An equally enduring mode of rule was devised by Egypt’s first kings, and finds expression on that most iconic of all Early Dynastic artefacts, the Narmer Palette (Quibell 1898; for the subsequent, extensive literature, see, e. g., Goldwasser 1992;
Shaw 2004: passim). Here the victorious king is shown grasping the head of a defeated enemy while holding a mace in his upraised arm, poised ready to smite his pathetic captive. By the time Narmer commissioned his palette this motif was already a centuries-old icon of royal power (Wilkinson 1999: 31-4); it would remain the quintessential symbol of kingship until the very end of the institution itself (Hall 1986). Narmer’s adversary is identified by the rebus behind him as a Lower Egyptian ruler, perhaps a real opponent in the prolonged struggle for unification, perhaps a symbol of the Eastern Delta that the First Dynasty kings regarded as a ‘‘foreign land’’ to be conquered and subdued (Kohler 2002). The palette’s other imagery certainly emphasizes the ‘‘containment of unrule’’ (Kemp 2006: figs. 31-2), the defeat of chaos (represented by Egypt’s enemies) by the forces of order (represented by the king).
During the course of the Early Dynastic Period, the fundamental, unending struggle between the opposing forces of order and chaos ( maat and isfet in Egyptian terminology) was identified as the principal duty and the defining activity of kingship. In so doing the propagandists of the Early Dynastic court achieved two aims simultaneously. First, they elevated the king beyond mere head of state to guardian and defender of creation. This made any opposition to the king’s rule or the institution of kingship not merely unwise but unthinkable, not just treasonable but blasphemous and nihilistic. In such an atmosphere any lingering opposition to First Dynasty rule could be ruthlessly suppressed as a danger both to Egypt and to the cosmos. Second, the characterization of Egypt’s neighbors as the forces of chaos, combined with an emphasis on the king’s duty to subdue them, served to generate a strong sense of national identity where none had existed before. The Egyptian ‘‘collective self’’ was defined by its opposition to a ‘‘collective other’’ (Kohler 2002). Despots throughout history have recognized and manipulated the raw power of xenophobia to unite a people. Perhaps the earliest manifestation of this particular psychological tactic can be attributed to the court of Narmer. Other artefacts from his reign besides his famous palette show similar scenes of foreign domination with various foes: on an ivory cylinder, the hieroglyphs that write the king’s name take a big stick to lines of Libyan captives (Kohler 2002: fig. 31.3), and on a small ivory label, a Palestinian chieftain, olive branch in hand, is shown stooping in abject homage before the Egyptian king (Wilkinson 2002: fig. 32.1).
The ideology and iconography of xenophobia are constant themes in the court culture of the Early Dynastic Period, and they retained a place at the heart of Egyptian state religion until the very end of pharaonic history: another example of the longevity of Early Dynastic cultural innovations. Yet the outward show of hostility towards Egypt’s neighbors masked a more complex, underlying reality (Wilkinson 2002). As we have seen, the government of the early dynasties was primarily concerned with economic questions, and these included foreign trade in exotic, high-value items. Preserving national unity and security might be served by belittling foreigners, but the court badly needed the fruits of foreign trade to maintain its wealth and prestige. Behind the propaganda practical politics demanded a different set of relationships between Egypt and its neighbors.
Even before the political unification of the country, Egyptian rulers had engaged in long-distance trade and launched expeditions beyond Egypt’s traditional borders to seek exotic materials or win control over trade routes. There is growing evidence for Predynastic activity in the Eastern (e. g. Wilkinson 2003) and Western Deserts (Darnell 2002), along ancient track-ways and at important mining sites. Likewise Egypt enjoyed close relations with the Levant from at least the early fourth millennium BC (Hartung 2001). In Nubia, towards the end of the Predynastic period, the extirpation of the indigenous A-Group - culturally as sophisticated as its Upper Egyptian counterparts, and an active trading partner with the area around Hierakonpolis (Takamiya 2004b) - can be attributed to Egyptian foreign policy, specifically a series of military campaigns to protect Egypt’s commercial interests. Two Predynastic inscriptions at Gebel Sheikh Suleiman probably record Egyptian conquests in the Second Cataract region (Wilkinson 1999: fig. 5.3, nos. 1 and 2). Actions such as these seem to have brought to an end the kingdoms of Qustul (Williams 1986) and Seyala (O’Connor 1993: 23) which must have threatened Upper Egyptian control over the lucrative sub-Saharan trade routes. Although evidence for a permanent Egyptian presence in Lower Nubia is extremely slight - mud bricks from the lowest courses of the town at Buhen, again in the Second Cataract region, were dated by their excavator to the Second Dynasty (Emery 1963: 117) and may therefore indicate at least a token garrison at this period - the great increase in wealth of the Egyptian ruling elite during the early dynasties may well be attributable, in part, to the abundant gold reserves of conquered Nubia. The loss of archaeological sites throughout Lower Nubia under the waters of Lake Nasser may make it impossible ever to augment our scant knowledge of Egypt’s early relations with the lands to the south (cf. Wilkinson 1999: 176-82).
