Naqada I (Amratian)

Petrie and Quibell uncovered several thousand Predynastic graves between them (15,000 for the whole Predynastic Period). As a result, our knowledge of the period was—for over a century—based almost entirely on funerary remains.

In broad terms, the Amratian is not different from the earlier Badar-ian culture. The burial rituals and the types of funerary offerings are so similar that one wonders if the latter does not constitute an older, regional version of the former.

In general, the Amratian dead were buried in simple oval pits in a contracted position, lying on the left side with the head pointing south, looking towards the west. A mat was placed on the ground below the deceased, and sometimes the head rested on a pillow of straw or leather. Another mat or the skin of an animal, usually goat or gazelle, covered or enclosed the deceased and most of the time covered the offerings as well. The surviving remains of clothing suggest that the usual apparel worn by the dead was a sort of fabric loincloth or a hide loincloth trimmed with fabric. Although simple burials of single individuals were in the majority, multiple burials were also fairly frequent, most notably involving a woman (possibly the mother) and a newborn infant. Compared with the previous period, larger burial places appeared, provided with coffins of wood or earth, and more lavishly equipped. Although plundered, the Amratian tombs of Hierakonpolis are remarkable for their rectangular form and unusual size (the largest being 2.50 m. x 1.80 m.). In two instances, the inclusion of magnificent disc-shaped porphyry maceheads probably indicates the burials of powerful individuals. The Amratian culture particularly differs from the Badarian in terms of the diversity of types of grave goods and consequent signs of hierarchy, and Hierakonpolis was clearly already an important site from the point of view of such diversification.

The differences between the Badarian and Amratian cultures can be seen above all in changes in material culture. The black-topped red ware gradually became less common, and this trend would eventually lead to its total disappearance at the end of the Predynastic. The rippling effect on the surface of the pottery became rarer, as did black-polished pottery. At the same time, however, red-polished pottery continued to flourish in a variety of forms, often incorporating different styles of surface decoration. The best-decorated examples feature sculpture in the round and white painted designs comprising geometrical, animal, and vegetal motifs. These constitute the beginnings of an iconography that would eventually lie at the core of pharaonic civilization.

The fauna represented on the vessels are essentially riverine, such as hippopotami, crocodiles, lizards, and flamingos, but there were also scorpions, gazelles, giraffes, ichneumons, and bovids. The bovids are rendered schematically, thus making their precise identification difficult. Sometimes a boat might also be depicted, prefiguring the leitmotif of the Naqada II phase. Human figures, although at this date unobtrusive, were nevertheless present in the Amratian version of the universe. Such figures, however, were represented schematically, each with a small round head on a triangular torso terminating in thin hips and standing on stick legs, often without feet. The arms were represented only when the figure was engaged in some activity.

The depictions involving human figures can be divided into two types: the first—and most frequent—is the hunt, and the second is the victorious warrior. A good example of the hxmt is shown on a Naqada I vessel in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. This scene comprises a person holding a bow in his left hand, while in his right he controls four greyhounds on a leash. This is the very image of the hunter, with the king wearing the tail of an animal at his belt, that can still be seen several centuries later on the so-called Hunter’s Palette or on the Gebel el-Arak knife handle (the former now in the British Museum and the latter in the Louvre), and indeed continued to be a powerful image until the end of the pharaonic period.

The theme of the victorious warrior occurs on the elongated body of a Naqada I vessel in the collection of the Petrie Museum, University College London. The depiction comprises two human figures among plant motifs; the larger figure, with stalks or plumes fastened in his hair, lifts his arms above his head, while his virility is unequivocally marked by a penis or penis sheath. Interlaced ribbons descending from between his legs may represent decorated cloth. A white line emerges from the larger figure’s chest and wraps around the neck of the second figure, a much smaller person with long hair. A swelling on the back of the smaller figure could represent bound arms. Despite a clear pelvic protuberance, the sexuality of the smaller figure remains Ambiguous; if it were feminine, this would justify the small size. A similar scene decorates an identical vessel in the Brussels Museum, as well as one of the same material excavated in the 1990s by German archaeologists at Abydos. The prevalence of the bound figure, and the absence or obstruction of the arms of small persons, strongly suggest the imagery of the conqueror and the vanquished. This early theme of domination appears to be the prototype of traditional scenes of victory in the pharaonic phase. It is interesting to note that, as early as the Naqada I phase, the dual theme of hunting and war— always understood to be victorious—is established, implying the existence of a group of hunter-warriors already invested with an aura of power.

The graves and the funerary offerings indicate not so much increasing hierarchization as a tendency towards social diversity in the Naqada I culture. The offerings in this period appeared initially to be intended simply to mark the identity of the deceased. It is not until the Naqada II phase (and even more so Naqada III) that larger accumulations of funerary artefacts are clearly in evidence.

