Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt

La estructura administrativa del Estado egipcio fue un componente esencial que
garantizó el funcionamiento eficaz del aparato estatal a lo largo de su historia. Las
personas que integraban esta vasta red burocrática eran numerosas y desempeñaban
funciones diversas, lo que dio lugar a una multiplicidad de títulos —tanto funcionales
como honoríficos— cuyo significado no siempre resulta fácil de interpretar. Esta
complejidad se acentuó a partir de la segunda mitad del Reino Antiguo, cuando la
administración egipcia comenzó a diversificarse y complejizarse de forma considerable.
De entre todos los títulos hay uno que, a pesar de haber gozado de cierta relevancia
durante el Reino Antiguo, ha recibido una atención académica limitada. Se trata del
título xrp iAwt nbwt nTrwt, cuya interpretación continúa siendo objeto de debate. En sus
primeras veces que aparece documentado, está vinculado con el círculo más cercano
al rey y a las más altas esferas de la sociedad, siempre en un contexto religioso. Poco
a poco sus atestaciones disminuyen progresivamente hasta desaparecer por completo
durante el Reino Medio.
Ante esta laguna en la investigación, la presente comunicación tiene como objetivo llevar
a cabo un análisis prosopográfico detallado de los individuos que ostentaron este título
a través de las fuentes epigráficas, con el fin de identificar patrones comunes en su
contexto funerario, cronológico, geográfico y social. Este enfoque permitirá reconstruir,
en la medida de lo posible, el perfil típico de los portadores del título, establecer sus
vínculos con otras funciones administrativas o sacerdotales, y arrojar luz sobre el
significado y la evolución del cargo.
Palabras clave: xrp iAwt nbwt nTrwt, prosopografía, culto, epigrafía

This is a working document shared as part of ongoing research. It is posted here not as a finished product but as an invitation-to colleagues who work on related questions. The three figures develop a connected argument. The first is a chronological chart of ancient Near and Middle East (NME) polities and cultures from 4400 BCE to 400 CE, built from a master chronological table. It extends a more traditional version of the same chart (Figure 2) by recovering the predynastic and Chalcolithic foundations that standard political timelines tend to erase, and by reconceiving the steppe row as a dated contact zone rather than a background presence. The third figure is a first-pass corridor-polity interaction matrix: a qualitative assessment of which geographic pathways most repeatedly drove state formation, dynastic change, and political reorganisation across each civilizational zone. It is preliminary and interpretive. The conceptual framing that follows-on the steppe as a distinct energy system rather than a source of invasion-reflects the broader perspective from which all three figures were made.

By reverse-engineering the Atrahasis and Genesis narratives through a strict resource-management and infrastructural lens, The Eden Experiment strips away later theological gloss to isolate the raw mechanics of an engineered paradigm. This paper evaluates Eden not as a mystical paradise, but as a highly controlled, managed biosphere and pristine breeding laboratory. 
The study provides a comprehensive analysis of the logistical supply chains and regional foundries deployed to manage terrestrial resource extraction, mapping distinct environmental adaptations and historical timelines. Furthermore, it investigates human biogenetics, specifically the distribution of the ABO/AB blood group systems and Rh-negative alleles, as enduring, self-correcting chemical signatures intentionally tailored to match localized workspaces. Finally, the paper traces the transition from industrial operational protocols into global mythologies, evaluating the historical trajectory of legacy command structures and the long-term implementation of the parable as a psychological management technology. 
Fully cited and cross-referenced with the permanent digital repository metrics for The Trinary System of Ma'at, The Genesis of the Blueprint, and related linguistic and geometric algorithms.

In 1937 British explorer Howard Vyse opened the 3 rd pyramid at Giza and recovered some bones and part of a wooden mummy-case. These items were initially exhibited as genuine relics of King Menkaure from ca 2500 BCE until later C-14 analysis showed them to be 2-3000 years younger-after which the coffin was reclassified as a substitute 'reburial'. Here, reexamination of Vyse's journal presents a string of anomalies that strongly suggest the coffin and bones, found together, were deliberately planted. It was a hoax.

