n. 12, 40n. 13, Davies, 0., 39 n. 11 41 n. 13, 46, 52, 62-64, 71-72, 74-76, Debono, Fernand, 61, 64, 71, 77n. 1, 77 n. 1, 78 n. 2, 79 n. 2, 80 n. 2, 80 n. 3, 84 n. 4, 85 n. 4, 88n. 5, 117-18, 133, 81 n. 3, 83 n. 4, 84 n. 4, 85 n. 4, 86 n. 4, 143 n. 5, 144 n.5, 145n.6 87n. 4, 88n. 5, 89n. 5, 90n. 5, 97, Deevey, E. S., Jr., 75 138n. 1, 139n. 1, 139n. 2, 140n. 2, Derry, Douglas E., 120, 14211. 4 141 n. 3,142 n. 4, 143 n. 5,145 n. 6, 146n.6 Diodorus Siculus, 35 n. 7 Drioton, E., 36 n. 8 Ibrahim, M. M., 32 n. 2 Dunbar, J. H., 90 n. 5 Isaac, Erich, 138 n. 1

Ebert, M., 75, 77 1. 1,137 n. 1 Janssen, J. M. A., 89 n. 5 Eiseley, L. C., 83 n. 3 Johnson, F., 40 n. 12 El Ayouti, M. K., 3011. 1 Joleaud, .once, 67-68, 86 n. 4 Everdeen, J. F., 7711. 1 Jordan, W., 36 n. 10 Junker, Hermann, 4011. 12, 64, 84 n. 4, Fakhry, A., 37 n. 10, 141 n. 3 85 n. 4, 103, 109, 112, 135, 138 n. 1, Fleisch, H., 76 11. 1 139 n. 1, 140 n. 2, 141 n. 4, 142 n. 4, Forbes, R. H., 3711. 10 143 n. 5, 144n. 5 Forde-Johnston, J. L., 36 n. 9, 39 n. 11, 97, Kaiser, Werner, 114, 122, 139 n. 1, 142 n. 4, 138 n. 1, 139 11. 1, 14011. 2, 141 11. 3, 142 n. 4, 143 n. 4, 144 n. 5 143 n. 4, 143 n. 5, 144 n. 5, 147, 148 Kantor, Fourtau, R., 3411. 6 Helene, 14211. 4, 143 n. 4, 144 n. 5, 145 n. 6, 148 Frankfort, Henri, 138 n. 1, 143 11. 4 Kees, Herman, 144 11. 5, 145 11. 6 Gaillard, C., 3411. 6, 8611. 4 Keldani, E. H., 3011., 32 n. 2, 75 Gara~inin, M. V., 138 n. 1 Kemal el-Din Hussein, 77 n. 1, 8811. 5, 103 Kenyon, Kathleen M., 138 n. 1, 13911. 1 Gardner, E. W., 3411. 6, 3611. 9, 3711. 10, 38 n. 11, 88 n. 5, 89 n. 5, 139 n. 2, Kohler, E. L., 4011. 12, 13911. 1 140 n. 2, 141 n. 3, 142 n. 4, 145 n. 6 Kraeling, Carl H., 13811. 1 Garrod, D.A. E., 71, 8611. 4, 8811. 5 Kroeber, A. L., 801. 3 oi.uchicago.edu

