In Dynasty o and the early ist Dynasty there is evidence of Egyptian expansion into Lower Nubia and a continued Egyptian presence in the northern Sinai and southern Palestine. The Egyptian presence in southern Palestine did not last to the end of the Early Dynastic Period, but with Egyptian penetration into Nubia the indigenous A-Group culture came to an end later in the ist Dynasty.
The source of A-Group wealth was the trade in exotic raw materials coming from southern regions through Nubia to Upper Egypt. With the unification of Egypt into a large territorial state, the Crown most likely wanted to control this trade more directly, which resulted in Egyptian military incursions in Lower Nubia. A late Predynastic scene carved on a rock at Gebel Sheikh Suliman near Wadi Haifa suggests some kind of military victory by the Egyptians, and a Nubian campaign may possibly be depicted on an ebony label from Abydos. With the display of force by the Egyptians, A-Group peoples may simply have left Lower Nubia and gone elsewhere (to the south or desert regions), and there is no evidence of indigenous peoples living in Lower Nubia until the C-Group culture, beginning in the late Old Kingdom. How Egypt controlled Lower Nubia in the Early Dynastic Period is unknown. Evidence of an Egyptian installation has been found at Buhen North, with strata which possibly date as early as the 2nd Dynasty. More secure dating at Buhen, however, is provided by seals of kings of the 4th and 5th Dynasties, and it is uncertain if there were permanent Egyptian forts or administrative/trading centres in Nubia in the Early Dynastic Period.
Fortified cities found in the north and south of Palestine have been dated to the EBA II period, which corresponds to the ist Dynasty, a connection that depends on evidence excavated by Petrie in two royal tombs at Abydos (those of Den and Semerkhet). Petrie found sherds of an imported ware bearing painted designs, which he interpreted as ‘Aegean’. This pottery has been called ‘Abydos Ware’, and is now known to derive from the EBA II culture of southern Palestine. In stratum III at the site of Ain Besor in southern Palestine, ninety fragments of seal impressions of Egyptian kings have been found associated with a small mud-brick building and ceramics that are mainly Egyptian, including many fragments of bread moulds. The seal impressions are made from local clay and evidently belonged to royal officials of the ist Dynasty. Four kings’ names are attested (Djer, Den, Anedjib, and probably Semerkhet), and the ceramics and seal impressions suggest state-organized trade directed by Egyptian officials residing at this settlement for most of the ist Dynasty. Alan Schulman, who identified the seal impressions, thinks that the site operated as an Egyptian border-control checkpoint, which would have been an early prototype for those described in two papyri dating to the Ramessid Period. Such evidence in southern Palestine is missing during the and Dynasty, however, and active overland contact may have been broken off by then, as the sea trade with the Lebanon intensified. As raw materials from this region (wood, oils, and resins from coniferous trees) were imported in increasing quantities, which could perhaps only have been conveyed by sea, the land route to Palestine may have been gradually bypassed. It is probably significant that the earliest inscriptional evidence of an Egyptian king at the Lebanese site of Byblos belongs to the reign of Khasekhemwy, the last ruler of the 2nd Dynasty.
World History
