Prehistoric egypt

BEFORETHEBEFORETHE
PHARAOHSPHARAOHS
PREHISTORIC EGYPTPREHISTORIC EGYPT
M. Fahmy RaiyahM. Fahmy Raiyah

Jacques de Morgan Flinders Petri
PIONEERS OF EGYPTIAN PREHISTORIC
EXCAVATIONS

PALAEOLITHIC
(c.500,000–10,000 BC(

Upper, Middle and Lower Paleolithic industries of Egypt.
Date Period Egyptian variant
5000 BC Neolithic Qarunian
Shamarkian
6500 BC Epi-paleolithic Arkinians
Qadan
Halfan
Kubbaniyan
Idfuan
20,000 BC Upper (late) Paleolithic Khormusan
Aterian
Mousterian
90,000 BC Middle Paleolithic Arkin 8
Umm Shagir
Bir Sahara 14
300,000 BC Lower Paleolithic

Two bipolar Upper Paleolithic blade cores
(up to 13 cm long)

Handaxes from prehistoric Egypt. Lower
Paleolithic or Middle Paleolithic. From the
Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Khormusan
(between 45,000 and 15,000 BC)
Lower Nubia and Upper Egypt
• Tools from stone, animal bones and hematite
• Small arrow heads

Halfan
(between 17,000 and 13,000 BC)
From the second cataract to Kom Ombo
Levallois tools
Microliths

Kubbaniyans
(16,070 – 15,640 BC(
used tiny microlithic tools and divided their
time between two distinct but overlapping
habitats.
storing food

Qadan
(13,000-9,000 BC)
Qadan burials: The bodies were buried loosely flexed on their left sides with their heads
to the east and facing south. More than one individual often shared the same grave

CLIMATE CHANGES
• From 120,000 – 90,000 BC: A moister, rainier period
prevailed, enabling Lower Paleolithic people to live and
hunt on ancient savannas.
• About 90,000 years ago: The rains that characterized the
Lower Paleolithic Period were interrupted, and for a
short time the Sahara became a vast desert. Soon, a
more humid climate returned, and scientists call this
the Middle Paleolithic. Springs, lakes and lush grasslands
covered much of the Sahara, surpassing the savanna
conditions that had prevailed in the earlier Lower
Paleolithic Period.

• Around 37,000 BC: the climate began to dry up,
and by 30,000 BC Egypt’s environment was as
arid as it is today. The flora and fauna of the
Western Desert disappeared, and the Middle
Paleolithic peoples living there lost their food
sources.
• moister, more hospitable climate returned to
Egypt from about 17,000 to 13,000 BC.

4000 BC
Late Neolithic/
Early Predynastic

date the cultural background duration
before 8000 BC Palaeolithic
8000-5200 BC
Epipalaeolithic
(Tarifian ; Qarunian - Fayum B -
6000-5000 BC)
3000 years
6000-5000 BC Nabta Playa 1000 years
5200-4000 BC Fayum Neolithic (Fayum A) 1200 years
4800-4200 BC Merimde 600 years
4600-4400 BC El Omari 200 years
4400-4000 BC Badarian 400 years
4000-3300 BC Maadi 700 years
4000-3500 BC Naqada I 500 years
3500-3200 BC Egypt in the Naqada Period Naqada II 300 years
3200-3100 BC Naqada III 100 years
Source: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/chronology/index.html

Predynastic cultures in Lower and Upper Egypt
Date (BC) Upper Egypt Lower Egypt
3150 Protodynastic Protodynastic
3300 Naqada III Naqada III
3400 Naqada IIcd (Late Gerzean) Ma’adian (Late Gerzean)
3650 Naqada IIab (Early Gerzean) Omari B (?)
3750 Naqada I (Amratian) Omari A (?)
4400 Badarian
4800 Merimden
5200 Fayyum A
Source: After Brewer, Douglas J. and Teeter, Emily, Egypt and the Egyptians
(Cambridge University Press, 1999)

