The Gerzeh culture, also called Naqada II, refers to the archaeological stage at Gerzeh (also Girza or Jirzah), a
prehistoric Egypt
Prehistoric Egypt and Predynastic Egypt span the period from the earliest human settlement to the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period around 3100 BC, starting with the first Pharaoh, Narmer for some Egyptologists, Hor-Aha for others, with ...
ian cemetery located along the west bank of the
Nile
The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest riv ...
. The necropolis is named after el-Girzeh, the nearby contemporary town in
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
. Gerzeh is situated only several miles due east of
the oasis of
Faiyum.
The Gerzeh culture is a
material culture
Material culture is the aspect of social reality grounded in the objects and architecture that surround people. It includes the usage, consumption, creation, and trade of objects as well as the behaviors, norms, and rituals that the objects crea ...
identified by
archaeologists
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes ...
. It is the second of three phases of the prehistoric
Naqada
Naqada ( Egyptian Arabic: ; Coptic language: ; Ancient Greek: ) is a town on the west bank of the Nile in Qena Governorate, Egypt, situated ca. 20 km north of Luxor. It includes the villages of Tukh, Khatara, Danfiq, and Zawayda. Ac ...
cultures and so is also known as Naqada II. The Gerzeh culture was preceded by the
Amratian culture ("Naqada I") and followed by the
Naqada III ("protodynastic" or "Semainian culture").
Historical context
Sources differ on dating, some saying use of the culture distinguishes itself from the Amratian and begins circa 3500 BC lasting through circa 3200 BC. Accordingly, some authorities place the onset of the Gerzeh coincident with the
Amratian
The Amratian culture, also called Naqada I, was an archaeological culture of prehistoric Upper Egypt. It lasted approximately from 4000 to 3500 BC.
Overview
The Amratian culture is named after the archaeological site of el-Amra, located around ...
or
Badari cultures, i.e. c.3800 BC to 3650 BC even though some Badarian
artifacts, in fact, may date earlier. Nevertheless, because the Naqada sites were first divided by the British Egyptologist
Flinders Petrie in 1894, into Amratian (after the cemetery near
el-Amrah) and "Gerzean" (after the cemetery near Gerzeh) sub-periods, the original convention is used in this text.
The Gerzeh culture lasted through a period of time when the
desertification
Desertification is a type of land degradation in drylands in which biological productivity is lost due to natural processes or induced by human activities whereby fertile areas become increasingly arid. It is the spread of arid areas caused ...
of the
Sahara
, photo = Sahara real color.jpg
, photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972
, map =
, map_image =
, location =
, country =
, country1 =
, ...
had nearly reached its state seen during the late twentieth century.
The primary distinguishing feature between the earlier Amratian and the Gerzeh is the extra decorative effort exhibited in the
pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...
of the period. Artwork on Gerzeh ceramics features stylised animals and environment to a greater degree than the earlier Amratian artwork. Further, images of
ostrich
Ostriches are large flightless birds of the genus ''Struthio'' in the order Struthioniformes, part of the infra-class Palaeognathae, a diverse group of flightless birds also known as ratites that includes the emus, rheas, and kiwis. There ...
es on the pottery artwork possibly indicate an inclination these early peoples may have felt to explore the
Sahara
, photo = Sahara real color.jpg
, photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972
, map =
, map_image =
, location =
, country =
, country1 =
, ...
desert.
File:Comb with Human Image Early Naqada II 3500-3400 BCE.jpg, Comb with human image, Early Naqada II, 3500-3400 BC, Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Cro ...
.
File:WLA brooklynmuseum Terracotta female figure.jpg, Figurine thought to be a deity, Gerzeh culture, Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Cro ...
File:Ivory objects from the Naqada Culture.jpg, Ivory objects from the Naqada Culture.
File:Ägyptisches Museum Berlin 057.jpg, Paintings with symbols on Naqada II pottery. 3500-3200 BC.
File:Bm-ginger.jpg, Gebelein predynastic mummy, with Naqada II decorated jars on its side, circa 3400 BC
Reed boats
Pictures of ceremonial reed boats appear on some Naqada II jars, showing two male and two female figures standing aboard, the boat being equipped with oars and two cabins.