INDEX 151

Lamb, Mrs., 144 n. 6 INDEXObermaier, H., 76 n. 1, 77 1. 1, 78 1. 151, Lansing, A., 89 n. 5 83n.4, 87n.4 Larsen, Hjalmar, 84 n. 4, 89 n. 5, 92, 103, Otto, Eberhard, 143 11. 4,143 n. 5 114, 139n. 1, 140n. 2, 142n. 4, 143 n. 4, 143 n. 5 Passarge, S., 34 n. 6, 35 n. 6, 37 n. 11, Leakey, L. S. B., 41n. 13, 74, 76n.1, 40 n. 13, 103 77 n. 1, 78 n. 1, 79n. 2, 82n. 3, 84n.4, Perthes, Boucher de, 44, 76 n. 1 139 n. 1 Petrie, Flinders, 125, 127, 14511. 6,148 Leclant, J., 40 n. 12, 143 1. 5,145 n. 6 Pfannenstiel, M., 31 n. 2, 36 11. 9, 3611. 10, Legrain, Georges, 102 37 n. 10, 140 n. Lenormant, Francois, 74 Pietsch, W., 35 n.6 Libby, W. F.. 40 n. 12, 144n. 5 Piggott, S., 78 n. 1,138 n. 1 Little, 0. H., 35 n. 8, 36 n. 9, 37 n. 10, Pitt-Rivers, Augustus, 75 79 1. 2, 140 n. 2 Pittioni, Richard, 139 n. 1 Lozach, J., 35 n. 7 Pliny the Elder, 35 n. 7 Lukas, Johannes, 144 n. 6 Proosdij, B. A., 40 n. 12 Lyons, H. G., 34 n. 6 Ralph, E.K., 40n. 12, 139n. 1 McBurney, C. B. M., 33 1. 5, 36 n. 9, 39 n. 11, 40 n. 12, 41 n. 13, 53, 55, 57- Read, C. H., 77 n. 1 59, 60-62, 64, 66, 71, 74-76, 77n. 1, Reed, Charles A., 138 n. 1 79 1. 2, 80 n. 3, 81 1. 3,82 1. 3,83 n. 4, Reil, Wilhelm, 70 84 1. 4, 85 n. 4, 86 n. 4, 87 1. 4,88 n. 5, Reim, A., 35n.6 89 n. 5, 90 n. 5, 97-98,99-100,138 n. 1, Rittman, A., 30 n. 4, 35 n. 8 139 1. 1, 140 n. 2, 141 n. 3, 142 n. 4, 143 n. 4 Rizkana, Ibrahim, 34 n. 6, 132, 143 n. 5, 144n. 5, 145 n. 6 MacCurdy, G. G., 75, 77 1. 1, 78 n. 2, 88 n. 5, 137 n. 1 Rohlfs, G., 36 n. 10 Marais, J., 77 Romer, A. 5.,41 n. 13 Massoulard, P., 74, 76, 77n. 1, 78n. 2, Ruhlmann, A., 39 n. 12 79 n. 2, 80n. 3,81 n.3,83n.4, 85n.4, 86n. 4, 87n. 4, 88n. 5, 139n. 1, Save-Soderbergh, T., 76 n. 1, 89 n. 5, 140 n. 2, 141 n. 3, 142n. 4, 143n. 5, 141 1. 3 145 n. 6 Sahlin, M. D., 75 Mellink, Machteld J., 138 1. 1 Said, Rushdi, 29 n., 30 n., 30 n. 1, 3211. 2, Menghin, Oswald, 39 11. 12, 64, 74-75, 321. 3,35 n. 7, 351. 8,36 n. 9, 3611.10 77 n. 1, 109, 114, 125, 137 n. 1, 139 n. 1, 142 n.4, 144 n.6 Sandford, K. S., 29 n., 30 n. 1, 31 . 1, 311. 2,321. 2,321. 3,321. 4,3311. 5, Montet, A. M., 84 11. 4 331. 6,341. 6, 351. 7,351.8,36 n. 8, Morgan, J. de, 36 n. 8, 71, 75, 88 n. 5, 36 n. 9, 36 n. 10, 37 n. 10, 38n. 11, 138 n. 1, 139 n. 1, 140 n. 2, 141 n. 3 40 n. 12, 40 n. 13, 50, 55, 57, 61, 74, Moustafa, Y. Shawki, 32 n. 2, 133, 145 11. 6 76-77 n. 1, 78 n. 2, 7911. 2, 80 n. 3, Movius, H. L., 39 n. 12, 40 n. 12, 54-55, 66, 811. 3,821. 3, 831.4,8611. 4,8711. 4, 75-76, 77 n. 1, 78 n. 2, 80 n. 3, 81 n. 3, 88 n. 5, 90 n. 5 84 n. 4, 85 n. 4, 86 n. 4, 87 11. 5, 88 n. 5, Scharff, A., 74, 83 n. 4, 85 n. 4, 90 n. 5, 89 n. 5 139 n. 1, 140 n. 2, 142 n. 4, 143 n. 5, Murray, G. W., 3711. 11 145 n. 6 Myers, 0. H., 89 n. 5 Schmitthenner, H., 3611. 10 Myre, J. L., 3011. Schott, 5., 77 11. 1 Schwarzbach, M., 3911. 12 Nakkady, S. E., 31 n. 1 Schweinfurth, Georg, 75, 77 11. 1, 140 n. 2 Neuffer, E., 77 n. 1 Seligman, Charles, 56, 75, 81 11. 3 Neuville, R., 39 n. 12 Seton-Karr, H. W., 90 n. 5, 140 n. 2, Oakley, K. P., 75, 77 n. 1, 7811. 2, 8011. 2, 141 11. 3 oi.uchicago.edu

152 INDEX Shukri, N. M., 30 n. 1, 31 n. 1, 32 n. 1, Vignard, Edmond, 34 n. 6, 46, 56, 59, 60- 32 n. 3, 34 n. 6, 35 n. 7, 35 n. 8 62, 66, 77 n. 1, 78n. 2,80 n.2, 80 n.3, Sollas, H. G. E., 32 n. 2 81 n. 3,82 n. 3,84 n. 4,85 n. 4, 87 n. 4 Sollas, W. J., 75, 76 n. 1, 77 n. 1, 78 n. 1 Wasfy, H. M., 30 n. 1 Sterns, F. H., 79 n. 2 Washburn, S. L., 75 Strabo, 35 n. 7 Watson, D. M. S., 68 Stromer, E., 35 n. 7, 36 n. 10 Andrej, 58, 82 n. 3 Suess, Edward, 3, 32 n. 2 Wiercinski, Willett-Cunningham, 140 n. 3 Suggate, R. P., 40 n. 12 C., Willis, E. H., 40 n. 12 Toussoun, 0., 35 n. 7 Winkler, 73-74, 89 n. 5, 90 n. 5,100,102, 141 n. 3,148 78n. 1, 83n. 3, Turner, R., 40 n. 12, 75, H. E., 37 n. 10 88 n. 5, 137 n. 1 Winlock, Woldstedt, P., 39 n. 12 Uhden, R., 31 n. 2, 37 n. 10 Wolf, W., 89 n. 5, 144 n. 5 Woodward, A. S., 87 n. 4 Vallois, H., 77 Wright, W. B., 33 n. 5, 75, 76 n. 1 Vandier, J., 36 n. 8, 61, 74, 77 n. 1, 79 n. 2, 80 n. 3, 81 n. 3, 83 n. 4, 85 n. 4, 88 n. 5, Zeuner, F. E., 25-26, 35 n. 7, 39 n. 11, 90 n. 5, 125, 139 n. 1, 140 n. 2, 141 n. 3, 39 n. 12, 40 n. 12, 76 n. 1, 78 n. 2, 142 n. 4, 143 n. 4, 145 n. 6 80 n.3, 84 n.4, 138 n. 1 Vaufrey, R., 69, 84 n. 4, 87 n. 4, 89 n. 5 Zittel, K. A., 36 n. 10 oi.uchicago.edu

