By C.3000 BC, the Early Dynastic state had emerged in Egypt, controlling much of the Nile Valley from the Delta to the first cataract at Aswan, a distance of over 1000 km. along the Nile. While the presence of the Naqada culture is clearly evident in the Delta in later Naqada II and Naqada III times, the extension of Egyptian political control southwards during the rst Dynasty is demonstrated by the remains of a fortress on the highest point of the shore on Elephantine Island, a region that had been occupied by A-Group peoples in Predynastic times. With the ist Dynasty, the focus of development shifted from south to north, and the early Egyptian state was a centrally controlled polity ruled by a (god-)king from the Memphis region.
What is truly unique about the early state in Egypt is the integration of rule over an extensive geographic region, in contrast to contemporaneous polities in Nubia, Mesopotamia, and Syria-Palestine. Although there is certainly evidence of foreign contact in the fourth millennium BC, the Early Dynastic state that emerged in Egypt was unique and indigenous in character. It is likely that a common language, or dialects of that language, facilitated political unification, but nothing is really known about the spoken language, while early writing preserves specialized information that is of a very cursory nature at this point in cultural development.
One result of the expansion of Naqada culture throughout northern Egypt would have been a greatly elaborated (state) administration, and by the beginning of the ist Dynasty this was managed in part by early writing, used on sealings and tags affixed to state goods. Archaeological evidence for state control consists of the names of ist-Dynasty kings (serekhs) on pots, sealings, labels (originally attached to containers), and other artefacts found at major Early Dynastic sites in Egypt. Such evidence also suggests that a state taxation system was already in place in the early dynasties.
At Memphis the earliest archaeological strata that have so far been excavated date to the First Intermediate Period, and strata from the Early Dynastic city may be buried under much alluvium. Further west, drill cores taken by David Jeffreys have revealed both Old Kingdom and Early Dynastic pottery. Graves and tombs, however, are found in this region from the ist Dynasty onwards; therefore it is likely that the city was founded around then. Tombs of high officials have been found at nearby North Saqqara, and officials of all levels were buried at other sites in the Memphite region. Such funerary evidence suggests that the Memphis region was the administrative centre of the state and also indicates that the early Egyptian state was highly stratified in its social organization.
In the south, Abydos remained the most important cult centre, and it has been suggested that in the ist Dynasty the smaller Predynastic Settlements, which have left more ephemeral archaeological evidence, were replaced by one town constructed in mud brick at Abydos. The kings of the ist Dynasty were buried at Abydos, another indication of the Upper Egyptian origins of this state. From the very beginning of the Dynastic Period the institution of kingship was a strong and powerfiil one and would remain so throughout the major historical periods. Nowhere else in the ancient Near East at this early date was kingship so important and central to control of the early state.
Other towns must have developed or been founded as administrative centres of the state throughout Egypt, but the spatial organization of communities was not like that in contemporaneous southern Mesopotamia, where huge cities were organized around large cult centres. On the other hand, neither was early Egypt a ‘civilization without cities’, as was once suggested. Egyptian towns and cities may have been more loosely organized spatially than Mesopotamian ones, and the royal residence is known to have shifted in location. Owing to a number of factors, towns and cities in ancient Egypt have not been well preserved, or are deeply buried under alluvium or modem settlements and thus cannot be excavated. Nevertheless, some archaeological evidence for the earliest towns has survived. At Hierakonpolis, an elaborately niched mud-brick facade within the town (Kom el-Ahmar) has been interpreted as the gateway to a ‘palace’, possibly an administrative centre of the early state. At Buto, in the Delta, a rectangular mud-brick building dating to the early ist Dynasty, which was constmcted above earlier mud-brick buildings of Naqada II and III and Dynasty o, may be the remains of a temple within the town.
Most ancient Egyptians in the Early Dynastic Period (and all later periods), however, were farmers living in small villages. Cereal agriculture was the economic base of the ancient Egyptian state. Throughout the fourth millennium bc, villages became increasingly dependent on the cultivation of emmer wheat and barley, which was incredibly successful in the environment of the Nile floodplain in Egypt.
By the Early Dynastic Period, simple basin irrigation may have been practised, thus extending the amount of land under cultivation and producing increased yields. Unlike practically any other irrigation system in the world, salinization did not occur in Egypt, because the annual Nile flood flushed out the salts. Given that rainfall by this time was negligible, the annual flooding provided the necessary moisture at the right time of year—July and August—so that the wheat could be sown in September after the flooding receded. The species of wheat that were introduced into Egypt matured during the winter months and could be harvested before spring, when the return of high temperatures and drought might otherwise have killed the crops. Huge agricultural surpluses were possible in this environment, and when such surpluses were controlled by the state they could support the flowering of Egyptian civilization that is seen in the ist Dynasty.
World History
