Investigation of new data from recent Ben-Gurion University excavations at Mitzpe Sde Hafir and Israel Antiquities Authority excavations at Yeroḥam—Naḥal Avnon, two late EB I sites in the Western Negev and Central Negev Highlands, respectively, has revealed two zones of complex and transformational nomadic encounter with sedentary society at a pivotal phase of Egypto-Levantine connectivity…
Tyre: An Intermediate Harbor in Interregional Trade
The founding of a small fortified center on the island of Tyre in the Early Bronze Age cannot be explained without the complicity of a continental center on the nearby coast. Although it is a rocky island with no arable land, it has nonetheless provided an important volume of Combed Storage Jars, cereals, olive pits,…
The Relationships between Egypt and Syria in the 24th century BCE According to the Texts of the City of Ebla, Syria
While studying the types of materials exchanged between the kingdoms of Ebla and Dugurasu, Biga proposed (2012) that Dugurasu could be identified as a place in the Delta of the Nile. She also proposed to identify the city of DUlu—from which almost the same materials came to Ebla and had a role of intermediary between…
Contacts between Egypt and the Southern Levant in the Late Early Bronze Age: An Open Question
The second half of the third millennium BCE is traditionally interpreted as a period of intense interactions between the southern Levant and Egypt. In past scholarship, interpretative frameworks for these activities have centered either on conflicts or commercial relations linked to the trade of southern Levantine copper with Egypt, both considered limited to the time…
Identity and Monumentality: The Construction of an Early Bronze Age Landscape on the Lebanese Coast
This article will discuss the role of monuments in the construction of the Early Bronze Age (EBA) landscape on the Lebanese coast. The discussion focuses on Byblos, where an extensively excavated EBA town plan shows evidence of at least seven temples and a monumental town wall. Nearby contemporary sites that followed markedly similar building activity…
In the Shadow of Byblos: The Early Bronze Age Aegyptiaca from Tell Fadous-Kfarabida
During the Old Kingdom, Byblos emerged as one of the main ports of trade between Egypt and the Levant. This is not only suggested by Egyptian textual references but also by a surprisingly large number of Egyptian objects dating to the Old Kingdom from Byblos. However, various chronological and contextual problems hugely diminish the value…
Metal as a Mechanism for Understanding Social Complexity during the Third Millennium BCE: A Comparative Zooarchaeological Perspective on Egypt and the Southern Levant
Most studies of the spread of copper and bronze metallurgy across the Near East rely upon the relatively few surviving metal artifacts, most of which originate in mortuary contexts and thus indicate little about daily life activities. In recent years, a new method that circumvents the biased metallurgical record has been developed using microscopic groove…
Egyptian Trade on the Central Levantine Coast During the Early Dynastic Period: A Ceramic-Material Perspective
This paper compares pottery finds from the Central Levant (Lebanon) and imported vessels found in Egyptian Early Dynastic contexts to help unravel the dynamics of trade activities between the two regions at the beginning of the third millennium BCE. New typological, technological, petrographic, and geochemical datasets from Lebanese sites such as Tell Arqa, Byblos, Tell…
Early Dynastic/Old Kingdom Egypt and the Early Bronze Age Levant: The History of the 3rd and 4th Dynasties and New Radiocarbon Dates in Dialogue
This paper aims to give an overview of the current state of research on (contemporaneous) inscriptional evidence for a historical chronology of the 3rd and 4th dynasties, to explore the impact of different modes of interpreting this evidence on radiocarbon dates from Egypt, and to consider possible synchronizations between Egyptian history and the transitions from…
“There’s No Place Like Home”? Representing Travel and Return from the Old to the Middle Kingdom
The representation of travel beyond the established borders of Egypt has been conceived as one of many markers of literary fictionality. One of the few texts that showcase this is the Middle Kingdom Tale of Sinuhe. Many have examined the Tale’s literary qualities through its portrayal of characters and activities associated with border traversal. But…
The Egyptian Enclaving of Southern Canaan during the Late Fourth Millennium BCE: Some Theoretical, Cultural, and Spatial Aspects
Egyptian presence in the Southern Levant during the late fourth millennium BCE (Early Bronze Age IB, henceforward EB IB), centered in southwestern Israel, is an issue thoroughly studied for several decades. These studies covered every aspect of material culture, relative and absolute chronology, socio-political and economic implications, and more. Scholars characterized this Egyptian presence in…
Applied Potmarks between Lebanon and Egypt in the Early Bronze Age
Although potmarks were discovered at many archaeological sites in the Near East and Egypt, interpretations of their functions vary. Despite the diversity of techniques used in potmark production (e.g. incised, painted, impressed, applied), applied potmarks were especially neglected in research, and attracted attention mostly through the so-called ram’s head applications. A recent systematic study of…
Reconsidering Egyptian-South Levantine Interaction: Evidence from Early Bronze Age II Contexts at Tell es-Sultan and Tell el-Far‘ah North
In recent decades, evidence of a two-way relationship between First Dynasty Egypt and the Early Bronze Age II communities of southern Levant progressively emerged. The ongoing investigation hints at a branched network of exchanges between Egypt and the Levant, which was operational at the dawn of the earliest Levantine urbanization and involved multiple Levantine centers….
