The Nubian Pastoral Culture as Link between Egypt and Africa: A View from the Archaeological Record

Egypt in its African Context Proceedings of the conference held at The Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009 Edited by Karen Exell BAR International Series 2204 2011 Published by Archaeopress Publishers of British Archaeological Reports Gordon House 276 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7ED England bar@archaeopress.com www.archaeopress.com BAR S2204 Egypt in its African Context: Proceedings of the conference held at The Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009 © Archaeopress and the individual authors ISBN 978 1 4073 0760 2 Front cover illustration: Inlaid gold pectoral from El-Riqqeh, Middle Kingdom. The Manchester Museum 5966 Back cover illustration: Fertility figurine, provenance unknown. The Manchester Museum 10990 ©The Manchester Museum (with thanks to Steve Devine) Printed in England by Blenheim Colour Ltd All BAR titles are available from: Hadrian Books Ltd 122 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7BP England www.hadrianbooks.co.uk The current BAR catalogue with details of all titles in print, prices and means of payment is available free from Hadrian Books or may be downloaded from www.archaeopress.com  The Nubian Pastoral Culture as Link between Egypt and Africa: A View from the Archaeological Record Maria Carmela Gatto Yale University Abstract the chrono-cultural sequence are related to climatic The cultural relation between Ancient Egypt and Africa is variations. After a major arid event during the late here analysed from an archaeological point of view Pleistocene, which completely dried up the Sahara, highlighting the role of Nubia as link between the two. forcing the people to cluster along the Nile (and in the Nubia strongly influenced the Egyptian culture at its Central Sahara massifs), the Holocene period was formative stage during the 5th and 4th millennia BC. At characterised by better climatic conditions due to a the same time the nomadic pastoral way of life, which northward shifting of the monsoon summer rain regime first developed in Nubia, was adopted by most of the (Kuper and Kropelin 2006; Wendorf and Schild 2001). northern African cultures. This pastoral background is The desert was again settled, although cyclical minor arid what links Egypt to Africa. spells required the population to move back and forth from the desert to the Nile or to remain in the oases. From Keywords: Africa, Egypt, Nubia, pastoral Neolithic, the 4th millennium BC another major arid event forced social complexity. the people to concentrate in the oases area and to settle more permanently to the Nile Valley. Introduction According to Hassan (1988, 144) and many other On the role of Egypt in the development of African scholars after him (see Anselin, this volume), the strong cultures there exists a long-lasting, and mostly similarity encountered between the Western Desert contradictory, scholarship. On the one hand, supported by Neolithic material culture and that of the Badarian can be the Ancient Egyptian viewpoint, a cultural independency explained by the massive migration of the desert people of Egypt from other African cultures is claimed. On the to Middle Egypt because of the incipient aridity in their other hand, most North African countries and ethnic territory. The work by Kuper and Kropelin (2006) groups declare a strong and direct bond with Egypt. I supports this perspective. According to their results, the myself have heard people in a small village at the settlement pattern between desert and valley varies southern border between Libya and Algeria claiming their throughout the Holocene. If the Nile Valley (particularly descent from the great Egyptian civilisation. The Nubia) was mostly settled during the Late Pleistocene Afrocentric ideas of Cheikh Anta Diop (1974, 1981) and and from the 5th millennium BC onwards, the desert was his theories of a ‘Black Egypt’ are the extreme settled during the Early and Middle Holocene, when the consequences of such beliefs. Nile Valley was basically empty of human occupation. As a matter of fact, no or scanty evidence of human That Egypt, as an African country, was directly involved occupation dated to these periods has been found in the in the cultural dynamics of its continent has been broadly Egyptian Nile Valley (problems in site preservation might accepted. The many essays published in a volume edited be a reason for this). However, this is not the case for the by O’Connor and Reid in 2003 (Ancient Egypt in Africa, middle Nile Valley (corresponding to the geographical Walnut Creek, CA, Left Coast Press/London, UCL), and region of Nubia). In fact, for Nubia a complete those in this volume, have enriched the debate and occupational sequence is well attested throughout the increased knowledge of the issue over the course of the Pleistocene and the