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Naqada III A and B, and Unification: Introduction This section is somewhat different from its predecessors. It moves beyond the purely archaeological and begins to take into account Ancient Egyptian historical references as it becomes necessary to analyze the changes that occurred in this area leading up to and immediately prior to the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. It is also necessary to look at concepts of state formation and unification and to consider the controversial nature of some of the evidence involved. Naqada III is the last phase of the Naqadan period, formerly called the Semainean, and viewed by earlier writers, including Petrie, Derry and more recently by David Rohl, as the result of invasion from the east. However, it is now usually considered to be an indigenous evolution from earlier periods, the result of social and possibly economic changes and innovation. Ecological changes may have been associated with these first signs of social change. It is the period that features in all discussions regarding state formation. Naqada III is the period during which the process of state formation, which had begun to take place in Naqada II, became highly visible, with named kings heading powerful polities. Naqada III is often referred to as ‘Dynasty 0’ to reflect the presence of kings at the head of influential states, although, in fact, the kings involved would not have been a part of a dynasty. They would more probably have been completely unrelated and very possibly in competition with each other. Kings names are inscribed in the form of serekhs on a variety of surfaces including pottery and tombs. Wilkinson (1999) lists these early Kings as the un-named owner of Abydos tomb B1/2 whom some interpret as Iry-Hor, King A, King B, Scorpion and/or Crocodile, and Ka. Others favour a slightly different listing. It is important to note that the method of the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt is a matter of educated guesswork at this point in time, although evidence exists to suggest possibilities. Symbolic carvings at the time seem to indicate armed conflict. Scenes on the Palette of Narmer, the Narmer Macehead and the Macehead of King Scorpion “suggest that warfare played a role at some point in the forging of the early state in Egypt” (Bard 2000, p.65). The Palette of Narmer (from Hierakonpolis) is often cited, as it appears to show defeated prisoners and a King (who may or may not be Narmer or Menes) with symbolic iconography suggesting that he claimed both lands: “We see him marching in processions with his officials and the standard-bearers of his armies to view the bound and decapitated bodies of his Northern enemies, and also in the conventional posture of a victorious Pharaoh clubbing his prostrate foe” (Emery 1961, p.43). A macehead, also from Hierakonpolis and belonging to the same king also show defeated prisoners and “shows Narmer wearing the red crown of the conquered North, enthroned and protected by the vulture goddess Nekhet of Hierakonpolis. In front of him are the standard-bearers of his army, a seated figure on a canopied palanquin; figures of captives and numerals and signs representing 120,000 men, 400,000 oxen and 1,422,000 goats captured in war” (Emery 1961, p.44). The Scorpion King macehead, also from Hierakonpolis is thought to show “dead birds hanging from the standards of the Southern tribes, the birds representing the confederation of the North” (Emery 1961, p.42) and, below this, scenes of peaceful activities, possibly indicative of post-war harmony. The scenes on these items are all open to interpretation. Other palettes show similar scenes – like the “vultures” or “bull” palette (showing a bull goring an enemy beneath two fortified towns), but most are unprovenanced. As has been mentioned before, it should be noted that none of the palettes offer definitive or even generally agreed upon information. Because they are by their very nature iconographic and symbolic in character, they are open to interpretation, and a number of writers have speculated on different interpretations. As an example, Fairservis (1992) offers a detailed analysis of the Palette of Narmer, including an attempt at a translations using a more rigorous methodological approach than had previously been attempted. He concludes that the palette was made for a commander on Narmer’s military force, whose name was “Sandal-Bearer”. Narmer is, he agrees, shown on the palette. However, he believes that the evidence “seems to indicate that the Narmer palette is not documentation of the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, but instead represents a victory by the leader of the Edfu district over the Nile Valley south into Nubia” (p.20). So it is worth bearing in mind when considering the palettes as a source of evidence, that they are by no means a definitive form of communication about past events. For some writers, Naqada IIIA1 and B1 make up the Protodynastic – for others the whole of Naqada III falls into the Protodynastic. The term Naqada III is taken from Kaiser’s revision of Petrie’s chronological ordering of the Predynastic and replaces his Semainean (after the site at the village of Semaina, c.25 km west of Esna which he thought was defined by an invasion from the east). Petrie’s view was challenged in 1944 by Helen Kantor, and formally recognized and divided into two sub-phases, Naqada IIIA and IIIB by Kaiser in 1957. Naqada IIIC1 (or in some cases all of Naqada III) is also sometimes known as Dynasty 0 because the first unambiguously royal rulers date to this period. Naqada III does not correlate directly to Petrie’s chronology, and Naqada IIIA overlaps with the late Gerzean of Petrie’s sequence. It is during this phase that the so-called unification of Egypt tool place. The onset of Naqada III was preceded by an evolutionary process in which material remains are very clearly the result of a continuous process of sedentism, social sophistication and communication which is worth summarizing briefly, in order to put the Naqada III phase into context. “The last phase of the Naqada period was characterized by deep-seated social changes” (Midant Reynes 1992/2000 p.231). Naqada II was a natural precursor of Naqada III: “Although there was cultural continuity and the period was profoundly affected by the cultural expansion which had taken place in the Gerzean (Naqada II) and the preceding Amratian (Naqada I) phases of the Predynastic, there was enough dynamic change to warrant its definition here as the Protodynastic” (Adams and Cialowicz 1988, p.6). However, although continuity is now not often contested by invasionist theories, the cultural changes inherent in Naqada III are considerable: “By the end of the Naqada II phase (c.3200BC) or early Naqada III, the indigenous material culture of Lower Egypt had disappeared and was replaced by artefacts (especially pottery wares) deriving from Upper Egypt and the Naqada culture” (Bard 2000, p.63). Naqada IIIA saw a number of important chances and was a period “during which processes of change were expressed more in territorial expansion. Naqada IIIB on the other hand was the final breath of the Predynastic, already looking ahead to the beginnings of the historical period” (Midant-Reynes 1992/2000 p.232). It is for this reason that some writers, including Toby Wilkinson, suggest that Kaiser’s divisions don’t agree perfectly with the data and that a revision, placing Naqada IIIA at the end of Naqada II, might be appropriate. The advances were so notable that many writers sought to explain the changes visible in the archaeological record as the result of invasion forces who brought their own cultural assemblages with them, replacing existing cultural artefacts with their own preferred items or interpretations of existing items. This approach was exemplified by a number of writers including Petrie, Vandier (1952), Derry (1956) who studied anthropological remains and claimed to have identified a “dynastic race”, Hans Winkler who saw Eastern Desert petroglyphic representations of ships a evidence of Mesopotamian invasions (a view supported more recently by David Rohl 19xx). Midant-Reynes (1992/2000 p.285-6) lists the main differences, paraphrased as follows: Naqada III extends all over Egypt and is characterized by some sensational firsts:
