Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt

ABSTRACT: El-Markha Plain is a key coastal region providing an anchorage for Egyptian expeditions traveling to the copper and turquoise mining region in South Sinai.  The University of Toronto expedition investigated a mound at Ras Budran and uncovered a late Old Kingdom, circular stone structure. It represents one of three Egyptian “forts” identified from the Early Dynastic through Old Kingdom period and augments two published Old Kingdom sites in South Sinai. It clarifies and underscores the perceived dangers in and the importance of South Sinai to Egyptian mining expeditions during this period. It displays an unusual circular design for an ancient Egyptian structure and an uncommon application of stone to a “fort”.  Its construction, occupation, possible destruction, and abandonment reflect contemporary late Old Kingdom records for Egyptian campaigns against Asiatic “Sand-dwellers” and a Bedouin massacre of an Egyptian expedition beside the Red Sea. The site illuminates multiple aspects of a period associated with the Old Kingdom’s “collapse” and the activities and cross-cultural interactions of a transitory garrison on Egypt’s eastern frontier.

The detection of direct archaeological remains of alcoholic beverages and their production is still a challenge in the archaeological sciences, as most of the markers known up to now are either not durable or diagnostic enough to be used as secure prove. The current study addresses this question by experimental work reproducing the malting processes and subsequent charring of the resulting products under laboratory conditions in order to simulate their preservation (by charring) in archaeological contexts and to explore the preservation of microstructural alternations of the involved cereal grains. The experimentally germinated and charred grains showed clearly degraded (thinned) aleurone cell walls. The histological alternations of the cereal grains were observed and quantified using reflected light and scanning electron microscope as well as corresponding morphometric and statistical software. In order to verify the experimental observations of histological alternations, amorphous charred objects (ACO) containing cereal remains originating from five archaeological sites dating to the 4th millennium BCE were considered: Two of these sites are archaeologically recognisable brewing installations from Predynastic Egypt, while the three roughly contemporary central European lakeshore settlements lack such specific context of the analysed cereal-based food remains. The aleurone cell wall thinning known from food technological research and observed in our own experimental material was indeed also recorded in the archaeological finds. The Egyptian materials derive from beer production with certainty, supported by the ample contextual and artefactual data. The Neolithic lakeshore settlement finds currently represent the oldest traces of malting in central Europe, while the bowl-shaped bread-like object possibly even points towards early beer production in central Europe. One major further implication of our study is that the cell wall breakdown in the grain’s aleurone layer can be used as a general marker for malting processes with relevance for a wide range of charred archaeological finds of cereal products.

Within the Egyptian Western Desert, the Kharga Oasis was a particularly favourable and highly frequented area during the Holocene thanks to a permanent ground water supply. The high concentration and accessibility of archaeological sites here allows the cultural and economic changes to be documented at a local scale, when northeastern Africa was experiencing strong climatic variations and the transition to a food production economy. An expansive program led by the Institut français d’archéologie orientale (IFAO) which included systematic survey, sampling collections, tests and stratigraphic excavations has dramatically increased the amount of data available concerning the prehistory of the Kharga Oasis. Typo-technological analyses focusing on the lithic industries, and other aspects of material culture, plus a series of 14C dates have led to the definition of four main successive cultural phases: Kharga A, B, C and D. This paper describes this proposal of a new archaeological sequence for human occupation in the Kharga Oasis and discusses its integration in the wider frame of Egypt and the Eastern Sahara.

This study deals with the remains of metal objects from the settlement of workers living and labouring at the Egyptian site of Giza in the reigns of Dynasty 4 Kings Khufu and Khafra (c. 2500–2450 BCE). It provides the first detailed set of data on copper tools of the craftspersons working with wood, limestone, textile, etc., focusing on the major and trace element analyses, lead isotopes and microstructural description. Arsenical copper is again confirmed as a material practically used in the Old Kingdom, with arsenopyrite from Eastern Desert proposed as a source of arsenic. The CuAgAs needle 20966 has similar lead isotopes as two pieces of Predynastic Egyptian metalwork and litharge from late Uruk site Habuba Kabira (Syria), being probably a recycled specimen of earlier material connected to silver production. With 15 objects analysed in detail, it is for now the largest Old Kingdom corpus of metal objects from the settlement context.

