The Maadian cultural complex of about a dozen sites has only recently been brought to light. These sites include the excavated cemetery and settlement complex at Maadi itself, a suburb of modem Cairo. The Maadian culture appeared during the second part of Naqada I and continued until Naqada Ilc/d, when it was eclipsed by the spread of the Naqada II culture, exemplified by the cemeteries of el-Gerza, Haraga, Abusir el-Melek, and Minshat Abu Omar.
The earliest Neolithic sites have been discovered in this part of the Nile Valley, in the Faiyum region and at Merimda Beni Salama and el-Omari (see Chapter 2), and it is these sites that represent the tradition from which the Maadian material culture emerged. Maadian culture differs in all its characteristics from sites of similar date in Upper Egypt. In a reversal of the situation at the sites of the Naqada culture, cemeteries were much less prominent in the archaeological record, and most of our knowledge derives instead from settlements.
At Maadi, the Predynastic remains cover nearly 18 ha., including the cemetery. In the first half of the twentieth century an area of about
40,000 sq. m, was excavated. The depth of archaeological deposits is almost 2 m., including heaps of refuse preserved in situ, the stratigraphy of which is complex. The excavated structures show that there were three types of settlement remains, one of which is unique in an Egyptian context, strongly reminiscent of the settlements at Beersheba in southern Palestine. It involves houses excavated from the living rock in the form of large ovals measuring 3 x 5 m. in area and up to 3 m. in depth, each of which was entered via an excavated passageway; the walls of one of these subterranean houses were faced with stone and dried Nile-silt mud bricks, but this is the only known instance of the use of mud brick at Maadi. The presence of hearths, half-buried jars, and domestic debris suggests that these were genuine permanent habitations. The other types of domestic structures at Maadi are already well attested elsewhere in Egypt: first, a form of oval hut accompanied by external hearths and half-buried storage jars, and, secondly, a rectangular style of house in which narrow foundation trenches are all that remain of walls that were presumably made from plant material.
In general, Maadian pottery is globular with a broad, flat base, a more or less narrow neck, and flared rims, partially fashioned from alluvial day. They are rarely decorated, except sometimes wdth incised marks applied after firing. It is interesting to note that the oldest strata at the late Predynastic sites of Buto (Tell el-Fara'in), Tell el-Iswid, and Tell Ibrahim Awad include sherds decorated with impressions that are reminiscent of Saharo-Sudanese pottery. Links with Upper Egypt, dating back to the period before the Maadian culture, are indicated by the presence of sherds from imported vessels of black-topped red ware, which mingle with their pale imitations made locally at Maadi. Conversely, the commercial links with Early Bronze Age Palestine account for the presence of distinctive footed ceramics, with neck, mouth, and handles decorated en mamelons, made from a calcareous clay fabric, which contained imported products (oils, wines, resins). Maadian culture was thus a kind of cultural crossroads, subject to the influences of the Western Desert (perhaps an extremely early association), the Near East, and the emerging kinglets of Naqada to the south.
Palestinian influence is also clearly discernible in the worked flint of the Maadian culture. In contrast to the local flint industry essentially employing pressure-flake technology, the Maadian assemblages also include large circular scrapers knapped from large nodules with smooth surfaces, which are well known throughout the Near East. Beautiful edged blades with rectilinear ribbing, known as ‘Canaanite blades’, also appear at Maadian sites; these were to develop into the pharaonic-period ‘razors’ (actually double scrapers) that were elements of royal funerary equipment until the end of the Old Kingdom, sometimes polished and sometimes reproduced in copper and even gold. ’The bifacial pieces, few in number, include projectile points, daggers, and sickle blades. The latter were products of the local tradition (Faiyum bifacial sickles) and were gradually replaced by a Near Eastern style of sickle mounted on a blade.
’The comparative rareness of greywacke cosmetic palettes imported from Upper Egypt is presumably an indication of their limited availability and therefore the luxury nature of the object. The more numerous limestone palettes, on the other hand, show signs of wear that indicate their regular daily use. Hard stone maceheads are of the discshaped type characteristic of the Amratian and early Gerzean cultures.