SUBJECT INDEX

The indexes to this volume were prepared by Miriam P. Arnett. Abbassiya, 7, 11, 33 n. 5, 45, 50, 52, 56, 57, Araba, Wadi, 3 63, 76 n. 1, 79 n. 2, S0n. 3, 81-82n. 3 Arable land, 13 Abbevillian stage (derived from Abbeville, Arabs Gulf, 12, 25, 31 a. 1, 35 n. 7, 39 n. 2 France), 21 43, 44, 45, 48, 49, 53-54, Archeozoic era, 1 76 n. 1, 77 n. 1, 81 n. 3 Arrowheads; see Bow and arrow Abu el-Agag, Wadi, 46, 56 Arsinoe, 18 Abu Roash, Gebel, 1, 3, 5,10, 27, 31 n. 1, 45 Arsinoitherium, 3, 32 a. 2 Abu Simbel, 14, 55 Art, 135; see also Abu Suwair, 63, 64 Drawings, rock Assemblages; see Industries Abuqir, 11-14 Astronomical dating method, 39 n. 12 Abusir, 15 Aswan, 5-6, 14-15, 20, 28, 30 n. 1, 35 n. 8, Abyssinia, 2, 8-9, 21, 56 46, 52, 56, 71, 86 n. 4, 88 n. 5 Accessibility, 29 Asyut, 2, 8, 20, 34 n. 6, 45, 51, 65, 68, 147 Acheulian Man, Lower (Atlanthropus mau- Ataqa, Gebel, 3, 27, 122 ritanicus, Ternifine, Algeria), 47, 53 Atbara River, 6-9, 28, 31 a. 2, 45 Acheulian stage (derived from St. Acheul, Amiens, France), 19, 21, 31 n. 2, 49-54, Aterian (derived from Bir el Ater, Tunisia); .56, 78n. 2, 79n. 2, 80n. 2, 82n. see Industries 3, 83 n. Micoquian (after Micoque, Atiri, 15 France)-final stage, 79 n. 2 Atlantic phase (Climatic Optimum), 23 Acheulio-Levalloisian stage, 7, 21, 52, 55, Augite (indication of the Blue Nile), 6, 7, 57, 79n. 2 33n. 5 Afu, Wadi, 52 Aurignacian culture (blade culture), 59, 66, Aggradation, 6, 9, 12, 16-17, 22, 26-27, 68, 85n. 4 34 n. 6, 50, 59, 93, 145n. 6; see also Australopithecus, 78 n. 1 Silt levels Axehead, 108, 117, 120 Agriculture, 91-93, 95, 103, 112, 122, 130, copper, 127 136, 138 n. 1, 139n. 1 Axes; see Hand-axe pre- 69-70, 72 stock-farming, 112, 122, 130 Bab el-Mandeb, 4 Ahmar, Gebel el-, 5, 10, 45, 50, 52, 56, 118, Badarian; see Predynastic period 133 Bahnasa, el-, 3 Akhdar, Gebel, 87 Bahr el-Ghazal, 6 Alexandria, 12-14, 58, 99, 126 Bahr Yusef, 17 Alluvium, 9, 12, 13, 28, 45 alluvial plain, 9, 10, 13 Bahria Oasis, 18, 20, 37 n. 10, 46, 56, 86 n. 4, 103 Amulets; see Magic Barley; see Grain, domestication of Angabiya, Wadi, 71, 72 Bars, marine, 12-14, 25, 35 n. 7 Animals, domestication of, 92-93 Basal silt; see Sebilian cattle, 112, 122, 130 (basal) silts dog, 70, 73, 112 Basins, 27; see also Alluvium; Kom Ombo; donkey, 130 Levees goat, 92, 112, 122, 130 Baskets; see Straw pig, 111-12, 122, 130 Batn el-Baqar, 14 sheep, 92, 112, 122, 130 Batn el-Hagar ("Belly of Stones"), 15 Animals, wild ; see Fauna Beaches, lake, 8, 17, 25, 34 a. 6 Anticline, 4, 18 river (see Shingle beaches) Kharga Oaisis, 3 sea, 12 153 oi.uchicago.edu

