Early Dynastic Egypt (69 page)

It is difficult to draw reliable conclusions from the published results of de Morgan’s survey and excavations, but if the site of Adaïma may be taken as typical of the region as a whole, it would appear that many communities which had flourished during the Predynastic period were subsequently abandoned in the aftermath of state formation: a phenomenon which marks the rise of urbanism. As Nekhen and Elkab emerged as leading centres of economic activity and population, many smaller village communities in the vicinity seem to have succumbed to the inevitable pressures. A few, such as es-Siba‘iya East and el-Qara must have retained enough local advantages to survive. The settlement at el-Mamariya may actually have benefited from its proximity to Nekhen; the local population may have been able to take some part in the increased economic activity which was now concentrated within its neighbouring town.

During the late Naqada II and throughout the Naqada III periods the Hierakonpolis region witnessed a progressive shift of settlement away from the Great Wadi and towards the floodplain (B.Adams 1995). The town of Nekhen continued to grow during the First Dynasty; the site as a whole witnessed renewed royal patronage at the end of the Second Dynasty. Occupation of the walled town and its two outliers seems to have persisted into the early Old Kingdom (B.Adams 1995:64), and Nekhen may have continued during this period as ‘an important manufacturing and trading centre for copper and, possibly, gold’

(Hoffman
et al.
1986). The settled area at Elkab seems to have remained fairly static during the late Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods (cf. Hendrickx and Huyge 1989: pl. II). Strategic considerations, which lay behind the location of the early town, probably prevented any significant shift of the settled area.

THE NAQADA REGION

Whilst the Hierakonpolis region seems to have been at the forefront of state formation, another site has emerged as the leading Upper Egyptian centre in earlier Predynastic times. This is Naqada, located on the west bank of the Nile, opposite the entrance to the Wadi Hammamat. The wadi, ‘one of the relatively few direct and well watered accesses to the Red Sea coast’ (R.Friedman 1994:286), afforded easy access to the gold reserves of the eastern desert. Moreover, the bend in the Nile as it flows through the Naqada region ‘brings the river closer to the Red Sea than at any other point in its course’ (R.Friedman 1994:286). Both these geographic factors would have made Naqada (and Coptos, on the opposite bank of the Nile) an ideal centre for the Predynastic gold trade. After the early First Dynasty the major focus of population moved northwards to a new location, the town of Nubt. During the course of the Early Dynastic period, this too declined in importance, as Naqada was relegated to a position of provincial obscurity. The eclipse of Naqada was accompanied by the rise of Dendera, some 25 kilometres to the north, and perhaps of Thebes, a similar distance to the south. This is probably no coincidence, and may be part of a more widespread phenomenon in which the role of provincial capital was transferred from the traditional centre – in many cases an important Predynastic settlement—to a new town (Kemp 1989).

Coptos, Hu and the rise of Dendera

Just why Naqada—rather than Coptos, located directly at the mouth of the Wadi Hammamat—came to dominate the surrounding region in the Predynastic period is not clear. It is a curious fact that all the most important centres of late Predynastic and Early Dynastic Upper Egypt were located on the west bank of the river (with the possible exception of Elephantine, an island in the Nile). Whether this is pure coincidence, or whether the west bank had a natural advantage, is difficult to say. In Upper Egypt today, the expanse of floodplain is wider on the west bank than on the east bank, but this may not have been the case in the fourth millennium BC. The Coptos colossi indicate that this site was an important cult centre from late Predynastic times, and the symbols carved on these statues suggest that Coptos was a centre of long-distance trade in artefacts from the Red Sea coast; but it never seems to have become a major regional focus of population. At the beginning of the Old Kingdom, both Coptos and the neighbouring site of Hu/Abadiya (cf. Williams 1986:176) were displaced as important provincial centres by Dendera: the titles borne by the early Fourth Dynasty administrators of Dendera refer to a grouping of three adjacent districts, Coptos, Dendera and Hu (Fischer 1968). The centralisation of power which seems to have occurred at the beginning of the Old Kingdom—and which is most spectacularly attested by the pyramids of the Fourth Dynasty—was achieved partly by means of a fundamental reorganisation of economic

and administrative structures. The evidence from sites such as Dendera suggests that another plank of this programme was a conscious policy to integrate the provinces of Upper Egypt by removing the reins of power from the hands of the traditional ruling families (which may have retained significant influence over their communities during the Early Dynastic period). Centres such as Hierakonpolis, Naqada, Coptos and Hu had risen to great prominence during the Predynastic period. Following the formation of the Egyptian state, regional capitals would have served as key nodes in the national administrative apparatus. The transfer of this role from traditional centres to new towns would have been an effective means of bypassing pre-existing regional power structures and exerting central control.

Smaller communities

A re-examination of the evidence has shown that, far from being isolated centres within an otherwise sparsely populated region, Naqada and Coptos were surrounded by an extensive network of smaller communities, all of which seem to have benefited from the region’s economic and political advantages (R.Friedman 1994:345, fig. 8.1; contra Patch 1991:353). Although settlement remains have only been identified at a few sites – Coptos, Naqada North Town and South Town, and Khattara—a larger number of cemeteries have been excavated in the Naqada region, pointing to a relatively dense settlement pattern. On the east bank of the Nile, the most significant site published to date is the Predynastic burial ground at Khozam, 25 kilometres south of Coptos (Hendrickx 1992). Here, a series of cemeteries seems to have been strung out along the desert edge, comprising many hundreds of burials ranging in date from the Badarian or Naqada I period to the threshold of the First Dynasty. The general picture at Khozam seems to parallel that in other regions of Upper Egypt: a series of small cemeteries spanned the entire duration of the Predynastic period, only to be abandoned at the beginning of the Early Dynastic period when the regional population moved to fewer, densely packed settlements, in this case Naqada and Coptos.

