21–25
ca. 1064–664 BCE
Late Period
26–30
664–332 BCE
Approaching this Book
This book is aimed at interested readers with little to no previous knowledge of Ancient Egypt, and undergraduate students wanting to learn more about Egypt’s foreign relations. Throughout, I’ve tried to strike a balance between the latest discoveries and the ‘greatest hits’ of Egyptian history (the Battle of Qadesh under Ramesses II, for example), with the aim of providing a
readable, enjoyable, and accessible account of what is (to put it mildly) a very large subject. Presented chronologically, from the Predynastic Period through to the arrival of Alexander the Great, it is also a history of Ancient Egypt, viewed through the prism of Egyptian activity abroad and foreign activity in Egypt. Along the way, we’ll examine warfare, diplomacy, trade, tourism, immigration, and emigration, always with an eye on the wider
world and its interactions with Egypt. As much as possible, I’ve tried to provide the wider context, describing what was going on beyond Egypt’s
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Preface: Crossroads xvii
borders at any one time. This, I hope, will create a smoother understanding of historical events.
So, passports ready, bags (over)packed (do you really need all those
socks?), guidebook at hand, chariot horses fed and watered, it’s time to begin our journey through time: and our first stop is an Egypt quite unlike the one we usually imagine.
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Chapter 1
Another World
(10000–2584 BCE)
Twelve thousand years ago, there was no Egypt and no Nubia, no
borders or nations, just an expanse of land in north-east Africa,
where people spent their lives hunting and gathering food. Their
world consisted of the land along the banks of the Nile and, further west, the lakes and grasslands fed by sporadic torrential rains in what today is entirely desert. Wandering this savannah, in small groups, people hunted animals using weapons of stone, wood, and bone, fished, and gathered plants to eat.
They moved with the seasons, covering great distances, and probably shared whatever food they gathered among the group. Lions, elephants, ostriches, and giraffes still roamed the vast plains. It had been this way for hundreds of thousands of years. The civilization of ‘Ancient Egypt,’ with its pharaohs, complex bureaucracy, and famous architecture, would not exist for several thousand years more. Its future existence could not have been predicted or even imagined. It was truly another world.
During the ninth millennium BCE, the people of south-west Asia learnt
how to domesticate animals – sheep and goats, then cattle and pigs. Although exchange contacts existed between Egypt and the Levant from at least 11000
BCE, the Egyptians only adopted animal domestication sometime between
7000 and 5000 BCE. Still, better late than never, once they’d taken up
breeding and herding sheep and goats – both species previously unknown
in Egypt – as well as cattle, they never looked back to their hunter-gatherer ways. To the people of Nubia, south of Egypt, however, animal domestication was nothing new: archaeologists have found evidence for domesticated cattle in the region as early as 8400 BCE at Bir Kiseiba, and from 7750 BCE
at Nabta Playa.
Life in Egypt might have continued this way indefinitely if climatic
change hadn’t intervened. From around 5300 BCE, the savannah west of the Nile started to become increasingly arid. The lakes dried up. People had to adapt. Some chose to move east and settle on the banks of the Nile. Others travelled south into Nubia, to live in the fertile zone around Kerma, near the Nile’s Third Cataract. Established in their new environment, these early War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 1
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2 War and Trade with the Pharaohs
people of the Nile now adopted another south-west Asian innovation (one known there since the tenth millennium BCE): plant cultivation. With the introduction of domesticated grains – emmer wheat and barley – in around 5000 BCE, many Egyptians settled down to sedentary lives of farming. They founded settlements along the thin band of cultivable land flanking the Nile, following its course, causing these villages, despite their distance from one another, to become part of an interconnected chain. This brought challenges: notably, each village had to get on with its neighbours – there was really no way of avoiding them anymore. And if people couldn’t get along peacefully – say, by refusing to share goods or by forbidding trade items to pass through their territory – the only option was violence.
Conflict must have occurred reasonably frequently among these early settlers along the Nile; this was certainly the case thousands of years earlier, in around 11000 BCE, when a similar period of climatic change forced north-east Africa’s hunter-gatherers to temporarily live along the banks of the river.
One group moved to Gebel Sahaba, just north of the Second Cataract, where, they probably imagined, there’d be plenty to hunt and gather. The problem was, every other tribe had come to the same conclusion. Competing tribes, previously spread out, now lived in close proximity, each vying for the same precious resources. Forsaking their traditional egalitarianism, violence erupted.
Gebel Sahaba’s men, women, and children became the targets of repeated
raids, their bones shattered by invaders armed with maces, and pierced by arrows and spears. Of the bodies buried in the village cemetery – one of the earliest true cemeteries known – 45 per cent died from their wounds. Some were buried with arrows still puncturing their bodies. Others, wounded during the attacks, slowly healed and lived out their lives; beneath the skin, however, their skeletons still bore the marks of their violent experiences.