The nature of contacts between early Egypt and Libya is likewise obscured by an extreme paucity of evidence (Wilkinson 1999: 162). There are hints of conflict, such as the aforementioned ivory cylinder of Narmer and the ‘‘Cities Palette’’ from the period of state formation, but these may reflect nothing more than ritualized aggression against foreigners. Here, the potential for future archaeological discoveries is far greater.
The one arena of early Egyptian foreign relations that is relatively well attested, and increasingly so, is the Levant, especially southern Palestine (van den Brink and Levy (eds.) 2002). From the very beginning of the First Dynasty, the Egyptian state projected its power beyond Egypt’s north-eastern border, establishing trading posts and even ‘‘colonies’’ along the northern Sinai coastal route and throughout the fertile lands of southern Palestine. Its interest in the area was access to the high-value commodities lacking in Egypt itself, notably copper, olive oil, wine, precious gums and resins, and perhaps materials such as lapis lazuli, silver, and timber brought from further afield and traded by middlemen. At the fresh water springs of En Besor near modern Gaza, which lay along the main coastal route between Egypt and southern Palestine, the Egyptian state built a government outpost atop a natural hill. The rectilinear building, carefully aligned to the points of the compass (the Egyptian state liked to assert its mastery of the natural world, even beyond its own borders), yielded numerous sherds from bread-moulds and beer-jars, together with clay sealings naming First Dynasty kings (Kaplony 2002). The material assemblage shows that the purpose of the En Besor building was to re-supply and re-victual Egyptian trade caravans as they traveled to and from the Delta (Gophna and Gazit 1985; Gophna 1990, 1992).
At the site of Nahal Tillah, inside modern Israel, hieroglyphic sealings and a jar fragment stamped with the serekh of Narmer show the functioning of the Egyptian administration far from home (Levy et al. 1995; Kansa and Levy 2002). Not only has the site yielded imported, Egyptian-made pottery, brought from the Nile Valley by traders, but also locally made wares in an Egyptian style. This suggests that there was a more-or-less permanent Egyptian population at Nahal Tillah which maintained Egyptian cultural traditions using the materials available locally.
Sites throughout southern Palestine, such as Tell Arad (Amiran 1974, 1976), Tell Erani (Weinstein 1984) and el-Lod (van den Brink 2002), tell a similar story. The Egyptian presence in the Levant was evidently significant and widespread (Brandl 1992; Hartung 1994, 2001). Some of the fruits of this intensive trading activity can be found in the royal and elite tombs of the First Dynasty, in the cemeteries of Abydos and Memphis respectively. In addition to large quantities of copper objects, numerous vessels of Syro-Palestinian pottery (probably used as containers for valuable oils) have been found among the grave goods of kings and their high officials (Wilkinson 1999: 158-9).
For reasons that remain unclear but which are likely to have included social and political changes within the Levant, the focus of Egyptian trading activity with the Near East shifted during the course of the Second Dynasty to Byblos on the Lebanese coast. (The paucity of securely dated archaeological evidence from the Levant and Egypt during the century or so of the Second Dynasty makes it extremely difficult to trace the course of this shift.) By the reign of Khasekhem(wy), there is epigraphic evidence for Egyptian involvement in the local temple at Byblos and for active ship-building using Lebanese cedar. Archaeologically the timber trade is attested by the fleet of boats ‘‘moored’’ next to the cult enclosure of Khasekhemwy at Abydos while the king’s nearby tomb yielded the earliest known bronze vessels from Egypt, testifying to the introduction of tin into the Nile Valley, probably from sources in Anatolia. All the main commodities that the Egyptian state wished to procure - timber, tin, coniferous resins, and olive oil - were either available within the immediate hinterland ofByblos or could be obtained from further afield via the long-distance maritime trade routes in which Byblos was a crucial node. It is therefore not surprising that Early Dynastic Egypt developed a close relationship with Byblos, nor that the port continued to be Egypt’s main toe-hold on the Levantine coast for many centuries (Wilkinson 1999: 160-2). The abundant supplies of timber in the Lebanese mountains, together with the Byblites’ skills in ship-building, facilitated maritime trade with Egypt and boosted its intensity. A single ship’s cargo could transport as much as dozens of donkey caravans, and the growth ofEgyptian contacts with Byblos may have been both cause and effect of the decline of the overland routes with southern Palestine.
From the Eastern and Western Deserts to the mountains of the Sinai, from Nubia to the coast of Lebanon, the early Egyptian state’s principal and motivating interest in foreign relations was always economic. It was concerned, above all, with identifying and securing sources of exotic materials and commodities for the royal court. Indeed, it is possible to see economic interests as the prime mover behind many of the major developments of Early Dynastic civilization: domestic and international policy, the origins of writing, the evolution of the nome system, and the ideology of divine kingship.
World History