File:Decorated Ware Jar Depicting Ungulates and Boats with Human Figures MET DP248750.jpg, Jar, Late Naqada II, 3500-3300 BC, Egypt
File:Jar, Late Naqada II, 3500-3300 BCE, Egypt.jpg, Jar, Late Naqada II, 3500-3300 BC, Egypt
File:Decorated Ware Jar Depicting Ungulates and Boats with Human Figures MET DP248751.jpg, Jar, Late Naqada II, 3500-3300 BC, Egypt
Contacts with Western and Central Asia
Distinctly foreign objects and art forms entered Egypt during this period, indicating contacts with several parts of Asia. Scientific analysis of ancient wine jars in Abydos has shown that there was some high-volume wine trade with the Levant during this period.
Objects such as the
Gebel el-Arak knife handle, which has patently
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
n relief carvings on it, have been found in Egypt,
[Shaw, Ian. & Nicholson, Paul, ''The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt,'' (London: British Museum Press, 1995), p. 109.] and the silver which appears in this period can only have been obtained from
Asia Minor
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
.
[Redford, Donald B. ''Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times.'' (Princeton: University Press, 1992), p. 16.]
Lapis lazuli
Lapis lazuli (; ), or lapis for short, is a deep-blue metamorphic rock used as a semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense color.
As early as the 7th millennium BC, lapis lazuli was mined in the Sar-i Sang mine ...
trade, in the form of
beads, from its only known prehistoric source –
Badakhshan
Badakhshan is a historical region comprising parts of modern-day north-eastern Afghanistan, eastern Tajikistan, and Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in China. Badakhshan Province is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan. Much of historic ...
in northeastern
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
– also reached ancient Gerzeh. Other discovered
grave goods are on display here.
Cylinder seals
It is generally thought that
cylinder seals were introduced from Mesopotamia to Egypt during the
Naqada II period.
Cylinder seals, some coming from Mesopotamia and
Elam, and some made locally in Egypt following Mesopotamian designs in a stylized manner, have been discovered in the tombs of
Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south.
In ancient E ...
dating to Naqada II and III, particularly in
Hierakonpolis.
Mesopotamia cylinder seals have been found in the
Gerzean
The Gerzeh culture, also called Naqada II, refers to the archaeological stage at Gerzeh (also Girza or Jirzah), a prehistoric Egyptian cemetery located along the west bank of the Nile. The necropolis is named after el-Girzeh, the nearby contem ...
context of Naqada II, in
Naqada
Naqada ( Egyptian Arabic: ; Coptic language: ; Ancient Greek: ) is a town on the west bank of the Nile in Qena Governorate, Egypt, situated ca. 20 km north of Luxor. It includes the villages of Tukh, Khatara, Danfiq, and Zawayda. Ac ...
and
Hiw, attesting to the expansion of the
Jemdet Nasr culture as far as Egypt at the end of the 4th millennium BC.
In Egypt, cylinder seals suddenly appear without local antecedents from around Naqada II c-d (3500-3300 BC).
The designs are similar to those of Mesopotamia, where they were invented during the early 4th millennium BC, during the
Uruk period
The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BC; also known as Protoliterate period) existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, after the Ubaid period and before the Jemdet Nasr period. Named af ...
, as an evolutionary step from various accounting systems and seals going back as early as the 7th millennium BC.
The earliest Egyptian cylinder seals are clearly similar to contemporary
Uruk
Uruk, also known as Warka or Warkah, was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates east of modern Samawah, Muthanna Governorate, Al ...
seals down to Naqada II-d (circa 3300 BC), and may even have been manufactured by Mesopotamian craftsman, but they start to diverge from circa 3300 BC to become more Egyptian in character.
Cylinder seals were made in Egypt as late as the
Second Intermediate Period, but they were essentially replaced by
scarabs from the time of the
Middle Kingdom.