Holocene. This makes sense if it is last decade. Nowadays support for the Egypt-Africa assumed that not only desert people were going back to connection comes from different fields of research, the valley during arid spells, but that they also had a mainly archaeological, linguistic and genetic, but to what mobile lifestyle with seasonal movements between the extent and in what way Egypt interacted with the African two ecosystems. The archaeological record for the world still remains to be clarified. What the Middle Holocene reports only rather small temporary archaeological work is bringing to light, though, is the campsites in the desert, and along the valley settlements irrelevance of the race-based theory, as cultural identities are rather seasonal. The sites taken into consideration for do not necessarily match or relate to race. Kuper and Kropelin’s study are only those with good radiometric dates. Thus, all the old data is left aside, In this paper I will focus on the formative period of the creating a gap in the valley occupation that does not Egyptian civilisation, as this is the period when the coincide with the reality of the archaeological record. Ancient Egyptian social identity was forged and when its African foundations are easier to detect. Including the Nubian evidence in the scenario gives a completely different perspective on the issue. The The Origin of the Predynastic: Western Desert and cultural evidence found in the Nabta-Kiseiba region of Central Sudan the southern Western Desert is indeed part of the Nubian With the intensification of archaeological research in the cultural tradition, while that from the oases region Egyptian Western Desert evidence of prehistoric human belongs to a different cultural unit (Gatto 2002a). The occupation has been consistently found in both the oases Badarian derives the lithic technology primarily from the region and the playas region to the south. Major breaks in Oases Neolithic (Holmes 1989). 21 EGYPT IN ITS AFRICAN CONTEXT In his chapter in the Ancient Egypt in Africa volume pastoralism along the whole Nile Valley. Cultural (2003), Wengrow had the correct perception of looking boundaries, as unbounded constructs, move through time south to find proof of the African foundation of Egypt. for different reasons. Generally speaking, during the According to him ‘the similarities between Early prehistoric period and part of the historic period Nubia as Neolithic burials in Middle Egypt and Central Sudan a cultural territory included the Nile Valley between the extend beyond the treatment and ornamentation of the First and the Fourth Cataract and the nearby deserts. corpse to the deposition of functionally similar artefacts within graves’ (Wengrow 2003, 127). However, there is a Nubia and the African Neolithic Model fundamental assumption in Wengrow’s article which The African pathway to food production differs leads to misinterpretations. Wengrow denies the evidence consistently from those developed in other areas of the of Early Holocene autochthonous cattle domestication in world. The Neolithisation in the Near East, Mesoamerica the Nabta-Kiseiba region of southern Western Desert (as and Eastern North America was primarily focused on the proposed by Wendorf and Schild 1980, 1998, 2001; and domestication of plants: it occurred in well-watered criticised among others by Grigson 2000; MacDonald localities with relatively abundant resources, and yield and MacDonald 2000; A. B. Smith 1986). Rather he was probably the major concern during intensification. In locates the beginning of the Neolithic in the late 5th Africa, Neolithisation was based on cattle domestication: millennium BC, when clear evidence of domestication is it occurred in unstable, marginal environments, and contemporarily present both in Egypt and Sudan predictability and scheduled consumption were the (Wengrow 2003, 126). Findings of domesticated cattle, driving forces behind the process (Marshall and dated to c. 7000 BC, have been reported in the past years Hildebrand 2002). So far, the earliest evidence for from the Kerma area (Honegger 2007; Honegger et al. domestic cattle in Nubia and Africa has been reported 2009). Although not so early as that discovered at Nabta, from Bir Kiseiba and Nabta Playa, dated to c. 8400 and the Kerma datum definitely pushes back in time the 7750 BC respectively (Gautier 1980, 1987, 2001; beginning of the Neolithic in the Middle Nile Valley, at Wendorf, Schild and Close 1984; Wendorf and Schild least between the Second Cataract and the Dongola 2001). Unfortunately the sample is small, poorly Reach. preserved and from unsealed cultural contexts. All this, together with the difficulties in finding clear evidence of Furthermore, the Sudanese sites Wengrow takes into morphological changes, has led to an ongoing criticism of consideration are only those associated with the the discovery (Clutton-Brock 1981; Grigson 2000; Khartoum