154 INDEX Beads, 95-96, 100-101, 111, 128-29, 136 Chalossian stage (derived from La Chalosse, Bedouin Microlithic industry; see Kharga France), 44, 45 Oasis Chellean stage (derived from Chelles, Beni Mazar, 10 France), 31 n. 2, 45, 46, 76 n. 1 "Black Hills," 3 Man (Tanganyika), 47, 77 Blade industries, 66, 69, 70, 71, 72, 81 n. 3, Chello-Acheulian stage, 50 84 n. 4, 85 n. 4, 94, 97-100, 126, 132- Chert, 29, 44, 50, 65, 101 33; see also Flake tools; Industries Chipping floors, 98 Blue Nile, 6-9, 28, 31 n. 2, 45, 69 Chronology, 39n. 12, 61, 70, 103, 122, Boats, 107, 125 144 n. 5; see also Astronomical dating; 48, 80 n. 2 Carbon-14 method Bola, absolute, 24-27, 29 n., 40 n. 12, 58-59, Borrowing, cultural, 52-53, 62, 64-65, 71, 87 n. 5, 92, 103-4, 108, 144 n. 5, 147 73-74, 93-94, 103, 114-15,118-19, 122, correlations, 24-26, 59, 67, 81 n. 3, 102, 125, 128, 135-36 129, 146 n. 6 Bow and arrow, 62, 65, 68, 73, 94, 98-101, City state, 135 108, 117 Civilization, 91, 116 Bread, 119 Clacto-Abbevillian stage, 45, 48, 76 n. 1 Burial practices, 58, 67, 69, 96, 104-5, 111- 14, 116, 119-21, 130-32, 146 n. 6 Clactonian stage (derived from Clacton- cemeteries, 121-22, 131-33, 146 n. 6, 148 on-Sea in Essex, England) stone superstructures, 131, 146 n. 6 "block-on-block," 44, 51 disuse, 55 Burin (graving tool), 68, 71; see also Hand- method of flake-tool production, 43, 46, axe 48-49, 76-77 micro- 70, 71 Clays, 1, 2 Burullus, Lake, 13, 14 Climatic changes, 6, 8, 14, 18, 20-24, 28, Bushman skull, 87 n. 4 30 n., 33 n. 5, 37-38 n. 11, 47, 56, 59, 61-62, 79 n. 2, 93 7, 10, 12-13, 24, 27 Cairo, 1-3, Cloth, 95, 102, 118, 129 Cambridge, 99 cords and strings, 118, 130 Camp sites, 59, 61, 70, 98 flax (linen), 95, 118-19 Cannibalism, 69, 87 n. 4 spinning, 95, 99, 109, 128-29 Capsian (derived from Roman Capsa in weaving, 95 Tunisia) blade culture, 64, 66, 70, 72, Coastline (shoreline), Mediterranean, 11, 86 n. 4, 112, 114; see also Sebilian 13, 25, 31 n. 1, 35 n. 7 period; Aurignacian culture Combs, 111, 128 Caravan routes, 20 absence of, 111 Carbon-14 method, 26, 40 n. 12, 58, 59, Composite tools; see Implements, stone 84 n. 4, 87 n. 5, 92, 103-4, 108, 116, Continents, separation of, 4 120, 139 n. 1,143 n. 4, 144 n. 5, 147 land bridges, 41 n. 13 Carboniferous period, 31 n. 1 Copper, 120, 122, 127, 147 Casablanca, Morocco, 43, 53 absence of, 132 Cataract, First, 1, 10, 15-16, 22, 34 n. 6, implements, 129 35 n. 8, 36 n. 8 , 128 beginning of, 28 Coral reefs, ancient, 4, 13 Cataract, Second, 8, 15-16, 22, 52 Cores; see Flake tools; Hand-axes beginning of, 28 Cretaceous period, 1, 18, 31 n. 1 Caves, not used, 48, 68 Upper, 1, 14 Cellars, storage, 124 Cro-Magnon people, 67 Cemeteries; see Burial practices Crocodilopolis, 18 Chad, 19, 53 Crustal movements, 1, 3-4, 18, 32 n. 2 Chalcolithic stage, 23, 26-27, 34 n. 6, 92, Cultural level, 54, 58-59, 60-61, 73, 83 n. 120; see also Predynastic period 3, 91, 98, 115, 121-22, 136; see also Naqada I, 26, 102 Regional cultures Naqada II, 26 regression, 98 Chalk, 18 survivals, 129 oi.uchicago.edu

INDEX 155 Cyrenaica, 13, 27, 56-58, 65-67, 82 n. 3, Extinct forms, 3, 11, 67; see also Arsinoi- 86 n. 4, 88 n. 5, 92, 99 therium

Dakhla Oasis, 18, 20, 37 n. 10, 65, 102 Farafra Oasis, 18, 20, 37 n. 10, 46, 56, 86 n. Damietta, 13, 14 4, 103 Darb el Arbain ("Road of the Forty Farmers; see Agriculture Days"), 20 Faulting, geologic, 3, 11, 16, 31 n. 1, 32 n. 2 Dating, geological; see also Chronology Fauna, 3, 8, 11, 21-24, 29, 32 n. 2, 34 n. 6, abandoned, 7 35 n. 7, 39 n. 12, 41 n. 13, 46, 54, 58, Degradation (erosion process), 15, 22, 25- 60, 67-69, 73, 80 n. 2, 86 n. 4, 93-95, 27, 34 n. 6, 59, 145 n. 6 101-2, 112, 119, 123, 129-30 Deir el-Miharraq, 10 Fayum, 2-3, 7-8, 12, 16-20, 22, 26, 32 n. 2, Deirut, 2-3 36 n. 9, 37 n. 10, 38 n. 11, 45, 49-50, 56-59, 62, 64, 69-74, 79 n. 2, 88 n. 5, Delta, Nile, 2, 6, 8-14, 23-25, 56, 64, 69, 89n. 5, 92-93, 102-3, 105-6, 108, 86 n. 4, 92 140 n. 2, 148 classical times, 10 Fayum A culture, 93-98 "gates of," 14 Fayum B culture, 98 Desert; see also Libyan desert Fayum, lake beach levels Arabian or Eastern, 24, 45, 52, 73, 148 - 18-foot, 63 high, 5, 19, 21-23, 27, 57 - 7-foot, 97 low, 5, 12, 32 n. 4, 103 13-foot, 17, 97 Deshasha, Gebel, 10 33-foot, 17, 93 Digla, Wadi, 122, 132-34, 137, 144 59-foot, 17, 93, 140 n. 2 74-foot, 8, 17, 25, 63, 140 n. 2 Diorites, 1, 16, 60 92-foot, 8, 17, 21, 25, 63 Dog, domestication of, 70, 73, 102 112-foot, 17, 21, 25, 56, 63 Dolerite, 3 131-foot, 21, 25, 55, 81 n. 3 Domestication; see Animals; Grain, domes- 144-foot, 11 tication of Fences, 106, 117, 123 Drawings, rock, 68-69, 73, 87 n. 4, 101, 148 Filling process, geologic, 5-6 Dunes, 10, 22 Fire, 58, 83 n. 3 Dynastic period Fishing implements, 95; see also Imple- early (proto-historic), 122 ments, stone First Dynasty, 146 n. 6 fish-hook, 110-11, 118 Twelfth, 15 fish-nets, 95, 111, 118 fish-spears, 95 fish-traps (basketry), 95 Edku, Lake, 13-14 harpoons, 95, 110 Elephanite, island of, 15 scaling shells, 95, 111 Eocene epoch, 1-2, 4-5, 14, 18, 32 n. 4 Flails, for threshing grain, 94 Lower (early), 1, 2 Flake tools, 43-45, 52, 54-56, 59, 63, 66, Middle, 2, 4 94, 101, 117, 126-27, 132-33; see also Upper (late), 2-3, 18, 32 n. 2 Clactonian stage; Industries (Leval- Eoliths (dawn-stones), 45, 75, 77 loisian) faceted platform, 4 27, 56, 59, 60-64, Epi-Levalloisian stage, 8, flake-blades, 62, 64; see also Sebilian 66, 68, 71-72, 83 n. 3, 86 n. 4 period (Sebilian III); Kharga Oasis (Qarounian), 63 Fayum flake-point, 60; see also Sebilian period Erosion, 1-2, 4-6, 10, 14, 16-18, 23, 38 n. 11 (Sebilian II) deposits, 10, 105 pressure flaking, 65, 94, 99, 110 Erosion, stages of Nile, 3, 6, 8, 14-16, 26, Flandrian Transgression; see Mediterra- 28, 33 n. 6, 34 n. 6, 35 n. 8; see also nean periods Aggradation; Degradation Flint, 44, 50, 61 Esna, 1-2 mines, 103; see also Quarries Estuarine zones, 2-3, 5, 7, 10 Flood, annual; see Inundation, annual sum- bones in, 3 mer Eustatic controls, 6, 33 n. 5, 40 n. 12, 45 Flood plain; see Alluvium oi.uchicago.edu

