DOCSLIB.ORG

The Relationship Between the Badarian and the Amratian in Prehistoric Egypt

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Relationship Between the Badarian and the Amratian in Prehistoric Egypt The Relationship between the Badarian and the Amratian in Prehistoric Egypt Justine J James Two Year Paper Stephen. Harvey Gil Stein March 2004 James 1 Introduction Despite over a century of research since Jacques de Morgan and W. M. F. Petrie made the first discovery and identification of prehistoric artifacts in Egypt, the prehistoric or Predynastic period, especially in the final 2000 or so years leading up to the historic period,1 is not clearly understood. One of the major questions still facing Egyptologists is the question of the origins of pharaonic civilization. Specifically, was pharaonic civilization the product of a gradual evolution of a single cultural antecedent in the Nile valley, the product of a combination of a number of different cultural antecedents in the Nile valley, the product of an entirely new culture whose origins are outside the Nile valley, or a combination of all of the above? Answering this question requires a clearer understanding of prehistoric cultures both in the Nile valley proper and in the surrounding deserts and south into the modern Sudan, especially in terms of chronology and geography. In an attempt to clarify one of these cultural relationships, this paper will focus on the Badarian and Amratian cultural units. The Badarian is traditionally described as a Neolithic farming culture dating to between 5000/4000 and 3900 BC focused in a 35 km strip of around 40 settlement areas in Middle Egypt along the Nile, despite finds of Badarian-like materials outside this presumed homeland at Hierakonpolis, Armant, and Wadi Hammamat.2 The Amratian is described as a Predynastic farming culture with a widespread presence in Upper Egypt spanning Matmar in the north to Wadi Kubbaniya in the south, dating to between 3900 and 3650 BC. 1 The term “historic period” here refers to the advent of writing, and the end of the Predynastic/prehistoric period usually dated to Dynasty 1 (ca. 3000 BC). 2F Debono, "Expedition Archéologique Royale Du Désert Oriental.," Annales du Service des Antiquitiés de l'Egypte 51, no. 1 (1951); Michael A. Hoffman, "Predynastic Cultural Ecology and Patterns of Settlement in Upper Egypt as Viewed from Hierakonpolis," in Origin and Early Development of Food-Producing Cultures in North-Eastern Africa, ed. Lech Krzyzaniak and Micha Kobusiewicz (Poznan: Polish Academy of Sciences; Poznan Archaeological Museum, 1984). James 2 One of the first things one should note about the very brief descriptions, which will of course be further elaborated below, of these two cultures given above is the distinction between “Neolithic” and “Predynastic.” The majority of authors discussing prehistoric Egypt draw a clear distinction between cultures predating the 4th millennium BC and the cultures dated to the 4th millennium prior to what is considered to be historic, unified Egypt, based on a perception of 4th millennium, primarily upper Egyptian cultural events as the catalyst leading into unification and the rise of the Egyptian state.3 While this distinction between “Neolithic” and “Predynastic” is convenient in clarifying the (apparently) sudden changes and expansion of upper Egyptian culture, it is an artificial construct. The Predynastic was no less “Neolithic” than the preceding Neolithic cultures present in the Nile valley, of which the Badarian is an example, especially in its earliest phases. The Amratians and the Badarians both practiced agriculture and pastoralism, both made pottery, both still utilized tools made primarily of stone rather than metal, which meets the simplest definition of a “Neolithic” culture.4 The problem with this distinction is that it tends to automatically orient the scholar to an attitude of assuming that there is some distinctly different between the “Neolithic” and the “Predynastic” when this may, and probably is not in fact the case, in other words, the categories become reified. There is a tendency to place both categories – the Neolithic and the Predynastic- into neatly outlined boxes that do not touch, when we should in fact be interested in the interface between them- the place where these neat categories overlap. 3 For examples of this distinction and some discussion regarding the tendency see: Guy Brunton and Gertrude Caton Thompson, The Badarian Civilisation and Predynastic Remains near Badari (London,: British school of archaeology in Egypt etc., 1928), 1-2; Fekri A. Hassan, "The Predynastic of Egypt," Journal of World Prehistory 2, no. 2 (1988); Béatrix Midant-Reynes, The Prehistory of Egypt: From the First Egyptians to the First Pharaohs, trans. Ian Shaw (Oxford, UK ; Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 169. 