Power shifted to Abydos from Hierakonpolis, but it seems clear that there were three regional kingdoms at this time. The character of Egypt during Naqada III A and B Key characteristics of Naqada III include:
Although the Upper Egyptian sites of Hierakonpolis, Elkab, Abydos and Naqada are the most obvious candidates for the status of polity at this time, they were almost certainly not the only ones: “we can suspect that there were others either already in existence (e.g. one based at Thinis) or still at an even earlier stage of formation (perhaps at Maadi and Buto in the Delta, Abadiya in Upper Egypt and Qustul in Lower Nubia). The internal warfare pursued most vigorously from the south terminated this polycentral period of political growth” (Kemp 1989, p.52). Hassan (1992) suggests that the provincial states could have corresponded “to the territorial extent of the historic nomes during the terminal Predynastic (so-called Dynasty 0 or Naqada III)” (p.310). It is possible that populations began to concentrate themselves around administrative centres, like Abydos where there were “royal” burials, at this time Hierakonpolis was particularly wealthy, but Abydos, which Manetho says was the home of the first kings, appears to have acquired particular status at this time, as is exemplified by Tomb 11. Even though it was looted it still provides evidence of a very rich burial with beads of carnelian, garnet, turquoise, faience, gold and silver, artefacts made in exotic materials that could not be obtained locally, like lapis lazuli, ivory, obsidian and crystal, and a wooden bed with feet carved in the form of bulls heads. (Bard 2000). Upper Egyptian symbols of power are clear from Naqada III contexts and include:
In Lower Egypt during this period the Cairo area continued to be occupied, as did the Western and Eastern Deltas, but the Faiyum Depression itself was not re-occupied: “With regard to the cultural relationships between Upper and Lower Egypt at the earliest stages of social, economic and political complexity in Egypt, it is evident that the Faiyum had little importance” (Wenke and Brewer 1992, p.182). There are three principal sites that date to the time just before Upper Egyptian traits start to appear significantly in Lower Egypt – Maadi and its two associated cemeteries, es-Saff and Heliopolis South. These have already been discussed. After this period, Buto continues to survive, albeit now with Naqadan materials, and Tell el-Farkha, after a brief break of occupation, resumes with Naqadan cultural traits. The Eastern Delta becomes an important area, and Memphis and Saqqara, at the end of the Naqada III phase become the most important areas of Lower Egypt, and, following unification the political centre of Egypt as a whole. The end of Naqada III is generally supposed to mark the unification of Egypt – a time when Upper and Lower Egypt became one unified country, at around 3100-2800BC (Hassan 1992), or “at some point between the lifetime of the owner of Tomb U-j at Abydos and the beginning of the reign of Narmer” (Wilkinson 1996, p.13). However, although it is clear that by the Old Kingdom Egypt was unified under one king, it is by no means clear that there was a single unifying event, as implied by some writers. It is perhaps more probable that there was, instead, a process of change, beginning much earlier than the so-called unification. It is even possible that there was more than one attempt at unification. Similarly, it is uncertain whether unification was achieved solely by military means in an act or acts of conquest of one different culture over another, or whether Egypt had achieved a high degree of homogeneity on its own by this time. The First Dynasty followed the unification process, with King Narmer at its head. There are both archaeological and historical approaches to searching for the processes underlying the events that lead to unification. Archaeologically, this process is most obviously traced in the replacement of Maadi-Buto traditions by those of Upper Egypt, but there is only very little other directly helpful evidence. Archaeologically speaking, what we see is the introduction of Naqadan material culture (funerary items and finally funerary practise), which happens over a long period of time. At the end of Naqada II (IIc), Maadi ceases to be occupied, and there is a break in the occupation of Tell el-Farkha, although other sites, like Buto, carry on into Naqada III, albeit with a different material culture. The nature of the replacement has been described in the Naqada II and III sections above. The historical references to unification, both iconographic and written, tend to be somewhat confusing, but are helpful if not taken too literally. The main components of this evidence are iconographic palettes, which appear to be narrative in composition (in particular the Palette of Narmer and the Libyan Palette), the stone Scorpion macehead, and the first registers on the Palermo Stone. Others believe that the palettes are merely symbolic interpretations developed for political purposes by kings who ruled long after the unification, and archaeological evidence suggests that contact between Upper and Lower Egypt had proceeded long before actual unification, and this will be discussed below. The argument that Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt were individual kingdoms has been undermined by recent archaeological work. It has become clear that while there were a number of regional centres in Lower Egypt, these were not organised in the same way as in Upper Egypt, with no visible emphasis on individual power and elitism until the very late predynastic when there are some indications from the Eastern Delta cemeteries that there may have been social differentiation (Tassie and Van Wettering 2003a; 2003b). Buto and Sais, and to an extent Maadi, were certainly big and important towns, but they were not representative of organised states, and show no signs of being an early kingdom. And although there are similarities between the Maadi-Buto sites, there are also differences, and a recent study of lithics by Schmidt (1996) has shown significant regional variation in assemblages. In Upper Egypt, we are also beginning to see greater regional variation in lithics (Holmes 1989) . At the same time as observing that in pre-unification period (Naqada II-III), there were regional differences within both Upper and Lower Egypt, Kohler (1995) has pointed out that the differences between Upper and Lower Egypt may have been exaggerated by the funerary tradition of Upper Egypt, and that when we look purely at settlement evidence, we see much greater similarity in types and forms. She suggests that the Upper Egyptian funerary tradition, with funerary items made specially to accompany the dead, may be disguising a much greater homogeneity in overall traditions than we have previously been able to see. In other words, apart from the great funerary tradition, the cultural divisions between Upper and Lower Egypt may not have been anywhere near as great as once thought. In a discussion about the development of Serekhs and the relevance of this to the subject of state formation, Jimenez-Serrano (2003) has