This article examines the methodological and interpretative challenges involved in studying women’s roles in Predynastic Egypt, a society devoid
of textual sources and characterised by highly schematic imagery. When looking at iconography, modern stereotypes — based on clothing, hairstyles, body shape, posture — have led to circular and sometimes unfounded identifications of “female” figures. If looking at bioarchaeological data, it also unfortunately has its limitations, be it because of biases in early sex determinations, taphonomic disturbances, and the complex relationship between burial goods and the identity of the deceased. Despite these difficulties, a reassessment of anthropological data and funerary assemblages suggests that some elements did
characterise female appearance, especially in terms of beaded jewellery, hair adornments, and a preference for decorations based on the motifs of birds and bovine horns. The recurrent link between women and avian imagery points to meaningful associations, even if their precise significance remains elusive.

conveyed in the Egyptian art), are susceptible to incur in anachronistic, erroneous conclusions. Contrarily to fundamental notions of broader range (as archetypal models, myths, religious beliefs, philosophies, symbolic metaphors) apt to remain relatively unchanged to the effect of time and of external influences (e.g. Huyge 2002: 194f.;, more particular elements (as styles) are instead largely prone to modifications, rielaborations, additions or even elimination from the artistic milieu -owing to ideological needs, rulers' decisions, new rules of decorum, changing representational canons, foreign cultures borrowings, historical events and other agents. Additionally, and more obviously, it should be remarked that difficulties in modern explanation of past traditions are often the unavoidable result of the gap existing in the logic principles, ideological constructions and cultural conventions rooted in human minds so many millennia apart from each others, as ancient Egyptians' and our own ones are; corruptions may even issue for later Egyptians' misinterpretations of their ancient predecessors' traditions. 5 The terms "decoration, decorative" does not necessarily imply a secondary function (and even less one of mere embellishment): in general, the figurative apparatus might have been either an accessory, additional feature, more or less tightly connected to the main purpose of the artefact (i.e., contributing to accomplish its scope), or the very core and key-element of the object effective meaning and value. For sure, carved, incised and painted figures have, not seldom, attracted more scholarly attention than the other attributes of the items on which they appear! 6 The intracultural patterns of decodification are certainly to be preferred to exogenous approaches (ethnographical parallels or diachronic comparisons: cf. note 4): the former ones fully rely on characteristics proper to the studied cultural ambit, eventually accepting the latter ones as an eventual theorical research direction, to be pursued only if corroborated by further positive proofs. For indicative methodological avenues: Midant-Reynes 2003: 310ff. (chaîne opératoire); Wengrow 2006: 176ff. (holistic account).

When two acoustically coupled resonators of slightly different natural frequency are driven from a common source, their interference produces a slow beat envelope at the difference frequency. In mass-confined masonry passages, this effect may become mechanically significant as a low-frequency pneumatic modulation rather than a simple audible beat. This paper revises the beat-frequency model around the Khafre Pyramid, where the dual entrance systems, possible thermoacoustic drive, resonant horizontal pressure tube, gabled chamber, granite coffer, predicted diaphragm interface, and inferred hydraulic ratchet together provide the clearest proposed lift mechanism in the Giza field. The Bent and Red Pyramids are treated as Dahshur precedents for coupled resonant behaviour, while the Great Pyramid is treated as the Root 5 culmination of the same principle in a more developed harmonic and workextraction system. The analysis does not claim historical operation as established fact. It asks whether the surveyed geometry and reported boundary conditions are mechanically compatible with coupled-resonator amplification, pneumatic pressure beating, and hydraulic lift within the broader western escarpment model developed in The Pyramid Fields of Egypt: A Hydraulic Systems Analysis.

Recenzia štúdie Miroslava Števíka Národnostné pomery na Spiši v 17. storočí podľa Sigrayovej vizitácie z roku 1700, ktorá sa zaoberá kritickou analýzou príspevku so zameraním na jeho metodologické, heuristické a interpretačné východiská. Poukazuje na problematické využitie jediného historického prameňa bez aplikácie základných princípov vonkajšej a vnútornej historickej kritiky, ako aj na absenciu komparácie s ďalšími relevantnými prameňmi z prelomu 17. a 18. storočia. Kriticky hodnotí tiež nedostatočné zohľadnenie dobového politického, konfesionálneho a demografického kontextu, ktorý zásadným spôsobom ovplyvňoval etnické pomery na Spiši. Pozornosť je venovaná aj nejasnej metodike určovania „dominujúcej národnosti“ v jednotlivých sídlach a rozporom medzi textovou a kartografickou časťou príspevku.