Between 9500 and 5000 radiocarbon years ago the
area of Nabta Playa, in the Western Desert of Egypt
received 100 to 200 mm of rainfall per year, making it
more suitable for human occupation. The rainfall
gathered in a series of lakes; Nabta Playa, one of the
largest in the region. The earliest sites were located
around these large water resources, as were many
Palaeolithic sites in Egypt. The lakes attracted humans
and other animals and supported a subsistence base of
hunting, gathering and in some cases fishing. During
the last part of the Neolithic sequence at Nabta Playa,
beginning around 4500 BC, the climate began shifting
towards the modern hyper-aridity.

Groups here were not sedentary but practiced
seasonal migration to take advantage of different
food resources as they became available. Initially,
cattle, and later sheep and goat, were probably
herded by the migrating people. By planting a few
crops in well-watered areas along the way, they added
an additional food resources. Cultivated plants might
have been abandoned until harvest, or they may have
been tended for part or all of the growing season.
Some groups may have even been semi-permanently
settled, like those in the late Neolithic Fayyum, where
it is thought some members lived at one site year-
round.

Nabta Playa calendar in Aswan Nubia
museum

The earliest fully developed Neolithic sites
in the Egyptian Nile Valley are located in
the north and date between c.5100–4500
BC, with Fayum A and Merimde
Benisalame being the older ones.

Transition from hunting and gathering and fishing to farming and herding.
• New technology/tools for farmers
• Wild to domesticated animals
• Guaranteed food supply at hand
• Permanent Housing
• Pottery (for storage)
• Child-bearing women = sedentary
• Population increases
• More help for farming (intensive)
• Village life initiates urbanization

The Fayum Pre-dynastic period
has been split up into two phases,
• Fayum A: 5200-4000 BC
• Fayum B: 6000-5000 BC

It discovered in 1924 by the Egyptian mineralogist Amim
El-Omari and Paul Bovier-La pierre. Bovier-La pierre
excavated parts of the site during two weeks in 1925. In
1943 Fernand Debono continued the excavations. The
excavations were finally published in 1990.
From the settlement only pits and postholes survived.
The houses might have been built from wattle and daub. All
excavated objects were found in the pits.
The pottery is made with the local clay. The stone tool
repertoire consists of small flakes, axes, sickles and point.
The dead were buried in abandoned storage pits near
houses. The body was placed on the left side with the head
to the south and facing west. Many burials contained a small
pot place in front of the body

The subterranean style house found at Ma’adi from above (a) and in profile (b).
The closest known counterpart to this structure is found in Southwest Asia.

• used copper in addition to stone
• planted wheat and barley
• Kept cattle, sheep, and goats.
• Fished from the Nile and hunted gazelle.

Ancient Badarian figurine
of a woman with incised
features (c. 4000 BC),
carved out of
hippopotamus ivory, held
at the British Museum.
This type of figure is
found in burials of both
Badarian men and women

A large sunken ceramic vessel employed
as a Badarian grain silo.

An ostrich eggshell bead in profile and as a strung series for a necklace.

string of beads from a Badarian tomb,
the oldest glazed beads

The Naqada period was first divided by the British
Egyptologist William Flinders Petrie, who explored the
site in 1894, into three sub-periods:
Naqada I: Amratian (after the cemetery near El-Amrah)
Naqada II: Gerzean (after the cemetery near Gerzeh)
Naqada III: Semainean (after the cemetery near Es-Semaina)

NAQADA I
(Amratian)
4000 BC to 3500 BC

An interesting
artefact of the
Naqada I Period
is the animal relief
pot.

An abbreviated list of
pot marks recorded
on early Naqada
vessels.
Note how some
marks resemble
early hieroglyphs.

