Early in the fourth millennium BCE, the Naqadans shared many aspects
of their culture with that of the A-Group, a Nubian people, living just north and south of the Nile’s First Cataract. Culturally, however, the two slowly separated as the centuries passed: the A-Group moved south of the First Cataract, and eventually expanded down to the area around the Second
Cataract (although some continued to live north of Aswan too). Living in a semi-nomadic and stratified society, A-Group Nubians travelled from
campsite to campsite, and buried their dead in oval or rectangular graves, along with items reflecting their personal wealth: pottery, jewellery, female figurines, and Naqadan imports.
In exchange for Naqadan beer, wine, flint knives, cosmetic palettes, and stone vessels (among many other items), A-Group Nubians traded ebony
and ivory, animal skins, ostrich eggs, and – perhaps most importantly – gold, sourcing many of their luxury goods from further south in Upper Nubia. To facilitate the movement of these items, the Egyptians and A-Group Nubians established trading outposts along the Nile, with one important outpost constructed at Elephantine in around 3300 BCE; this area would be closely associated with trade for the rest of Egyptian history (in fact, the Ancient Egyptian name for the nearby town of Aswan was swenet, meaning ‘trade,’ from which the modern name derives). Another outpost, active from around 3500 BCE, and for 500 years afterwards, was at Khor Daoud, close to the Wadi Allaqi in Nubia; this outpost had 578 storage pits, seemingly for oil, wine, and beer.
The Expansion of Naqada Culture: 3500 BCE
By around 3500 BCE, Naqadan culture had already spread across Upper
Egypt and into Lower Nubia. Northern Egypt would be their next target.
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8 War and Trade with the Pharaohs
over the following centuries the Naqadans came to be the dominant culture in the region. Lower Egyptian Culture vanished from existence, perhaps in part due to their peaceful acceptance and assimilation of southern material culture, and in part because of forceful domination. Although there’s little evidence for warfare between the north and south, the Naqadans certainly enjoyed celebrating violence. Symbols of strength and power were an important aspect of Naqadan art: they produced ceremonial mace-heads, for example, and among the painted decoration of Tomb 100 at Hierakonpolis, there’s an early scene of a man smiting an unfortunate victim (imagery known as ‘smiting scenes’).
The Naqadan expansion can be neatly illustrated by returning to Tell
el-Farkha. After an increase in Naqadan goods – and thus interaction –
by around 3300 BCE, the village was totally dominated by their southern neighbours. An extensive domestic area, including the massive brewery,
was destroyed, and upon its ruins, the Naqadans built a huge residence and storage area – a complex that would often be rebuilt over the coming years.
Levantine pottery, seal impressions, and tokens – all evidence of the building having a major role in trade between the east and south – were kept there. This building was eventually destroyed by fire, and replaced by an administrative-cultic centre; nevertheless, this new complex continued to serve as a storage area for Levantine imports.
The main imports from the Levant at Naqadan-controlled Tell el-Farkha
were wine, olive oil, copper, and bitumen. In return, the Naqadans offered grain, meat, and probably also beer and pork. The only pig bones found by archaeologists at Tell el-Farkha were the parts with the least meat, suggesting that the Naqadans sent the meat-rich parts of the pigs elsewhere. The Naqadans may also have exported Nile fish to the Levant: archaeologists found copper harpoons at Tell el-Farkha, as well as other evidence for a fishing industry, but – curiously – no fish bones. Nile fish bones have, however, been discovered in the Levant, contemporary with this phase of Tell el-Farkha.
Interactions with Nubia and the Levant at Unification
Towards the end of the fourth millennium BCE, Egypt as a whole became
politically and culturally unified under a single king. This marks the end of the Predynastic era and the first phase of Egypt’s Pharaonic Period: the Early Dynastic Period, covering the 1st and 2nd Dynasties ( ca. 3100–2584
BCE). However, it still isn’t exactly clear when, and under whom, unification occurred, a matter further complicated by the identification of a number of obscure yet powerful ‘proto-kings’ that precede the traditional 1st Dynasty, War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 8
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referred to by Egyptologists as ‘Dynasty 0.’ Typically, however, Egypt’s first true king is thought to be King Narmer, last ruler of Dynasty 0, with Hor Aha normally cited as the first king of the 1st Dynasty.