determined that serekhs from Naqada III appear in Upper Egypt, Nubia and Lower Egypt but that there is considerable regional differentiation between them suggesting that these can be interpreted as “diverse political entities” (p.243). Processes underway towards unification in Naqada III As has been described, in the south, Upper Egypt, over the period of Naqada I and II, three main centres grew up in Upper Egypt along the Nile valley: Naqada, Hierakonpolis and Abydos. It appears that power shifted between these three, with Naqada being most important during the earliest Naqadan, but being overtaken by Hierakonpolis which was in its turn displaced by Abydos. Evidence of this comes mainly from cemeteries, with the Naqada III burials in Cemetery U being the most elaborate. The most frequently cited burial which exemplifies this wealth is U-j. Eventually Memphis appears to have replaced all of these areas as the main centre of urban activity at the end of Naqada III when Egypt was unified under one king, with Abydos remaining the favoured place for royal burials. There are three basic approaches to understanding the process of unification. One sees replacement as a physical movement of people by military action or immigration. The second sees a complex set of processes, some economic, leading to increased contact and interaction. The third envisages a combination of a number of staged military and other processes. Military Activity in Naqada III Although violence is portrayed on a number of Predynastic and Protodynastic artefacts (the most famous of which is the Palette of Narmer) there is little archaeological evidence to back this up. Among the supporting claims are that in Naqada II, Petrie reported that Naqada had some sort of boundary wall, that during Naqada III Hierakonpolis was fortified, and that there are a number of depictions dating to this time suggesting that other towns in Egypt were also fortified (implying that they had something against which to defend). However, the process of change appears to have been a mixture of continuous change from earlier times combined with elements of military action: “even if aggression were not the sole characteristic of the unification process, it seems hardly likely that the chiefs of Hierakonpolis exerted pressure entirely without the use of violence” (Midant-Reynes 1992/2000 p.237). The early interpretation of Naqada III and unification was the domination of the Dynastic race from the east (e.g. Petrie 1920, p.49, 1939, p.77; Emery 1967, p.38). Motifs of high-ended boats carved onto wadi rock surfaces were one of the pieces of evidence used in this argument by, amongst others, Winkler (1938), who believed that Mesopotamia invaded Egypt via the Wadi Hammamat. However, none of these images were at the Red Sea end of the Wadi and typological studies of the images show more differentiation than previously recognised (Mark, p.83). Sethe (1930) thought that a Deltaic kingdom was responsible for the conquest of Upper Egypt by Lower Egypt, a view that has been disproved since. Williams (1986) suggested on the basis of considerable wealth in the Cemetery L A-Group burials at Qustul, that Nubian rulers were responsible for the conquest of Upper and Lower Egypt. This is a view that has not gained wide acceptance. It was next believed that Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt were two separate kingdoms, each with their own leadership and distinctive characteristics, and that Upper Egypt overpowered Lower Egypt and unified the two kingdoms. A more widely accepted military approach suggests, partly on the basis of interpretations of the Palette of Narmer, that a king of Upper Egypt was responsible for unifying Upper and Lower Egypt under one king, but that Egypt was more complex than two clearly defined kingdoms and that the process of unification was probably a series of military and other processes. One of the best discussions of the Palette of Narmer is in Mark 1997 (p.88-121) and there is no need to duplicate the full extent of the discussions here. However, the main (not absolute) agreement is that it does represent a triumph of a southern leader over northern lands. The main differences of opinion lie in whether this was an actual event or a piece of late Predynastic propaganda depicting an idealised view of a single unification. Alternative views based on this theme suggest that there may have been more than one attempt at unification (see below). Reasons cited for military expansion include the need to expand due to population growth and the need to secure resources, and the desire of one leader who has consolidated power in the south to extend his leadership north as part of an expansionist strategy. The military argument has been based on a number of factors:
There is no ancient Egyptian myth of the origin of a unified state which is purely political or historical. The only myths associated with the development of state are religious ones, the main one being the story of Horus and Seth and their territorial dispute, resolved by Geb. This tells of a legal dispute which results in the reorganization of the Egyptian state which is at first allocated in two parts to each of them, and is then allocated as a single territory under Horus (Assman 1996, p.39). However, as described above, recent studies (e.g. Kohler 1995, Holmes 1989, Schmidt 1996) now suggest that Egypt did not consist of two homogenous kingdoms, but of two geographical areas which shared some features, were different in other respects and showed regional variation throughout. The realization that Egypt was complex place at this time has let to more recent speculation about the processes involved in the replacement of Maadi-Buto features by Naqadan ones in Lower Egypt. John Baines believes that the Delta should be seen as part and parcel of a unified Egypt by the time of Narmer and that the event depcted actually took place in Naqada III, probably as early as Naqada IIIa, demonstrated by the royal type symbols from Tom U-j. He sees the process of systematic unification beginning as far back as Naqada II. Most do not agree with this view because of the length of time for the transition which is implicit in the archaeological record. Assman sees military force involved, but in a gradual way, as part of the process of state consolidation: “the expansion of the Naqada culture can be read as a gradual conquest and subjection of more and more extensive areas of the Nile valley until the whole of Upper Egypt was under Naqadan control by 3900BCE” (Assman 1996 p.31). Similarly, Kaiser believes that there was a physical expansion of the southern states into the north, which took the form of a process of assimilation and replacement, certainly involving political domination perhaps supported by military action to lead towards unification – the formation of one country with a capital city at Memphis. Although it is neither confirmed nor denied by any other aspects of the archaeological record, a military consolidation does seem to be a likely component of the unification, based on the depictions on the palettes. However, while contact with other countries is visible in the archaeological record, there is no indication that unification was due to foreign intervention or aggression – all the signs from Abydos and Hierakonpolis are that the unified Egyptian civilization grew from local beginnings: “It seems like political conquest and more like a phenomenon in which the north was culturally assimilated into the south. War was just one of the elements in this process, but because it was a means of aggrandizing the triumphant party, it was always likely to be accorded grater prominence than other factors, such as the creation of alliances and diplomatic marriages” (Midant-Reynes 1992/2000 p.246).
