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 the Buto-Ma’adi 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 Buto-Ma’adi 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. Calibrated radiocarbon dates range from ca. 3900 to 3500 bc. The settlement covered a large area 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Evidence of house structures (originally made of wood and matting) at Ma’adi consists of pits in the ground, post-holes, and hearths. Four large subterranean structures, thought to be similar to houses of the contemporaneous Beersheba culture in the Negev Desert, 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. The floor of this structure was 2 meters below the surface. Further investigations in the western sector in 2001 revealed a subterranean cave dwelling, with a stone-lined entrance corridor and vaulted oval room dug into the bedrock.
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 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 in 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, i. e., “Mound of the Pharaohs”) were 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 (Layers I-II) with local Buto ceramics of the same Lower Egyptian culture as found at Ma’adi, to a “transitional” layer (III) dating to ca. 3300-3200 bc with artifacts of the Naqada culture (Naqada IId phase). Architecture changes from houses of wattle and daub in the earliest layers to the use of mud-brick in Layer III. In Layer V, which is Early Dynastic in date, large mud-brick buildings appear for the first time.
Occupation at Ma’adi came to an end in the later 4th 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 Buto-Ma’adi 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.
World History
