- Timothy Kendall - records of their existence are cemeteries of enormous burial mounds, thought to mark CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE their power centres: Ballana, Qustul, Zuma, Tangasi, el-Hobagi and others (Adams I977= 382-429; Lenoble 2004: I8~2, I93-203). Some of these tombs were very rich and belonged to rulers continuing Meroi'tic traditions, but literacy among them EGYPT AND THE LEVANT had apparently ceased. Missionaries from Byzantium and Alexandria converted the region to Christianity in the sixth century AD, and when written records resume, --._.-- the ancient land of Kush had been partitioned into three Christian Nubian (Noba) kingdoms (Anderson 2004: 202-8, 209-37). Manfred Bietak In 2004, construction began on the Merowe High Dam at the Fourth Cataract, about 360 kilometres north of Khartoum. This huge hydroelectric project, scheduled for completion in 2008, will create a lake 125 kilometres long, displace up to 70,000 people, and inundate a huge, remote tract whose settlement history, until now, has been completely unknown. This project has spurred a major international archaeological salvage campaign, reminiscent of that conducted in Egypt during the I960s. When its results are in, the history of Nubia will probably have to be radically rewritten - again (Ahmed 2004). esearch within the last two decades has shown that, from prehistoric times, NOTES R Egypt was not an isolated oasis of the river Nile but had close connections with the Near East. Not only have Natufian arrow tips been found near Helwan in Lower I Recent general reference works include Eide et aJ. 1994-2000; Torok 1997; Wildung I997; Egypt, but at Merimda, in the western delta, the entire lithic production and Morkot 2000; Smith 2003; Edwards 2004; Redford 2004b; Welsby and Anderson 2004. population type of the earliest stratum show strong Natufian connections (Eiwanger 2 Ongoing surveys reveal that many 'Southern Nubian' cultures continue well upstream of the confluence of the Blue and White Niles. 1984: 59-63). Moreover, the ceramic material is strongly influenced by the Palestinian Pottery Neolithic tradition. All the evidence suggests that there was a strong influx during this period, reaching the south-western delta. Immigration from Canaan can be deduced for the Chalcolithic Buto-Maadi culture from ceramic imports, local imitations and semi-subterranean dwelling types borrowed from the contemporary Chalcolithic culture of Palestine (Faltings I998, 2002; Hartung 200I: 322-7). Trade with the Levant was the main reason for this immigration, but the relatively lush living conditions of Egypt must surely have invited immigration by the inhabitants of neighbouring arid zones. Egypt needed raw materials such as coniferous timber from the Lebanon and commodities such as olive oil and wine which turn up from the Naqada lIe period onwards as far south as Abydos (Hartung 200I, 2002). The impact of Egypt can be felt in the late Predynastic and early 1st Dynasty in the southern Levant in a number of settlements with a high percentage of imported and locally made Egyptian pottery (Brandl 1992; Wilkinson 1999: 152-5). It has even been suggested that Egypt colonized this region for a time in order to gain control over the copper production in the Negev and the Sinai. This was discontinued during the 1st Dynasty and trading expeditions seem thereafter to have been dispatched to the Levant by sea, destined for Byblos. Towards the end of the 2nd/beginning of the 3rd Dynasty, the Sinai was depopulated (Gundlach 1994: 60-70), the local population probably deported to Egypt, and the Egyptian kings took over the exploitation of the mines. An increasing demand for timber from Lebanon induced the early Egyptian court to build a close relationship with Byblos in particular. The temple of this harbour town was the recipient of Egyptian royal donations from the end of the 2nd Dynasty onwards (Dunand 1939: 26-7, 161-2, 200, 267-8; 1937: pis XXXVI-XXXVIII, CXXV). Egypt's influence expanded during the Old Kingdom to include other - Manfred B ietak - - Egypt and the Levant - princely centres of the Levant. Trade developed favourably for both sides. Egypt exported luxury goods such as ointment and eye paint, faience jewellery, semi-precious stones, gold, toilet objects of wood, ivory, ebony and, most probably, fine linen. In turn, Egypt imported timber, pitch and resin, bitumen, olive oil and other types of oil, wine and other commodities not available in the Nile Valley. Such foreign enterprises might have stimulated immigration of foreigners from the Levant. Egypt was in need of workers, craftsmen and soldiers; and, for its seagoing ships, it needed experienced sailors and, we can assume, shipbuilders. For the consttuction of such boats Egypt depended entirely on cedar wood from Lebanon. In the 5 th Dynasty pyramid temple of Sahura there is a relief of a