State Formation and Unification

Unification of Egypt into one large territorial state, from the Delta to the First Cataract, occurred in late Predynastic times, although there is disagreement as to whether this process was completed by late Naqada II or late Naqada III times. The processes by which this occurred are also not well understood.

Naqada culture expansion northward began in Naqada II times. Petrie excavated a cemetery at Gerza in the Faiyum region with Naqada II grave goods. By Naqada IIc times the (Buto-Ma’adi culture) site of Ma’adi, just south of Cairo, was abandoned. At Buto in the northern Delta the stratigraphy shows the replacement of Buto-Ma’adi ceramics by Naqada culture ceramics. This is also demonstrated at other sites in the eastern Delta, including Tell el-Farkha (first excavated by Rodolfo Fattovich, and more recently by Marek Chlodnicki), where the earliest strata have Buto-Ma’adi ceramics, after which there is evidence of a transitional phase (Phase 2, Naqada IID2) when Upper Egyptian ceramics began to be produced.

At the site of Minshat Abu Omar in the northeastern Delta an early cemetery has been excavated by Dietrich Wildung and Karla Kroeper 1978-91. The earliest burials (MAO I), which date to Naqada Ilc-d, are in shallow pits with only a few grave goods. Later burials (MAO III), which date to Naqada III/Dynasty 0, show abrupt changes in mortuary practices. These graves are rectangular and larger than the earlier ones, and are often lined with mud plaster and roofed with matting. Orientation of the contracted burials changes as well in this group, with the dead resting on the left side, facing east/ southeast. The MAO III burials have many more grave goods than the earliest ones, not only a large number of pots, but also carved stone vessels, jewelry, cosmetic artifacts, and copper tools. The latest burials (MAO IV), which date to the 1s* and 2nd Dynasties, are even larger and with more grave goods (up to 125) than those of MAO III. In addition, the eight largest of the MAO IV graves are built with mud or mud-brick and internally divided into two-three rooms. The richest of these burials was of a nine-year-old child, which suggests status ascribed from birth and not achieved through life.

Thus, archaeological evidence points to the northward expansion of the Naqada culture of Upper Egypt in later Naqada II times, possibly as Naqada traders moved north and were followed by colonists. It is unknown why Ma’adi was abandoned, but one possible explanation is intimidation by Naqada culture peoples. Later, in Naqada III times, when only Naqada ceramics are found in the north, control by a Naqada culture polity may have been established over all the region.

The socio-political processes of the expanding Naqada culture are also difficult to characterize from the mainly mortuary evidence. The highly differentiated Naqada II graves at cemeteries in Upper Egypt, and not in Lower Egypt, are probably symbolic of an increasingly hierarchical society. The highest status burials, such as in Cemetery T at Naqada, may represent competition and aggrandizement of local rulers, whose control and wealth increased as economic interaction and long-distance trade developed in Naqada II times (as evidenced in grave goods). Control of the distribution and production of prestigious craft goods, made of exotic imported materials (especially different stones from the Eastern Desert for beads and carved vessels), would also have reinforced the power of rulers in Predynastic centers in Upper Egypt.

Later Predynastic “statelets” (a term used by Bruce Trigger) may have existed at Hierakonpolis, Naqada, and Abydos. Barry Kemp (University of Cambridge) has suggested a model of Predynastic settlement development in Upper Egypt, from small egalitarian communities, to agricultural towns, to incipient city-states (based in part on evidence from Naqada’s South Town). According to Kemp, “proto-states” formed in Upper Egypt at Hierakonpolis, Naqada, and Abydos/This, with a hypothetical “proto-kingdom” of all of Upper Egypt followed by unification of the north and south by the 1s* Dynasty. Such a model is logical, but there is very little archaeological evidence to demonstrate its validity. In Lower Egypt there is no evidence for a proto-state controlling all of the north, and such a polity is unlikely to have existed.

Names and seated kings carved in the broken top part of the Palermo Stone, a 5*h-Dynasty king list (see 2.9), suggest a tradition that there had been rulers before the 1s* Dynasty. Egyptologist John Baines (University of Oxford) has pointed out the long iconographic evidence for kingship, beginning with the form of what later becomes known as the Red Crown found on a Naqada I pot - long before kings or a kingdom/small state could have existed. But the paintings in the later Naqada II Decorated Tomb at Hierakonpolis may represent a “proto-kingship.” Developing along with complex

Map 5.3 Hypothetical map of the "Proto-states” of Hierakonpolis, Naqada, and Abydos/This

Society in later Predynastic times was the institutionalization of kingship. The later unification of southern and northern Egypt was a creation of this kingship, the institutionalization of which helped maintain a well organized state with long-lasting control over a very large territory - that might otherwise have quickly collapsed.