THE ABYDOS REGION

The Abydos region (Figure 10.2) was at the heart of the state formation process, and the demographic changes which took place here during the first three dynasties reflect the wider political developments affecting the nation as a whole. A detailed archaeological survey of the Abydos region (Patch 1991) has indicated that the local south-east quadrant of the region was always lightly settled; by contrast, settlements were more numerous in the north-east quadrant and along the entire west bank of the region (O’Connor 1990:6). By the Old Kingdom at the latest, settlement clustered around two major centres, Abydos itself and This, the regional capital.

Figure 10.2
Map of the Abydos region showing sites mentioned in the text (after Wilkinson 1993a: fig. 22). Capitals denote ancient place names.

The resource base

‘Abydos today is the richest agricultural zone in Upper Egypt, and presumably agriculture was the basis of its wealth in Predynastic times’ (Bard 1987:90). Moreover, it has been suggested that herding and the exploitation of large stands of timber may have been important elements in the regional economy (O’Connor 1990:6). However, the capacity to produce a food surplus is, on its own, not enough to explain the rise to prominence of the Abydos region during the Predynastic period. A similar advantage

must have been shared by other stretches of the Nile valley which did not develop a central place on the scale of Abydos/This (Bard 1987:90–1). The Abydos region seems to have benefited from a strategic location for trade. Abydos itself lies closer to the oases of the western desert than any other site in the Nile valley. It is possible that the Abydos region acted as an entrepôt for prestige materials (such as elephant ivory, hard stones for vessels and beads, and ochre) entering the Nile valley from the western desert (Bard 1987:90).

The town and cemeteries of This

‘The history and functions of Abydos cannot be understood without reference to Thinis’ (O’Connor 1990:6). Ironically, the principal settlement in the Abydos region during the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods has not been located by archaeologists. The town probably lay close to, if not directly beneath, the modern town of Girga. An inscribed statue fragment which mentions Thinis is said to have been found at the nearby site of el- Birba, a little to the west; this may help to identify the precise whereabouts of the ancient settlement (Brovarski 1986:475, 481 n. 2). If the burials at Naga ed-Deir may be taken as a guide—the cemetery probably served This as its main burial ground—the town seems to have existed from at least the Naqada I period. It assumed a greater significance during the late Predynastic period, as the presumed capital of one of the three Upper Egyptian polities, Naqada and Hierakonpolis being the other two. The political and economic power wielded by the late Predynastic Thinite kings must have brought the town itself prosperity and importance on a truly national scale. However, the victorious Thinite kings of the First Dynasty chose to found a new national capital at the junction of Upper and Lower Egypt: Memphis. The town of This probably drew some benefit from its close contacts with the court, but it was to be denied a role as the pre-eminent city of the newly unified state. Instead, it was relegated to the position of a regional capital.

To judge from the cemeteries at Naga ed-Deir, the population of This seems to have remained relatively stable throughout the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods. None the less, the changes in settlement and cemetery patterns which affected the region as a whole—like many other parts of Egypt—during the period of state formation may not have bypassed the regional capital entirely. Hence, towards the end of Naqada II, and for reasons which remain unclear, Naga ed-Deir was apparently abandoned in favour of an alternative burial site. Graves from the late Predynastic period (late Naqada II) and from the period of state formation (Naqada III/‘Dynasty 0’) are notable by their scarcity (cf. Brovarski 1982:300). It seems fairly certain that a substantial population remained in the area (despite arguments to the contrary [Patch 1991:309]), since Naga ed-Deir saw renewed use as a major cemetery in the Early Dynastic period and Old Kingdom.

With the advent of the Third Dynasty, the Abydos region lost the special role it had enjoyed as the ancestral home and burial place of the First and Second Dynasty kings. However, the local rulers—possibly the lineal descendants of the First Dynasty kings— evidently continued to exercise considerable authority at a regional level. The economic power of the Thinite governors, derived from their control of one of the most fertile and prosperous stretches of the Nile valley, was expressed in their funerary monuments: a series of huge mudbrick mastaba tombs was erected on the low desert at Beit Khallaf, to the west of This and directly opposite Naga ed-Deir. The scale of Beit Khallaf mastabas

K1 and K2, dated by seal-impressions to the reigns of Netjerikhet and Sanakht, is quite unparalleled at any other contemporary provincial site. Smaller mastabas, probably belonging to lesser officials of the regional administration, are located at the nearby cemetery of Reqaqna. The evidence from the Thinite area for the continuing strength of local identity after the foundation of the Egyptian state provides an important balance to the outward appearance of centralised control promoted by the royal court. The distribution of cemeteries in the Thinite area during the Early Dynastic period mirrors the picture in the Memphite region: the local élite were buried in tombs on the western desert edge, while the lesser officials and the majority of the local population were interred in a separate cemetery on the east bank of the Nile.

Settlement nucleation and the early town at Abydos