156 INDEX Flora, 27-29, 47, 69 Historic period, 27 Folds, geologic, 3-4 beginning, 40 n. 12 Food gatherers; see Agriculture Hof, Gebel, 120 Food production; see Agriculture Hof, Wadi, 116, 117, 120, 121 Holocene, 21 Gebelein, rock of, 33 n. 4, 148 Homo sapiens, 67, 87 n. 4 Geo-syncline, 4 Houses, 104-5, 123 Geologic provinces (R. Said), 31 n. 1 absence of, 101 Gilf Kebir, 27 absence of brick, 146 n. 6 Giza, Pyramids of, 45, 56 mud, 92, 105 subterranean, 123 Glacial phases, Alpine, 21-22, 24-26, 28, threshhold (entrance), 105 38 n. 11, 43, 47, 49, 55, 57, 67, 70 wickerwork, 104, 117 Gneisses, 1, 16 wood-frame, 104, 117, 123 Gorge, Nile, 3, 5, 14-16, 27; see also Gebel Human occupation, earliest, 7, 8, 11, 16, 19, Silsila 22, 24, 27, 29, 43, 46-49 Government, 106, 115, 137 Huts; see Houses Gradient, river, 12-13 Grain, domestication of, 92, 93-94, 98, 100, Ibero-Maurusian culture; see Oranian cul- 104-6, 119, 130, 143 n. 5 ture barley, 92, 130 Ice Age; see Glacial phases club wheat, 119, 122 Idol; see Religion storage, 124, 136 Igneous rock, 1, 15, 30 n. 1 wheat, 92, 104, 130 Implements, stone, 7, 8, 12, 14, 19, 24-25, Granites, 1, 15-16, 30 n. 1 33 n. 5, 34 n. 6, 43-46, 48, 69; see also Gravel levels, river, 7, 11, 12; levees, 9, 13 Clacto-Abbevillian stage; Flake tools; Gravels, wadi; see Terraces Hand-axe; Industries; "Rolled" stone Graves; see Burial practices implements; Sebilian period; Taya- cian stage Gravettians, 65 composite tools, 70, 72 Great Bitter Lake, 4 grinding (or polishing), 91 Greco-Roman period, 13, 18 Indian Ocean, 4 Grinders; see Mills, grain Industries, 43, 46, 53, 56 Grinding (polishing), 94, 98, 108-9, 117, 128 Aterian, 38 n. 11, 56, 62, 64-66, 70-72 Gunaifa, Gebel, 4 82 n. 3, 85 n. 4, 86 n. 4, 94, 97, 114, 136 Halfa, Wadi, 2, 14-15, 28, 45, 49, 60, 61, 68 Aurignacian, 66, 85 n. 4 Hamitic (racial) type, 67, 114 Capsian, 66, 72, 85 n. 4 Fauresmith, 82 n. 3 Hammamat, 147, 148 Kafuan (pebble tool), 43, 76 n. 1 Hammerstones; see Tool-making tools Khargan, 64-65; see also Kharga Oasis Hand-axe (fist-wedge, cleaver, coup-de- Levalloisian, 40 n. 12 poing, core-biface, Boucher, hache di- Levalloiso-Khargan, 64-65 luvienne), 44-46, 50-53, 55, 57, 63-64, Microlithic, 59, 63-64, 66, 70-73, 84 n. 4, 66, 79 n. 2, 94, 101 94, 97-99 burin technique, 52, 60, 63 Oldowan, 43, 53, 76 n. 1 disuse, 54 Oranian, 66-67, 70 kernel zone, 78 n. 1 Qarounian (Fayyoumian), 97 micro-burins, 62, 84 n. 4, 86 n. 4 Sangoan (Tumbian), 82 n. 3 Hawara Channel, 17, 56, 63, 93 Sirtician, 35 n. 4 Stilbay and Proto-, 82 n. 3 Hearth, 68, 93, 101-2, 104, 117, 122 submicrolithic, 62 Heliopolis, 63, 133-34, 145 n. 6 Tardenoisian, 60, 84 n. 4 , 9, 13 Interpluvials, 21-22, 24, 38 n. 11, 39 n. 12, Helwan, 3, 12, 32 n. 2, 59, 70-72, 88 n. 5 57, 59 arrowhead, 71 Intrusions; see Borrowing, cultural Herdsmen; see Agriculture Inundation, annual summer, 6, 8-10, 34, Hieraconpolis, 103, 135 35n. 6, 60 oi.uchicago.edu