Non-Military Process in Naqada III Recent studies suggest that Egypt was not two kingdoms but two geographical areas composed of, in the south, consolidated urban states which maintained regional differences, and in the case of the north, a less defined but still regionally differentiated set of communities. Given this less clear cut picture, it is possible that there were other factors than a military conquest of the north by the south involved in the process that led up to unification. Although it is entirely possible that military action, both within Upper Egypt and in the final analysis, could have been involved as well, Kohler (1995) questions why, if the unification was achieved by military action, militarism and weaponry did not form part of the contemporary symbolic representation and grave goods. There has been no sign of military activity in the archaeological record. Looking at the Palette of Narmer, Frankfort (1948) does not question that it depicts conquest of the north by the south, and Marks (1997) also agrees that this is the most likely interpretation, but he suggests that this representation is symbolic, and derives not from historical fact but the Egyptian obsession with duality and balance in all things. In other words he believes that the palette may be showing a symbolic re-writing of history rather than history itself. Seeher, in a consideration of the nature of complex socio-economic systems, comments that “Archaeological evidence suggests a system much too complex for the southern expansion to be explained by military conquest alone, and the northern culture may have made important contributions to the unified polity which emerged” (Seeher 1991, p.318). Hassan suggests that unification was actually “the culmination of the process of interregional integration through alliances and warfare that must have proceeded intermittently for at least 250 years or 10-12 generations” (Hassan 1988, p.175). On the basis of archaeological evidence, Wildung (1984) describes a continuity of occupation and culture at Minshat Abu Omar as evidence that no military conflict took place, although this view is not undisputed. Wildung believes, on the basis of work carried out at Minshat Abu Omar and Tell es-Sabaa Banat, that there was “never a real ‘unification’ in the sense of the final subjugation for the Delta and its neighbouring areas under the dominance of the king of Upper Egypt – as it is represented, for example, on the Narmer Palette. He suggests that we should be much more prepared to accept the idea of a continuous cultural evolution of Egypt, which included the Delta as early as 3300BC. The rise of the Egyptian state occurred at least from Naqada III as a broad-range evolution in the whole area of the later Kingdom and it seems to have been carried out harmoniously, without any major conflicts” (Wildung 1984, p.269). Pottery spans a large period of time from Naqada II, through Naqada III, Dynasty 0 and First Dynasty “which proves the continuous use of the cemetery – and uninterrupted occupation of the settlement belonging to it.” (Wildung 1984, p.267). “The representations of the ‘victory’ of the Upper Egyptian king over his ‘enemies’, for example on the Narmer Palette, are the heraldic fixation of the situation reached in ca. 3200BC, not a historical report of an authentic conquest of foreign “enemies” or internal “rebels” (Wildung 1984,p.269). Similarly, Van den Brink (1989) points to a lack of destruction layers in Delta sites like Tell Fara’in and others. “Possibly there was a more or less peaceful movement or migration(s) of Nagada culture peoples from south to north that may have been formalised by a later, or concurrent, military presence” (Bard 1994). Non-military explanations for the change in material culture in Lower Egypt are many and varied, but all are necessarily processual, and do not depend on the existence of a single or series of events in time to explain unification. Studies that show regional variation in Upper Egypt (e.g. Holmes 1989) could imply that the process of state formation leading to unification was by no means a simple set of dynamics, because Upper Egypt was apparently not as unified in its own right as previously believed. Holmes’s work (1989) also suggests that the region of Middle Egypt had a more distinctive lithic assemblage than previously recognised and this might indicate a further complexity in the movement of Naqadan traits to the north. Trade in Naqada III Trigger describes the process as a slow northward emigration of traders taking place over both Naqada II to III periods, due to the desire of the southern Naqadan states to establish direct trade relations with South West Asia (1983). Kohler studied local domestic ceramics from Buto and on the basis of her studies of both Buto and other sites, both contemporary and predating the Maadi-Buto complex she suggests that there is no dramatic cultural change visible in the ceramic record: “If the material culture of domestic contexts –which probably mirrors best a cultural, social or even ethnic identity – shows identical traits, then the notion of Southern material replacing that of the North is unfounded” (Kohler 1995, p.84). Kohler suggests that a population shift was visible in the abandonment of low desert settlements and cemeteries and the corresponding occupation of ‘possible commercial centres’ which were nearer to the Nile” (Kohler 1995, p.86). She suggests that this, rather than hostile action, could explain the abandonment of sites like Maadi. Perez-Lagarcha believes that it was intensified trading requirements that forced a change in Lower Egypt: “It was possible to replace Maadi with other settlements that were closer to Palestine” at the same time he explains the survival of Buto in terms of its strategic value: “Buto, for example, situated on the coast, could not be replaced” (1995b, p.49). Jan Assman (1996) suggests that increased specialization in the production of ceramics in Upper Egypt may have lead the Naqadan states to search for new customers for their wares – and that with Lower Egypt’s links to the Levant and beyond, the Lower Egyptian settlements would have provided perfect trading centres: “The archaeological evidence might indicate not so much an ongoing process of migration and conquest as a constantly growing sales market for pottery and other cultural commodities for the Naqada region – that is, a Naqada economic network and eventual monopoly” (p.31). This agrees with Perez-Lagarcha’s view (1995a, 1995b) that Maadi was a trading centre, thriving on Upper Egypt’s need for prestige goods. However, he sees an expansion of Upper Egyptian traders into Lower Egypt with the establishment of trading posts further east in the Delta – the creation of which would have undermined the value and the former advantage that Maadi had. He points to evidence of intensified contacts with Palestine during Naqada III including