4 Of course, the use of pottery is not necessarily a requirement to for a culture to be categorized as Neolithic – per the “Pre-Pottery Neolithic” cultures of the Levant. James 3 A more focused example of the problem of reification of cultural units and terminology is the relationship of the Badarian to the Amratian. Along with the already present bias of the Badarian being considered “Neolithic” while the Amratian is considered “Predynastic” the two cultures themselves are placed into neatly defined units of space and time and little consideration is given to the interface between the two. Despite evidence and commentary on the similarities between the two, they are still essentially regarded as distinct units in time and space and the only contact between them is when the Amratian apparently spread northward and replaced Badarian material culture with its own. The problem, however, is that a close examination of the excavation of stratified settlement remains in the Badari region at the site of North Spur Hemamieh belies this simple explanation – if the Badarian as a culture was suddenly overtaken the Amratian culture, either in the form of conquest, colonization, intensive trading, or some other means of transmission, we would expect there to be a sudden, distinction between the Badarian material culture and the Amratian material culture. As will be discussed in further detail below, this is not the case. In addition, despite, as mentioned above, the similarities cited between Badarian material culture and Amratian material culture, a clear quantification of these similarities has not been made. Nor has an explanation for why these similarities exist been clearly stated. In an attempt to further clarify the relationship between the Badarian and the Amratian as cultural units, this paper will focus on outlining the basic aspects of settlements and their associated material culture for both the Amratian and the Badarian followed by a case study in which Amratian artifacts from a disturbed settlement context excavated in recent years at Abydos during ongoing investigations led by Dr. Stephen Harvey will be James 4 identified, described, and then compared to the available corpus of Badarian artifacts from settlement contexts. Using a discreet range of artifacts from an Amratian settlement context rather than the entirety of available artifacts is seen as a more practical approach for the purposes of this paper given the enormous range of artifacts that would need to be examined should the entirety of the Amratian settlement corpus be used for comparison. It is hoped that this comparison will give us a clearer idea of the similarities and/or difference between the Badarian and Amratian and also, depending on the degree of similarity and/or difference between the two in terms of material culture help to shed light on the degree of contact and possibly the nature of contact between the two, especially in the later phases of the Badarian and the early phases of the Amratian. The Badarian as a Cultural Unit The Badarian culture was first identified in the late 1920s by a British archaeologist, Guy Brunton working in the Badari region of Middle Egypt.5 Brunton was initially in the region investigating dynastic cemeteries when he happened upon an unusual sherd of handmade rippled ceramic unlike anything he had ever seen. Further investigation resulted in the discovery of a grave with an unusual collection of objects, including rippled surface pottery and survey of the low desert in the region yielded yet more rippled sherds. Brunton, by his own admission, immediately assumed that this new material was part of a hitherto unknown Predynastic culture, but was not sure where this new culture fit into the framework already established by Petrie.6 Brunton then devoted his 1924-24 field season 5 Guy Brunton and Gertrude Caton Thompson, The Badarian Civilisation and Predynastic Remains near Badari (London,: British school of archaeology in Egypt etc., 1928). 6 See W. M. Flinders Petrie, Corpus of prehistoric pottery and palettes (London,: British school of archaeology in Egypt etc., 1921); W. M. Flinders Petrie and A. C. Mace, Diospolis Parva, the cemeteries of Abadiyeh and Hu, 1898-9 (London; Boston: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1901). James 5 to investigating the cemeteries and settlement remains of this new culture, culminating in the publication of The Badarian Civilisation and Predynastic Remains near Badari in 1927. In the first part of that publication, Brunton, based on evidence both from the cemeteries and from the second part of the publication written by Gertrude Caton- Thompson (discussed further below) that it was highly unlikely that the Badarian was contemporaneous with “the Predynastic” – in this instance, meaning the Amratian, Gerzean, and Semainean.7 Instead, the Badarian was almost certainly earlier, based on what seem to have been certain affinities and/or precursors to the first phase of the Predynastic – the Amratian. Brunton’s work predated the advent of radiocarbon dating by several decades, therefore, no absolute date could be provided for the Badarian So far as Brunton could determine it was early relative to the Amratian, though there seems to have been very little time elapsed between the end of the Badarian and the beginning of the Amratian. Brunton’s reconstruction of Badarian culture was that they were a sedentary people practicing both agriculture and pastoralism, along with supplemental hunting and fishing, living in probably fairly ephemeral dwellings, as he found no evidence of houses or other built structures.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Egyptian Predynastic and State Formation