INDEX 157 Ironstone (ferricrete sandstone), 50 Libyan desert, 2-3, 16, 38 n. 11, 45-46, 57, Ismailiya, el-, 12 69-70; see also Plateau oases, 1, 5, 18- Isohyp, 10-foot, 13 20, 31 n. 2, 34 n. 6, 62, 69, 73 Ivory, 110, 111, 146 n. 6 Limestone, 1-5, 13, 16, 28, 32 n. 4 absence of, 96 Lower Egypt, 2, 6-8, 11, 25, 34 n. 6, 74 Luxor, 2, 4, 8, 20, 86 n. 4 Java Man (Pithecanthropus erectus), 47, 77 n. 1 Mace, stone-headed, 109, 114, 127 Jericho; see Palestine Magdalenian culture, 59, 68, 74 Jewelry, 111, 119, 135-36 Magic (ritual), 58, 73-74, 102, 112 amulets, 74, 96, 111, 115, 129, 131 Kafuan industry; see Industries votive offerings, 107, 130 Kalabsha Gorge, 15, 35 n. 8 Mallawi, 7, 28, 45 Karat el-Soda, 3 Manfalut, 2-3, 51 Katharina, Gebel, 4 Marine regression; see Mediterranean peri- Kena, Wadi, 51 ods Kenya, 49, 54 Maryut, Lake, 13 Kharga Oasis, 18-22, 32 n. 4, 34 n. 6, 37 n. Mason, stone-, 101 10, 38 n. 11, 50-56, 64-66, 72, 79 n. 2, Matting; see Straw, matting 80 n. 2, 80 n. 3, 82 n. 3, 83 n. 3, 85 n. 4, Medinet el-Fayum, 18 86 n. 4, 89 n. 5. 90n. 5,100-103 Mediterranean periods (sea levels), 3, 7, Bedouin Microlithic, , 73, 85 n. 4,100, 102 9, 13-14, 28, 33 n. 5, 39 n. 12, 40 n. 12, 51, 60, 93, 140 n. 2 Moundspring KO 5B, 66 Moundspring KO 10, 80 n. 2 Menzala, Lake, 13-14 Peasant Neolithic, 98, 100, 101-2 Merimda, 92-93, 99, 102-16 Khargan industry; see Industries Mesolithic, 27, 59, 62-63, 67, 70-72 Khartoum, 9-10, 31 n. 2, 45, 72, 88-89 n. 5 Mesozoic, Upper, layer of sandstone, 1 Khatatba, el-, 11, 12 Metal, 120 Kitchen middens, 71 absence of, 96 Knives, 109, 117 Metamorphic rock, 1,4, 15, 30 n. 1, 35 n. 8 Kom Ombo plain (basin), 4-5, 8, 16, 27-28, Micoquian industry; see Acheulian stage 34 n. 6, 35 n. 8, 59-62, 67, 69, 71-72, Micro-burins; see Hand-axe 84 n. 4, 86 n. 4 Microlithic industry; see Industries Korosko, 14 Middle Egypt, 2-3, 6-8, 10-12, 17, 20, 22, Kukur Oasis, 37 n. 10 25, 28, 34 n. 6, 70 Middle Kingdom, 15, 64, 74 Lablab, Wadi, 45 Milankovitch curves, 25, 39 n. 12 Lagoons, 13-14 Milazzian sea level; see Mediterranean Lahun, Gebel, 17 periods Lamps, 126 Mills, grain, 69, 94, 98, 100, 102-3, 118, 127 Lasso, 73 Mines, flint; see Quarries Leather, 96, 110, 118 Minya, 11, 20 Miocene epoch, 1,3, 11, 16, 18, 31 n. 1 Lebanon, 13, 43 Middle, 31 n. 1 Levalloisian stage (faceted platform), 7-8, Upper (late), 2, 3, 14 17, 21-22, 27, 33 n. 5, 52-60, 62-65, 69, Missa Matruh, 14 72, 79 n. 2, 80 n. 2, 80 n. 3, 81 n. 3, 82 n. 3, 83 n. 3, 84 n. 4, 86 n. 4; see also Miwev, Lake of, 18 (see also Fayum, lake Industries beach levels) diminutive, 71 Moeris, Lake of, 18 (see also Fayum, lake Khargan, 64 beach levels) Levalloiso-Khargan stage; see Industries Moghara, 3, 11 Levalloiso-Mousterian industries, 56-58, Monastirian sea level; see Mediterranean 60, 81 n. 3, 82 n. 3 periods oi.uchicago.edu