Bard (1987) believes that trade was an important factor and suggests that competitive trade, including the block in the flow of goods, would have led to either warfare or coalition: “Conflicts in trade, trade routes or access to resources inevitably arose in later Predynastic Egypt, leading to increased militarism of local leaders” (p.92). It is more than likely that a combination of military and other processes combined at different times to move Egypt towards unification. Meza (2001) suggests that as a result of trade contacts “Mesopotamia was an important element in Egyptian social development” (p.3). Tassie and Van Wettering (2003a) warn that “it is too simple to call sites where imported goods have been found ‘trade centres’ or connect them with the royal administration if serekhs were found” (p.504). They believe that sites like Minshat Abu Omar may not have been set up specially to trade, but were in fact beneficiaries from a shift in politics and economics to the north: “the local elite at Minshat Abu Omar would probably have benefited from the central administration’s relations with the southern Levant” (p.504). Population Pressure in Naqada III Population pressure as a means of explaining the urge to conquer the Delta, implies that land could no longer support the existing populations. Writers who have suggested this include Service (1975), Bard (1994, 2001), Needler (1984) and Midant-Reynes (1992/2002). Bard suggests that population pressure “reached a certain threshold in the major centre of Hierakonpolis in the South, given an increasingly circumscribed environment, there was nowhere to go but northward, to increase (agricultural) land holdings by conquest” (1994, 2001 p.94). Needler (1984, p.30-31) suggested the north was dominated by the south because of a cocktail of politics, trade conflicts and population pressure. Midant-Reynes (1992/2002) considered population pressure a motivation for Naqadan expansion: “More and more non-productive members of a growing population were grouped together in the agricultural regions of the flood plain, exerting demographic pressure which would provide a decisive impetus to the eventual process of Naqada expansion (p.237). Butzer, however, does not consider population pressure to be a plausible explanation as he believes that the available land would have sustained the population (Butzer 1976, p.85): “It has become unduly fashionable for archaeologists and anthropologists to see population pressures and ecological stress as ‘prime movers’ in stimulating intensification of agricultural production and other technical and social innovation (p.100). Wilkinson agrees (1999, 2001, p.45). Establishment of Formalised Religion in Naqada III Hassan (1992) believes that prehistoric rituals and belief had been focused on a goddess cult throughout Egypt, associated with vegetation, birth, death, and resurrection, and that the effect of rising elites and unification was to change the religion until a concept of divine kingship and the associated pantheon of gods emerged: “The transition from a tribal state to a state society was predicated upon the emergence of a religious myth that unified people from different lineages and legitimated allegiance to chiefs and kings from other lineages. The transformation of tribal myths into a state myth involved the emphasis from locals deities to cosmic gods” (1992, p.308). Hassan suggests that the king provided a focus for anxieties as a stable channel through which the Gods could communicate and with whom a dialogue could be established. He was the apex between people and gods and the symbol for an eternal order. Ambitions of Kingship in Naqada III Wilkinson (1999, p.50) suggests that the individual ambitions of a given king may, on the back of the ambitions of his predecessors’ achievements, have been a factor in the final push to unify the land. This king may have been Narmer, or perhaps his predecessor Ka. The Establishment of a Centralised Administration in Memphis in Naqada III Memphis acquired particular importance during this period. Hassan believes that at around 3300BC environmental conditions would have contributed to this: “A dramatic reduction in Nile flood discharge served as a catalyst promoting the fusions of two major political units in Upper Egypt, Hierakonpolis and Nagada. Further expansion northward to control the rich granaries of Lower Egypt and the trade routes to the Near East lead to the graduation of power from south to north via Abydos to Memphis.” (Hassan 1988, p.165-166). Royal affiliations were visible in both the north and south. While Memphis became the centre of government, royal burials still took place in the south at Abydos: “Emery’s (1961) excavations of Early Dynastic tombs at North Saqqara, for example, revealed the lavish wealth of some segments of Lower Egyptian society, but the actual tombs of the First Dynasty rulers and of some of their successors appear to be at Abydos, in the area known as Umm el-Qa’ab” (Wenke 1991, p.303). The rise of Memphis is significant: “The Memphite area seems to have played a particularly important part in the process of state formation in Egypt. To judge from excavated sites, the area was a heartland of the Lower Egyptian or Maadi ceramic tradition . . . . The greater Memphite area must have seen the first changes to this indigenous tradition caused by the northward expansion of the more advanced technologies from Upper Egypt” (Wilkinson 1996, p.31). Memphis was strategically located in an ideal place to impose administrative control over the united country: “With political and economic power, both regional and national, now concentrated in a single centre, the foundation and growth of Memphis must have had a considerable effect upon the demography of the surrounding area, as well as the socio-economic and political conditions in nearby communities” (Wilkinson 1996, p.31). The location of Memphis not far from Wadi Digla may also have been strategic: “Wadi Digla may have served as a trade route between the Memphite region and the Near East, to judge from the unusual concentration of artefacts found” (Wilkinson 1996, p.89), perhaps building upon the existing relationships established by Maadi. Clarification of Unification in Naqada III There is considerable scope, as additional information comes to light, for further debate on the subject of state formation and unification, with a view to developing models and concepts, and which explain how different factors work together to create change. As Hassan (1988) states, unequivocally, “Models of the political evolution of Predynastic Egypt and state formation are still largely exploratory” (p.164). It is also an opportunity for clarifying some of the issues that lie between pure archaeology and traditional Egyptology in looking at periods which overlap pre-historical, proto-historical and fully historical periods. It should be understood that although there were a number of main states, clearly dominated by Abydos, there were probably also minor states that became subjects, even in Naqada III and certainly after unification: “The integration of villages into territorial political regions sp3t or nomes), well known in historical periods, may have very well existed in late Predynastic times. It is generally held that Egypt consisted of provincial or petty states that more ore less correspond to th territorial extent of the historical nomes during the terminal Predynastic period” (Hassan, 1992, p.310). It is quite likely that the process will never be perfectly understood: “The actual process by which the Thinite rulers ultimately gained control over the whole country is unknown and is likely to remains so. The possibility of military action should not be ruled out” (Wilkinson 1996, p.8).