    J Archaeol Res DOI 10.1007/s10814-016-9094-7 The Egyptian Predynastic and State Formation Alice Stevenson1 Ó The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract When the archaeology of Predynastic Egypt was last appraised in this journal, Savage (2001a, p. 101) expressed optimism that ‘‘a consensus appears to be developing that stresses the gradual development of complex society in Egypt.’’ The picture today is less clear, with new data and alternative theoretical frameworks challenging received wisdom over the pace, direction, and nature of complex social change. Rather than an inexorable march to the beat of the neo-evolutionary drum, primary state formation in Egypt can be seen as a more syncopated phenomenon, characterized by periods of political experimentation and shifting social boundaries. Notably, field projects in Sudan and the Egyptian Delta together with new dating techniques have set older narratives of development into broader frames of refer- ence. In contrast to syntheses that have sought to measure abstract thresholds of complexity, this review of the period between c. 4500 BC and c. 3000 BC tran- scends analytical categories by adopting a practice-based examination of multiple dimensions of social inequality and by considering how the early state may have become a lived reality in Egypt around the end of the fourth millennium BC. Keywords State formation Á Social complexity Á Neo-evolutionary theory Á Practice theory Á Kingship Á Predynastic Egypt Introduction Forty years ago, the sociologist Abrams (1988, p. 63) famously spoke of the difficulty of studying that most ‘‘spurious of sociological objects’’—the modern state.
    [Show full text]
  • Before the Pyramids Oi.Uchicago.Edu
    oi.uchicago.edu Before the pyramids oi.uchicago.edu before the pyramids baked clay, squat, round-bottomed, ledge rim jar. 12.3 x 14.9 cm. Naqada iiC. oim e26239 (photo by anna ressman) 2 oi.uchicago.edu Before the pyramids the origins of egyptian civilization edited by emily teeter oriental institute museum puBlications 33 the oriental institute of the university of chicago oi.uchicago.edu Library of Congress Control Number: 2011922920 ISBN-10: 1-885923-82-1 ISBN-13: 978-1-885923-82-0 © 2011 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Published 2011. Printed in the United States of America. The Oriental Institute, Chicago This volume has been published in conjunction with the exhibition Before the Pyramids: The Origins of Egyptian Civilization March 28–December 31, 2011 Oriental Institute Museum Publications 33 Series Editors Leslie Schramer and Thomas G. Urban Rebecca Cain and Michael Lavoie assisted in the production of this volume. Published by The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago 1155 East 58th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 USA oi.uchicago.edu For Tom and Linda Illustration Credits Front cover illustration: Painted vessel (Catalog No. 2). Cover design by Brian Zimerle Catalog Nos. 1–79, 82–129: Photos by Anna Ressman Catalog Nos. 80–81: Courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford Printed by M&G Graphics, Chicago, Illinois. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Service — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984 ∞ oi.uchicago.edu book title TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword. Gil J.
    [Show full text]
  • Variation in Ancient Egyptian Stature and Body Proportions
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by e-Prints Soton AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 121:219–229 (2003) Variation in Ancient Egyptian Stature and Body Proportions Sonia R. Zakrzewski* Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BF, UK KEY WORDS stature; limb proportions; social complexity; SES; Egypt ABSTRACT Stature and the pattern of body propor- parity is suggested to be due to greater male response to tions were investigated in a series of six time-successive poor nutrition in the earlier populations, and with the Egyptian populations in order to investigate the biological increasing development of social hierarchy, males were effects on human growth of the development and intensi- being provisioned preferentially over females. Little fication of agriculture, and the formation of state-level change in body shape was found through time, suggesting social organization. Univariate analyses of variance were that all body segments were varying in size in response to performed to assess differences between the sexes and environmental and social conditions. The change found in among various time periods. Significant differences were body plan is suggested to be the result of the later groups found both in stature and in raw long bone length mea- having a more tropical (Nilotic) form than the preceding surements between the early semipastoral population and populations. Am J Phys Anthropol 121:219–229, 2003. the later intensive agricultural population. The size dif- © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. ferences were greater in males than in females. This dis- Within Egypt, the transition from a mainly pasto- retardation of individual childhood growth (Good- ral and nomadic lifestyle to a settled agricultural man et al., 1984; Martin et al., 1984), reduction in subsistence pattern coincided with the development the size and robusticity of the adult population (An- of state-level and hierarchical social organization.