158 INDEX Moqattam, Gebel, 45, 52, 131 Lower (early), 7, 14, 16, 19, 21, 26, 31 n. Moqattam Hills, 2-3, 27, 31 n. 1 2, 59 Mousterian stage (derived from Le Mous- Middle, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16, 17, 19, 21-22, tier, France), 56-58, 60, 65, 79 n. 2, 26-27 80 n. 2, 80 n. 3, 81 n. 3 Upper (late), 8, 12,14-17, 22-23, 25-27, abandoned term, 56 31 n. 2, 34 n. 6 discoidal nucleus, 81 n. 3 Palestine, 13, 39 n. 11, 52, 56-57, 79-80 n. Mud houses; see Houses 2, 82n.3, 85n.4, 86n.4, 92 Jericho (Tell el Sultan), 92, 111 Nag Hammadi, 4, 8, 46, 52, 54, 56, 66, Palettes, 110, 127, 129, 146 n. 6 77 n. 1, 85 n. 4 Peasant Neolithic; see Kharga Oasis Naqada I and II; see Dynastic period; Pebble tool; see Industries, Kafuan Chalcolithic stage Pekin Man (Sinanthropus pekinensis), 47, Natron (kind of soda), 20 53, 77n. 1 Natrun, Wadi el-, 11, 18-20, 35 n. 7, 37 n. Perigordian culture, 10, 50-51, 79 n. 3 59 Natufian stage (Palestine), 71, 88 n. 5, 89 n. Permanent settlements, 68 5, 92, 97, 112-13; see also Palestine beginning of, 68 Neanderthaloids (derived from Neander Petrified Forests, 3, 32 n. 2 Valley, Germany), 57-59, 67, 82 n. 3 Physical traits, 67, 113-14, 116, 120, 135 Ehringsdorf, 82 n. 3 Pig; see Animals Steinheim, 82 n. 3 Pithoi; see Pottery Neolithic period (new Stone Age), 8-9, 12- 13, 19, 22-23, 27, 34 n. 6, 39 n. 11, 63- Plateau; see Desert, high 64, 67, 91 Platforms, gravel; see Terraces, lateral Fayum, 26, 63 valleys pre-, 12, 17, 19, 34 n. 6 Pleistocene epoch, 4-5, 10, 12, 14, 21-22, New Kingdom, 73 25-26, 31 n. 1, 31 n. 2, 33 n. 5, 35 n. 7, New Stone Age; see Neolithic period 37 n. 11, 38 n. 11, 40 n. 12 Nile; see Blue Nile; Cataract, First; Cata- Lower (early), 12, 27, 103 ract, Second; Delta, Nile; Erosion, Middle, 18, 21, 29 stages of Nile; Gorge, Nile; Inunda- Upper (late), 5-6,17, 21, 25, 26, 34 n. 6 tion, annual summer; Kalabsha Gorge; Plio-Pleistocene formations, 5, 7, 11-12, 14, Nubian Nile; Terraces, Nile; White 19, 21, 25, 26, 33 n. 5 Nile Pliocene epoch, 5-6, 11, 14, 16, 26, 28, 32 n. Nomadism, end of, 68 4, 33 n. 5, 35 n. 7, 38 n. 11 Nubia, 2, 6, 8, 14-15, 19-20, 22, 33 n. 6, 45, Lower (early), 3, 14, 26 60, 74 Middle, 5, 20, 26 Nubian Nile, 1, 28, 36 n. 8, 55, 61 Upper (late), 4-5, 14, 16, 20, 26 Nubt (later Ombos), 148 Plutonic formations, 4 Pluvials, 21-24, 38 n. 11, 39 n. 12, 47, 49, Oases; see Libyan desert 50, 57, 82 n. 3, 89 n. 5, 93, 102, 140 n. 2 Old Kingdom, 9, 23, 64 Polished tools; see Grinding Old Stone Age; see Paleolithic period Pontic Pluvial period, 3 Oldowan; see Industries Population statistics, 72-73, 89 n. 5, 98 Olduvai Gorge, Tanganyika, 43, 47-48, 77 n. 1 Pottery, 69, 71-72, 92-93, 96, 100, 104-6, 116, 118,121,124-26, 129, 132, 134-35, Oligocene epoch, 1-3, 11, 18, 20, 32 n. 2 146 n. 6, 147 Omari, El, 71, 116-22 kiln, 124 named for Amin el Omari, 116 Predynastic period, 23, 98-99, 147 Oran, Algeria, 43 Amratian, 73, 128 Oranian culture (blade culture), 66, 70 Badarian, 66-67, 94, 147 Orogenetic movements, 4 Gerzean, 128 Naqada I and II, 26, 92, 100, 102, 109, Palaeozoic era, 4 120, 122, 125-26, 128, 131, 142 n. 4, Paleolithic period (Old Stone Age), 5, 7, 143 n. 4, 146 n. 6, 147 19, 20, 33 n. 5, 34 n. 6, 37 n. 11, 38 n. 11 Tasian, 147 oi.uchicago.edu

INDEX 159 Profiles; see Soil profiles Sebilian period (derived from Ezbet-el-Sebil Proterozoic era, 1 in Kom Ombo basin), 33 n. 6, 59, 63, 64, 66, 70-71, 83 n. 4, 84 n. 4, 86 n. 4, Pyramids; see Giza, pyramids of 89 n. 5 Capsian, 64, 66, 85 n. 4, 100 Qallala hills, 3, 27 Lower (Sebilian I), 31 n. 2, 59, 60-61, 63, Qarounian; see Epi-Levalloisian (Fayum) 68 , 19 Middle (Sebilian II), 60-61, 65, 68, 89 n. 5 8, 34 n. 6, 67-68, 86 n. 4, 87 n. 4 Qau, Upper (Sebilian III), 61-62, 68, 72, 87 n. Qena, 3-4, 33 n. 5, 51, 87 n. 4 4, 89 n. 5 Quarries, 101, 103, 109 Sebilian (basal) silts, 8, 10, 67 Quartzes, 1, 44, 50, 60 Sedment, Gebel, 17 Quaternary period, 1, 38 n. 11 Semna, 15, 35 n. 8 Querns; see Mills, grain Settlements, 91 Shales, 1-2, 16 Rabat Man, 47 Shargandi, island of, 15 Racial types; see Physical traits Shayeb, Gebel el-, 4 Radiocarbon method; see Carbon-14 meth- Shedet, 18 od Sheikh, Wadi el-, 90, 101, 103 Rahana, Wadi, 121 Shellal (modern dam), 15, 34 n. 6 Rainfall, heavy, 2, 3, 5, 7, 20-22, 28, 41 n. 13, 66, 70, 104 Shingle beaches (Nile), 8, 28 Rattles; see Religion Sicilian sea level; see Mediterranean periods Reefs; see Coral reefs, ancient Sickles, wooden, 62, 94, 98, 101, 108, 117 stone-edged, 69, 70, 71 Refuf Pass, 55 Sill, granite, 15 Regional cultures, 70, 72 Silsila, Gebel el-, 3,16, 28, 35 n. 8, 52, 56 Regression; see Cultural level Silt levels, 8-10, 12-13, 16, 22, 33 n. 6, 34 n. Religion, 115, 130, 133 6; see also Sebilian (basal) silts; Allu- cult instruments, 107, 115, 126 vium rate of deposit, 9 idol, 107, 114 Sinai, 4, 13, 27, 31 n. 1, 64, 129 Rhodesia, 77 n. 1 Sites, 51 Broken Hill skull, 82 n. 3 98 Steinheim skull, 82 n. 3 camp, 59, 61, 70, chipping, 98 Rift, geologic, 4, 32 n. 2 flaking, 51-52, 55-57, 59, 61, 81 n. 3, 82, Ritual; see Magic 84n. 4 Rock drawings, 68-69, 73, 87 n. 4, 101,148 Siwa Oasis, 18-20, 46, 56, 65, 72, 88 n. 5, "Rolled" (travel-worn) stone implements, 99-103 7, 45 Slings, 109, 114 Rosetta, 13-14, 103 Sobat, 6 Rus Channel, 7, 45, 51, 76 n. 1 Social organization, Paleolithic, 49 Soil profiles, 7, 22, 33 n. 5 Sabchet el-Bardawil (Lake Sirbonis), 13 Solutrean culture, 59, 65 Safaga, 4 Spindle whorl; see Cloth (spinning) Sahara desert, 39 n. 12, 40 n. 12 Springs, natural, 19 Said, Port, 13, 32 n. 2 "fossil springs," 19 Samalut, 2, 20, 68 Spurs, 13, 15 Sand; see Erosion Stations, 46, 70; see also Sites Sandstone, 1-3, 6, 14-16, 19, 28 Steppe conditions, 7, 21-22, 27 Saqqara, 7, 45 Stock-farming; see Agriculture Saws, 109, 117 Stone Age- see Neolithic period; Paleolithic Schists, 1, 16 period Sea levels; see Mediterranean periods Stone tools; see Implements, stone Sebaiya, el-, 1, 14, 16 Stratigraphy, 38 n. 11 oi.uchicago.edu