Neolithic and located between the confluences Muzzolini 1993; A. B. Smith 1984, 1986; Wengrow of the White Nile with the Blue Nile and the Atbara 2003). River, that is to say, the Khartoum Region. The Early Neolithic phase in the Khartoum Region indeed dates to However, the Combined Prehistoric Expedition (CPE) the 5th millennium BC and no evidence for an earlier interpretation of the findings as domesticated was based date has been found so far. Between Badari and on an ecological assumption: without human Khartoum, however, there is an entire section of the Nile intervention, no wild cattle could survive in the unstable and surrounding deserts the archaeological record of environment of the desert (Wendorf, Schild and Close which Wengrow unfortunately does not mention at all. 1984; Wendorf and Schild 1998). Support for the CPE’s This region is known by the name of Nubia. hypothesis can be gathered from different sources. Cattle remains interpreted as domesticated and dated to 7000 Definition of Nubia BC were found in a stratified context at Wadi el-Arab, a In a traditional geographical definition Nubia is the recently discovered site in the Kerma region (Chaix 2009; section of the Nile Valley between the First and the Sixth Honegger 2007; Honegger et al. 2009). Although so far Cataract of the river: a ‘corridor’ linking Egypt to the the findings have been only briefly published, it seems to sub-Saharan regions of Africa (Adams 1977). Current have more secure morphological traits and stratigraphical anthropological and archaeological research suggests that provenance than the Nabta-Kiseiba findings, thus in spite this geographical definition is narrowly conceived given of the paucity of the sample, it is hard to question the the evidence of Nubian cultures, which cover a much interpretation. The Wadi el-Arab discovery confirms larger and more fluid area. A cultural definition of Nubia, autochthonous cattle domestication in Africa prior to the thus, must take into account the desert regions to the east arrival of the domesticated sheep/goat from the Levant (c. and west of the Nile, as well as the areas of exchange and 6000 BC; Close 1992). It also, and for the first time, interaction between Nubians and nearby people. locates such early evidence of domesticated cattle along the Nile Valley and not just in the desert. As a matter of Frontiers, as zones of cultural interface and fluidity in fact, the deserts and the Nile Valley were both part of the group affiliations, are socially charged places where territory seasonally in use by the population at that time. innovative cultural constructs are created and transformed (Lightfoot and Martinez 1995). In the Nubian case, its Morphological and genetic research seems to provide northern and southern frontiers became more fluid and further support for the topic. According to Grigson (1991, socially active by the 5th millennium BC, when Middle 2000) Egyptian cattle of the 4th millennium BC were and Upper Egypt, on one side, and the Khartoum Region morphologically distinct from Eurasian cattle (Bos on the other, became strongly influenced by the Nubian taurus) and Zebu (Bos indicus), meaning that African culture. This corresponds to the spread of cattle cattle may have been domesticated from the local wild 22    GATTO: THE NUBIAN PASTORAL CULTURE AS LINK BETWEEN EGYPT AND AFRICA Bos primigenius before the aforementioned date. to the south. Nevertheless, Grigson strongly questioned the Nabta- Kiseiba findings, because, according to her, they are not The arrival in Africa of domesticated sheep and goats conclusive enough to confirm the chronology of the from the Levant around 6000 BC seems to confirm a African domestication. Genetic studies indicate that the local and earlier domestication of cattle; in fact, only wild cattle in Eurasia and in Africa diverged 22,000 years populations already able to manage domesticated ago and suggest an autochthonous domestication for the livestock could have adopted the newcomers so easily, latter (Blench and MacDonald 2000; Bradly et al. 1996; spreading them very rapidly all over the Sahara. One of Caramelli 2006). Linguistic research also provides help in the arguments Grigson used against the CPE’s thesis supporting the CPE’s theory. The detailed work done by centred on: «whether people with a mobile lifestyle had a Ehret (2006) on linguistic stratigraphies in North-eastern level of social organisation complex enough to allow Africa revealed how terms connected with cattle herding them to achieve such a major co-operative step, bearing are older than those associated with agriculture, in mind that domestication of herbivores is usually chronologically placing their origin at the beginning of thought to have been associated with sedentism» the Holocene. (Grigson 2000). The Nubian Early Holocene pottery- producer groups were hunter-gatherers of the delayed- The zoological, genetic