A review of Miroslav Števík’s study Ethnic Relations in the Spiš Region in the 17th Century According to Sigray’s Visitation of 1700, focusing on a critical analysis of its methodological, heuristic, and interpretative foundations. The review highlights the problematic use of a single historical source without the application of the basic principles of external and internal source criticism, as well as the absence of comparison with other relevant sources from the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. It also critically evaluates the insufficient consideration of the contemporary political, confessional, and demographic context, which significantly influenced ethnic relations in the Spiš region. Attention is likewise devoted to the unclear methodology used to determine the “dominant nationality” in individual settlements and to the inconsistencies between the textual and cartographic parts of the study.

This article argues that the Egyptian Old Kingdom (c. 2686-2181 BCE) is frequently presented as a period of relative certainty, a view that the evidence does not unequivocally support. By examining the scarcity of direct archaeological evidence for quotidian and spiritual life, the reliance on significantly later textual sources, and the uncritical harmonization of the Predynastic to Early Dynastic transition, this paper contends that the Old Kingdom is fundamentally a construct of retrojection. Special attention is given to the spiritual capital of Iunu (Heliopolis) and the administrative capital of Ineb Hedj (Memphis), both of which offer more architectural silence than documentation. The article further introduces a heterodox hypothesis regarding the three main pyramids of the Giza Plateau: that they predate the Fourth Dynasty and represent the legacy of an unknown earlier civilization, with subsequent pyramid building (Third to Sixth Dynasties) representing unsuccessful replication attempts. This hypothesis is supported by evidence of technological regression, the poor quality of royal successors' tombs, the absence of a credible developmental trajectory for the Giza monuments, and the fact that only a fraction of the Memphite necropolis has been archaeologically explored.

Frank Förster, Maria Carmela Gatto, Paolo Medici, Paweł Lech Polkowski und Gunnar Sperves-
lage (Hrsg.): Current Research in the Rock Art of the Eastern Sahara. In Memory of Dirk Huyge
(1957–2018). Proceedings of a Session of the 20th International Rock Art Congress IFRAO 2018
in Valcamonica, Italy, IBAES 27, Internetfassung: URL: https://www.ibaes.de/ibaes27, Printfas-
sung: GHP, London, 2025
The 14 contributions in this volume reflect the vibrancy and diversity of current research on Eastern Saharan
rock art, with a focus on Egypt and Nubia. They are grouped into three thematic areas: rock art of Egypt’s Western
Desert and regions beyond; thematic, chronological, and stylistic analyses; and rock art in the region of the First
Nile Cataract and Nubia. Each paper addresses one or more key session themes.

This paper applies the Deep Symbolic Systems Model (DSSM) as a cognitive-archaeological framework for understanding the emergence of early Egyptian civilization (c. 7500-2500 BCE). DSSM's theoretical novelty operates on three simultaneous planes. First, it specifies a falsifiable four-stage developmental sequence-embodied symbolic familiarity, ritualized repetition, material amplification, cognitive offloading-whose temporal ordering derives from independent neuroscientific evidence rather than from the archaeological record it is meant to explain. Second, it bridges neural consolidation timescales from laboratory neuroscience to archaeologically detectable windows of 100-1,500 years, connecting specific memory systems to Field Companion Protocol (FCP) observables. Third, it introduces a two-dimensional (2D) scoring instrument in which each observable is independently scored on Evidence Strength (E) and Symbolic Specificity (S) axes, with a minimum-rule combination (min(E, S)) that prevents evidence robustness from compensating for symbolic ambiguity. Egyptian period scores range from 4.5/12 (Badarian) to 12/12 (Old Kingdom), reflecting genuine evidential variance rather than circular confirmation. Three negative cases-Sub-Saharan Africa, prehistoric Australia, and Late Neolithic Europe-are analyzed as scope condition tests representing three distinct DSSM failure modes: Stage 3 absent through fragmentation, Stage 3 structurally absent, and Stage 3 partial with consequent delayed institutional emergence. All seven falsifiable predictions are evaluated against available evidence. Two additional potential counterexamples-Highland New Guinea (large-scale exchange above 500 individuals, no state formation) and Norte Chico (monuments without standardized portable media)-are addressed as scope condition tests. A pilot inter-rater reliability study (Cohen's κ = 0.71 across two raters and thirty assemblages) provides an initial reliability estimate for the FCP, with full multi-rater validation identified as a priority empirical agenda.

This paper aims to present examples of pre-dynastic visual representations in search of the cosmological and temporal concepts underlying the images. Then, with comparisons from the first and second dynasties, I will discuss the continuity and change between art and cosmological conceptions during the time frame when Egypt moves towards unification and the emergence of the so-called "state".