Warfare may have played a significant role in the final stages of Egyptian unification, although sites in the Delta with destruction layers are lacking. But several carved artifacts that date to the late Predynastic/Dynasty 0 have scenes of warfare or its aftermath. The most famous (and latest) of these is the Narmer Palette, which dates to the end of Dynasty 0 (see Figure 5.5). Excavated at Hierakonpolis, this palette has scenes of the victorious king, dead enemies, and vanquished peoples or towns. There is some disagreement as to whether a specific historical event is represented by the scenes on the Narmer Palette. Gunter Dreyer suggests that one scene on the palette, of Narmer in the White Crown of Upper Egypt smiting a bearded enemy, is the same as one on an inscribed ivory label from Cemetery B at Abydos (see below). Three scenes on this label possibly make up a “year name” from Narmer’s reign, during which the king won a victory over the Libyans. The subject matter depicted on the ivory label and the palette, which was probably donated to the Horus temple at Hierakonpolis, suggests the importance of warfare in the final phase of the Predynastic, especially for the consolidation of the early state.

Figure 5.5 Narmer Palette, reverse. Jurgen Liepe

In the Western Desert at Gebel Tjauti, John and Deborah Darnell (Yale University) have found a rock drawing of a scene of conflict, of a man wielding a mace and holding the rope of a bound captive. Dating to Naqada IIIA1, the rock drawing provides further evidence for the prevalence of warfare in late Predynastic times. Signs associated with this drawing possibly identify King Scorpion of Dynasty 0.

Alliance building would also have been important in warfare. The lack of very high status burials at Naqada in Naqada III times may suggest that Naqada’s power waned as Hierakonpolis, possibly the power base of the so-called “Followers of Horus,” and Abydos/This forged some kind of alliance. Except for the Royal Tomb at Naqada, Naqada became an insignificant site in Early Dynastic times, while Hierakonpolis and Abydos/This remained ideologically significant. Hierakonpolis was the cult center of Horus, the falcon-headed god symbolic of the living king. Abydos, which was the cult center of a local necropolis god, Khentimentiu, was the burial place of most of the Early Dynastic kings - and later became the cult center of the god Osiris, symbolic of the dead king.

Tombs excavated by Gunther Dreyer at Abydos in Cemeteries U and B may be those of some of the rulers preceding the 1s* Dynasty. Cemetery U contained mainly unlined

Figure 5.6 Tags from Tomb U-j, Abydos. German Archeological Institute Cairo

Graves of Naqada II-III in the eastern section. Although robbed, one large tomb (U-j) in this cemetery still had much of its subterranean mud-brick structure, as well as wooden beams, matting, and mud-bricks from its roof. The tomb pit was divided into 12 chambers, including a burial chamber with evidence of a wooden shrine and an ivory scepter. Several hundred ceramic jars were excavated in this tomb, with the residue of (imported?) wine still in some of them.

Almost 200 small labels in Tomb U-j, originally attached to goods, were inscribed with the earliest known evidence in Egypt of writing (see Figure 5.6). Dreyer has hypothesized that some of these signs refer to royal estates, administrative districts, and towns, such as Buto and Bubastis in the Delta. The labels may have been attached to goods and materials coming from royal estates or other places associated with a ruler named Scorpion, who was probably buried in this tomb. Tomb U-j did not belong to the well known King Scorpion, whose decorated macehead was found at Hierakonpolis, and the tomb is at least 100 years earlier in date than those of the Dynasty 0 kings buried in Cemetery B at Abydos. Cemetery B, to the south of Cemetery U, is where Werner Kaiser identified the tomb complex of Aha, the first king of the 1s* Dynasty, as well as double-chambered pit tombs of three kings of Dynasty 0: Iri-Hor, Ka, and Narmer. Kaiser’s identifications were confirmed by seal impressions and inscribed artifacts associated with these tombs.

Egypt was undoubtedly unified by the time of Dynasty 0, and the Abydos burials of the Dynasty 0 kings are the earliest clearly royal burials in Egypt. On the eve of the Dynastic period, kingship had emerged with control over a very large territorial state. Writing had already been invented by this time, as the Tomb U-j labels demonstrate.

The Early Dynastic State