seaborne expedition to the Levant, most likely to Syria or Lebanon (Borchardt 1913: pIs 12, 13). The ships brought back products of this land and, most important, sailors and their families (Figure 29.Ia) (Bietak 1988). About 150 years later, a relieffrom the causeway of Unas shows typical Asiatic sailors on seagoing ships, while Egyptians manoeuvre river boats (Figure 29. I b) (Bietak 1988: 36). Towards the end of the Old Kingdom, Figure 29.Ib Causeway of Unas (end of the 5th Dynasty) at Saqqara with reliefs showing seagoing ships with Western Asiatic sailors under the command of Egyptian officers (photo C. Mlinar). the expression kepeny- (Byblos-) ships for seagoing vessels may indicate that such boats were originally designed at Byblos (Glanville 1932: 31; for a different opinion, see Save-SOderbergh 1946: 47-8). The evidence for the involvement of people from the Near East in the operation of the navy and maritime commerce in the Old Kingdom leads to the conclusion that there were communities of such foreigners in Egypt. Indeed, we have onomastic evidence of Asiatics living in Egypt during that period (Fischer 1959: 264-5; 1961 : 75; 1991: 63)· The discovery of a series of broad-room and bent-axis temples from the late Predynastic Period to the Old Kingdom at Tell Ibrahim Awad in the north­ eastern delta suggests settlements of foreigners along the easternmost Nile branch (Figure 29.2) (Eigner 2000; Bietak 2oo3a). It might not be a coincidence that the oldest determinative for the god Osiris, in the 5th Dynasty, depicts an Asiatic (Shalomi-Hen 2006: 94). It therefore seems possible that important aspects of this delta deity originated from an Asiatic vegetation god. Egyptian activity in the Levant was not exclusively peaceful. In tombs at Deshasha and Saqqara, sieges of Asiatic towns are shown (Piacentini 198]: Schulz 2002: 25-34). The expedition leader Weni, during the 6th Dynasty, reported a raid against a settlement beyond an area called the 'Gazelle nose', probably the Carmel ridge (Piacentini 1990: 18). This suggests that increasing distuptions at the end of the Early Bronze Age brought the relationship between the two regions to an end. The urban culture of the Levant broke down and gave way to a nomadic or semi-nomadic way of life, introduced by the Amorites. This situation anticipated the breakdown Figure 29.Ia Return of the fleet of Sahura (5th Dynasty) from the northern Levantine coast with recruited Western Asiatic sailors and their families under the command of Egyptian of the Egyptian Old Kingdom. officers. Image courtesy of the .Agyptisches Museum Berlin. - Manfred B ietak - -Egypt and the L evant - II (c. 191 1-1876 Be) (Altenmiiller and Moussa 1975) which shows that Egypt brought back booty and captives in great numbers from such raids, which reached as far as Cyprus. Western Asiatic people called aamll can be traced in Egyptian texts from the time of Senusret II until the end of the 12th Dynasty. (The etymology is still disputed: they are known under this name from the 6th Dynasty, heralding the arrival of the Amorites at the fringes of Egypt.) The Illahun papyri indicate that many aamu were concentrated near the residence of the 12th Dynasty at Itj-tawy (Lisht), in closed settlements called wenut. Asiatics were employed mainly in low-ranking professions such as workers, doorkeepers, messengers, singers in temples or serfs on private estates (Posener 1957: 152; Luft 1992; Schneider 2003: 232-90). In the 13th Dynasty there is evidence that elite households had Western Asiatic slaves in large numbers. They were given Egyptian names and were quickly assimilated (Albright 1954; Hayes 1955; Posener 1957; Schneider 2003: 207-28). Evidence from the Sinai (Gardiner et al. 1952: pIs XXIII, XXX, XXXVA, LI no. 163; 1955: 92 no. 85, 103 no. 95, 112 no. 11 0; Seyfried 1981: 188-201) indicates that people from Western Asia living in Egypt were employed as expedition specialists, some carrying weapons. Inspired by Egyptian writing, they developed for their own use the earliest alphabetic writing system, attested in the Sinai and along expedition tracks in the Western Desert (Gardiner 1962b; Darnell 2oo3c; Hamilton 2006; Goldwasser 2006b: 130-60). Anticipating a potential threat, Egypt monitored Nubian tribes and the city-states of Canaan. Magic was deployed as one remedy. The names of hostile places and their leaders were written on pots or figurines which were then smashed. The lists on the earlier collection of these 'Execration Texts', dated to the reign of Senusret III, often Figure 29.2 Left: temple with bent axis from Tell Ibrahim Awad, phase IIb. It seems (0 have contain several princes' names for a single toponym (Sethe 1926), while the later originated as a broad-room temple with a central podium and two entrances (after Eigner 2000: lists from the end of the 12th or even the 13th Dynasty contain many more toponyms fig.