The Early Naqada Culture

The Early Naqada Culture

The Badarian culture was succeeded by the Naqada culture, the most important prehistoric culture of Upper Egypt. Its development can be traced without a break to the founding of the Egyptian state. Divided into three main phases (Naqada I—Ill), each with several subdivisions, it provides a line along which the technological, social, and political progress of the Predynastic Period can be clearly traced.

At the beginning of the fourth millennium the oldest phase, Naqada I (also known as Amratian) initially ran parallel to the Badarian culture, which was geographically next door to it, gradually superimposing itself and finally replacing it. However, the area of origin of the Naqada culture lies south of the known area of distribution of the Badarian culture, in the region between Luxor and Abydos, that part of the Nile Valley where the great routes running east and west crossed the river, linking the Red Sea and the oases.

In its ecological and tehnological character and its basic material features, the early Naqada culture resembles the Badarian culture. However, its unmistakable feature appears in the typology of its craftsmanship, particularly clearly illustrated once again by the finds from the cemeteries. In the Naqada I culture fine ceramic ware predominates: red-polished pottery, either plain or with a black rim. Besides plates and dishes, the main items are tall, flat-bottomed pots of a wide conical shape. Only in the course of time did the upper parts of such vessels become progressively narrower, so that bottles and voluminous pots could be made.

Red-polished pottery painted with cream line decoration is a special feature of the Naqada I culture. At first the patterns were geometrical, but they can sometimes be interpreted as stylized floral motifs. In the later Naqada I period, however, they have figure decoration most frequently showing animals, particularly those of the Nile Valley such as hippopotamuses and crocodiles. Now and then the decoration consists of scenic compositions with human figures, and these are clearly pictures of hunts, or sometimes perhaps scenes of worship or of battle. The first depictions of boats also appear. Along with painted decoration, small sculptural figures are sometimes set on the rims of vessels. The amount of figurative depiction in other artistic areas was also increasing. Female idols, only three specimens of which are known from the Badarian culture, now appear in greater numbers. Bearded male figures feature on pendants (perhaps amulets) and ivory sticks (known as “magic wands”). We can only speculate on the true function and significance of these items, but it is obvious that it must have lain in the symbolic or imaginative and not the practical sphere.

Characteristic rhomboid slate palettes and disk-shaped, stone maceheads are other common forms in the Naqada I culture. Mace- heads appear as grave goods in high-ranking male burials, until finally, in historic times, the mace, now useless as a weapon, became a part of pharaonic regalia.

A crucial feature of the Naqada culture is its geographical
dynamic. Setting out from its core area on the loop of the Nile at Qena, it spread north to the Asiut region even in its first phase (and perhaps as far as the area between Asiut and the Faiyum, where there have been no archaeological finds), and south to the far side of the first cataract. The colonization of hitherto uninhabited regions is not the only possible reason for this process. In the same context, the cultural adaptation of groups of people already living in the area must also be considered; they may still have led the life of hunter-gatherers and fishermen, presenting a less clear archaeological picture.

In any case, we should not be too ready to identify the spread of an archaeologically defined culture with the dispersal of a people or even a political structure. In studying the surface development of the Naqada culture in Egypt, we are primarily tracing the way in which a new lifestyle and economic strategy, a new complex of technological knowledge, a new kind of social organization and its forms of expression became established on a broad basis.

The Material Evidence of the Naqada II Period

The archaeological finds provide records of the further material development of the Naqada culture. If several characteristics are considered as a whole, the Naqada II phase (also known as Gerzean) can be discerned from about the middle of the fourth millennium.
The black-rimmed pottery so predominant in the earlier period becomes less and less common. Two new technical developments were to acquire increasing importance. One was the use of Nile silt coarsely mixed with chaff for the production of ceramics. Such material appeared in the earlier finds at settlement sites, in the shape of rough and ready tableware, vessels and storage containers, but now it was used for a broad range of pottery utensils.
However, the most important innovation was undoubtedly the introduction of a kind of ceramic ware made from clay of different geological origin, principally found embedded in the limestone formations of the mountain ranges bordering the valley and known as “marl clay.” Technically, this material is much more difficult to work, but it produces hard, dense ceramic ware of high quality, extremely suitable for containers intended for the storage of fluids, milk products, honey, and similar foodstuffs over a fairly long period.
Marl clay ware was used to make a new kind of decorated pot that
superseded the white-painted vases of the Naqada I period. These pots are mainly small or medium-sized vessels, barrel-shaped or broad and globular, often with handles pierced by holes. The decoration, now applied on a cream ground in dark reddish-brown paint, tends to be limited to geometrical shapes, dots, and spirals. The idea was obviously
to imitate the play of color of stone vessels, just as the shapes of the pots
themselves resemble those of containers made of stone. Such vessels,
especially containers for ointment, were very skillfully made of
colorful, expensive hard stone and breccia. They were extremely popular at this period, and were to become a favorite sphere of craftsmanship in pharaonic culture.