Let’s All Meet Up in the Year 5000 (BCE)
By the fifth millennium BCE, the disparate tribes living along the Nile had merged to form distinct cultural groups, marking the start of a phase known as the Predynastic Period (i.e. a time before successive dynasties of kings came to rule the whole of Egypt). In northern Egypt alone, three separate cultures co-existed: one at Lake Qarun in the Faiyum Oasis; one on the
western edge of the Delta, with a major settlement at Merimde Beni-Salame (where villagers buried their dead – particularly infants – within the settlement, rather than outside); and the third – today known as the el-Omari Culture – on the east bank of the Nile, just south of modern Cairo. Having War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 2
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Another World 3
each abandoned their hunter-gatherer lifestyles, these groups now cultivated crops, bred domesticated animals, and lived settled lives in small villages with grain silos. Each group also used their own unique tools, including items that other contemporary cultures hadn’t developed, suggesting a lack of sharing, and a sense of ‘us versus them.’ Nonetheless, they still interacted with one another to some degree: a turquoise bead found at Lake Qarun, as well as a shark’s tooth and seashells from the Red Sea, may indicate early contact between the Faiyumian Culture and people living in the Sinai. They also had access to diorite, a hard stone found in Nubia. Herringbone motifs
– typical of the Levant – decorate Merimde Culture pottery; and certain pottery-manufacturing methods used by the el-Omari Culture are similar to those found in the Levant.
Further south, in Middle Egypt, another cultural group had developed
in the region of modern el-Badari – referred to as ‘Badarians’ by scholars.
From 4400 to 4000 BCE, Badarian material culture, including their distinctive pottery, could be found at sites dotted across Upper Egypt, south of their heartland. Archae
ologists have also discovered Badarian stone arrowheads in the Faiyum, indicating some degree of contact with their northern neighbours. Unlike the Delta population at this time, however, the Badarians also had access to copper, which they hammered into shape (as opposed to casting), creating tools, beads, and decorative pins, among other items. They probably gained this copper directly from Levantine groups mining across the Red Sea in the Sinai; the Badarians placed Red Sea shells in their graves and sometimes buried their dead in the Wadi Hammamat – a route through
the Eastern Desert, connecting the Nile Valley with the Red Sea – showing that they knew this region well; it was therefore probably somewhere along the Red Sea coast that they met and traded with these Levantine miners.
At the same time, the increasing aridity of the Western Desert contin-
ued to force people eastward, out of the dying savannah and into Middle Egypt; these settled among the Badarians, bringing along their own material culture, which the Badarians adopted. Nubians of the Abkan Culture (see below) travelled north too, and had a similarly strong influence on the Badarians; for one, the Badarians started producing black-topped pottery, characteristic of Nubian material culture, and adopted Abkan stone tools.
The Abkan Culture flourished in Nubia between the Nile’s Second and
Third Cataracts from the start of the fifth millennium BCE. They relied mainly on fishing and gathering to sustain themselves, and so built their settlements close to the Nile. They may have bred and raised goats on a small-scale too. Though producing their own distinctive pottery and stone War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 3
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4 War and Trade with the Pharaohs
tools, the Abkan Culture was connected with another Nubian group, who
lived further south along the Nile: the people of the Khartoum Neolithic ( ca. 4900–3800 BCE). Unlike the Abkan people, these kept domesticated cattle and grew crops.
As the years passed, each of these cultures continued to evolve, expanding their territory, merging, developing their technology, and influencing one another. In fact, by 4000 BCE, they had changed so radically that north-east Africa’s cultural map had been rewritten. The various cultures of Egypt’s north had by now coalesced into one dominant group: the Lower Egyptian
Culture (also referred to by scholars as the Maadi-Buto Culture); in Middle Egypt and Upper Egypt, the Badarians had given way to the Naqada Culture (named after the settlement of Naqada); and in Lower Nubia, a Nubian
culture called the A-Group lived concurrently with, and then replaced (or developed from), the Abkan Culture in the Second Cataract region. To the west, other distinct cultures continued to live in the oases and around the increasingly dry water sources of the expanding Sahara. Meanwhile, to the east, in the Levant, there were numerous farming villages, housing people who made high quality arts and crafts, tools and weapons, and already knew how to smelt copper. These mined in the Wadi Araba, on the modern border between Jordan and Israel, and procured turquoise from southern Sinai.
The Western Desert
With the slow transformation of northern Africa’s savannah into a desert zone, various groups moved in search of better living conditions, and in particular, sources of water. One such group, the Libyan Culture, originally lived at Dunqul Oasis, near the First Cataract, but moved when conditions became drier in around 5000 BCE. At nearby Dakhla Oasis, a group known
as the Bashendi Culture seasonally visited until around 3000 BCE, when
they were replaced there by a sedentary group called the Sheikh Muftah
Culture, primarily known by their pottery. The Sheikh Muftah Culture
interacted with people along the Nile Valley, from whom they received pottery of Nile clay and copper objects brought from the Levant.
The Lower Egyptian Culture and the Levant
From as early as 4000 BCE, people from the southern Levant – already
well-established in the wider trade network from the north and east – were crossing the Sinai into the Delta, bringing along their own possessions and War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 4
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Another World 5
sometimes leaving behind their distinctive pottery in Egypt. Seasonal camps even existed along the north Sinai coast, used by travellers who spent at least some of their time living in the region. Some Egyptians, although seemingly fewer in number, had similarly crossed eastwards into the southern Levant.