Unification, as a milestone, is usually dated to the end of Naqada III, although as already discussed, it is clear that unification was a process rather than a milestone, and dating there becomes more complex than pulling a single date out of the chronological hat. Wilkinson suggests that “The duration of the period immediately preceding the beginning of the First Dynasty . . . cannot be assessed with any degree of accuracy. However, it seems unlikely that it lasted more than five or six generations, including two or three generations of kings comprising a ‘Dynasty’ ” (Wilkinson 1996, p.15). Hassan believes that the process took longer. “The rise of the Egyptian state was most likely not the result of a single battle, but the culmination of wars and alliances, as well as fragmentation and reunification over a period of at least 250 years (about 10-12 generations, perhaps beginning with a major kingdoms)” (Hassan 1992, p.311). Kaiser (1964) believes, against the popular view, that the distribution of Upper Egyptian artefacts in Lower Egypt from Naqada II onwards indicates that the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt takes place by the First Dynasty. By comparing the size of the Predynastic cemetery with that of the First Dynasty cemetery at Tura, Kaiser estimates that unification took place up to 150 years before the traditional date assigned on the basis of the Palette of Narmer. Trigger has hypothesized in possible support of this theory (1983, p.46) that the brick-built tombs of Cemetery T at Naqada may represent kings of an early united Egypt, who were conquered in turn by Hierakonpolis, leading to a second unification. Hassan (1992, p.311) also suggests that “there is no reason to believe that Egypt was united only once or that the unification extended to the whole Delta by 3000/2950BC”. In a revision of his original dating sequences Kaiser (1990) added a further three sub-stages and extended his chronology to the end of Dynasty 1. However, recently Hendrickx (1993, p.4-5) has questioned the validity of Naqada IId2 and Wilkinson 1996 has offered a new scheme. Hassan, on the basis of radiocarbon (1985) dates Naqada III from c.3200-3050BC See Appendix B for carbon 14 dates and see Appendix J. It has been made clear in the above discussions about unification that trade with both internal and external neighbours contributed to Egypt’s economy. The 400 Palestinian vases, from example, from Abydos Tomb U-j indicate that trade routes existed at this time between Egypt and Palestine. Possible mechanisms for trade were over land and sea. Raw materials that were imported into Egypt during Naqada II include copper, possibly timber, obsidian, silver, lapis lazuli, pear-shaped maceheads, cylinder seals and palace façade architecture. Marks (1997) has analysed both evidence for trade and the trade routes that could have been used in some detail. On the basis of pottery found in Upper Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia, Mark (1997) suggests that there was a sea route between Egypt and northern Syria by Naqada IIc, and probably before, and that there was a land route leading from Mesopotamia through northern Syria, Palestine and from there to Egypt. Tell Brak in northern Mesopotamia appears to have been a trading town for land-based trade at this time. Mark finds no evidence for a southern sea route linking Egypt with the Persian Gulf. International excavations at Tel Erani and Ein Besor in Southern Palestine “indicate substantial Egyptian activity in southern Palestine during the late Predynastic to early Dynastic transition” (Wilkinson 1999, p.24) and this suggests to Wilkinson that “the phenomenon of a core and periphery associated with the rise of other early states was also a feature of state formation in Egypt” (p.24). Studies at Delta sites are improving an understanding of the role of Deltaic towns in Near Eastern trading. At Minshat Abu Omar and Tell Ibrahim Awad, and to a lesser extent Kafr Hassan Dawood, specific pottery types indicated a limited trade with Upper Egypt and the Levant, and this was the height of prosperity at Kafr Hassan Dawood, reducing in importance after the reign of Narmer (Hassan et al 2003, p. 44). Expansion of agriculture – in terms of area cultivated and skills employed – implied by the first irrigation, if the Scorpion Macehead can be interpreted as showing irrigation. Butzer explains the development of permanent agricultural settlements in specific areas of Egypt as a response to specific flooding processes of the Nile floodplain. The narrower areas of floodplain were easier to irrigate using natural methods. The easiest areas would have been the far south and the Nile’s eastern bank “where basins did not require transverse dikes and where basins filled and emptied like clockwork under natural conditions (Butzer 1976, p103). In Lower Nubia, numerous A-group burials (at the same time as Naqada) were found containing Naqadan goods, perhaps implying increased contact between the two cultures – this is easy to understand and entirely likely because items valued in Egypt, originating in Africa, would either be acquired and traded by Nubia or would have passed through Nubia (including ebony, ivory, animal skills and incense – all items which Egyptians continued to value and acquire). It has been suggested that the Lower Nubian toms of Qustul and Sayala, amongst others, represent wealth acquired through trading. Burial customs, already established in Naqada II, became more elaborate and may indicate increased social stratification as richer graves appear with mudbrick used in the construction, and more permanently constructed coffins (in wood or clay). They were constructed in existing burial areas – for example in Cemetery T (for example tomb T5) at Naqada and at Abadiya (for example tombs B201 and B207). Multiple inhumations were quite common, as were child burials (add Wilkinson’s comment about elite burials here). The dead were deposited in a flexed position, lying on their left side, head to the south, faces to the west. The greatest difference between Naqada II and Naqada II burials lies in the gravegoods. Many graves had a much greater number of items, the quality was often much superior to previous periods, the variety increased and the form of many items changed. Social and Political Organization in Naqada III It is clear that during Naqada III Egypt formalized its elite. It has been suggested (Midant-Reynes 1992/2000) that the elite established economic stability partially by controlling the trade of raw materials: “The emergence of an elite in the Great Upper Egyptian centres (particularly Hierakonpolis), who controlled the trade in raw materials and organized their transformation into profitable luxury items, went hand in hand with the appearance of a class of skilled workers who were attracted by the elevated status that could be conferred on such ‘master craftsmen’ by the Pharaohs.” (Midant-Reynes p.237). The Naqada III phase is characterized by increasing concentration of power at Abydos. However, the number and distribution of serekhs suggest that there were a number of local leaders and/or kings at different times and in different places throughout Naqada III. Sites in the Delta expanded and became more overtly dedicated to trade, taking advantage of their strategically useful position between the Levant and the rest of Egypt. although a traditional view of the Lower Egyptian sites has suggested that htey were largely egalitarian, in a comparison of three important Deltaic cemeteries, (Minshat Abu Omar, Tell Ibrahim Awad and Kafr Hassan Dawood) Tassie and Van Wettering (2003b) studied grave goods, grave sizes and grave architecture with a view to identifying evidence for social stratification both within and between settlements. They suggest that there were significant differences, a point picked up by Hassan et al 2003: “Although there is marked social differentiation within the KHD mortuary population, the KHD cemetery was of a lower regional social ranking than MAO and ultimately TIA (the highest-ranked of the three sites examined)” (Hassan et al 2003 p.41). They conclude that the Kafr Hassan Dawood settlement “was probably a village between 200-400 people with a chief at the head of a local hierarchy” (Hassan et al 2003 p.44). 