The article analyzes the iconography of small-scale art objects from the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods as a source for understanding the principles behind the formation of Ancient Egypt’s calendar-astronomical system. The research aims to identify the connection between the subjects found in small-scale art (knife handles, combs, palettes) and early concepts of the celestial sphere and festive culture. The author argues that hunting and battle scenes, as well as sequential rows of animals on these objects, served as markers of the annual cycle: they recorded the vernal equinox, the heliacal rising of Sirius, the summer solstice, and the Nile inundation. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the revelation and decoding of calendar-astronomical meanings integrated into the Ancient Egyptian visual canon of the preliterate period. The study establishes that the development of iconography (themes of hunting, battles, and animal predation scenes) was based on a strict synchronization of earthly rituals with observations of the constellations Taurus, Leo, Canis Major, and Orion. In the Archaic era, the ruler’s triumph over the forces of chaos was interpreted as a guarantee of maintaining cosmic order and the timely arrival of the flood. Comparing these subjects with the astral motifs of the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, and New Kingdom star maps allows these archaic monuments to be viewed as the oldest astronomical documents in Egyptian history.

Cette contribution propose un tour d’horizon des catégories majeures de représentations féminines de l’Égypte ancienne : des figurines féminines préfigurant les grandes déesses pharaoniques aux reines qui ont modelé leur portrait pour légitimer leur accès au trône ; des femmes du commun anonymes sur les murs des tombes aux femmes lettrées peuplant le harem royal. Il est indéniable que la femme, dans la variété des rôles qui lui étaient confiés, fut l’un des sujets-objets favoris de l’art égyptien.

This paper gives an overview of the main iconographic categories of feminine representations in ancient Egypt : starting from the female figurines foreshadowing the most important pharaonic goddesses to queens who had their portraits crafted to legitimize their access to the throne; from anonymous women depicted on tomb walls to literate women inhabiting the royal harem. It comes with no surprise that women, in the variety of roles assigned to them, were among the most favorite topics of Egyptian art.

Excavations on Letná Hill uncovered a forgotten 1950s labour camp linked to Prague's Stalin Monument. Preserved architecture and artefacts reveal the daily life of workers, driven less by physical violence than by ideological pressure and social consequences, shedding new light on forced labour and material culture in communist Czechoslovakia.

Pese al innegable interés por el arte egipcio y la cultura del mundo faraónico, la figura del artista apenas se ha explorado. En los últimos años han surgido diversas investigaciones que ponen el valor el papel de los agentes de esas obras, destacando cómo es el proceso de creación en el que se produce un equilibrio entre el apego a la tradición y la innata
creatividad e innovación de los artistas. Las ponencias tocarán temas de gran relevancia, como es la cuestión de fundamentos artísticos e ideológicos, la movilidad geográfica de los artistas o la influencia de la escritura en los rasgos del arte. Aspectos como el análisis iconográfico del movimiento en el arte egipcio o la figura del escultor serán tratados
también, aportando una visión novedosa y atractiva. Otras ponencias analizarán cuestiones más concretas como la innovación presente en los ataúdes tebanos, en la producción ptolemaica en Oxirrinco o en obras inéditas como la llamada “Venus de Bubastis”. Con todo ello, nos adentraremos en la fascinante figura del artista egipcio.

The First Trilogy established a coherent, evidence-grounded account of Saharan pastoralist migration to the Nile Valley during the collapse of the African Humid Period (~5,500 BCE), the transmission of the Zep Tepi cosmological system via the Highland Corridor Refugia, and the institutional memory carried by the Shemsu Hor. It closed at Hierakonpolis, approximately 500 years before the Great Pyramid.

Phase Zero addresses what that interval contains.

This paper proposes that seven small, uninscribed step pyramids — the Minor Step Pyramids of el-Kula, Edfu, Hierakonpolis, Naqada, Sinki, Zawyet el-Amwat, and Seila — distributed across the ceremonial centres of Predynastic Upper Egypt, represent a coordinated territorial and cultic programme encoding the Meskhetyu (Ursa Major/Bull's Foreleg) astronomical tradition at precisely the Shemsu Hor sites documented in Paper III. These structures predate or overlap with Sneferu's large pyramid programme and have no burial function. Their shared plan, orientation family, and geographic distribution at Shemsu Hor ceremonial centres are not coincidental.

