History of Egypt

A determining factor in the social evolution of the Predynastic Period was the rise of a number of different kinds of settlements. Beside the country regions where people lived in villages, towns began to form, early urban centers. Hierakonpolis, a town south of Luxor on the west bank of the river, provides an illustration of this development, and with its cult of Horus of Hierakonpolis it was regarded in pharaonic times as one of the kingdom’s places of origin. Moreover, the extensive prehistoric legacy of the town has been relatively well studied in recent fieldwork.There is evidence that a settlement had existed in the area since the beginning of the Naqada period, covering a length of 3 km and a breadth of about 400 m, and situated on the strips of desert land bordering the fertile country. The early settlement also extended for up to 2 km into a large desert wadi entering the Nile Valley at Hierakon­polis. We should not, of course, picture this large area entirely covered with buildings. Instead, it consisted of scattered (but relatively close) villages and farms and their burial grounds. However, these finds do prove that there was an increase in population density. There are traces of rectangular houses here even in the Naqada I period, in contrast to the simple round huts found elsewhere.During the Naqada II Period and up to Early Dynastic times there was progressive concentration of the population in the region of the town itself, situated on a broad height of sedimentary soil near the mouth of the wadi in the fertile area. It can also be shown to have had temple precincts and fortifications since the Early Dynastic Period. Traces of specialized crafts occur repeatedly in the extended settlement area.The furnaces, obviously designed with great skill, arc particularly striking. Some of them are built into the wind channels of the sides of the wadi, so that very high firing temperatures, necessary for manufac­turing ceramic ware of the highest quality, could be achieved by natural ventilation. There are also workshops where stone vessels were hollowed out and polished, and for working flint and boring holes in decorative beads. Kilns for drying grain also indicate the development of techniques for the preserving and storing of foodstuffs.

Such finds illustrate one important function of these urban centers. Specialized crafts were concentrated here as the pivot on which the exchange of craft goods and agricultural produce turned. However, trade beyond the immediate vicinity must also have been linked with the network of the regional economy. This was a place where supply and demand met, practical and organizational skills were concentrated, and information was exchanged: in fact the emphasis was on all the classic functions of a city as a form of settlement and a way of life. As it happened, Ancient Egypt did not take the path leading to the city state, but towns played a major part in its own development into a state.

It was here that an elite social class formed and institutional dominance was established, an aspect tangibly presented by the burial grounds linked to the settlements. In fact the development of the lavish funerary cult sketched out even in the earliest phases of prehistoric Upper Egyptian culture was now accelerating. The pits dug for inter­ment become larger and rectangular, their walls were partially lined with masonry or reinforced with wooden planks, and side chambers to hold grave goods began to be made. The grave goods themselves became more and more extensive: a concentration of particularly fine objects is found in the tombs, in contrast to people’s ordinary everyday utensils. Naturally not all the tombs were lavish to the same degree. Indeed, the increasingly long and varied scale of grave goods expresses an ever-extending range of social distinctions.Very large tombs of this period now stood in their own small burial grounds. The type of the elite cemetery was emerging. Hier-akonpolis has two such areas, taking over from each other throughout the period from the end of the Naqada I culture to Early Dynastic times. The combination of rich tombs with small, exclusive cemeteries in use over a long period shows that these were not individual cases of high-ranking persons: instead, they are the burial grounds of a whole social class, never comprising a large number of people, and deliber­ately set apart from the rest of society.The expense these people could lavish on their tombs shows in itself that they must have occupied a key position in the economic network of the urban centers. In fact one can easily imagine the courts of the elite as centers for interaction between agriculture and crafts­manship, the local economy and external trade, in just the same way as the organizational structure of the palace economy functioned at the king’s court in the early Old Kingdom.A lucky discovery provides us with more detailed information about the role of the predynastic elite: that of the famous Painted Tomb of Hierakonpolis. To the south of the settlement, it was probably part of a Naqada II elite cemetery that, unfortunately, has never been systematically excavated. Architecturally, the tomb is conventional if very large: a rectangular pit 5 m long, over 2 m wide and about 1.5 m deep. The walls are lined with masonry and the room is divided by a partition projecting into it to create a side chamber for grave goods. Judging by the remains of the grave goods themselves, there can be no doubt that the tomb dates from the second half of the Naqada II Period (Phase II-c). However, it is the wall painting on the plaster of the burial chamber that makes it so spectacular, and unique among the finds here.The main picture runs around three adjacent walls in a great frieze. The pictorial motifs are depicted separately on the background. The main line consists of six ships, five painted white and with curved hulls, the sixth distinguished by its black color and high bows. The ships are surrounded by depictions of hunting: huntsmen and hounds pursuing gazelles and ibex, and animals caught in traps. However, the scene does not remain in this everyday sphere. At one point a hero approaches two lions swinging his mace; elsewhere he is taming two lions in the character of “Master of the Beasts.” Finally, there are pictures of men fighting, and underneath, in a perfunctorily added vignette, a depiction of the victor using his mace to smash the skulls of three enemies he has seized. This motif, the “Smiting of the Foes,” became the great emblem of the power of the Egyptian king, endlessly reiterating and elaborating his claim to dominion until the end of pharaonic culture. A very recent discovery takes us a step further: on the outskirts of the desert, near the settlement area of Hierakonpolis, a palace and a ritual precinct of the same period have been identified. The reconstruction produced by the excavators shows a large oval courtyard surrounded by impressive buildings made of posts and matting. The design and the style of the buildings clearly anticipate the royal ritual precincts of the Early Dynastic Period, in particular the sed festival complex in the tomb of Djoser in Saqqara.