Page 276 - Encyclopedia Of World History

626 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

recognized that any study of this subject must acknowl- jewelry making, and metallurgy. The latter, especially,
edge and take into consideration the complexity of the depended on the increasingly established interregional
evidence as well as the validity of different approaches. trade, which supplied raw materials from within and out-
side Egypt. Known areas of indirect or direct contact were
The Three-Stage Approach Nubia (in present-day southern Egypt and northern
to State Formation in Egypt Sudan), Ethiopia, the Levant (the area of present-day
Scholars considering the phenomenon of state formation Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine), and Mesopotamia.
in ancient Egypt have in the past often simplified their The burgeoning local elites may have sponsored or con-
object under the Egyptological term “Unification of trolled these industries and trade activities in order to sat-
Egypt,” which in essence represents the more advanced, isfy their needs in peer competition or conspicuous
secondary stage of a development toward political unity consumption, which manifested itself in richly endowed
on a large territorial scale.This view, however, ignores the burials, equipped with exotic goods.
significant primary stage in this development, namely the These wealthy burials led to much archaeological
formation of early kingdoms at the end of the prehistoric attention being given in the early stages of research to the
period (c. 3300 BCE), that not only chronologically pre- cemeteries of Upper Egypt, at sites such as Naqada, Hier-
cedes the latter, but that needs to be considered and akonpolis, and Abydos, and as a result, scholarship was
understood as a precondition. Further, the achievement much reduced to the analysis of mortuary data of the
of the second stage at the beginning of the dynastic era, south. For a long time, the highly tenuous belief was held
that is, with the first dynasty (c. 3100 BCE), is followed by that agile Upper Egyptian tribes of hunter-gather origin
a long process of administrative organization and eco- had been the driving forces in the process of state for-
nomic integration of the country’s provinces and is final- mation and had taken over the territory of the more
ized around the third dynasty (c. 2700 BCE). peaceful agriculturalists of the north, paving the way for
This three-stage process sees at the beginning incipient the cultural and political unification of the country.
developments towards social, economic, and cultural Lately, however, Lower Egypt and especially sites around
complexity that gained speed as time progressed, largely the apex of the Nile Delta have also been taken into con-
due to the ecological constriction of the Nile Valley as sideration, and their investigation has caused a major par-
well as the easy means of transport and communication adigm change, as they, too, bear evidence for similar and
along the river. endogenous economic and social processes. Significant is
the site of Maadi, near modern Cairo, where a large early
The First Stage Chalcolithic community was based that engaged in the
Although significant developments took place in the specialized manufacture of metal and flint tools and
Neolithic period (c. 5000–3900 BCE), it was primarily which not only exchanged commodities such as copper
during the Chalcolithic period (c. 3900–3300 BCE) that and pottery with the southern Levant, but also housed
major economic and social advances were made which foreign traders within their settlement—a clear indication
led to the appearance of local market centers in different of direct interregional trade.
parts of the lower Nile Valley. Here, craft specialization At the end of the Chalcolithic period, Egypt consisted
and interregional trade were encouraged and local elites of a chain of regional chiefdoms along the Nile river and
started to emerge. Craft specialization is one of the best in the Delta that engaged in agriculture and produced a
tangible areas of study in this context, as there are a vari- variety of crafts that were exchanged on the local,
ety of industries that produced substantial archaeological regional, and interregional markets, and whose leaders
evidence. These include ceramics, stone vessels, flint and kin enjoyed the economical and social benefits.This
knapping (the shaping of flint by chipping off pieces), situation encouraged increasing social and wealth dis-