The paper distinguishes two parallel tracks: a territorial track (Minor Step Pyramids encoding Meskhetyu at provincial sites) and a construction-engineering track (Djoser → Sneferu → Khufu, improving precision from ~3° to 3′ of north over five pyramid projects). Both tracks target the same constellation throughout. Seila MSP is the convergence point: simultaneously the last Phase Zero territorial marker and the first of Sneferu's four construction experiments.

Section 13 presents a fully transparent three-approach calculation of construction capacity — top-down (blocks ÷ time), bottom-up (workforce capacity with sled physics), and Wedjat cross-check (validating team sizes via binary mechanical advantage) — demonstrating that the active construction effort across the full 3rd–4th Dynasty pyramid programme occupied a modest fraction of the 500-year interval. The remaining centuries were required for the institutional, organisational, and logistical capacity that made Giza possible.

Phase Zero closes the capacity question. The purpose question — what that capacity was ultimately for — continues as the subject of The Pyramid as Memory Hypothesis.

El arte egipcio y la civilización faraónica siguen siendo una
fuente de atracción para estudiosos y público en general.
Actualmente distintos proyectos arqueológicos en Egipto
desarrollan interesantes investigaciones vinculadas con el arte,
cuyos resultados se presentan en este curso. Conoceremos de
primera mano investigaciones ligadas a la arquitectura egipcia,
tanto en el famoso templo de Karnak como en el templo de
Millones de años de Tutmosis III (ambos en Luxor), así como el
proyecto Sikait. Por otro lado, el C2 Project presenta resultados
inéditos producto de un complejo trabajo multidisciplinar que
abarca desde el análisis del papel del valle que acogió las
momias de los grandes faraones egipcios del Reino Nuevo,
hasta el estudio de los textiles hallados en el yacimiento,
pasando por la investigación de los graffiti figurativos. Por
último, el proyecto Invisible Networks nos mostrará una
novedosa visión de las redes del culto funerario del reino
Antiguo a través de la iconografía. Con todo ello se pretende
ofrecer una atractiva visión del mundo faraónico y el legado
artístico que los proyectos con participación española
desarrollan en Egipto.
El curso se completa con cuatro horas de consulta de materiales
y participación activa del estudiante en el foro del curso virtual.

In the context of the Old Kingdom, beer jars have historically been viewed as little more than containers for everyday goods. The findings of this research, which were obtained from excavations conducted at the Thary Cemetery between the years 2018 and 2021, challenge that concept by demonstrating the variety of ways in which they are utilised throughout their lifecycle. First, they are used to store water, grain, and plaster. Then, they are used for ritualistic purposes, as indicated by the perforations that were made in the tombs after they were fired. Finally, they are repurposed for architectural purposes, being integrated horizontally into mudbrick walls in a distinctive honeycomb arrangement. This change, which has been methodically planned and whose clarity is unrivalled on the Giza Plateau, demonstrates that the design of the vessel was purposely and purposefully incorporated into both symbolic and architectural settings. Thary gives the first piece of clear evidence of an early circular economy in material activities, which requires a reevaluation of the role that utilitarian objects performed within the Old Kingdom's socio-ritual and architectural frameworks.

This volume presents key findings from the 20th International Rock Art Congress, focusing on the rock art of the Eastern Sahara, particularly Egypt and Sudan. Papers explore regional overviews, rock art's relationship with the landscape, stylistic diversity, and symbolic meanings, with contributions focused on the Western Desert and Nubian rock art, as well as thematic, chronological and stylistic analyses. These papers highlight the dynamic interactions between environmental contexts, artistic expressions, and cultural exchanges, providing new insights into the ancient societies of the Eastern Sahara. The volume is dedicated to the memory of Dirk Huyge (1957–2018).

The religious landscape of Ptolemaic Thebes-modern-day Luxor-was composed of numerous temples, chapels, and sanctuaries, a vast necropolis, and processional roads connecting these sacred spaces. Individuals working in this landscape held diverse roles: temple priests performed rituals or acted as scribes; mortuary priests mummified the dead and maintained mortuary cults; and temple personnel prepared offerings or guarded sanctuary doors. Temple priests are primarily known from Egyptological sources such as funerary papyri and tomb equipment, while mortuary priests and temple personnel are mostly attested in Greek and Demotic documentary papyri. As these sources are typically studied in isolation, the connections between them have remained underexplored. This lecture brings Egyptological and papyrological evidence into conversation to better understand the titles and functions of those active in Thebes' religious sphere. It examines how priestly titles were used, translated, or adapted across languages, revealing how the priests' functions were perceived. Beyond this, it explores professional and personal ties among temple and necropolis workers: who collaborated during festivals, lived together as neighbours, or witnessed each other's contracts. It also considers how terminology for services and payments may have differed between those employed in the temples versus the necropolis. By integrating diverse source types, the lecture offers a fuller picture of sacred functions, social ties, and priestly life in Ptolemaic Thebes.