That boats were of great symbolic
importance to the earliest inhabitants of
Upper Egypt is shown by this predynastic
model of a man lying in a foetal position in
a coracle-like vessel, surely one of the
most poignant images from this early
period, conveying a deep sense of
desolation. As was probably the case here,
the boat was frequently used to represent
the transit of the dead to the Afterlife.
Naqada I, probably from Middle Egypt

A disc-shaped mace head made of dark grey and white porphyry.

Sickle blade with
the characteristic
denticulated
cutting edge.

A sherd of Naqada I pottery bearing a representation of the red crown of Lower Egypt

Circular huts from
Naqada I culture

Painting in tomb 100 in Hierakonpolis

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Grey-green ware with the wavy-handle lug

Grey-green ware
decorative wavy design

Naqada II stone vessels which,
unlike earlier periods, are
made from harder stones such
as basalt.

Designs on three Nagada II (Gerzean)
Decorated Ware vessels.

The pear-shapedmace
replaced the
earlier disc mace.

An amulet shaped
in the form of a
bull’s head.

Two-headed palette
with opposing effigies, a
characteristic design of
Naqada II.

Polished side of a Gerzean flint blade from Abu Zaidan (09.889.120). The
Brooklyn Museum, New York.

Gerzean flint blades
with rounded ends
The British Museum,
London

Brooklyn handle: carved
ivory knife handle from Abu
Zeidan, late predynastic
(Nagada IIc/d). Brooklyn
Museum

Rivers handle: carved ivory knife handle,
late predynastic (Nagada IIc/d). Pitt-Rivers
Museum, Farnham, Dorset.

Davis comb: carved ivory comb, late
predynastic (Nagada IIc/d). Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York

Copper tools of the Naqada II Period: an adze (a) and an axe blade (b).

A typical Naqada II pit grave with the
deceased placed in a crouched position,
head to the south and looking to the
west. Characteristic period ceramic
vessels accompany the deceased in her
final resting place.

The ritual knife, dating to Naqada III period,
now on display at the Brooklyn Museum

The Gebel-Tarif knife of the Naqada III period.

Slate Palette with conquering towns scene

Bone Tags from tomb U-j at Abydos, Early Naqada III

Naqada I (Amratian(
Naqada II (Gerzean(
Naqada III (Semainian / Dyn.“0”(
BURIALS

Rock drawings come from different time
periods, ranging from the Paleolithic, Neolithic
to the pre-dynastic and dynastic times.
In the 1930s, Hans Winkler collected and
classified rock drawings from 40 different sites
in both the Western and Eastern Deserts.

Earliest rock inscriptions are geometric designs and stylized animal footprints.

Detail of late Paleolithic rock art panel showing bovids. Qurta.

Detail of late Palaeolithic rock art panel showing three highly stylized
human figures. Qurta.

Rock drawing, southern Upper Egypt,
probably fifth- fourth millennium B.C.

THE CAVE OF SWIMMERS WADI SURA
GILF KEBIR

Neolithic (?) hand stencils from Wadi el-
Obeiyd Cave. Farafra Oasis.

Predynastic representation of highprowed boat with human figures, ubiquitous in the
Eastern Desert. Wadi Barramiya. Probably Naqada II.

Finely engraved human and animal
figures. Theban Desert. Possibly early
Predynastic
(Tasian or Badarian).

Nag el Hamdulab vandalism to Naqada III
site

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brewer, Douglas J. Ancient Egypt, Foundations of a
Civilization. London: Pearson, 2005.
Davis, Whitney. Masking the Blow: The Scene of
Representation in Late Prehistoric Egyptian Art.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
Rice, Michael. Egypt’s Making: The Origins of Ancient
Egypt 5000 – 2000 BC. London: Rutledge, 2003.
Teeters, Emily. Before the Pyramids: The Origins of
Egyptian Civilization. Chicago: The Oriental Institute
of University of Chicago, 2011.

Digital Egypt for Universities, University College
London: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-
static/digitalegypt/neolithic/omari.html

Prehistoric egypt

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Prehistoric egypt