    [Show full text]
  • In Search of the Origins of Lower Egyptian Pottery: a New Approach to Old Data
    PREVIOUSLY RELEASED VOLUMES IN SERIES „STUDIES IN AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGY” SAA vol. 1. Lech Krzyżaniak and Michał Kobusiewicz (eds.), Origin and Early Development of Food-Producing Cultures in North-Eastern Africa. Poznań 1984. 16 vol. 2. Lech Krzyżaniak and Michał Kobusiewicz (eds.), Late Prehistory of the Nile Basin In Search of the Origins and the Sahara. Poznań 1989. A New Approach to Old Data to Approach A New Pottery: Egyptian In of Lower of the Origins Search vol. 3. Lech Krzyżaniak, Late Prehistory of the Central Sudan (in Polish, with English of Lower Egyptian summary). Poznań 1992. vol. 4. Lech Krzyżaniak, Michał Kobusiewicz and John Alexander (eds.), Environmental Change and Human Culture in the Nile Basin and Northern Africa until the Second Pottery: Millenium BC. Poznań 1993. A New Approach to Old Data vol. 5. Lech Krzyżaniak, Karla Kroeper and Michał Kobusiewicz (eds.), Interregional Contacts in the Later Prehistory of Northeastern Africa. Poznań 1996. vol. 6. Marek Chłodnicki, Pottery in the Neolithic Societies of the Central Sudan (in preparation). vol. 7. Lech Krzyżaniak, Karla Kroeper and Michał Kobusiewicz (eds.), Recent Research into Agnieszka Mączyńska the Stone Age of Northeastern Africa. Poznań 2000. vol. 8. Lech Krzyżaniak, Karla Kroeper and Michał Kobusiewicz (eds.), Cultural Markers in the Later Prehistory of Northeastern Africa and Recent Research. Poznań 2003. vol. 9. Karla Kroeper, Marek Chłodnicki and Michał Kobusiewicz (eds.), Archaeology of the Earliest Northeastern Africa. In Memory of Lech Krzyżaniak. Poznań 2006. vol. 10. Marek Chłodnicki, Michał Kobusiewicz and Karla Kroeper (eds.), Kadero: the Lech Krzyżaniak excavations in the Sudan. Poznań 2011. vol. 11.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 3. Glass and Other Vitreous Materials Through History
    EMU Notes in Mineralogy, Vol. 20 (2019), Chapter 3, 87–150 Glass and other vitreous materials through history Ivana ANGELINI1, Bernard GRATUZE2 and Gilberto ARTIOLI3 1Department of Cultural Heritage, Universita` di Padova, Piazza Capitaniato 7, 35139 Padova, Italy [email protected] 2CNRS, Universite´ d’Orle´ans, IRAMAT-CEB, 3D rue de la Fe´rollerie, F-45071, Orle´ans Cedex 2, France [email protected] 3Department of Geosciences and CIRCe Centre, Universita` di Padova, Via Gradenigo 6, 35131 Padova, Italy [email protected] Early vitreous materials include homogeneous glass, glassy faience, faience and glazed stones. These materials evolved slowly into more specialized substances such as enamels, engobes, lustres, or even modern metallic glass. The nature and properties of vitreous materials are summarized briefly, with an eye to the historical evolution of glass production in the Mediterranean world. Focus is on the evolution of European, Egyptian, and Near East materials. Notes on Chinese and Indian glass are reported for comparison. The most common techniques of mineralogical and chemical characterization of vitreous materials are described, highlighting the information derived for the purposes of archaeometric analysis and conservation. 1. Introduction: chemistry, mineralogy and texture of vitreous materials Glass is a solid material that does not have long-range order in the atomic arrangement, as opposed to crystalline solids having ordered atomic configurations on a lattice (Doremus, 1994; Shelby, 2005). It has been shown experimentally (Huang et al., 2012) that amorphous solids can be described adequately by the model proposed by Zachariasen, the so-called random network theory (Zachariasen, 1932). Because of the contribution of configurational entropy, glass has a higher Gibbs free energy than a solid with the same composition.