Other pots had figurative decoration. A basically very limited range of motifs was assembled to form friezes running around the bodies of the pots. Stylized chains of triangular hills and zigzag lines suggesting water represent the landscape of the Nile Valley. There are also depictions of animals, flamingo-like birds and gazelles, and plants.
The most prominent pictorial subjects, however are ships: large, sickle-shaped boats with cabins made of woven matting and a great many oars. Emblematic standards reminiscent of the divine standards of later times repeatedly appear, planted upright in the boats.

Interpretation of the significance of these boats, and of the scenes as a whole, remains merely hypothetical. The ship later became a key motif of pharaonic culture. Ships featured in funerary rites, and were also used symbolically in divine worship and celebrations of royal magnificence.

The cultural atmosphere of the Naqada Period itself was marked by expansive dynamism, trade, and wide-ranging contacts. As an emblem of mobility, the ship suggests this momentum, and it may be that it developed into the symbol of dominance it later became within this cultural and historical context. Human forms are only subsidiary figures, most of them broad-hipped women with their arms raised. Sculptural versions of such figures also occur as idols.

The other main kinds of marl clay pots are high-shouldered vessels, barrel-shaped or at first sometimes bulbous, flat-bottomed and with undulating handles; they are known as wavy-handled pots. They derive directly from imported Palestinian models that are also found at the same sites. In the Egyptian version, where handles were very unusual, the shape went through a degenerative process, eventually producing the slender cylindrical vases of the Early Dynastic period, with a single narrow band of decoration. This morphological procedure is of importance to Egyptology. WM. Flinders Petrie, founder of the scientific study of Egyptian archaeology, thought the chronology of Egyptian prehistory could be anchored to it. In principle, he was correct, but in view of the stock of archaeological material as a whole, his theory cannot be strictly applied today.

New characteristic shapes also emerge in other categories of objects in the Naqada II Period. Particularly striking is the variety of animal- shaped palettes used to mix cosmetics. A type of shield-shaped cosmetic palette with two heads of birds in the upper corners was the ancestor of the decorated ceremonial palettes of the Early Dynastic Period.
Large flint knives worked on both sides (or “retouched”) and technically similar knives of a special fishtail shape (a form that continued in use as a ritual knife into the pharaonic period) provide evidence of a high degree of skill in working flint. Their shapes could hardly have been designed without the influence of copper knives of the same period.
In fact, the importance of metalworking continued to increase. Carved decorative pins and combs, amulets, beads of many different materials — in short a whole range of items belonging to the sphere of personal adornment — are represented in increasing quantity and variety.
The Cultural Dynamics
The Naqada II Period may be regarded as an era of rapid cultural change in the development of its material goods. An understanding of the way different clays react to firing, the smoothing and drilling of stone vessels, the manufacture of fine flint knives, and of course metalworking and the making of glazes all called for knowledge, training, and tools far beyond the level of domestic production. These objects were made by specialists who could devote themselves entirely or very largely to their trade, and practiced it in professional workshops.

Such developments in craftsmanship had to be based on a corresponding development in agriculture to provide a material basis. Surpluses originally stored only as a cushion against occasional lean years had to be accumulated more and more systematically. Unfortunately the archaeological material at our disposal does not allow us to trace this process so directly. Here and there, however we can see how the center of settlement was shifted from the desert borderland area into the plain of the valley itself. This suggests that cultivation of the inundated area was more and more dominant, while exploitation of the biotope of the outskirts of the desert, a region that was probably becoming impoverished anyway by the increasingly arid climate, became less important. Technically, it was a question of making the best possible use of the natural situation, by building small dikes and branch canals to improve the flow of water into and out of the natural basins. Large systems of dikes and canals were not necessary, and would have been pointless, since there was no need as yet to enlarge the cultivated area. In a situation where everything ultimately depended on the rising and falling of the river, which was not subject to human control, the exercise of social power could not hinge on the water supply, and it is a mistake to present the organization of the irrigation system as a prime factor in the evolution of structures of dominance in Egypt.

