The prehistoric site of Ma’adi is located in a suburb to the south of Cairo, while Buto is a site in the northern Delta with early remains in the lower strata. Sites of this culture are found in northern Egypt (with some local variation), from the northern Delta to the Faiyum region, and are distinctly different in their material remains from the Naqada culture of Upper Egypt (see 5.3). While the origins of the Lower Egyptian Predynastic culture are in the earlier Neolithic cultures in northern Egypt (see 4.8), there is also evidence of contact (especially trade) with southern Palestine.
Ma’adi was excavated by Cairo University archaeologists from 1930 to 1953, and was later re-examined by archaeologists from the University of Rome. Most recently it has been investigated by archaeologists from the German Archaeological Institute, Cairo. Calibrated radiocarbon dates range from ca. 3900 to 3500 BC. The settlement covered a large area
Map 5.1 Predynastic sites in Egypt.
About 1.3 kilometers long, but this area was never completely occupied at any one time. The village relied on cereal cultivation and animal husbandry, of cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs, with little evidence of hunting. Bone harpoons, indicative of fishing, were found there, as were catfish bones.
Evidence of house structures (originally made of wood and matting) at Ma’adi consists of pits in the ground, postholes, and hearths. Four large subterranean structures, thought to be similar to houses of the contemporaneous Beersheba culture in Palestine, were found in the eastern sector of the site. A large subterranean, stone-lined structure (8.5 m x 4 m in area), possibly a store house, was excavated in the western sector in the mid-1980s by Egyptian archaeologist F. A. Badawi (Figure 5.1). The floor of this structure was 2 meters below the surface. At Ma’adi pottery consists of globular jars and bowls of Nile clay wares (smooth red or black-polished), as well as some large storage jars sunken into the ground in the settlement. Imported pots from the Beersheba culture as well as locally made imitations of these are also found. The imported pots were containers for materials, such as oil, wine, and resins. Locally made stone vessels, mostly of basalt with lug handles and a ring base, have also been excavated. With relatively few bifacially worked tools, the Ma’adi stone tools are quite different from the Neolithic industry in northern Egypt. More common are large circular scrapers and some long blades, of types which were probably introduced from Palestine. But copper is also found at Ma’adi in different forms, including tools, three large ingots, and ore, which was probably used for pigment (and not for smelting and tool production as was once thought). Ma’adi provides the earliest evidence of the domesticated
Figure 5.1 Subterranean house structure at Ma’adi. Source: Ulrich Hartung, “The Predynastic Subterranean Dwellers in Maadi, Cairo,” Egyptian Archaeology 22 (Spring 2003), p. 8. Reproduced with permission of German Archaeological Institute, Cairo.
Donkey, which would have been useful in the overland trade with southern Palestine. Analysis of the Ma’adi copper indicates a Near Eastern source, either mines at Timna or from the Wadi Arabah (in southern Jordan).
Only the burials of stillborns or infants were found within the settlement at Ma’adi. Two cemeteries were excavated nearby, one about 150 meters to the south of the settlement (76 graves) and another ca. 1 kilometer away in the Wadi Digla (471 burials, 14 of which were animal burials). Half of these burials were without grave goods. Burials with grave goods usually had only one or two simple, undecorated pots; the richest burial contained eight pots. Orientation of many burials was random, but the later burials in the Wadi Digla were contracted ones, placed on the right side and oriented with the head to the south facing east, unlike those recorded at Naqada, which had the head to the south facing west.
Beginning in 1983, remains of an early settlement at Buto (modern Tell el-Fara’in, “Mound of the Pharaohs”) have been excavated by the German Archaeological Institute, Cairo. Because the prehistoric levels at Buto are below the modern water table, the earliest settlement (in area A) could only be excavated with an expensive water-pumping system. Significantly, these excavations have revealed stratified evidence of the transition from the earliest layers (I-II) with local Buto ceramics of the same Lower Egyptian culture as found at Ma’adi in its last phase of occupation, to a “transitional” layer (IIIa) when Naqada culture traditions (Naqada IID phase) are found in the Buto pottery. The architecture at Buto changes from houses of wattle and daub in the earliest layers to the use of mud-brick in layer III. In layer IV, which is Early Dynastic in date, a non-domestic cultic structure appears for the first time, which becomes elaborated into a multi-room complex in layer V.
As at Ma’adi, there is ceramic evidence at Buto of contact (probably overland) with southern Palestine. According to Dina Faltings, who directed the Buto excavations in the 1990s, some of the early pottery (Buto I) is of a “foreign type” known in the Chalcolithic in Palestine, but was made at Buto with local clay and produced on some kind of turning device. This pottery disappears in phase II at Buto, as does the specialized technology which would have made mass production of pottery possible.
Occupation at Ma’adi came to an end in the later fourth millennium Bc (equivalent to the Naqada IIC phase), when the site was abandoned. At Buto, the stratigraphic evidence suggests the assimilation of the Lower Egyptian Predynastic culture in layer III, and the continuation into Dynastic times of a material culture that had its roots in the Predynastic Naqada culture of Upper Egypt.
Located in the northeast Delta, Tell el-Farkha was a settlement which became increasingly important to the trade route from Upper Egypt to Palestine. Tell el-Farkha also has evidence of transitional culture - the last stage of Lower Egyptian culture along with what were probably the first settlers of the Naqada culture from the south. First excavated by an Italian expedition directed by Rodolfo Fattovich, the site has been excavated by the Polish Archaeological Expedition to the Eastern Nile Delta since 1998.
Houses of the oldest settlement of Lower Egyptian culture, beginning ca. 3700/3600 BC, have been excavated on the Central Kom at Tell el-Farkha, where many imported artifacts from the south, including beads, have also been found. In later Naqada II times a brewery was located in part of this settlement, as was another one on the Western Kom, in use for
Perhaps 300 years. By ca. 3300-3200 Bc, however, the center of power (and trade) at the site shifted to a monumental mud-brick structure on the Western Kom, which Marek Chlodnicki suggests was probably administered by Naqadans. Built over the earlier brewery, this building consisted of rooms organized around a courtyard. Imported Palestinian pottery, storage jars and sealings provide evidence that it was used for trading activities - but it was eventually destroyed by fire. Subsequently, a large administrative/cultic center was built there with two shrines containing ritual artifacts (see 5.6).
On the Eastern Kom at Tell el-Farkha was a settlement area in which fragments of two gold-covered male statuettes (30 centimeters and 57 centimeters long) were found along with two elaborate, flaked stone knives of Naqada IID date, and a necklace of carnelian and ostrich eggshell beads. The gold figurines were originally held together by gold rivets and had inlaid eyes of lapis lazuli. The gold for these statuettes most likely came from Upper Egypt and the lapis lazuli had to have come from eastern Afghanistan. The evidence of these materials used to make cult artifacts at Tell el-Farkha demonstrates the significance of this center as a nexus with far-reaching trade connections. Later on the Eastern Kom a large monumental building of mud-brick (“Protodynastic mastaba”) was built within a cemetery. Krzysztof Cialowicz has suggested that this mastaba was for the burial of a local ruler or governor ca. 3200-3100 BC - predating the political unification of Egypt. The richest burials in this cemetery have pots with the names of kings of Dynasty 0.
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