#predynastic

Ritual Knife

The ivory handle of this superbly crafted knife includes a thumb rest for a right-handed user. Carved rows of minuscule animals - including elephants, lions, a giraffe, and sheep - cover both surfaces of the handle. An artisan polished the flint blade on one side and delicately flaked the other to make a cutting edge.

Predynastic Period, Naqada III Period, ca. 3300-3100 BC.

This clay sculpture was created nearly 6,000 years ago, and it's attributed to the Amratian (Naqada I) culture of Egypt, which lasted from about 4000 BCE to 3500 BCE. It predates the Great Pyramid at Giza by more than 1,000 years.

According to this museum entry:

The ancient Egyptians gave their deceased relatives simple utensils for a new life after death, such as this model of a ship-shaped bowl containing a naked man with a pointed beard. Just like the real dead, he lies folded on his side, in a sleeping or embryonic position, as if he will awaken again or be reborn for a new existence in the afterlife.

The bowl (25.3 centimetres long) probably comes from a burial ground in Middle Egypt, probably in the vicinity of Asyut. It comes from the so-called Negada I culture, so named after the village of Negada, about twenty-five kilometres north of Luxor. It has been suggested that the model represents the womb that encloses an embryo. However, two broken cylindrical protrusions at the front and back indicate more of a ship with an elongated bow and stern.

The protrusions at each end of the vessel are also sculpted in the form of a frog:

The forepart is modelled with the forebody of a frog. Later, during the pharaonic period, the frog was known as the animal of the goddess of birth, Heqet. A kind of tail can still be seen at the back. The bowl therefore also forms the body of a frog.

Various ideas that we know from later religious texts could play a clarifying role here. First of all, a ship was often needed to sail the deceased to the other side, to the west bank of the Nile, where many burial grounds are located. That is where the entrance to the realm of the dead was conceived. Later texts also mention the pilgrimages that the deceased had to make. During funeral rituals, in theory, a number of the central sanctuaries of Egypt had to be visited.

Moreover, the ship may have been intended for use in the afterlife, just like other gifts. The earthenware model would then be a magical substitute, just as the sleeping figure had to guarantee the physical survival of the deceased.

Those interpretations are all speculative, of course. There are no written records from the early predynastic era, and very little is known about the beliefs and practices of Egyptian cultures during that period.

Sources & More Info:

Dutch National Museum of Antiquities: Ship for the Afterlife

Egypt Museum: Model Boat with Figurine in a Fetal Position

Database of Religious History: Early Naqada Culture (PDF)

Bowl with Human Feet

Egyptian Predynastic, Late Naqada l–Naqada II

3700–3450 B.C.

In the Predynastic Period, potters created a wide variety of ceramic vessels. One unusual type is a bowl with supports shaped like human feet. This simple, round bowl, tipped slightly forward as if to offer its contents, has two such feet solidly attached to its underside. Made from Nile clay, the bowl has a smoothed, slipped, and polished surface, giving it a light sheen. The bowl standing on feet is very similar in form to the Egyptian hieroglyph meaning "to bring." Since none of the known bowls of this type comes from a well-understood context, archaeologists cannot interpret their original use. Perhaps vessels like this were placed above a tomb to present offerings from the living to the deceased, a practice that was an established part of funerary ritual in pharaonic Egypt. Alternatively, they may have held offerings to a deity in his shrine.

A rock art panel from Aswan depicting a boat and seven people, dating back to the late fourth millennium BCE, has been discovered by archaeologists. According to the publication, the "palanquin-like structure" and the person within are interpreted as a king, due to the "chin elongation typical for depictions of early rulers".

What makes this find so special? It is known that Menes (a ruler from the First Dynasty) brought together Upper and Lower Egypt, and thus he is often described as the founder of the First Dynasty. However, very little is known about kingship, elite displays, and the role of politics before that.

Dorian Vanhulle (the author of the article) writes:

"Rock engravings from the Lower Nile Valley have the potential to help explain early forms of political power and how the landscape was exploited to express and consolidate authority."

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