The so-called discovery at Wadi Khamila (South Sinai) of a predynastic scene supposed to illustrate Egypt's domination over the populations of Sinai more than 5,000 years ago has recently been the subject of extensive media coverage after the publication of an article in the last issue of Blätter Abrahams journal. While the presence of the Pharaonic Egyptians on the Peninsula at the very beginning of pharaonic history is well known for some fifteen years now, following the successive discoveries of pre-and proto-dynastic inscriptions at Faras Um al-Zueibin and Wadi Ameyra, a more objective examination of this new document reveals that it was artificially created by the authors of this study, who mixed different phases of carving on the same rock, and then selected only those elements that supported their a priori interpretation of the petroglyphs. Our study demonstrates that most of the scene, and the 'hieroglyphic' inscription above it, are in fact Nabataean inscriptions superimposed on a single older motif.

Along with the body, the ka (kʒ; "life force"), the shadow, and the name, the ba (Eg., bʒ) was one of the major components in the Egyptian concept of an individual. Its closest analog in Western thought is the "soul"-a term with which ba is often translated-although the two concepts are not fully comparable. At the same time, however, Paheri's text also states that "your ba will not abandon your corpse," echoing the Coffin Texts: "my ba cannot be kept from my corpse." This relationship is reflected in vignettes of the New Kingdom Book of Going Forth by Day (Book of the Dead), which show the ba not only returning to the mummy and hovering over it but also participating in activities outside the tomb. This vision of the Bibliography

La tombe U-j d'Abydos, datée de 3200 avant notre ère, constitue une découverte capitale pour la compréhension des origines de la monarchie égyptienne. L'analyse des marques inscrites sur les jarres funéraires de cette sépulture, notamment les dipinti représentant des animaux, suggère un système symbolique complexe lié à l'identité royale. G. Dreyer avait initialement interprété ces figures (scorpion, poisson, coquillage, etc.) comme les noms individuels de souverains prédynastiques. L'objectif de cette étude est de proposer une lecture différente de ces images : dans ce contexte, les représentations d'animaux permettraient de définir une identité « constellative » du souverain, affichant non par des noms à proprement parler, mais par l'intersection de plusieurs attributs convergents, l'une des qualités fondamentales de la fonction monarchique : sa dimension « fulgurante ».

‫وادي‬ ‫واثار‬ ‫الخادم‬ ‫سرابيط‬ ‫معبد‬ ‫المغاره‬  temple of Hathor in south Sinai.
All images are used for educational and non-commercial purposes."
"This paper is an original academic work by the author and is shared for educational purposes."

The sun as an object of worship by early humans seemed natural enough to avoid any surprise since it was a powerful object in the sky, visible to all and able to grant life or death to all, both nature and the humans that inhabited the land. Such worship was visible almost everywhere in the world and adopted many different forms, as people conceived its manifestations. In the case of ancient Egypt we can detect its presence already from the earliest times. Not surprisingly, humans also used it as a tool to intervene in political affairs as well, seeming to grant divine approval to very human royal and other concerns.

The fragments of Aegyptiaca and the testimony of the Turin King List preserve a sequence that remains insufficiently interrogated within modern Egyptology. Both sources present a structured succession from gods to intermediaries and finally to human kings, yet modern scholarship selectively privileges the dynastic section while relegating the preceding material to mythology. This paper questions that methodological division. It argues that the absence of material corroboration does not justify interpretative dismissal, and that the divine and semi-divine strata may encode transformed memories of historical realities not yet understood. Particular attention is given to the so-called Followers of Horus and the Sons of Horus, whose roles suggest continuity rather than rupture. The aim is not to assert certainty, but to reopen a line of inquiry prematurely closed.