    [Show full text]
  • EARLY CIVILIZATIONS of the OLD WORLD to the Genius of Titus Lucretius Carus (99/95 BC-55 BC) and His Insight Into the Real Nature of Things
    EARLY CIVILIZATIONS OF THE OLD WORLD To the genius of Titus Lucretius Carus (99/95 BC-55 BC) and his insight into the real nature of things. EARLY CIVILIZATIONS OF THE OLD WORLD The formative histories of Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, India and China Charles Keith Maisels London and New York First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 First published in paperback 2001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 1999 Charles Keith Maisels All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 0-203-44950-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-45672-6 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-10975-2 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-10976-0 (pbk) CONTENTS List of figures viii List of tables xi Preface and acknowledgements
    [Show full text]
  • Revisiting Ancient Societies of the Harappan and Egyptian Civilizations: 2 Anthropological Perspectives
    1 Revisiting Ancient Societies of the Harappan and Egyptian Civilizations: 2 Anthropological Perspectives 3 4 Abstract 5 The history of ancient Harappan and Egyptian civilizations was and still an area of interest attracting 6 researchers and scholars all over the world to investigate the constituents and the hidden secrets of such 7 great civilizations. Undoubtedly, archaeology is standing as the main science concerned with studying the 8 cultural products of ancient societies, especially the material culture represented by all physical remains 9 whether organic or inorganic ones. However, there are certain drawbacks associated with the extensive 10 use of archaeological methods only. Consequently, this project seeks to use additional tools, methods, and 11 approaches that would open new dimensions of investigation and analysis. This could be attained by 12 adopting the anthropological perspective as the main entrance for revisiting the ancient Harappan and 13 Egyptian civilizations differently. This doesn’t mean that anthropology is an alternative to archaeology, 14 but both are complementary to each other. Owing to various approaches used under the umbrella of 15 anthropology like; ethno-archaeology, bio-archaeology, bio-culture, ethnography approaches etc. 16 Anthropological perspectives have the ability to study cultural, social and biological dimensions of 17 different societies like Harappan and Egyptian, whether recent or ancient. Consequently, the present study 18 objective of the present study is to utilize the anthropological perspective to help fill ing these gaps 19 existing persisted in the body of knowledge of ancient Harappan and Egyptian civilizations, especially 20 those issues related to ; kingship, administration, kinship, political and socio-cultural life, environment, 21 religion, dress, gender, human body in funerary and medical treatments, funerary populations, grave gods, 22 fertility, birth, child-care, health, hygiene, studies on human skeletons, and everyday life.