370 Minshat Abu Omar graves date to the Late Predynastic and Early Dynastic, and are marked by huge variation in size, the largest of which could have upto three mudbrick-lined chambers. Only a few of them were damaged by more recent Graeco-Roman graves cutting into them, and most of them had not been robbed. Analysis of the graves has split them into four main groupings, with the same burial practices used in Groups 1 and 2, but changing in Group 3 when bodies were orientated differently. Graves were clearly clustered according to groups, with Group 1 graves being the most densely clustered (REFERENCE). Artefacts with affinities to those at Minshat have been found elsewhere in the Delta (reference). Regions may have been divided up in a way that formed the basis of the Nome system, which is certainly attested to from the Early Dynastic period (reference). Religion, administration and communication become integral to Egypt at this time, and are discussed in more detail below. The first unambiguous signs of the formalised religion of the early dynastic periods date to this period. For the first time it is possible to get an initial idea of the late Predynastic religious ideas. Interpreting iconography is fraught with difficulties: “Only a few of the historical deities of Egypt can be traced back for any distance into prehistory” (Hornung 1983, p.171). However, analysis of the contemporary iconography does offer hints about both a belief system and a theology. Gods that were to remain important throughout Dynastic Egypt’s 3000 years were already key in early Egypt at the end of the Predynastic early kings identified themselves with Horus. However, deities are attested to from much earlier. It is likely that there was more than one hawk deity: “The ‘standards’ document the existence of early hawk cults, but they do not show whether the gods are Horus or other god cults” (Hornung 1983, p.171) although this is making an assumption, based on the close affiliation of deities with Dynastic nomes, that the figure-heads on the standards represent gods. It is believed that Horus was associated with kingship from the earliest times – his representation on the serrekh of kingship dates from Naqada II onwards, and his later association with Hierakonpolis and his early appearance on representations of standards believed to be from Hierakonpolis seem to confirm this (David 2002, p.48). Another early god was Seth. Unlike Horus, the image used to depict Seth was unlike that of any other god or, for that matter, any recognisable animal in life. Seth’s association with chaos and forceful domination in Dynastic times may have been a result of an association in Later Predynastic and Early Dynastic times of uprising and subdual. Like Horus, but to a much lesser degree, he may have had some association with early kingship – the Old Kingdom kings Peribsen and Khasekhemwy both used him in their serekhs, indicating an early and important role for Seth. An ivory artifact dating to Naqada I shows his distinctive features and he also appears on the Scorpion macehead (Wilkinson 2003). Other early well known gods are Nekhebet and Min. The vulture goddess Nekhebet is attested to from El Kab, the predynastic town opposite Hierakonpolis on the west bank of the river, and known in ancient times as Nekheb (David 2002, p.48). Min was apparently sacred evening the Late Predynastic, to Coptos, where he was depicted as a fertility god. A lesser known deity was Bat, who is also attested to from the earliest times. Bat was an early cow goddess, distinguishable from Hathor because her horns turn inwards, not outwards. She is mentioned textually for the first time in the Pyramid Texts, but it is thought that a number of Predynastic representations depict her. It is likely that it is her head, rather than that of Hathor, a bovine head shown with human features, that is shown four times on the Palette of Narmer. Apart from the deities as animal personifications, there are other clear indications of the linkage between humans and animals. Obviously the earliest we see of these are in the rock paintings and simple carvings of the Badarian and the increasingly complex decorated vases and more sophisticated carvings of the Naqada I and II periods. Animal burials at both Upper and Lower Egyptian sites also indicate a reverence for animals that moves beyond simple respect for resources. In Naqada III this fascination for animals and their power becomes more explicit on media like palettes where the king is sometimes equated with a lion or a bull, and birds of prey are shown as a force against enemies (see for example the Battlefield Palette and the Palette of Narmer). Similarly, Naqada III and First Dynasty kings appear to have taken names of animals for their own names: e.g. Scorpion, Catfish, Kite, and Cobra. Oddly, although the lion is frequently depicted as a dominant being, no known king took it as a name, and the symbol of a lion was not incorporated into early hieroglyphs. An early stellar cult is possibly indicated by some early palettes, including the Gerzeh Palette. Stellar worship is certainly a developed cult during the Old Kingdom. There are aspects of Predynastic Egypt which have not yet emerged in the archaeological record. For example, Jimenez-Serrano (2002) suggests that festivals, in particular the sed festival, has its origins in the Predynastic period although the first depictions date to the First Dynasty. He believes that the festival had an ultimately African origin “because many similar ceremonies were, and are, performed in African societies” (2003, p.77). It was first attested at the time of Narmer and is then attested in nearly every First Dynasty reign, and was celebrated in Late Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods at Hierakonpolis, Abydos and Saqqara. The absence of evidence of this and other festivals is no indication that they were not carried out – and, in fact, it is unlikely that they would have sprung up, fully evolved, in the First Dynasty. It is worth remembering that a lot of information about social activities and behaviour are either lost or yet to be discovered. In conclusion, as power was consolidated and society became more structured and complex, we can see the importance that was given to the association of men with animals and the development of individual deities who incorporated important concepts implying a desire to establish control and promote security. These deities appear to have been initially very much associated with individual areas, but as David puts it (2002, p. 50) “as the political scene changed, and villages joined together to become larger units, the same process, syncretism, was probably reflected in the sphere of religion. Local gods gradually evolved to become the deities of larger districts”. These highly localised origins which become more widely adapted goes a long way to explaining a lot of the complexities of Dynastic religion and its sometimes conflicting beliefs. The formal designation of the serekhs, which appears to have been associated both with the concepts of kingship/rulers and ownership dates to this time. The serekh associates a name with the stylised representation of a palace façade, the style of architecture associated with the earliest royal burials. “Standards” – tall staffs with emblems at their heads are also depicted from this time, and are usually interpreted as symbolising a region’s name, like a local flag. Again, this suggests that the concept of regional identity was important in Egypt at this time, probably for social, political and commercial reasons. Standards are depicted on several palettes dating to this period (e.g. the Battlefield Palette) and on the Scorpion Macehead. There is clear indication from Naqada III that administration and accounting were essential elements of Egyptian organization at this time. The most conspicuous evidence of formal administrative activity was found in Tomb U-j at Abydos, which contained labels which were originally attached to commodities, and had very early hieroglyphic symbols, not all of which can be translated. Similarly, pot marks and serekhs on vessels indicate that ownership of and assignment of goods were important: “the growing identification of commodity assignments – both those destined traded within Egypt – by means of pot marks illustrates the growing obsession of the Upper Egyptian rulers with ownership, accounting and the detailed management of economic resources” (Wilkinson 1999, p.44). It is possible that the Nome system also dates to this time. Helk (1974, p.199) argues that a minimum of sixteen Upper Egyptian and ten Lower Egyptian nomes had been established before the Third Dynasty, which suggest that most were established at least by Late Predynastic times: “the ten oldest of the twenty Lower Egyptian nomes predate the third Dynasty and are significantly situated between the Delta distributaries” (Butzer 1976, p.94). Butzer believes that the nomes were probably founded on the basis of natural basin-irrigation units as the agricultural landscape evolved (1976, p.103).