and linguistic studies thus not return type with a developed social organisation and well- only suggest an African origin for cattle domestication, structured ideas of ownership and collaboration. Thus but also provide a precise time frame and geographical these groups were perfectly able to manage the process of location which, generally speaking, fits well with that cattle domestication. proposed by the CPE. A further element which might give support to the matter comes from the archaeological According to the Scheduled Consumption Model record, namely the pottery. proposed by Marshall and Hildebrand (2002), hunter- gatherers, when settled in the marginal environment of During the period spanning the mid 7th-beginning 6th the Eastern Sahara at the beginning of the Holocene, millennium BC the population living along the Nile from domesticated cattle to ensure their predictable availability the Second Cataract to the Kerma Basin, in the Nabta- as a food source and for ritual purposes. Wild cattle were Kiseiba region and in the Atbai produced distinct pottery a predictable resource along the Nile Valley and a special traditions with zonally applied decorative patterns (Gatto and close relationship between this animal and the local 2002b, 2006a, in press a). The territorial dispersion of population dates back to at least the Final Palaeolithic these ceramics included both the valley and the desert, period. At Gebel Sahaba in the Toskha area, in a often overlapping one another but having their own graveyard found by the same CPE and dated to c. 12,000- specific territorial distribution, which likely corresponded 11,500 BC (Wendorf 1968, 954-95), burials with skulls to the cultural territory of one of the hunter-gatherer- of wild cattle were reported. At Qurta, in the Kom Ombo forager and cattle-keeper groups living in the area at that Plain, and at Wadi Abu Subeira, north of Aswan, rock time. drawings representing wild cattle were recently discovered and dated to the Final Palaeolithic (Huyge et From the beginning-first half of the 6th millennium BC al. 2007; Storemyr et al. 2008). The aforementioned (the chronology varies from area to area) a rocker packed evidence suggests that the strong and long-lasting tie dotted zigzag pattern, applied over all the exterior surface between the Nubian hunter-gatherer-fishers and the cattle and coupled with rim band decorations is characteristic was more than economic: in the Nile Valley the cattle had everywhere (the data from the Kerma region are still a symbolic significance prior to domestication (see scanty but seem to follow the same pattern; Gatto 2006c; Navajas Jiménez, this volume). The latter aspect might Honegger et al. 2009). Because pottery decoration is one have played a major role in securing the cattle presence in of the most common cultural markers, and it clearly has the desert, at least at the beginning of the process. this meaning throughout all of Nubian history (Gatto 2002a), this change in the pottery decoration may be The Final Palaeolithic population also developed an symptomatic of other changes in the society and economy intensive management of plant resources, as documented of the Early Holocene Nubian population. The change at Wadi Kubbaniya around 16,000 BC (Wendorf, Schild may be the decisive moment when cattle herding became and Close 1989). There, plants were harvested and the main economic activity, giving origin to the Neolithic processed on grinding stones. Wild cattle were part of the in Nubia and in Africa. The homogeneous pottery fauna recovered on site. The continuation of such activity tradition may be related to the new ‘Neolithic’ society. during the Early Holocene is well attested in the El Nabta and Al Jerar sites at Nabta-Kiseiba (Wendorf and Schild The southern Dongola Reach, as well as the Laqiya 1980, 2001). However, plant productivity was very much region and the Wadi Howar, were left aside from the vulnerable to variation in rainfall and the desert climatic Nubian territory at this time; they had their own traditions conditions were not stable enough to depend on them for with both northern and southern influences. Conversely, the development of agriculture. During the 7th the Fourth Cataract and the Nile-Atbara region, millennium BC, thanks to a favourable climate, plant demonstrate a heterogeneous assemblage of ceramics, productivity acquired a very important role in the indicating that these regions were areas of interface economy of the desert dwellers, maybe equally as between the Nubian tradition and the Khartoum tradition important as cattle herding. The climatic deterioration of   23 EGYPT IN ITS AFRICAN CONTEXT the 6th millennium BC caused the abandonment of plant As a matter of fact the oldest evidence of domesticated productivity in the desert, but it is likely that it continued grains in Nubia dates to the second half of the 5th along the Nile. Areas such as the Dongola