One Dynasty 0 ‘proto-king’ was buried within Tomb U-j at Abydos, a
large burial that contained a great number of imported goods, emphasizing its owner’s importance: among them was a large obsidian bowl – the obsidian probably imported from Ethiopia – and 500 wine vessels, many possi-
bly imported from the Levant. The tomb also contained the earliest known hieroglyphs, inscribed on small labels once attached to grave goods; although there’s currently no consensus on how these labels should be read, it’s possible that they refer to the royal estates from which the goods were sent.
While the Egyptians were consolidating their territory, a centralized
kingdom was also developing in northern Nubia under the A-Group. By
this time, A-Group Nubians had settled at Dakka and Afia, as well as at Qustul, near the Second Cataract of the Nile, where they built the largest and wealthiest graves in A-Group Nubia, either for rich members of
the elite or for their kings. The graves of these late A-Group Nubians, and in particular those at Qustul, included large amounts of imported pottery and stone vessels from Egypt. Among the Egyptian imports unearthed at
Qustul, for example, archaeologists found a breccia-mace head, a copper spearhead, cosmetic palettes, and maces with handles sheathed in gold. The A-Group also imported some items from the Levant, which probably passed through Egyptian traders. Markings made by the A-Group on official seals, placed on goods, might connect these items with individual Nubian chiefs, and so could represent the first steps towards a Nubian writing system.
At this point, late in the fourth millennium BCE, the Egyptians and the A-Group Nubians still enjoyed friendly relations. Egyptian and A-Group
traders continued to meet at Elephantine to exchange goods, and the typically A-Group practice of cattle burial is attested at Hierakonpolis in Upper Egypt. Archaeologists have also excavated an A-Group grave at Abu Sir
el-Malaq in Middle Egypt, showing that at least one Nubian lived and died far from home. Despite the increasing cultural separation between them, for the time being, ideas and goods continued to flow between Egypt and Nubia.
Meanwhile, in an unexpected move, the Egyptians decided to establish colonies among the villages of the southern Levant, enabling them to take greater control of the eastern trade route. Their main base of operations was at Tell es-Sakan, close to the Levant’s Mediterranean coast, at the end of the northern Sinai trail from Egypt. Built in an entirely Egyptian architectural style on a previously untouched site (and with almost every object found there Egyptian War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 9
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10 War and Trade with the Pharaohs
too), this served as the administrative heart of this newly envisioned trading operation. Dated to Dynasty 0 (with the name of King Narmer found on one pottery sherd), its first incarnation was unfortified, but soon after a defensive wall was constructed with towers or bastions – the oldest fortification known to be built by the Ancient Egyptians (though representations of fortified walls are known in Predynastic art). During excava
tions, archaeologists found silos and ovens, Egyptian stone vessels, and clay jar sealings that bore impressions from Egyptian cylinder-seals. There were also a great many wine jars, suggesting that wine was the major export passing through this base into Egypt.
From Tell es-Sakan, the Egyptians managed various nearby satellite colonies. Among them was En Besor – much smaller than Tell es-Sakan – located close to a source of fresh water, where caravans could resupply. A typically Egyptian mud-brick construction, used as a storehouse for the movement of goods, within the building at En Besor, around twelve men placed Egyptian seals on goods passing through, ‘registering’ their presence, and ate using Egyptian kitchenware made from local clay. Other potential Egyptian ‘colonies,’ include Tel Ikhbeineh, Tel Erani, and Tel Maahaz, all close to Tell es-Sakan. Passing through these bases, Levantine wine, grain, copper, scented oils, bitumen, resins, wood, and perhaps even people, entered Egypt. And in return, the Egyptians sent luxury goods, such as stone vessels and jewellery.