    [Show full text]
  • In Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master of Arts Degree Faculty Of
    THE COMPARATIVE ARCHAEOLOGY OF UPPER EGYPT TO THE UNIFICATION A Thesís In Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Master of Arts Degree Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research University of Manitoba By C. Christopher Verscheure M¡ ¡¡ L97 L Ìl- ctst , . J'"'.' ,/' 'Io Frances TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES Íii LIST OF FIGURNS. ív LIST OF MAPS vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vii INTRODUCT ION vi ii Chapter I. THE BADARIAN PERIOD I Pot tery . 2 Badar í 3 Hemamieh 11 Burials. L7 Badar i L7 Ar chí te c ture 18 Badar i 1B Hemamieh 1B Stone Vases. T9 Chipped Stone 79 Badar i L9 Hemamieh 20 Tools and Ideapons 2L 0rnament s 22 Carved Ivory Ground Stone 25 Human Figurines. 26 Comparative Stratigraphy 27 Summary. 29 II. THE NAQADA I PERIOD (AMRATIAN) 32 Pottery, JJ Bur íal s 43 Stone Vases 46 Chipped Stone 47 Ground Stone s4 Page Carved Ivory tr? Tools and l,leapons. 58 Summary. 60 III. THE NAQADA II PERIOD (GERZEAN) 63 Archaeological Opinions on Naqada II 64 Pot terv. 67 Stone Vases. 80 Bur ial s . 84 Mahasna. o+ El Amrah B6 Naqada öt Chipped Stone. 9L Ground Stone 100 Carved Ivory L02 Tools. 103 inleapons. ro4 Human Figurines. 105 Summary. 106 IV. THE PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF UPPER EGYPT. 115 Badar Í r15 Naqada IL6 Abydos IL9 Nubia (ear1y Studies) . L2L Summary. L23 V, NATURAL RESOURCES, TRADE, SETTLEMENT AND SHRINES 125 \/T SU},O,ÍARY AND CONCLUS IONS 133 The Badarian Period 133 The Naqada I Period I4L The Naqada II Period r4s FOOTNOTES 148 B IBL IOGRAPHY.
    [Show full text]
  • Before the Pyramids Oi.Ucicago.Edu
    oi.ucicago.edu Before the pyramids oi.ucicago.edu before the pyramids baked clay, squat, round-bottomed, ledge rim jar. 12.3 x 14.9 cm. Naqada iiC. oim e26239 (photo by anna ressman) 2 oi.ucicago.edu Before the pyramids the origins of egyptian civilization edited by emily teeter oriental institute museum puBlications 33 the oriental institute of the university of chicago oi.ucicago.edu Library of Congress Control Number: 2011922920 ISBN-10: 1-885923-82-1 ISBN-13: 978-1-885923-82-0 © 2011 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Published 2011. Printed in the United States of America. The Oriental Institute, Chicago This volume has been published in conjunction with the exhibition Before the Pyramids: The Origins of Egyptian Civilization March 28–December 31, 2011 Oriental Institute Museum Publications 33 Series Editors Leslie Schramer and Thomas G. Urban Rebecca Cain and Michael Lavoie assisted in the production of this volume. Published by The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago 1155 East 58th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 USA oi.uchicago.edu For Tom and Linda Illustration Credits Front cover illustration: Painted vessel (Catalog No. 2). Cover design by Brian Zimerle Catalog Nos. 1–79, 82–129: Photos by Anna Ressman Catalog Nos. 80–81: Courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford Printed by M&G Graphics, Chicago, Illinois. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Service — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984 ∞ oi.ucicago.edu book title TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword. Gil J.
    [Show full text]
  • Nubian A-Group and Egyptian Naqada Trade Relations in the Predynastic
    NUBIAN A-GROUP AND EGYPTIAN NAQADA TRADE RELATIONS IN THE PREDYNASTIC by Mitchell David Running Submitted to the Faculty of The Archaeological Studies Program Department of Sociology and Archaeology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science University of Wisconsin-La Crosse 2012 i Copyright © 2012 by Mitchell D. Running All rights reserved ii NUBIAN A-GROUP AND EGYPTIAN NAQADA TRADE RELATIONS IN THE PREDYNASTIC Mitchell D. Running, B.S. University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, 2012 The archaeological study of interregional trade provides the unique opportunity to reconstruct not only the foreign relations of cultures that are no longer in existence, but also how these relations evolved over extended periods of time. This study examines interactions between the Egyptian Naqada and Nubian A-Group cultures - located near the present day border of Egypt and The Sudan - between 3800 and 2900 B.C.E. Cemeteries from each group were compared looking at frequency of grave goods, burial architecture, the treatment of the deceased, and how these factors changed over time, in order to determine: (a) the degree of social complexity in Nubian A-Group society, and (b) the ability of trade to influence culture. The study found that while Nubian A-Group society shows some signs of social complexity, the A-Group culture was not nearly as complex as the near state-level society seen with the Egyptian Naqada culture. In line with this, the study found that there was a disproportionate level of cultural influence between the two groups, with the Nubian A-Group culture adopting many Egyptian traits.