160 INDEX Straw, matting, 93, 105, 113, 117 Threshhold; see Houses baskets, 94, 96, 101, 105 Tih, Wadi el-, 45, 56, 122, 131, 132, 134 Sub-pluvial; see Pluvials Tool-making tools, 68, 109, 117-18, 127 Submicrolithic industry; see Industries Tools, composite, 70; see also Implements, Sudan, 14, 15, 19-20, 31 n. 2, 34 n. 6, 50, stone 52-53, 57 Towns, 135 Sudd, East African, 2 Trade, 95, 100, 116, 118, 121, 124, 129, 136 Suez, Gulf of, 3-4, 27, 31 n. 1 beginnings, 69 shells, personal adornment, 95-96 Suez, Isthmus of, 11, 36 n. 4 Tributaries, 3, 5-6, 9, 14, 16, 27-28, 45, 48 Sugar cane, 119 Tufa, Wadi, 19 Sulphurous springs, 3 Tufa Plateau, 19, 27, 38 n. 11 Syria, 79-80 n. 2 Tumilat, Wadi, 8, 11-12, 63 Tableland, Egyptian, elevation of, 1-3 Tura Gebel, 116 Tana, Lake, 31 n. 2 Wadi, 122 Tanganyika, 49, 77 n. 1; see also Olduvai Turtlebacks, 12 Gorge, Tanganyika Tyrrhennian sea level; see Mediterranean Tardenoisian industry; see Industries periods Tayacian stage, 47 Tectonic formation, 4, 18, 32 n. 2 Uganda, 49 Terraces, 6, 17, 28, 45, 55 Upper Egypt, 1, 6-8, 10-12, 14, 20, 22-23, high level, 12 25, 27-28, 33 n. 6, 70, 72, 74 Upper Egypt survivals, 6-7 Urban tradition; see City state Terraces, Nile, 6, 24-26, 28, 33 n. 5, 39 n. 12, Urnil, 2, 18, 31 n. 2, 32 n. 2, 37 n. 10 40 n. 12, 47 author usage, 32 n. 2 eustatically controlled (Middle and Low- Blanckenhorn theory, 31 n. 2 er Egypt), 6 Uweinat, Gebel, 27, 46, 52 pluvial (Upper Egypt), 6, 14 10-foot, 7, 14, 21-22, 25, 55 15-foot, 12 Valleys, 4-5, 28 25-foot, 8, 17, 21, 25 Pontic, 5 30-foot, 7, 12, 14, 21-22, 25, 50, 78 n. 2, Vases, stone, 110, 118, 124, 126, 132, 135, 79n. 2 146n. 6 50-foot, 7, 14, 17, 21, 25, 39 n. 12, 50-51, Vaulting, geologic, 4 55, 78 n. 2, 81 n. 3 Vegetation, 27-29, 47, 69 100-foot (Lower Egypt-Delta), 11, 16, 21, 25, 50 Victoria, Lake, 31 n. 2 100-foot (Middle & Lower Egypt-later), Villages, 103, 121 7 Volcanic activity, 3 100-foot (Upper Egypt), 6, 7, 14, 43-45, Votive vessels; see Magic 50 150-foot, 7, 14, 28, 45, 49, 78 n. 1 Wells, 101 250-foot, 7,14, 25. 28 Grain, domestication of 255-foot, 28 Wheat; see 300-foot, 7, 14, 28 White Nile, 9, 31 n. 2, 45, 52 320-foot, 25, 28 Whorls, spinning; see Cloth "Terre v6getale, la," 9, 11 Winds, 24 Tertiary period, 1-2, 4, 10, 18, 20, 30 n. 1, Wooden objects, 128 31 n. 1, 32 n. 2 Thebaid, 3, 27 Zagazig, 11

Top View