Este trabajo monográfico tiene la finalidad de exponer y desglosar todas las vertientes teóricas respecto al surgimiento del Estado en el Antiguo Cercano Oriente con un análisis detallado de los mejores teóricos del estado primigenio, enseñados por la Cátedra.

[EN] The crucial aspect of the relationship between archeological sites and modern communities is greatly influenced by the people representing it. Although it is strictly academic, archeologists have an interest in drawing attention to monuments rather than people, as there is foreign dominance of archeological work in Abydos (about eight international missions work in Abydos) and throughout Egypt. Western archeologists have neglected their duties to the Egyptian people, failing to communicate their findings or initiate educational and public outreach programs for the local communities. Therefore, the potential for sustainable growth of cultural tourism and the value of Abydos' archeology is not known to the local inhabitants. The primary concern is how crucial it is for local community members to be involved in decision-making about cultural tourism and heritage. The local community's ability to function depends greatly on its members' opinions. Additionally, it is uncommon to find residents directly involved in awareness-raising campaigns. One of the greatest challenges facing the site of Abydos arises from the pressures of modern development, which is represented in expanding agricultural fields, villages, sewerage network systems and modern cemeteries that have all begun to encroach on important areas of the site along the edge of the desert of the three villages, Ġabāt, c Arābat Abīdūs and Banī Manṣūr. o the east, the fertile alluvial plain extends from the Nile, while to the west lie the desert and the limestone escarpment.

Novel methodologies in archaeology are helping us to better understand
social identities in the past. In this EES-funded research, Pablo Barba
outlines how fingerprints left by past individuals in clay can be measured
to determine the age and sex of their owner, and how he is applying this
methodology to sealings to identify who was involved in administrative
activities at the beginning of the Egyptian state.

The curse in this article is intended to obtain a person kind of punishment or abuse,
or by doing some rituals to Cursing a specific person, whether through some burial customs, or by breaking a statue of a specific person, or erase his name, or insert a blade or bone into his
clay figurine, or separate his body parts, or remove his skull after death, or to be buried in a
certain way that prevents him from leaving the tomb to preventing his evil soul, as if to be buried bound as a prisoner, or by placing some stone blocks over his body in his burial.
The curse rituals were also illustrated by acting some practices with magical significance; For example, if a statue is formed in the form of a certain person, whether from clay or wax at times, and deliberately distorting or destroying the statue in order to make him sick or destroy his owner, he will be punished with a symbolic curse in order to exterminate
him or destroy him or harm him.
The practices of the ritual curse are clarified religiously, by performing the ritual burial of donkeys, as they are one of the symbols of the "Seth", And by eliminating them, evil will be
eliminated and annihilated.
The article will study these items in Egypt during prehistoric and early dynastic periods, explaining the similarities and differences between these elements at the time

The site of the ‘Main Cemetery’ of Naqada, north of Luxor, has yielded significant material remains that provide insights into this culture, which played a vital role in the early development of Egyptian civilization in the fourth millennium BCE. Unfortunately, of the 1918 tombs listed by W.M.F. Petrie during his excavation of the site, only 138 were described in the 1896 publication. This article aims to reinvestigate 735 tombs from this cemetery, which most were thought to be empty or for which most data was lost (not represented in the field notebooks preserved in the Petrie Museum, London), through extensive work on Petrie’s archival material, original publication, recently rediscovered pottery lists, and artifacts known in museums. This first sample is published here as an interim result of the project and will be made available in an online database. The reassessment revealed that the studied assemblages contain many additional artifacts, they could now be dated or their previous dating revised, and the corrected assemblages even give us a chance to highlight some mistakes in the seriation models built on previous ceramic inventories. These preliminary results testify once more to the importance of reexamining seemingly well-known sites in the light of old excavation data.

With Pharaonic Egypt, we witness a kind of 'golden age' of iconography. Animal representations there are, indeed, of exceptional quality compared to those of the two millennia that follow. Although the pursuit of anatomical accuracy is less pronounced than during Pharaonic Egypt, fine representations also appear during the Predynastic period. They are of great interest and raise a number of questions. This is the case, for example, with Nagadian and Thinite representations attributed to the aardvark, Orycteropus afer.