The funerary statuettes are particularly significant. Both men and women are represented standing, more rarely seated, with emphasis on the primary sexual characteristics. Only a few of the thousands of excavated tombs contained such statuettes, and usually they occurred only singly, groups of two or three in one tomb being comparatively rare. The maximum number found in a single burial was a set of sixteen figurines. Based on an analysis of the other offerings, the tombs that contained multiple statuettes were not particularly rich in other respects, and such small sculpted figures were sometimes the sole funerary offering. Could these be the tombs of sculptors? Whatever their significance, the presence of these objects indicates greater exclusivity than wealth as determined by sheer quantity of grave goods. The use of copper and flint knives as funerary offerings raises the same kind of question during the Naqada II phase.

The more or less schematically rendered heads of bearded men seem to constitute another new category of human representation in Naqada 1, which was to be further developed in Naqada II. Found on small throwsticks of carved ivory or on the tips of hippopotamus or elephant tusks, the one repeated feature of these representations is the presence of a triangular beard, often balanced by a sort of ‘phrygian’ cap pierced by a suspension hole. Unlike women, men were no longer being solely identified by their primary sexual characteristics, but by a secondary sexual characteristic and the social status that this conferred

On them. The beard was evidently a symbol of power, and, in the form of the ceremonial ‘false beard’, it later became strictly reserved for the chins of kings and gods.

Another symbol of power that characterizes the Naqada I phase is the disc-shaped macehead, usually carved from a hard stone, but sometimes also occurring in softer materials such as limestone, terracotta, or even unfired pottery, and occasionally provided with a haft. It was during this period that techniques of working both hard and soft stones (including greywacke, granite, porphyry, diorite, breccia, limestone, and Egyptian alabaster) began to be developed, and this craftsmanship would eventually ensure that the Egyptian culture became the ‘civilization of stone’ par excellence. Greywacke cosmetic palettes constituted the item of choice for funerary equipment during the Amratian. These palettes exploded into a diversity of forms, from a simple oval shape, sometimes incised with figures of animals, to complete zoomorphs, including fish, tortoises, hippopotami, gazelles, elephants, and birds (although the range of beasts depicted on the painted vessels was nevertheless much greater).

The production of bone and ivory objects, including punches, needles, awls, combs, and spoons, extended—and improved upon— the repertoire of the preceding Badarian culture. Not many worked stone tools have been found in Naqada I graves, but the rarity of such finds was equalled by their quality. These delicate and long bifacially flaked blades, some as much as 40 cm. long, were regularly serrated. Their most unusual feature was that they had all been polished before retouching. This process was also used on beautiful daggers with bifurcated blades, which look ahead to the Old Kingdom forked instruments known as pesesh-kefused in the Opening of the Mouth funerary ceremony.

Glazed steatite, already known in the Badarian period, continued in use. The first attempts at crafting Egyptian faience appear to date from the Naqada I phase, whereby a nucleus of crushed quartz was shaped into the desired form and coated with a natron-based glaze coloured by metallic oxides.

Metalwork shows few differences from the Badarian period, apart from an extension of the repertoire, including such artefacts as pins, harpoons, beads, looped pins for attachment and bracelets, often executed in hammer-worked native copper. The tips of bifurcated spears from a tomb in el-Mahasna, which imitate worked-stone specimens, evoke comparison with the techniques of metal production employed by their northern neighbours at Maadi (see below).

The picture derived from the analysis of the tombs and their contents is of a structured and diversified society, with a tendency towards hierarchical organization, in which the major traits of pharaonic civilization can already be seen in embryonic form.

Compared with the significant remains of the world of the dead, the surviving traces of Naqada I settlement are poor, not only because too few sites of this type have been preserved but also because of the nature of Predynastic land-use practices. Since the buildings making up the settlements were essentially constructed from a mixture of mud and organic materials (such as wood, reed, and palm), they have not survived well, and the work invested by the archaeologist would have to be considerable to yield even a minimum of data. Among the vestiges of subdivided huts made from beaten earth (which are not even definitely known to be dwellings) are hearths and post-holes. The zones of habitation are indicated by deposits of organic material dozens of centimetres thick. The sole surviving built structure has been excavated at Hierakonpolis, where the American team uncovered a burnt man-made structure consisting of an oven and a rectangular house partially enclosed by a wall, measuring 4.00 x 3.50 m. Although it is possible that such houses may have been present at all Nile Valley settlements of this date, it should be borne in mind that Hierakonpolis may well have been unusual—it had been an important site from an early date, and from this time onwards it was the centre of an elite group, judging from its large-scale graves.

One of the results of the lack of excavated settlements is an imprecise knowledge of the Naqada I economy. The domesticated animal species represented among the grave goods include goats, sheep, bovids, and pigs, which have survived either in the form of food offerings or as small statuettes modelled in clay. As far as wild fauna were concerned, gazelles and fish appear to have been plentiful. Barley and wheat were cultivated, as were peas and tares, the fruits from the jujube, and a possible ancestor of the watermelon.