Contents, Status, and Symbolism: The Study of Residues from Imported Jars at Old Kingdom Giza
Throughout the 4th to 6th Dynasties of the Old Kingdom (c. 2613–2181 BCE), liquid commodities were imported in ceramic combed jars made in workshops in the Byblos region, enabling proximal geographic identification of the original contents. Results of scientific, archaeometric, and archaeological research on a large corpus of jars found in elite tombs at Giza,…
The “Combed Ware” Storage and Transport Vessels from Khirbet ez-Zeraqon: A Reappraisal of the EB II–III Evidence in Light of Recent Petrographic Studies
The present study offers new petrographic data on selected pottery from the EB II-III site of Khirbet ez-Zeraqon in northern Jordan, which includes storage and transport vessels with combed surfaces traditionally grouped under the label “Combed Ware.” The results contribute to our understanding of the role played by these vessels in relation to the wider…
The Three Temples in antis at Megiddo
The date of the Stratum XV Triple-Temple Complex at Megiddo has been the subject of debate since it was first uncovered by the University of Chicago in the 1930s. Generally, an Early Bronze Age III date became the status quo interpretation, but several problems with this date are apparent. First, there was already significant EB…
Origin of the Coffin Set of Meretites (NAMA 2007.12.1–7)
The coffin assemblage of Meretites (NAMA 2007.12.1–7) was purchased by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in 2007 for the reinstallation of the museum’s Egyptian collection in 2010. While the museum initially proposed that the coffins were from Hermopolis, two recent articles argue that the coffin set was instead from Herakleopolis Magna. This paper analyzes Meretites…
An Overview of the Offering Trays and Soul Houses in the Penn Museum
This paper is part of ongoing research into the largely unpublished corpus of offering trays and soul houses currently in the care of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The goal of this preliminary exposition is to draw attention to the Penn material, examine how it fits with past studies, and explore…
Egypt Through the Magic Lantern: Bringing an Antique Technology Back into the Light
Bryn Mawr College’s magic lantern slides of Egypt from the early 20th century are a significant source of archaeological and historical data. The oldest slides in Bryn Mawr’s collection were introduced between 1908 and 1911 by Dr. Caroline Ransom, the first American woman to receive a PhD in Egyptology. They represent a pivotal moment in…
Untangling the 19th-Century Roots of Southern Illinois’ Egyptian Regional Identity
Southern Illinois has been known as “Egypt” or “Little Egypt” for nearly 200 years. In popular culture, the name “Egypt” evokes images of gold, mummies, exploration, and human achievement, but to 19th-century Americans its biblically linked allusions conjured up darker impressions. This article pinpoints the origins of an Egyptian identity in Southern Illinois and its…
An Interior View: Osiris and Serapis in ca. 2nd-Century Rome
This paper examines the Egyptian god Osiris and his Hellenized counterpart Serapis in ca. 2nd-century Rome. Written in this period were two of the most important texts utilized by modern scholars to elucidate the Egyptian cults: Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride and Apuleius’s Metamorphoses (“The Golden Ass”). In both texts, Osiris appears as the more…
The Roman Egyptian-Nubian Frontier during the Reigns of Augustus and Amanirenas: Archaeological Evidence from Talmis, Qasr Ibrim, and Meroë
Augustus’ imperial campaigns were memorialized throughout the empire in his Res Gestae. The scene described is of a single, crushing Roman victory over Lower Nubia. Some scholars, such as László Török (2009) and Solange Ashby (2020), have aptly taken issue with the validity of Augustus’s claims; however, there remains a prejudice in the historiography that…