Ancient Hebenu appears to have been abandoned in the course of the early First Intermediate Period, and it is not until the New Kingdom that it was reoccupied, along with the embellishment of the temple to the local deity Horus, Lord of Hebenu. Scant evidence of the latter, including a ramp to the presumed temple location, still exists in the northern end of the site in Zone 1, and they indicate a major building phase during the reign of Amenhotep III, with further improvements during the reign of Ramesses III. Ramesses II also held the local deity in high esteem, as is evidenced by the near complete black granite, seated falcon-headed statue of Horus of Hebenu wearing the double crown and inscribed with the king’s royal names (Grand Egyptian Museum, 12599), thereby signalling royal interest in the settlement at least from the second half of the 18th into the 20th Dynasty. Other than the temple, surveys and excavations in the 20th and early 21st century have now identified New Kingdom cemeteries, settlement remains, and debris of workshops across the site. A selection of pottery from these places will be outlined in the article.

Paper III completes the core argument of the Zep Tepi Series. Paper I identified the Richat Structure in Mauritania as the sole surviving candidate Saharan origin site through systematic elimination of 14 formations. Paper II documented genomic endpoints at both corridor termini (Takarkori → Nuwayrat) and the Wedjat as a sky-schema encoding the Canopus gradient observed during northeastward migration.

Egypt itself preserved a consistent answer to the question of its origins: the Shemsu Hor (Followers of Horus). They occupy a non-optional structural slot in Egyptian king-list architecture across fifteen centuries of independent sources: the Turin Royal Canon, Pyramid Texts, state inscriptions, and temple-building traditions. Later pharaohs cite their written annals. Ptolemaic builders cite a goatskin scroll from their time containing architectural plans. This archival specificity has no parallel in any other ancient king-list tradition.

Four primary lines of evidence:

    Archaeological: Five Saharan pastoral markers appear together at the HK6 elite cemetery at Hierakonpolis within the 3800–3100 BCE window, supported by skeletal morphological diversity that requires population movement rather than diffusion.

    Astronomical: A statistically significant Canopus orientation family appears across 350+ Egyptian temples (Shaltout/Belmonte surveys), tracking precession over 2,000 years — a pattern the survey authors explicitly state they cannot explain from conventional frameworks.

    Chronological: Three independent chronologies (climate, textual, archaeological) converge on the 3800–3100 BCE window.

    Textual: The Edfu Building Texts preserve a migration narrative with no parallel in any other Ptolemaic temple corpus: a named western homeland destroyed by cataclysm, survivors carrying exclusive architectural knowledge eastward, and a Horus falcon ancestor cult.

Six methodologically independent lines — paleohydrology, genetics, archaeology, archaeoastronomy, textual criticism, and climate chronology — converge on the Saharan corridor migration model as the most parsimonious explanation for the attested data.

The model does not claim demonstration. It establishes priority for decisive tests using existing museum collections: isotopic and aDNA analysis of Predynastic elite contexts, geochemical sourcing of Naqada II hard-stone vessels against the Richat carbonatite signature, and A-Group aDNA.

This is the third paper in the Zep Tepi Series.

Related works:

    Paper I: The Eye of the Sahara Hypothesis: A Predictive Model and 25-Element Testing Protocol for Predynastic Saharan Migration

    Paper II: The Zep Tepi Hypothesis: Saharan Cultural Memory and the Origins of Egyptian Sacred Symbolism

Wadi El-Nasib is one of the most important Egyptian mining sites situated in southwestern Sinai. In October 2021 the first excavation mission in the site was conducted by an Egyptian team. The mission first conducted an archaeological survey in the valley, followed by excavations in three areas. The excavation revealed copper smelting workshops in Area 1. It also resulted in the discovery of a malachite mine in Area 3. In Area 2 the mission unearthed a huge stone building around 225 square meters large, which is believed to have been the headquarters of the mining expeditions in Sinai during the Old and Middle Kingdom. In the New Kingdom this building was used as a workshop for smelting copper and refine turquoise. Internal modifications were made by adding walls, and a northern entrance. Copper smelting furnaces and processing areas were discovered. Four copper cakes, each weighing between 1200 to 1300 grams, and quantity of about 10 kg of crumbled copper were also found.

The Sabu Disk, discovered in the First Dynasty tomb of Sabu at Saqqara, remains one of the most enigmatic artifacts of early Egyptian history. Its function has long been debated, with no consensus among scholars. This paper proposes a new interpretation: the disk was intentionally carved from fragile schist as a prestige object designed to demonstrate the artisan's exceptional skill, attract elite patronage, and secure high-status workshop positions. This hypothesis aligns with known patterns of early dynastic craftsmanship, social mobility, and the symbolic role of prestige objects in tomb assemblages.