Crucial factors for an understanding of cultural development in the Naqada period are the territorial dynamic of that culture and its external relations. The appearance of wavy-handled pots in Egypt has provided important proof of intensive trading contacts in the Palestinian area. Egyptian imports in Palestine itself symmetrically complement that evidence. It is particularly easy to trace the foreign contacts of the Naqada culture in Nubia, to the south. There was an independent. Neolithic culture in the Nubian Nile Valley, the so-called Nubian A group, and its sites were almost inundated with Egyptian imports. They are mainly pottery, vessels that originally arrived as packaging for agricultural produce exported by Egypt to the less fertile neighboring area, and were of such high quality that they continued in use. Nubian pots, on the other hand, have seldom been found in Egypt. We must suppose that the flow of trade the other way was in raw materials, as indeed the records show at a later date. Ivory, copper, precious stones, fine woods, and skins were among these imports. Some of the goods came from Lower Nubia itself; but some were brought north from Central Africa.

The further expansion of the Naqada culture in Egypt itself should be seen in this wide context. With the Naqada II phase, the cemeteries of the Naqada culture reached north into the Faiyum, no doubt the northern frontier of a region that had been continuously inhabited for a long time. Recent excavations in the Delta, however, have produced evidence that the Naqada culture was already emerging here towards the end of its Phase II, at least sporadically. The details of this process, like the extinction of the Lower Egyptian culture of Buto and Maadi that accompanied it, need further clarification of a kind that can be acquired only from archaeological fieldwork.

Howevet the finds we have do show that the spread of the Naqada culture in the Nile Delta, and the merging of the traditions of Upper and Lower Egypt to form a single countrywide cultural area, were not the result of political unification but the reason for it. Trade means more than the mere exchange of material goods. Intensive trade relations bring both sides together in an interactive framework; it may not be represented by any central institution, but it implies agreement on values, the mutual adaptation of social and organizational structures, cooperation, and competition.

The Rise of Urban Centers

A determining factor in the social evolution of the Predynastic Period was the rise of a number of different kinds of settlements. Beside the country regions where people lived in villages, towns began to form, early urban centers. Hierakonpolis, a town south of Luxor on the westbank of the river, provides an illustration of this development, and with its cult of Horus of Hierakonpolis it was regarded in pharaonic times as one of the kingdom’s places of origin. Moreover, the extensive prehistoric legacy of the town has been relatively well studied in recent fieldwork.

There is evidence that a settlement had existed in the area since the beginning of the Naqada period, covering a length of 3 km and a breadth of about 400 m, and situated on the strips of desert land bordering the fertile country. The early settlement also extended for up to 2 km into a large desert wadi entering the Nile Valley at Hierakonpolis. We should not, of course, picture this large area entirely covered with buildings. Instead, it consisted of scattered (but relatively close) villages and farms and their burial grounds. However, these finds do prove that there was an increase in population density. There are traces of rectangular houses here even in the Naqada I period, in contrast to the simple round huts found elsewhere.

During the Naqada II Period and up to Early Dynastic times there was progressive concentration of the population in the region of the town itself, situated on a broad height of sedimentary soil near the mouth of the wadi in the fertile area. It can also be shown to have had temple precincts and fortifications since the Early Dynastic Period. Traces of specialized crafts occur repeatedly in the extended settlement area.

The furnaces, obviously designed with great skill, are particularly striking. Some of them are built into the wind channels of the sides of the wadi, so that very high firing temperatures, necessary for manufacturing ceramic ware of the highest quality, could be achieved by natural ventilation. There are also workshops where stone vessels were hollowed out and polished, and for working flint and boring holes in decorative beads. Kilns for drying grain also indicate the development of techniques for the preserving and storing of foodstuffs.

Such finds illustrate one important function of these urban centers. Specialized crafts were concentrated here as the pivot on which the exchange of craft goods and agricultural produce turned. However, trade beyond the immediate vicinity must also have been linked with the network of the regional economy. This was a place where supply and demand met, practical and organizational skills were concentrated, and information was exchanged: in fact the emphasis was on all the classic functions of a city as a form of settlement and a way of life. As it happened, Ancient Egypt did not take the path leading to the city state, but towns played a major part in its own development into a state.

It was here that an elite social class formed and institutional dominance was established, an aspect tangibly presented by the burial grounds linked to the settlements. In fact the development of the lavish funerary cult sketched out even in the earliest phases of prehistoric Upper Egyptian culture was now accelerating. The pits dug for interment become larger and rectangular, their walls were partially lined with masonry or reinforced with wooden planks, and side chambers to hold grave goods began to be made. The grave goods themselves became more and more extensive: a concentration of particularly fine objects is found in the tombs, in contrast to people’s ordinary everyday utensils. Naturally not all the tombs were lavish to the same degree. Indeed, the increasingly long and varied scale of grave goods expresses an ever-extending range of social distinctions.

