The Growth of Farming, Trade and Art
Welcome to the North, known as the Nile Delta. Here we find a whole swathe of culturally-linked settlements, from Merimda to Maadi to Buto.
From 4800 BCE to 4000 BCE, these settlements emerge and thrive. Bedouin from the Sinai Peninsula begin to bring copper into the region, allowing new building techniques and manufacturing.
To the South, the Badarians create some of the most beautiful pottery ever made by ancient Egyptians.
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The major sites of this episode (Full-Size Image).
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A Badarian grave, with the distinctive pots stacked to either side of the body. The sand of the desert naturally preserves the corpse by extracting moisture - an early, natural form of mummification (Source: Taylor, 2001).
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A beautiful Badarian pot, typical of the polished, black-and-red style of this community (Source: Taylor, 2001).
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Merimda Beni-Salaama today; the site is considerably larger than once thought (Source: Ahram Online).
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The Merimda Head, the earliest image of a human discovered in Egypt. Clay impressed by fingers to make eyes, with small incisions for mouth and nose (Source: Brown.edu).
Bibliography
John Romer, A History of Egypt: from the First Farmers to the Great Pyramid, 2013.
David Wengrow, The Archaeology of Early Egypt, 2006 (Free Preview).
John Taylor, Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt, 2001.
UCL Website: The Faiyum; Merimde; and Maadi.
On Verdigris:
(1) Thomas Mortimer, A General Dictionary of Commerce..., 1810 (Free).
(2) Daryl Hafter, European Women and Preindustiral Craft, 1995 (Google Books).