Apart from several combs imported from Upper Egypt, objects in polished bone and ivory include the traditional repertoire of needles, harpoons, punches, and awls. Catflsh darts, consisting of the first spine of the pectoral and dorsal fins, are found in great number, particularly in jars that were probably stockpiled for export.
There are many indications of Maadi’s involvement in intercultural contacts and commerce. In this regard, the role of copper is particularly significant. Metallic objects seem to have been particularly common at Maadi. Not only are there simple pieces such as needles or harpoons, but also rods, spatulas, and axes. These forms of artefacts were made from stone in the Faiyum and Merimda cultures, but at Maadi they were made from metal. This situation is paralleled in Palestine during the same period, where polished stone axes totally disappear and are replaced with metal versions, albeit using different techniques from those at Maadi. This substitution of metal for stone cannot be mere coincidence, but the result of a process of technological progress that is an indication (and a direct result) of the genuine symbiosis between the two regions. Large quantities of copper ore have also been found at Maadi, which under analysis reveal a probable provenance in the region of Timna or Fenan, both of which are coppermining sites in Wadi Arabah, at the south-eastern comer of the Sinai peninsula. However, rather than the ore being processed at Maadi itself, it was perhaps imported primarily for processing into cosmetics, and the initial processing must have been undertaken near the mines themselves.
Despite the involvement of the Maadian people in a network of contacts with the Near East, their culture was above all pastoral-agricultural and sedentary. There are few traces of wild fauna to counterbalance the enormous quantity of domesticated animals (pigs, oxen, goats, sheep) that, apart from the dog, comprised the basic meat diet of the community. The donkey doubtless served as transport for the merchandise. Kilos of grain found in jars and in storage pits include wheat and barley (Triticum monococcum, Triticum dicoccum, Triticum aestivum, Triticum spelta, Hordeum vulgare) as well as pulses such as lentils and peas.
Compared with the good evidence of agricultural activity at Maadi, the interment of the deceased was relatively unobtmsive, indicating a community that had perhaps undergone little social change since the Neolithic and was evidently lacking in stratification or hierarchy. A total of 600 Maadian tombs has been recovered, as opposed to more than 15,000 Predynastic graves in the south. Geographical and geological factors contribute to this imbalance: the northern cemeteries, located in areas prone to heavy flooding, might well have been buried in thick layers of Nile silt. This, however, does not explain everything, because there is also a contrast in the quality and quantity of funerary equipment in the north, compared with the Upper Egyptian situation.
The Lower Egyptian graves are characterized by extreme simplicity, comprising basic oval pits with the deceased placed in a foetal position, shrouded in a mat or in fabric, and accompanied by only one or two pottery vessels or sometimes even nothing at all.
However, as we review the development of the Northern Cultures (consisting of three phases roughly corresponding to the cemeteries of Maadi, Wadi Digla, and Heliopolis), certain tombs appear better equipped than others, without ever displaying conspicuous luxury like that found in Upper Egypt. Nevertheless, a gradual tendency towards social stratification can be discerned, and it is possible that the mixing of the graves of dogs and gazelles with those of humans is part of this process of social change. The final phase of the Maadian culture, represented by the earliest stratigraphic layers at Buto, is equivalent to the middle of the Naqada II phase (levels Ilc-d).
At the exceptional site of Buto, there are seven successive archaeological strata in which the transition between the Maadian phases and the overlapping protodynastic can be observed. During this transition, there is a perceptible increase in Naqada pottery styles, while the Maadian pottery progressively disappears. Thus the end of the Maadian culture was not an abrupt phenomenon, as the site of Maadi would suggest, but was instead a process of cultural assimilation. It is probable that, with its fluvial and maritime location, Buto was well placed for important trade, and perhaps also incorporated a palace for local rulers. While the archaeological data from Buto are less startling than the remains at Naqada, there was a comparable process of cultural development here which led, in the same way, to increased social complexity, eventually producing a society characterized by its own beliefs, rites, myths, and ideologies. This was the necessary precondition for the next great step forward in the history of Egypt, which took place in the Naqada III and Early Dynastic periods.
World History
