The Predynastic Period spans the fourth millennium bc, during which there is evidence of two different culture groups, the Lower Egyptian culture and the Naqada culture of Upper Egypt. Social and economic complexity increased in the Naqada culture, as evidenced in Upper Egyptian cemeteries. By the mid-fourth millennium the Naqada culture began to expand northward. Unification of Egypt into one large territorial state occurred late in the fourth millennium bc, at some point after there is evidence of only Naqada culture pottery and other artifacts in Delta sites.
The early state of Dynasty 0 and the 1st and 2nd Dynasties is characterized by the institution of kingship, which ruled through an administrative hierarchy. The capital at Memphis was founded, as were administrative centers throughout the kingdom. Writing had been invented in late Predynastic times, and undoubtedly facilitated the administration of the state. Taxes were paid to the state in the form of agricultural surplus, which supported full-time specialists, including craftsmen associated with the court.
The Early Dynastic state was highly stratified, as evidenced in its burials. Social stratification and rule by the king were justified by ideology and an incipient form of state religion. Probably most important ideologically, for the king as well as for most social strata, was the mortuary cult. Monumental architecture of tombs and mortuary cult structures, probably built by conscripted labor, became symbolic of the state and its government.
Long-distance trade was an important resource for the royal economy, and in later Predynastic times and the 1st Dynasty Egypt expanded its control into Lower Nubia and southern Palestine. Both of these expansions beyond Egypt’s borders were military and commercial in nature.
Throughout the course of the Early Dynastic Period, royal control was consolidated and its institutions were strengthened, so that by the beginning of the Old Kingdom, in the 3rd Dynasty, the monuments of the state symbolized a new order of control, with vast resources - both material and human - in the “Age of the Pyramids.”
1 How did social organization change in Egypt during the fourth millennium bc, and what is the archaeological evidence of this?
2 Discuss some of the major differences between the Lower Egyptian culture and the Naqada culture of Upper Egypt.
3 What was the A-Group culture and where was it located? What explains its disappearance in the early third millennium bc?
4 Is there evidence for kingship in Predynastic Egypt? What characterizes Egyptian kingship in the Early Dynastic Period?
5 Discuss processes of state formation in Egypt in the late fourth millennium Bc, and archaeological evidence for this. Does the archaeological evidence sufficiently explain how the early state formed?
6 What are some of the major characteristics of the Early Dynastic state in Egypt?
7 Why was agricultural surplus, and control of it, so important for the functioning of the Egyptian state?
8 What is the significance of Petrie’s invention of Sequence Dating, not only for Egyptian archaeology, but also for archaeology in other parts of the world?
9 Why was the invention of writing important for the early Egyptian state? What evidence is there for writing in the Early Dynastic Period?
10 Was the Early Dynastic state in Egypt an urban one? What are some of the characteristics of urban society?
11 Discuss evidence for state ideology in the 1st and 2nd Dynasties.
12 How large was the early state in Egypt, and what is known about its foreign relations?
13 How was the early state in Egypt organized politically and socially? Is such sociopolitical organization sufficient to explain control and long-term stability of a very large territorial state?
World History