Egyptians also lived further north, among the population of Levantine
towns, perhaps acting as traders: some burials at Azor contained Egyptian goods, interred with Egyptians who died there. Other items have been found at Jericho, Gezer, and Megiddo, among many others. And at Nahal Tillah, about 35 km east of En Besor, archaeologists excavated an Egyptian-style burial –
perhaps the body of a local person emulating Egyptian burial practices.
Symbolic and True Warfare
It’s difficult to say whether the people of the Lower Egyptian Culture
accepted the domination of the Naqadans without resistance. From violent scenes depicted on ceremonial items, such as commemorative palettes –
slabs of stone, used as prestige items for display – Egyptologists once argued that the south had attacked the north, forcing unification upon them. The Battlefield Palette, for example, now in the British Museum, depicts a lion tearing into a hapless enemy, while fallen foes lie on the ground nearby, picked at by birds. The Bull Palette shows bulls trampling enemies and cities under attack. It’s perhaps not going too far to suggest that the lion and bull motifs on these items represent the king defeating his enemies.
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The most frequently cited proof of violent unification is the Narmer
Palette, discovered at Hierakonpolis and now in the Egyptian Museum,
Cairo. On one side, this piece depicts King Narmer of Dynasty 0 smiting an enemy, with fallen or fleeing enemies in the register below. On the reverse, the king walks in a procession before two rows of decapitated foes, their heads placed between their legs. In the register below, the necks of two fantastical creatures are tied, perhaps representing the unification of the Two Lands –
the north and south. And in the final register at the bottom, a bull, perhaps representing the king, tramples an enemy and attacks a fortified town.
Although such imagery may suggest a violent invasion of the north,
we must remember that scenes of animals, fighting, hunting, and execu-
tion are found across the Predynastic Period on a variety of objects. Rather than expressions of history, they could instead be expressions of ideology: the elimination of disorder and the establishment of maat – a fundamental concept in Egyptian philosophy, representing balance, order, justice, and correct action. These images, rather than being thinly veiled allusions to historical battles, could simply show that the Egyptian concept of maat was present from the very beginning of their civilization, representing the triumph of order over chaos.
Inventing Enemies
At the close of the fourth millennium BCE, the Egyptians suddenly developed a more aggressive attitude towards their neighbours to the south and east. Why this happened, we can only speculate, but it was perhaps a result of the Egyptians wanting to remove the ‘middlemen’ from the trade networks.
From the south, the Egyptians craved the exotic items of Upper (south-
ern) Nubia and beyond, so they aggressively expanded their sphere of
influence deeper and deeper into Lower Nubia, creating conflict with the A-Group. Glimpses of what happened next can be seen in two rock carvings at Gebel Sheikh Suleiman, just south of Abu Simbel: the first carving shows the serekh of an Egyptian king (a royal symbol, normally containing a king’s name) holding a Nubian prisoner by the neck, while to the right, a further prisoner, with an arrow in his chest, is tied to a boat. Four drowned enemies are beneath. In the second carving, there’s a large scorpion, probably representing an Egyptian king, and three figures: one bound, one holding a weapon, and the other holding a bow and arrow. As these carvings
show, Egypt’s friendly relationship with Lower Nubia had ended. Violent raids must have become common. In a desperate attempt to save themselves, War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 11
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the A-Group abandoned Qustul – the probable capital of their emerging
kingdom that would never be – but it was a futile move: by 2800 BCE, the A-Group, as a distinct cultural entity, had disappeared from existence, leaving Lower Nubia depopulated for the next 400 years. The Egyptians and
Nubians, up until this point culturally intertwined, now firmly parted ways.