Over the following centuries, not only were trade goods exchanged, but
ideas too: Levantine traders may have introduced mud-brick construction techniques to the Delta, as well as beer production, better pottery production, metallurgy, and in particular, the increased use of copper.
One group of Levantine settlers, perhaps motivated by drought, moved
to Buto in the Nile Delta early in the fourth millennium BCE; although these individuals initially made typically Levantine vessels from local clay, and for a time afterwards created hybrid vessels, uniting Egyptian and Levantine styles, they slowly acculturated to the Lower Egyptian Culture and were eventually totally absorbed. They even abandoned their wheel-turning
method of making pottery vessels. Later, trade goods continued to arrive in Buto from the Levant through exchange, including pottery vessels, and items of flint and copper. Because of the presence of Syrian pottery at Buto, the settlement may also have had a seafaring connection with the northern Levant.
People from the Levant were also well-known at the village of Maadi –
today a southern suburb of Cairo. Sometime between 4000 and 3500 BCE,
the people of Maadi were met with a curious sight: not only had Levantine traders decided to settle down in the north of the village, but they were digging great pits in the ground, creating subterranean dwellings for themselves, following construction techniques similar to those found in the Beersheba Valley, just across the Sinai in modern Israel. Some were oval, although one was rectangular with a roof supported by a single column.
Within these subterranean homes, the traders stored pottery vessels in the floor, and kept spindle whorls for weaving, as well as flint knives – everything that they might need while awaiting their next trip across the Sinai into the Levant.
Until losing importance in around 3500 BCE, Maadi prospered because
of its control of trade routes. The villagers reared animals, including cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs, made pottery by hand, and stored their grain in silos.
They sent some of this grain to the Levant to be traded for cast copper items (there’s no evidence for a metallurgical workshop at the village), such as tools and ingots, which entered the village in great quantities. Mined just across the Sinai at Timna or at the Wadi Araba, and cast by expert craftsmen, these copper items are the first known in the Delta. Levantine traders War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 5
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6 War and Trade with the Pharaohs
brought oils, cedar, stone items, such as basalt discs and bowls, and high quality flint tools too. The ‘foreign style’ of imported Levantine vessels must have been attractive to the Maadi villagers, because they made their own copies. In return for such goods, as well as the previously mentioned grain, the villagers may have exported Nile catfish bones for use as arrowheads, for these have been found piled up within vessels. The Maadi villagers also traded with people from southern Egypt, normally referred to as Naqadans during this phase of Egyptian history (more about these below). Although the Naqadans had no permanent presence at Maadi, they did exchange their own goods at the village, including pottery vessels, cosmetic palettes (used for grinding up eye makeup) and mace-heads, seemingly in return for copper, obsidian, turquoise, and lapis lazuli. At the same time, the Maadi villagers imported Nubian goods, such as leopard skins and ivory.
Located in the central Delta region, another key Predynastic village
was Tell el-Farkha. This replaced Maadi as the Delta’s
main trading centre with the south and east in around 3550 BCE. The villagers took full advantage of their wide-reaching trade connections (some gold beads may have even come from as far away as Jordan), using their newfound prosperity to develop their mud-brick architecture and beer brewing skills. In fact, under the Lower Egyptian Culture, the village boasted an extensive beer production area – apparently the earliest brewery in the world. If, as thought, they were sending this beer to the Levant, they can perhaps also claim to have created the world’s first ‘export beer.’ Like their trading predecessors at Maadi, the people of Tell el-Farkha were similarly intrigued by the foreign vessels brought by traders to their village, to the extent that some kept imported vessels in their homes, and even created their own imitations.
The Rise of Naqada Culture and Its Connections with the
A-Group
While the Lower Egyptian Culture was busy developing their relations with the Levant, in southern Egypt, around 4000 BCE, another distinct culture had developed, with major centres at Abydos, Naqada, and Hierakonpolis, and associated settlements a little further north and south; as a whole, this is referred to as the Naqada Culture. The Naqadans appear to have co-existed with the Badarians before absorbing their territory, and may even have been a related culture. Just like the Badarians, the early Naqadans continued to use copper, hammering it into shape to make harpoons and bracelets, among other objects, and sourced gold and electrum from Nubia and the Eastern War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 6
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Another World 7
Desert. Their other trade connections were far more wide-reaching: the
owner of Tomb 1863 at Naqada, from around 3600 BCE, was buried with
a cylinder seal, probably from Mesopotamia, and a tomb dated from 4000–
3500 BCE contained lapis lazuli from Afghanistan; these foreign prestige goods probably entered Egypt via Buto, brought on ships from the northern Levant. (Indeed, it is perhaps through this route that various Mesopotamian motifs entered the Naqadan artistic repertoire.) The Naqadans’ fondness for luxury goods – and particularly foreign imports – led to their society becoming highly stratified by around 4000 BCE; basically, ownership of the right items flaunted your status for all to see, separating the haves from the have-nots. And in death, you made sure to take it with you.
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