Reach millennium BC, from the cemetery KDK1 in Kadruka. certainly were highly favourable for this kind of There, remains of barley glumes have been recorded in economic practice. Cattle were certainly better suited to many tombs (Reinold 2006, 158). The inaccessibility of the desert environment conditions because they could be domesticated grains for such a long time, and thus a quite moved to exploit different areas according to necessity late farming development in Nubia, forced the local (Marshall and Hildebrand 2002), and the Nubian deserts population to keep foraging autochthonous plants, mainly were particularly suitable for cattle: both the Nabta- sorghum. Unfortunately, evidence for a domestication of Kiseiba region and the Nubian Eastern Desert (or Atbai) the latter is very much more recent than the period under had plains with playas and wells, thus enough grasslands discussion here (Marshall and Hildebrand 2002). and water for herds. A shift towards plant consumption (of domesticated In Nubia it is difficult to understand the timing of the grains?) in the Neolithic population of Nubia (at least change from a pre-domesticated pastoral society (pottery- those living along the Nile) has been recorded in making, delayed-return hunter-gatherer-fisher and cattle- cemetery R12 at Kawa. The isotope analysis of human keepers) to a Neolithic society. As a matter of fact, most remains highlights a change in diet by the second half of of the activities connected with the Neolithic package in the 5th millennium BC (Iacumin 2008, 120). Of course, other areas of the world (including pottery) were already herding was still the main economic activity and the present in Nubia. Conversely, activities connected to a population, or part of it, divided its efforts between non-food producing economy (such as hunting-gathering foraging/farming along the Nile and herding in the desert. and fishing) continued to be present in the Neolithic Only during the Kerma period (c. 1700-1550 BC), with Nubian society. In fact, apart from the primary position the rise of a state society, did the two economic and taken by cattle domestication, the rest of the economic social segments became more sharply distinct (Jesse et al. spectrum of the Nubian population remained much the 2004; Lange 2006). From that time, however, the Nubian same, greatly relying on hunting, gathering and fishing economy developed into an agro-pastoral one, where the according to the ecological niches the population was pastoral component became fundamental to the exploiting, at least during the early phase of the Neolithic. construction of social identity and religious beliefs. In Along the Nile, of course, fishing was favoured over this sense cattle held a special place, not only because the hunting or herding, for which the desert was a better Nubians had had a strong relationship with wild cattle environment. As stated above, a hint of such a change since the Late Palaeolithic, but because, from a pastoral may be given by indicated by the pottery: variations in point of view, the cattle were far more precious than decorative techniques and patterns seem to show how the caprines. The bovine ability to reproduce is conditioned Nubian society adjusted to the new lifestyle. by many factors, such as the age of the cow, which has to be at least two years old in order to become pregnant, the The Widespread Nature of the Nubian Culture fact that she will only give birth once a year and to one From the end of the 6th millennium BC climate calf at a time (Dahl and Hjort 1983, 33), and the conditions started to deteriorate consistently and a long availability of pasture and water. Caprines, on the other seasonal occupation of the desert was no longer possible. hand, are fertile when a few months old and can give This also implied a shift towards a specialisation of the birth twice a year (therefore also during the arid season) economic activities performed there. Cattle and sheep- to more than one kid per time (Dahl and Hjort 1983, 90- goat husbandry, and hunting, were the basic activities of 3). the Nubian people in the desert during the Mid-Holocene, in addition to collecting raw materials. During the 5th millennium BC Nubian cultural boundaries became more fluid, probably as a result of As a consequence of such activities, the Nile Valley faced another major climatic variation. The monsoon regime an increase in the stable population and a need to use the retreated further south, this time affecting also the Valley’s subsistence potentiality as much as possible. Khartoum region of Central Sudan, and forcing the local Fishing and foraging/farming were the main activities population to adopt a pastoral nomad (Neolithic) lifestyle. that could be performed along the Nile; husbandry and At the same time, winter Mediterranean rainfall reached hunting as alternatives were limited. The Nubian section the Gilf Kebir plateau (Kropelin 