Gerzean Culture

In the middle of the fourth millennium BC, the Naqada II Period superceded the Naqada I. Archaeologists refer to this as Predynastic Egypt. Cultural development in predynastic Egypt is divided between the regions of Upper and Lower Egypt because the cultures there developed at different rates. Most of the evidence of Gerzean culture is found in Upper Egypt. They had mastered the art of agriculture and the use of artificial irrigation, and no longer needed to hunt for their food. The people started life in towns, not just villages, creating areas of higher population density than ever before.

By 3650 B.C., the beginning of Gerzean Culture, we see a society in full transition from hunter-gatherers to agricultural society. Housing had changed from oval thatch homes to rectangular structures of mud and brick. By the end of the Nagada II Period, we see the culture moving toward a complex and socially stratified society. archaeologists are able to make this determination based upon the archeological record, studying pottery, stoneware, plant and animal remains, and habitation sites.

The most important thing to remember about this time period is that it represents a transition from nomadic tribal culture to a stationary, civilized culture. One can tell the difference in several ways. First, the culture has to have a reason to stay in one area. In this case, these people learned how to maintain a constant food supply by developing agriculture around the flood seasons of the Nile. Another difference is social stratification. That is , the populace becomes larger and class systems develop. There are now people with higher social standing and greater wealth than others. archaeologists can tell approximately when this took place by dating tombs from the Gerzean Period. The tombs of this time tell us a lot about the culture as well as individuals who are buried there. A wealthier person would have been buried in a tomb lined with mud-brick and large enough to replicate that person's earthly dwelling. They would contain art, amulets, and trinkets needed for the afterlife.. A poorer person's tomb would be a simple oblong-shaped space with a ledge on one wall to hold offerings. archaeologists looked at the differences between these tombs from the same period and decided that some Egyptians must have been wealthier than others, indicating the development of a class system.

This transition period was also characterized by the difference in the placement of the dead from earlier cultures. More nomadic cultures buried their dead closer to, and sometimes within, their settlement. As people settled into one spot and began to use agriculture, their tombs were moved farther away from their settlement. Also, it was noted that more articles from the deceased's life were being left in the tomb along with offerings of food. This may signal the beginning of the Egyptians' belief in the soul traveling to an afterlife (tour Egypt.net 1).

There is other evidence that the Gerzean culture was evolving into a more complex culture if we look at the transition from stone to metal tools during this period. They also created their own cast-metal implements and weapons.The Gerzean people made great use of copper knives. Copper, presumably from the Sinai Peninsula, was used to cast and hammer instruments such as daggers, knives, axes, fishing implements, needles, rings and other ornaments (Trigger, 33). By studying the metallurgy of the Gerzean Culture, archaeologists have come to two conclusions: Judging by the techniques used in the production of metal tools and by the artistic nature of some of the designs, they can tell that it was made by a specialized craftsman. This means that these people were specializing in other areas as well, not every man in the city was doing the same thing like farming or hunting.

The Gerzean people continued to expand in the artistic area, creating new styles of pottery and more elegant artwork. They started to create a wide variety of animal-shaped palettes for mixing cosmetics, as well as a shield-shaped cosmetic pallet, the ancestor of the ceremonial palettes in early Dynastic Egypt. They also introduced the images and totems of the falcon, symbol of the sun god Ra, and the cow, symbol of the love goddess Hathor. \

Pottery in Gerzean Culture also contains some interesting representations of people. They depicted people involved in everyday activities such as hunting or boating. There were some jars with wavy handles similar to those found in Palestine. Usually the backdrop was a neutral or pink color and the designs were red. The designs on Gerzean pottery provide even more evidence of their travel to other areas because of the use of boats and some of the design influences. Drawings of ibexes and ostriches indicating Gerzeans may have hunted in areas of the sub-desert where these animals could have been seen (Aldred, 37).