    [Show full text]
  • SETH – a MISREPRESENTED GOD in the ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PANTHEON? a Thesis Submitted to the University of Manchester for the Degre
    SETH – A MISREPRESENTED GOD IN THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PANTHEON ? A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Life Sciences. 2012 Philip John Turner 2 1. C ontent s 3 1.1 List of Figures 6 2. Abst ract 7 3. Introduction 13 3 .1 Egyptian Religion 13 3 .2 Scholarship on Seth 14 3.2.1 Seth: Name, Iconography and Character 15 3 .3 Research Problem/Questions 1 8 4 . Seth in Predynastic Egypt 4400 -3100 B.C.E. 21 4 .1 Introduction 21 4.2 The Badarian culture in Ancient Egypt 21 4 . 3 The Amratian (Naqada I) culture in Ancient Egypt 22 4 . 4 The Gerzean (Naqada II) culture in Ancient Egypt 2 5 4.5 Summary 2 9 5. The Early Dynastic Period and the Old Kingdom 3100 to 2181 B.C.E. 32 5.1 Introduction 32 5 . 2 The Unification of Egypt 32 5 . 3 The First Dynasty 33 5 . 4 The Second Dynasty 3 5 5 . 5 The Old Kingdom 3 6 5.6 Seth and the Pyramid Texts 40 5.6.1 The negative texts (69 in number , 9.1% ) 42 5.6.2 The positive texts (20 in number , 2.6 %) 43 5.6.3 The neutral texts (44 in number , 5.8% ) 4 3 5.7 The Sixth Dynasty 4 4 5.8 Summary 4 4 6. The First Intermediate Period and Middle Ki ngdom 2181 -1782 B.C.E. 4 6 6.1 Introduction 4 6 6.2 The S event h D ynas t y 4 6 6.3 The Ei ght h and Nineth Dynasties 4 8 6.4 The Tent h Dynas t y 4 8 6.5 The El eventh D ynas t y 4 8 6.6 The Twel fth Dynasty 4 9 6.7 The C o ffin Tex ts 51 6.7.1 The negative texts (72 in number , 6.0% ) 52 6.7.2 The posi tive t exts (27 in number , 2.0% ) 53 6.7.3 The neutral tex ts (32 in numbe r, 3.0% ) 53 6.8 Summary 53 7.
    [Show full text]
  • Stone Tool Production صناعة األدوات الحجرية
    STONE TOOL PRODUCTION صناعة اﻷدوات الحجرية Thomas Hikade EDITORS WILLEKE WENDRICH Editor-in-Chief Area Editor Material Culture University of California, Los Angeles JACCO DIELEMAN Editor University of California, Los Angeles ELIZABETH FROOD Editor University of Oxford JOHN BAINES Senior Editorial Consultant University of Oxford Short Citation: Hikade 2010, Stone Tool Production. UEE. Full Citation: Hikade, Thomas, 2010, Stone Tool Production. In Willeke Wendrich (ed.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles. http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz0025h6kk 1067 Version 1, September 2010 http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz0025h6kk STONE TOOL PRODUCTION صناعة اﻷدوات الحجرية Thomas Hikade Steingeräteherstellung Industrie lithique In ancient Egypt, flint or chert was used for knapped stone tools from the Lower Palaeolithic down to the Pharaonic Period. The raw material was available in abundance on the desert surface, or it could be mined from the limestone formations along the Nile Valley. While the earliest lithic industries of Prehistoric Egypt resemble the stone tool assemblages from other parts of Africa, as well as Asia and Europe, the later Prehistoric stone industries in Egypt had very specific characteristics, producing some of the finest knapped stone tools ever manufactured in the ancient world. Throughout Egypt’s history, butchering tools, such as knives and scrapers, and harvesting tools in the form of sickle blades made of flint, underlined the importance of stone tools for the agrarian society of ancient Egypt. استخدم المصري القديم الظران أو حجر الصوان في صناعة اﻷدوات الحجرية منذ العصور الحجرية الباكرة وحتى العصور الفرعونية، وكانت المواد الخام الﻻزمة موجودة بكثرة بالصحراء أو كان يمكن إستخﻻصھا من تكوينات الحجر الجيري على طول وادي النيل.
    [Show full text]