2005) allowing pastoral of the Nile Valley, particularly the region from the First nomads the use of that ecosystem as well. Although to to the Third Cataract, is quite narrow, thus not suitable date there are no records of this kind, winter rains might for medium to large scale foraging/farming. The Kerma have influenced other areas of North-eastern Africa. Basin and the Seleim Basin were the only sections of the Nubian valley broad enough to sustain increased With the aim of enlarging their land availability and population density and large-scale foraging/farming. expanding cultural and economic relationships with northern regions, such as the oases region and the Delta It is worth remembering that domesticated grains reached (including the Fayum), the Nubians moved north towards northern Egypt from the Levant only at the end of the 6th Middle Egypt. This spreading trajectory is well recorded millennium BC and it probably took another millennium along the desert routes of the Western Desert parallel to or so for them to be adopted by the Nubian population. the river, connecting south-north the Second Cataract 24    GATTO: THE NUBIAN PASTORAL CULTURE AS LINK BETWEEN EGYPT AND AFRICA area, Dunqul and Kurkur Oases, and the Rayayna Desert outside the grave visible to the living. The grave is a kind (D. Darnell 2002, 2005, 2008; J. C. Darnell and D. of isolated and bounded world. Offerings are all placed Darnell 2009, in press); and east-west the valley with the inside the burial. They are clearly directed to the dead and eastern fringes of Kharga Oasis. Evidence of a Nubian- not to the living. For the community the necropolis was related presence is moreover reported in the Eastern already a demarcated space. In the desert, instead, the Desert, particularly in Wadi Atulla, a branch of Wadi landscape is marked by stone structures and stone tumuli. Hammamat (Friedman and Hobbs 2002), and Wadi el- They function as a medium for monumentalising and Lawi, in the Kom Ombo desert (Gatto 2005). Most of the ritualising the desert (the work of J. C. Darnell – 2002, aforementioned evidence, like the contemporary evidence 2007, in press – on the Predynastic rock art provides a found along the river in Middle Egypt, is defined as very good parallel for this). Tasian and Badarian (Brunton 1937; Brunton and Caton- Thompson 1928; Friedman and Hobbs 2002). So far Animal offerings, particularly bucrania, are another evidence of contemporary occupation in Upper Egypt is characteristic of Neolithic necropolises along the Nile lacking. This might be connected to the archaeological (Reinold 2006; Salvatori and Usai 2008). However, this research or to site preservation issues. As a matter of fact, latter feature is missing in the Badarian cemeteries. Here, there is no reason why Upper Egypt was not settled at though in only a few cemeteries, animal graves were this time. recorded, which are quite rare in southern cemeteries (Brunton and Caton-Thompson 1928). The relationship The commonalities between the Nubian Neolithic, on one with the animal world seems to have followed two side, and the Tasian, Badarian and Neolithic of different trajectories in Nubia and in Egypt. If in Nubia Khartoum, on the other, are the result of their strong ties. and in Khartoum the relationship with the offered animal They share features such as settlement patterns, economic is individual, in Middle Egypt it is communal. The strategy, material culture, particularly pottery, and animal graves are not related to a single human grave but religious and funerary practices. It must be said, though, usually to a cluster of graves from the same cemetery. A that the northern trajectory seems more important for the similar pattern can be found in the Early Naqada Nubians, with the result that they share more features cemeteries from the First Cataract area. This evidence, with their northern counterparts then with their southern initially defined as B-Group (Reisner 1910) and then ones. Pottery can be used as an example of this. The attributed to the Early A-Group (H. S. Smith 1966), has Black Topped wares, characteristic of the Nubian no parallel in the A-Group culture (Flores 2003; Gatto tradition up until the Meroitic period (300 BC-AD 300), 2006d; Roma 2010). Indirectly, and though slightly more are basically missing in the Khartoum Neolithic, where recent in date, this gives witness to the presence of a instead only a regional variant of the type, defined as Badarian-related population in Upper Egypt as well. Black Rimmed, developed during this period (Gatto 2002). Conversely, Black Topped wares, the oldest Social Complexity in Egypt and Nubia example of which dates to around 5000 BC and comes Contrary to what has previously been thought, pastoral from Nabta Playa (Gatto 2006b), are the most societies were able to develop social complexity to attain, characteristic ceramics of both the Tasian and Badarian in some