Burials
Burial sites in Gerzeh have uncovered
artifacts, such as
cosmetic palettes, a bone
harpoon
A harpoon is a long spear-like instrument and tool used in fishing, whaling, sealing, and other marine hunting to catch and injure large fish or marine mammals such as seals and whales. It accomplishes this task by impaling the target ani ...
, an
ivory pot, stone vessels, and several
meteoritic iron
beads,
Technologies at Gerzeh also include fine ripple-flaked knives of exceptional workmanship. The
meteoritic iron
beads, discovered in two Gerzean graves by
Egyptologist Wainwright in 1911, are the earliest artifacts of
iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...
known, dating to around 3200 BC
(see also
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...
).
One burial uncovered evidence of
decapitation
Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the i ...
.
Oldest known Egyptian painted tomb
Discoveries at
Nekhen include Tomb 100, the oldest known tomb with a
mural
A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage.
Word mural in art
The word ''mural'' is a Spanis ...
painted on its
plaster
Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "re ...
walls. The sepulchre is thought to date to the Gerzeh culture (c. 3500-3200 BC).
It is presumed that the mural shows religious scenes and images. It includes figures featured in Egyptian culture for three thousand years—a funerary procession of
barques, presumably a goddess standing between two upright
lion
The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large cat of the genus '' Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adu ...
esses, a wheel of various horned quadrupeds, several examples of a staff that became associated with the deity of the earliest
cattle culture and one being held up by a heavy-breasted goddess. Animals depicted include
onagers or
zebras,
ibexes,
ostrich
Ostriches are large flightless birds of the genus ''Struthio'' in the order Struthioniformes, part of the infra-class Palaeognathae, a diverse group of flightless birds also known as ratites that includes the emus, rheas, and kiwis. There ...
es, lionesses,
impala
The impala or rooibok (''Aepyceros melampus'') is a medium-sized antelope found in eastern and southern Africa. The only extant member of the genus ''Aepyceros'' and tribe Aepycerotini, it was first described to European audiences by Ger ...
s,
gazelles, and cattle.
Several of the images in the mural resemble images seen in the
Gebel el-Arak Knife: a figure between two lions, warriors, or boats,
but are not stylistically similar.
File:Hierakonpolis Tomb 100 Master of animals.jpg,
File:Hierakonpolis Tomb 100 Individual fighting scene.jpg,
File:Hierakonpolis Tomb 100 Hunting dog on a leash.jpg,
Proto-hieroglyphic symbols
Some symbols on Gerzeh pottery resemble traditional
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1, ...
, which were contemporaneous with the proto-
cuneiform script
Cuneiform is a logo- syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-s ...
of
Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of ...
. The figurine of a woman is a distinctive design considered characteristic of the culture.
The end of the Gerzeh culture is generally regarded as coinciding with the unification of Egypt, the Naqada III period.
Other artifacts
File:Egg-Shaped Mace Head 3500-3300 BCE Naqada II.jpg, Egg-Shaped Mace Head 3500-3300 BC Naqada II
File:Torino Museo Egizio 21072015 10 Linen.jpg, Painted linen (detail) from a grave in Gebelein, Naqada IIa-b (circa 3600 BC). Museo Egizio, Turin.
File:Pre-Dynastic model house, El-Amra, Naqada IIC until 3200 BCE, British Museum EA35505.jpg, Pre-Dynastic model house, El-Amra, Naqada IIC until 3200 BC, British Museum EA35505
See also
*
Riqqeh
Notes
Bibliography
*Petrie/Wainwright/Mackay: ''The Labyrinth, Gerzeh and Mazghuneh'', British School of Archaeology in Egypt XXI. London 1912
*
Alice Stevenson: ''Gerzeh, a cemetery shortly before History'' (Egyptian sites series),London 2006,
External links
Gerzeh (Girza) University College London, 2000
Egypt, ancient. Encyclopædia Britannica 2005
{{Rulers of the Ancient Near East
4th-millennium BC establishments
4th-millennium BC disestablishments
4th millennium BC in Egypt
Archaeological cultures in Egypt
Predynastic Egypt
Jemdet Nasr period