"A biological affinities study based on frequencies of cranial nonmetric traits in skeletal samples from three cemeteries at predynastic Naqada, Egypt, confirms the results of a recent nonmetric dental morphological analysis. Both cranial and dental traits analyses indicate that the individuals buried in a cemetery characterized archaeologically as high status are significantly different from individuals buried in two other, apparently nonelite cemeteries and that the nonelite samples are not significantly different from each other. A comparison with neighbouring Nile Valley skeletal samples suggests that the high status cemetery represents an endogamous ruling or elite segment of the local population at Naqada, which is more closely related to populations in northern Nubia than to neighbouring populations in southern Egypt. © 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
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Archaeological analyses of child funerary remains have often revolved around discussions of ascribed status and demographic trends. Other social and spatial dimensions of child burial are often left unexplored. This article introduces a novel perspective, through the analysis of child burials in Predynastic Egypt. My analysis focuses on the changing rates and spatial distribution of child burials in community necropoleis, with special attention to how their placement was used to renegotiate power relationships, and perhaps even concepts of personhood, in Predynastic society. The importance of children's funerals for creating of a sense of community through attachment to place is also considered. Criticizing analyses that rely on quantitative data to the exclusion of other factors, I emphasize the contribution of childhood, practice theory, emotions and personhood for the study of social complexity. My arguments point towards significant changes in the emotional dimension of children's funerary practices experienced during the later fourth millennium BC, and links these transformations to processes of state formation in Egypt.

An assemblage of ancient Egyptian metalwork from the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods, currently in the Egyptian Museum of Leipzig University (Germany), has been studied using a wide range of available archaeometallurgical methods. The 3rd millennium BC Egyptian copper metallurgy is known only superficially until now. The data are interpreted in the framework of the known and reconstructed distribution networks of ancient Egyptian society. The production technology of the objects has been examined. The lead isotope analyses have made it possible to discuss the origin of the ore used for the production of Old Kingdom metalwork for the first time. A rather surprising presence in the Early Dynastic assemblage of object similar in isotopic ratios to Anatolian Early Bronze Age metalwork is discussed.

Hippopotamus hunting as an iconographical motif is widely attested during most of Egyptian history. Both private and royal Egyptian tombs spanning from early Old Kingdom to Roman times show these images in their walls. The motif was often depicted in Predynastic iconography but, due to some of its particularities, some authors suggested that hippopotami were, in fact, not killed but rather captured alive. Decades have passed, and evidence both archaeological and archaeozoological has since grown signifcantly. We now have enough sources to reassess the corpus of evidence to debunk or ratify such hypotheses. Particularly relevant to confrm these was the fnding at Hierakonpolis of a young hippopotamus’ remains showing signs of having been kept captive in the village. Moreover, it is helpful to examine evidence not taken into account by the authors such as ethnohistorical research and the latest archaeozoological findings. The outcome of this research seems to suggest that the killing of hippopotami did, in fact, take place during hunting expeditions, due to the danger of transporting the beasts alive. Furthermore, the idea of iconographic evidence as a narrative of actual events should be challenged and understood instead as being one of symbolic nature.

This article focuses on Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA) no. 68.59, a Predynastic ‘pelta’ (boat-shaped) greywacke palette engraved with animal figures. This palette can securely be dated to the Naqada IIA–IIB period, and most probably to the latter phase (conventionally dated ca. 3700–3600 BC). I also suggest that it might have originally been manufactured in the Naqada region, on the grounds of stylistic peculiarities and comparison with other animal motifs with known contexts. I examine three factors: the position of the ears, the shape of the horns on the Barbary sheep depiction, and the motif of the “rearing oryx” as it appears on this palette as well as other artifacts and rock art figures. Finally, I propose some insights into the use and purpose of engraved greywacke palettes based on microscopic examination of the MMA example and various other museum pieces—illustrating how much can be learned from the close examination and wide comparison of unprovenanced museum pieces, even without any known context.

Huyge D., Vandenberghe D.A.G., De Dapper M., Mees F., Claes W. & Darnell J.C. 2011: First evidence of Pleistocene rock art in North Africa: Securing the age of the Qurta petroglyphs (Egypt) through OSL dating, Antiquity 85: 1184-1193. Abstract. - Long doubted, the existence of Pleistocene rock art in North Africa is here proven through the dating of petroglyph panels displaying aurochs and other animals at Qurta in the Upper Egyptian Nile Valley. The method used was optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) applied to deposits of wind-blown sediment covering the images. This gave a minimum age of ~15 000 calendar years making the rock engravings at Qurta the oldest so far found in North Africa.