instances, a state-level society, and the kingdom societies. The Tasian and Badarian societies were of of Kerma represents the ultimate result of the social course also influenced by other surrounding societies, but stratification achieved by the Nubian pastoral society. In they were not as influential as the Nubian society in Nubia the process started as early as the Early Holocene shaping their cultural identity. delayed-return hunter-gatherer cattle-keepers, and developing during the Early and Middle Holocene. At One of the major shared features of the pastoral this period, evidence for social inequality is primarily populations of Middle Egypt, Nubia and Khartoum is the detected in the funerary sphere. A rapid increase in social focus on funerary rather than domestic spaces, which is stratification occurred during the 5th and 4th millennium typical, for example, of Near East farming populations. BC as result of the new cultural relations between the For these mobile groups campsites served as temporal Nubian world, through Badari, and the Mediterranean loci of social activity where people could gather at a world, via the Delta. Being part of this process made it specific time of the year and for specific functions. Their possible for the Badarian culture to reach a high level of perception of land property and membership was more on complexity, which in few centuries developed into the a regional scale than on a settlement level. As Wengrow regional polities of Hierakonpolis, Naqada and Abydos (2003, 133) states: ‘Only in mortuary rites was the flux of and thereafter to a unified Egypt (c. 3100 BC). geographical and social space suspended, and the body of the individual, together with the objects which formed the If the Egyptian Predynastic took advantage of the Nubian nexus of his/her relationships with other persons, social development process, Nubia did the same in return. withdrawn from circulation and laid to rest within a fixed, In Lower Nubia at least two polities evolved during the communal space’. Pastoral groups applied different second half of the 4th millennium BC, namely at patterns in ritualising valley and desert landscapes. Sayala/Naga Wadi and at Qustul (H. S. Smith 1993; Formal disposal areas, such as necropolises, are common Williams 1986). These Nubian kings (or, more precisely, only along the Nile, with the exception of that found at chiefs) adopted the same royal iconography as that of the Gebel Ramlah, in the Nabta-Kiseiba region (Kobusiewicz Egyptian kings. et al. 2004; Schild et al. 2002). Usually, there is nothing   25 EGYPT IN ITS AFRICAN CONTEXT There is no archaeological information for Upper Nubia fan-bearer and a dog. Those scenes, like many others in at this time but it is likely that chiefdoms were present Predynastic rock art, symbolise a royal jubilee cycle. there as well (as many historical Egyptian texts report; They are interpreted as representing a ritualisation of the Roccati 1982). From the end of the 4th millennium BC a celebration of these events in terms of their cosmic large settlement with huts, storage pits, enclosures for significance (J. C. Darnell 2009a). Therefore, the king animals and defensive walls was located at Kerma smiting the enemies does not have to be seen as a real (Honegger 2006). This was the first step towards the event, but as the symbolic representation of order over urbanisation process from which the Kerma state chaos. The Egyptian royal ideology, thus, needed the emerged. ‘other’ as a justification for its existence. And the Nubians went from being the ‘same’ to becoming the Egypt and the Other: Shaping a New Identity ‘other’. With the rise of the Naqada culture Upper and Middle Egyptian society took a separate pathway from Nubia, Conclusion and Nubian elements in Naqada material and beliefs To sum up, Nubia is Egypt’s African ancestor. What became less and less visible. Representations of bulls in linked Ancient Egypt to the rest of the North African Naqada rock art are a good example, as the animal cultures is this strong tie with the Nubian pastoral represented was not domesticated but wild (Hendrickx nomadic lifestyle, the same pastoral background 2002). Its meaning as royal image of territory, boundaries commonly shared by most of the ancient Saharan and and power has nothing to do with the meaning of modern sub-Saharan societies. Thus, not only did Nubia domesticated cattle in a pastoral society, and therefore have a prominent role in the origin of Ancient Egypt, it what a pastoral society would have depicted (Navajas was also a key area for the origin of the entire African Jiménez, this volume). pastoral tradition. Peripheral areas, such as the Aswan region and the Western Desert parallel to the Nile, bear witness to an References exception in the aforementioned trend towards cultural Adams, W. Y. 1977. Nubia: Corridor to Africa. 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