The people of the southern Levant – the Egyptians’ trading partners for many centuries – received equally hostile treatment; with most of Egypt’s eastern trade imports now arriving directly by ship from the northern
Levant, the Egyptians saw no reason to treat their former allies as friends: from now on, Egypt’s kings would depict them as defeated enemies, bound as prisoners, worthy only of being crushed beneath their feet. King Qaa of the 1st Dynasty embellished a rod with a bound Asiatic. On an ivory label, King Den, also of the 1st Dynasty, smites an ‘easterner,’ his mace held high with one hand, while grasping the hair of his cowering victim with the other.
King Sekhemib of the 2nd Dynasty called himself ‘conqueror of a foreign land.’ Just as they’d done with the A-Group in Nubia, the Egyptians had removed the pesky ‘middleman’ of the southern Levant.
The city of Byblos, in modern Lebanon, now became Egypt’s most
important trading contact in the Near East, to the extent that one Egyptian word for ‘boat’ is literally ‘Byblos boat.’ A major source of high quality Lebanese cedar, Byblos held a key position on the wider Mediterranean and Asian trade networks, enabling its traders to provide the Egyptians with many of the prestige goods they desired – goods that previously entered Egypt via the southern Levant. And so, with the land route across the Sinai into the Levant increasingly irrelevant, midway through the 1st Dynasty the Egyptians abandoned the administrative-cultic building at Tell el-Farkha in the Delta, followed by their colonial outposts in the southern Levant.
By the end of the Early Dynastic Period in around 2584 BCE, Egypt had
already risen as a state, wiped out a unique Nubian culture, ruined relations with the southern Levant, solidified relations with Upper Nubia and the northern Levant, and had woven itself into the long distance trade networks of the then known world. Prestige items – commonly agreed symbols of status, marking the high from the low – flowed into Egypt from the south and east, feeding the insatiable hunger of the newborn state’s developing elite for the exotic. The Egyptians had tasted power, invented enemies, and asserted themselves on the world stage. Their actions over the following centuries would expand and strengthen their growing State, develop their sense of identity, and ensure that their civilization would be remembered forever.
Enter the Old Kingdom.
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Chapter 2
Building Foreign Relations (and Pyramids)
(2584–2117 BCE)
The Old Kingdom begins with the reign of King Djoser, first
ruler
of the 3rd Dynasty and owner of the world’s first pyramid: the Step
Pyramid at Saqqara. It would not be the last. The need to manage
projects as complex as pyramid-building led to the ongoing development of the Egyptian State, creating an increasingly complex bureaucracy. Over successive centuries, the government expanded, and non-royals began to be appointed to positions of importance. And just like the royals and elite of earlier times, this new elite vaunted their status through fabulous monuments, their proximity to the king, and their access to luxury goods, such as exotic, foreign imports. As the Old Kingdom progressed, high-level courtiers also began to decorate their tomb chapels with idealized autobiographies, highlighting their outstanding achievements in life, in order to ‘wow’ visitors into leaving offerings for their souls. One particular courtier, a man named Weni, left a detailed account of his life as a military leader, and describes the activities of the Old Kingdom army.
To gain a flavour of this period, there’s no better place to start.
The Adventures of Weni
In around 2265 BCE, an Egyptian noble named Weni was called upon by his king to assemble a vast army and lead a series of campaigns against Egypt’s enemies; although undoubtedly an important honour, this may have come as some surprise to him, for his career up to that point had required no military leadership skills whatsoever. A privileged individual, Weni had grown up at court under King Teti of the 6th Dynasty, and began his career supervising a storehouse. Soon after, he’d been promoted to overseer of the robing-room of King Pepi I, a position that gave him the ear of the king and, we must assume, some level of influence (and fashion sense). From there, he rose to become senior warden of Nekhen, a judicial role (which saw him acting as sole judge in a probable case of attempted regicide, masterminded in the royal harem). So, from a quick glance at Weni’s CV, a career in law or fashion might seem the best fit, not leading men on the battlefield.
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