Very large tombs of this period now stood in their own small burial grounds. The type of the elite cemetery was emerging. Hierakonpolis has two such areas, taking over from each other throughout the period from the end of the Naqada I culture to Early Dynastic times. The combination of rich tombs with small, exclusive cemeteries in use over a long period shows that these were not individual cases of high-ranking persons: instead, they are the burial grounds of a whole social class, never comprising a large number of people, and deliberately set apart from the rest of society.

The expense these people could lavish on their tombs shows in itself that they must have occupied a key position in the economic network of the urban centers. In fact one can easily imagine the courts of the elite as centers for interaction between agriculture and craftsmanship, the local economy and external trade, in just the same way as the organizational structure of the palace economy functioned at the king’s court in the early Old Kingdom.

A lucky discovery provides us with more detailed information about the role of the predynastic elite: that of the famous Painted Tomb of Hierakonpolis. To the south of the settlement, it was probably part of a Naqada II elite cemetery that, unfortunately, has never been systematically excavated. Architecturally, the tomb is conventional if very large: a rectangular pit 5 m long, over 2 m wide and about 1.5 m deep. The walls are lined with masonry and the room is divided by a partition projecting into it to create a side chamber for grave goods. Judging by the remains of the grave goods themselves, there can be no doubt that the tomb dates from the second half of the Naqada II Period (Phase TI-c). However, it is the wall painting on the plaster of the burial chamber that makes it so spectacular, and unique among the finds here.

The main picture runs around three adjacent walls in a great frieze. The pictorial motifs are depicted separately on the background. The main line consists of six ships, five painted white and with curved hulls, the sixth distinguished by its black color and high bows. The ships are surrounded by depictions of hunting: huntsmen and hounds pursuing gazelles and ibex, and animals caught in traps. However thescene does not remain in this everyday sphere. At one point a hero approaches two lions swinging his mace; elsewhere he is taming two lions in the character of “Master of the Beasts.” Finally, there are pictures of men fighting, and underneath, in a perfunctorily added vignette, a depiction of the victor using his mace to smash the skulls of three enemies he has seized. This motif, the “Smiting of the Foes,” became the great emblem of the power of the Egyptian king, endlessly reiterating and elaborating his claim to dominion until the end of pharaonic culture. A very recent discovery takes us a step further: on the outskirts of the desert, near the settlement area of Hierakonpolis, a palace and a ritual precinct of the same period have been identified. The reconstruction produced by the excavators shows a large oval courtyard surrounded by impressive buildings made of posts and matting. The design and the style of the buildings clearly anticipate the royal ritual precincts of the Early Dynastic Period, in particular the sed festival complex in the tomb ofDjoser in Saqqara.

Approaching the Unification of the Two Lands

The elite class of the sophisticated Naqada II Period brings us to the roots of Egyptian kingship, and the beginnings of the construction of the unified state can also be deduced from the distribution in space and time of the archaeological evidence.

Early elite cemeteries exist not only in Hierakonpolis but also in Naqada, perhaps also in Diospolis Parva on the river loop at Qena, where evidence of at least one large tomb of a member of the elite has been found, and above all in the town of This (or Thinis) with its funerary site at Abydos, whose early history, going far back in time, has become known only from recent excavations. The neighboring Nubian culture was caught up in the surge of Egyptian developments too, although only rather later. Elite cemeteries are also known to have existed at Sayala on the loop of the Nile at Korosko, and at Qustul near the second cataract.

Furthermore, the distribution of the early elite cemeteries shows that the Naqada culture did not represent a homogeneous political structure. In the south of Upper Egypt alone, which has been archaeologically well investigated, there were at least three and perhaps four centers of similar standing. These areas were at the heart of chiefdoms or proto-states that existed side by side, and from whose amalgamation the pharaonic state of the Early Dynastic Period finally emerged.

The territorial aspect of the process can also be deduced from the distribution of elite cemeteries. In Phase III of the Naqada culture, around the time of the “unification of the two lands,” there is evidence of outstanding princely tombs at only two places, Hierakonpolis and Abydos. And only in Abydos does the series of tombs of chieftains, beginning in the Naqada I Period, continue without a break to the tombs of the first kings who ruled a united Egypt.