The second conclusion is evidence of contact with other cultures. The design of the copper tools indicate that they may have been copied from different cultures in the Palestinian region (Trigger, 34). Also, copper is not a resource found in great abundance in Upper Egypt, which means it came from somewhere else. The area in which we find Gerzean culture did, however, have an abundance of gold between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea, and south toward the Sudanese border. This is what probably induced the peoples of the Sinai Peninsula into trading copper with the Gerzeans. So, by looking at the tools that were used by these people, archaeologists can deduce that the Gerzean people had 1)job specialization, and 2)consistent trade and contact with other developed cultures further enforcing our vision of the Gerzean culture as a bridge from nomadic culture to a settled, civilized, dynastic culture.

The Gerzeans traded with far distant peoples for copper and other goods (they traded much further than the previous two cultures) - silver, lapis lazuli, lead, cylinder seals were some goods traded from Asia and Mesopotamia. Foreign influences through their trading began to show in their style of dress, ornaments and various implements. Radical changes in the design of knives, daggers and pottery were made by the Gerzeans.

We do not know a lot about Gerzean government because it was a protoliterate society. They were not illiterate, there just was not enough writing in the historical records to tell us about their system of government. We do know that during the Nagada I Period, just before the Gerzean Period, there is evidence that small territories were governed by Chieftains. These rulers later became kings ruling wider regions during Nagada II and III, the Gerzean Period (Silverman, 107). At a site called Hierakopolis, archaeologists discovered the tomb of an individual though to be a Predynastic ruler. The art in the tomb contained a scene of a man smiting three smaller men. This is thought to represent the subjugation of lesser men by the individual in the tomb. This scene is repeated in burial chambers of kings throughout Egyptian history (Silverman, 107).

Gerzean culture was in a period of transition from a nomadic, tribal culture to the complex, unified nation that we see in Dynastic Egypt. This transition could not have occurred in just a few short years. The development of agriculture, governmental systems, and craft specialization would take hundreds of years to set the stage for the kind of culture and dynastic rule that was prevalent in ancient Egypt.

The introduction of several concepts were key to this evolution. Agriculture and harnessing the resources of the Nile anchored the Gerzean people to one place. This allowed for the specialization of separate crafts, like metallurgy, pottery, and the trading of goods. With different jobs, some individuals became wealthier than others so we see the development of a class system. In a stratified society, some people have more power than others and this leads to the origins of government and kingship in Ancient Egypt.  

There were significant changes in the matter of burials. In cemeteries that dated from an earlier period showed that the corpse was generally wrapped in some sort of covering and buried in a contracted position facing the west, those who were located in Gerzean deposits indicated a lack of regular orientation, a more elaborate form of grave, and evidences of ritual procedure at the time of burial in the form of deliberately shattered pottery.

There is evidence of an elite social class from the graves and grave goods found. The more elaborate funerary cult created larger, rectangular graves with walls lined with either masonry or wooden, which could also hold grave goods. The differences in the lavish (or not) graves, with many or lesser goods, pointed to the distinction in classes in the Gerzean people.

In Nekhem (Hierakonpolis), the cult centre of Horus of Nekhem, there is a Naqada II palace and ritual precinct. This area was made of timber and matting, and can only be theoretically reconstructed from the positions of the postholes - some of which were big enough for entire tree trunks! The features of the complex were compared with the buildings of Djoser's pyramid complex, where such buildings were made in stone. It has a large oval courtyard, surrounded by various buildings, and is clearly the forerunner to the royal ritual precincts of the early Dynastic Period.

This, then, was the root of the Egyptian kingship system and the beginning of the unified state. The Naqada III had many territorial divisions, known as nomes. They had their own sacred animal or plant that became the totem, fetish or emblem of that territory. The emblem was depicted on the pottery of that area. The nomes then resulted in two powerful states - Upper and Lower Egypt with a total of twenty nomes in Lower Egypt and twenty-two in Upper Egypt! Each state had their own ruler. There were thirteen or so rulers at Nekhem, of which only the last few have been identified (though they are by no means certain):