Art, Writing and Iconography in Naqada III Kemp (1989) points out that every piece of available evidence suggests, in spite of material and political differences, language throughout Egypt was probably the same (p.37). One of the most fascinating things about the beginning of Naqada III is the clear evolution of different modes of communication. The iconographic palettes form narratives using expressive images, symbols and the first hieroglyphs. Abydos provides the earliest evidence of hieroglyphs used for labelling in tomb U-j, and symbolic pictograms were used to represent names and/or places. Writing was established for communication for administrative purposes. Serekhs were used for establishing ownership. Iconography, including the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt were already incorporated into the rulers’ concepts of Egyptian power and identity. Trigger (1983, p.37) suggests that although there are no stylistic similarities between Mesopotamian script and that of ancient Egypt, the idea of writing may well have come from Mesopotamia. The advantages of it as an administrative tool must have been clear to anyone seeing it in operation. Art and iconography were used for communicating ideas and accounts of historical events as a narrative. This is at its most clear in the form of the decorated palettes which have registers, symbols and hieroglyphs: “By the end of the Predynastic period, many of the characteristics of Egyptian art had already been canonised, including the conventions of representation, the hierarchical scaling of figures, the use of registers to order the composition, and the attributes of kinship. However, the roots of royal iconography – and of the ideology it expresses – go back much further” (Wilkinson 1999, 2001, p.31). The decorated palettes, as well as providing information about possible historical events, are also very important in an understanding of Egyptian symbolic language and the emergence of writing. The Palette of Narmer indicates the emergence of symbolic narrative – the description of events through a symbolic medium (in this case images rather than writing). Early hieroglyphic images on the palette seem to indicate that symbolic shorthand was already in use for representing at the very least the names of rulers and places. However, other palettes which are less clearly narrative in their purpose are also interesting. Other examples include the Libyan/Tjehenu Palette, the Battlefield Palette and the Scorpion Macehead. In a discussion of the Battlefield Palette, John Baines suggests that a key message of the iconography was “a strong sense of ‘self and other’ that clustered around the institution of kingship” (1999, p.3) and that this was part of a larger sense of Egypt defining itself a single entity which was confronted with diversity beyond its borders (p.9). Of all the “mysteries” of the Egypt, the only one I find a genuine puzzle is the origin of hieroglyphic writing. As Wenke says “hieroglyphic writing first appeared in such a developed form that we cannot see the full transition from what was probably pictographic writing first expressed on papyrus” (1999, p.46). The first symbols that represent hieroglyphic signs appear on Naqada II pottery in tombs – for example, the zigzag lines depicting water. The first examples of actual hieroglyphs, in a very early form, are the 150 labels from tomb U-j in Abydos, which appear to have been used for accounting. However, where they were developed from or how they evolved is far from clear. Some writers see an implicitly Mesopotamian origin for the idea of writing. However, as Quirke points out: “The idea for such a system, for a script, develops apparently a little earlier in Mesopotamia, although there too the record of this fourth millennium revolution remains confined to an extremely small body of evidence. Although Mesopotamian writing probably appeared earlier than Egyptian hieroglyphs, the differences between the two scripts make a direct link unlikely” (Quirke and Foreman 1996, p.12). Unlike other scripts, although the more “user friendly” version, hieratic, was developed, the pictorial nature of the language survived millennia in a way that was, pictorially at least, quite remarkably unchanged.
The First Rulers – Naqada III/Dynasty 0/the Protodynastic The Naqada III period is sometimes, very misleadingly, referred to as Dynasty 0, because this is the first time that rulers, possibly regional kings, become visible in the archaeological record. There are considerable problems with the naming of these early rulers, and it is important to remember that many of them were probably in power at the same time, rather than ruling consecutively as they usually did in Dynastic Egypt. These were the rulers who had consolidated their power by the end of Naqada II and were continuing to express their power in Naqada III. The identification of the earliest known named rulers in Predynastic Egypt has been attempted a number of times. The palette of Narmer is thought to depict King Menes and it has often been suggested that he was the first king of both Upper and Lower Egypt. Sources about named rulers before the first dynasty are poor, but it is quite clear “that there were several generations of kings before the First Dynasty” (Midant-Reynes 1992/2000 p.247). Historical records, like the Palermo stone, make reference to these early kings of a unified Egypt. Naqada IIIb is associated with the first serekhs. The serekhs are simple and fairly formulaic designs which appear for the first time on pottery and which become increasingly formalised over time, and are used throughout the Dynastic period as one of the King’s five official names. They are considered to be the symbols for early rulers who are sometimes referred to as “Horus Kings” or simply “the Horuses” – rulers who were responsible for establishing control over a wide area around Memphis before extending their influence south to the Second Cataract. Some, maybe all, were buried at Abydos.& |