Rediscovering the Links between the Earthen Pyramids of West Africa and Ancient Nubia: Restoring William Leo Hansberry’s Vision of Ancient Kush and Sudanic Africa
William Leo Hansberry, a pioneer and founder of African studies in the United States, proposed in 1921 that the origins of Egyptian pyramids were in Central Africa. Hansberry’s analysis was based upon the discovery of earthen pyramids (mounds/tumuli) in the Inland Niger Delta in the modern country of Mali. This paper provides an overview of…
Ideas about “Race” in Nile Valley Histories: A Consideration of “Racial” Paradigms in Recent Presentations on Nile Valley Africa, from “Black Pharaohs” to Mummy Genomest
This paper reviews some concepts, comments, and studies from various time periods, as well as recent presentations in the media and studies, on Nile Valley peoples. It illustrates problems related to ongoing racial paradigms.
The Barbarians at the Gate: The Early Historiographic Battle to Define the Role of Kush in World History
Nineteenth-century ideas of race and racial hierarchy found their way into the theoretical and conceptual orientations of early Egyptology and the interpretations of the Egyptian and Nubian archaeological materials. Consequently, African American and Caribbean scholars developed counternarratives to resist these interpretations as well as restore the ancient Nile Valley to its place in African history….
Kushite Kings before the Twenty-fifth Dynasty
Before the beginning of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty with pharaoh Shebitqo, we lack reliable historical and chronological sources. Although the succession Alara–Kashta–Pi(ankh)y is generally accepted, it is far from clear if there were other rulers between them. Apart from having possible gaps in the line of the known kings, there is the question of the chronological…
Afterlives of Kerma Religion: Rams, Lions, and Fantastical Winged Animals (Hippopotami and Giraffes) in Classic Kerma and Later Kush Contexts
An analysis of key elements of Classic Kerman religious imagery can provide suggestions of possible precursors for some aspects of Napatan and Meroitic religion. The connections between Kerman and later Kushite cultural practices are difficult to determine with certainty, and a one-to-one relationship between elements cannot be established with the current set of archaeological evidence….
The Invention of Aithiopian Antecedence
During the 1st century BCE, Diodorus Siculus reported claims of an “Aithiopian” origin for Egyptian civilization. This theory of Aithiopian antecedence was then repeatedly invoked by numerous ancient, medieval, and modern authors for the next two millennia until the middle of the 19th century CE, when Egyptologists drew its premises into question. For the nonspecialist…
“Backwater Puritans”? Racism, Egyptological Stereotypes, and Cosmopolitan Society at Kushite Tombos
Egyptological and more popular perceptions of Nubia and the Kushite dynasty have framed Kush as a periphery to civilized Egypt. But to what extent was Nubia a “backwater” to “effete and sophisticated” Egypt, as John Wilson once asserted? It is clear from recent archaeological work at Tombos and elsewhere that Nubia was not an unsophisticated…
The Victorious and the Defeated: The Legacy of the Egyptian New Kingdom in Meroitic Martial Imagery
The kingdoms of Kush, especially Meroe (300 BCE–450 CE), present the opportunity to observe the result of continual relations between a land positioned far south in northeastern Africa and a multi-thousand-year-old Egypt to its north. Kushites used scenes of triumph and massacre to reinforce their royal ideology and political position in the same way that…