African Archeology: Egypt and Nubia

9/23/25

Wealth in Things (Egypt)

 Who dies with the most wins.

Wealth in People (Sudan)

 Accumulating people who are beholden to you (gift-exchange)



Large Political organization 3 tiers

 Leadership at household
 Leadership at village (400)
 Regional governors (10-20k)
 Paramount Chief!

What were the Egyptians trading?

 Wood, spices, leather from Ethiopia (Egypt sent to mediterranean-
intermediary positions)
 Ideas!



 Most life near nile and delta, but resources taken from interior.
 Path designed to take materials from Ethiopia to mediterranean
 Cataracts: dry sholes that are difficult to navigate with a barge
 Egypt took advantage of moving through cataracts for trade advantage



Transition between sedentary and urban lifestyles

 6000 bc neolithic culture- agricultural revolution established in Nile
valley
 Early archaeological “culture”, often referred to as badarian (some
consider the precursor of dynastic Egypt.
 Merimda: earliest known lower Egyptian sites, predates Badarian by
about seven hundred years.

Merimda

 Located on western Delta Margin
 Settled c. 6000-4800 ad
 Mixed fishing and hunting economy

,  Shifting from scared settlements to subterranean houses c. 4300 bc
 Granaries integrated into villages by c. 4300 bc

Tell sites: human-made hill caused by rebuilding seasonally flooded houses
year after year.

Goes from rebuilding every year, to building when patriarch dies.

 Burials take place in house, layers of dna



Protodynastic Period

 Ca. 3200-3000 BC
 Period of political unification, leading to the early dynastic period
 Naquada pottery records hieroglyphics from this period
 Political Organization: small city states; Thinis, Naqada, Nekhan

Early Pottery and Stone Vessels

 Given as gifts for exchange
 Early forms of hieroglyphics explain who the gifts may be from
 Scorpion King on the macehead Vessel
 Narmer Palettes for eye makeup

Old Kingdom

 Unified kingdom founded ca. 3050 under King Menes
 Tawy: “two lands, Kemet: “black land”
 Ca. 3000-2200 bc
 Menes unified upper and lower Egypt ca 3000 bc
 Pyramids of gaza constructed ca. 2600-2500 bc
 Extreme consolidation of political authority

Pyramids first created to reference the Sudanese mountain.

Mummification also mimics Sudanese mountain burials.

Pyramid at Khufu: marvel of building

Old kingdom: only a few are embalmed, sent to afterlife

As time goes on, more formal burials occur.



So much material used for burial, could have caused collapsed