Cosmetics

New innovations in Egypt, such as the mudbrick buildings for which the Gerzean period is well known, attest to cultural continuity, although they do not reach nearly the widespread use for which they will be known in later times.

Additionally, oval and theriomorphic cosmetic pallets appear to be used in this period, although the execution is rudimentary and the relief artwork for which they will later be known is absent.

Near and Middle Eastern civilizations of the fourth millennium BCE employ face and body paints, as well as skin oils, and unguents kept in pots and jars or in the form of sticks and pencils.

Decorated ivory and bone combs appear around 3500 BCE.

The Gerzean (Naqada II) Culture, named after the site of Gerza, is the next stage in Egyptian cultural development, and it is during this time that the foundation for Dynastic Egypt is laid.

Gerzean culture is largely an unbroken development out of Amratian Culture, starting in the delta and moving south through Upper Egypt, however failing to dislodge Amratian Culture in Nubia.

Gerzean sites are identified by the presence of pottery distinctly different from Amratian white cross-lined wares or black-topped ware.

Gerzean pottery is painted mostly in dark red with pictures of animals, people, and ships, as well as geometric symbols that appear to derive from pictures of animals.

Moreover, the handles now become "wavy" and reach a highly decorative phase.

The Gerzean Culture uses silver, gold, lapis, and faience ornamentally, and the grinding palettes used for eye-paint since the Badarian period begin to be adorned with relief carvings.

Gerzean culture coincides with a significant drop in rainfall, and farming produces the vast majority of food, although paintings from this time indicate that hunting retains some importance.

With increased food supplies, Egyptians adopt a greatly more sedentary lifestyle, and larger settlements grow to cities with about five thousand residents.

It is during this time that Egyptian city dwellers cease building from reeds, and employ mudbrick, which had been developed in the Amratian Period, en masse to build their cities.

The Mesopotamian process of sun-dried bricks, and architectural building principles—including the use of arch and of recessed walls for decorative effect—becomes popular.

Egyptian stone tools, while still in use, move from bifacial construction to ripple-flaked construction, copper is used as well to make all kinds of tools, and copper weaponry appears for the first time.

Iron objects of great age are much more rare than objects made of gold or silver due to the ease of corrosion of iron.

Beads made of meteoric iron in 3500 BCE or earlier, found in Gerzeh by G. A. Wainwright, contain seven and a half percent nickel, which is a signature of meteoric origin, since iron found in the Earth's crust has very little to no nickel content.

The Egyptians begin to mine copper and turquoise in the Sinai Peninsula about 3400 BCE at what is possibly one of the world's first hard-rock mining operations.

The characteristic material culture of the Egyptian south has gradually spread in Naqada III times to replaces the once different one of northern Egypt.

Undecorated stone vases from Egypt's Gerzean period supersede vessels of the Amratian culture.

Cylinder seals appear in Egypt, as well as recessed paneling architecture, the Egyptian reliefs on cosmetic palettes are clearly made in the same style as the contemporary Mesopotamian Uruk culture, and the ceremonial maceheads that appear in the late Gerzean and early Semainean are crafted in the Mesopotamian "pear-shaped" style, instead of the Egyptian native style.

The route of this trade is difficult to determine, but contact with Canaan does not predate the early dynastic, so it is usually assumed to have been by water.

A Mediterranean route, probably used by intermediaries through Byblos, is evidenced by the presence of Byblian objects in Egypt.

The fact that so many Gerzean sites are at the mouths of wadis that lead to the Red Sea is indicative of some amount of trade via the Red Sea (though Byblian trade could potentially cross the Sinai and resume sea travel as well).

Egypt’s Protodynastic Period, sometimes known as Dynasty 0 or the Late Predynastic Period and generally dated 3200 BCE to 3000 BCE, refers to the period of time at the very end of the Predynastic Period and is equivalent to the archaeological phase known as Naqada III, the last phase of the Naqadan period.

Egypt is undergoing the process of political unification that will lead to a unified state during the Early Dynastic Period.

The process of state formation, which had begun to take place in Naqada II, becomes highly visible, with kings heading powerful polities, their names inscribed in the form of serekhs on a variety of surfaces including pottery and tombs. (Although Naqada III is often referred to as Dynasty 0 to reflect the presence of kings at the head of influential states, the kings involved would not have been a part of a dynasty and more probably have been completely unrelated and very possibly in competition with each other.)

Moreover, it is during this time that the Egyptian language is first recorded in hieroglyphs.

There is also strong archaeological evidence of Egyptian settlements in southern Israel during the Protodynastic Period, which have been regarded as colonies or trading entrepôts.

During his reign in Upper Egypt, King Narmer defeats his enemies on the Delta and merges both the Kingdom of Upper and Lower Egypt under his single rule.

Narmer is shown on palettes a wearing the double crown, composed of the lotus flower and the papyrus reed—a sign of the unified rule of both parts of Egypt that will be followed by all succeeding rulers.

According to Manetho, the first king of the unified Upper and Lower Egypt was Menes.

However, the name "Menes" and the name "Narmer" may refer to the same person.

The earliest recorded king of the First Dynasty was Hor-Aha, and the first king to claim to have united the two lands was Narmer (the final king of the Protodynastic Period).

His name is known because it is written on a votive palette used for grinding minerals for kohl, used by ancient Egyptians to outline the eyes.

The representational conventions of the Narmer Palette, also known as the Great Hierakonpolis Palette or the Palette of Narmer, executed in the pharaonic style of Egyptian sculpture, emphasize authority.

The carved slate tablet, from Hierakonpolis, shows the king surveying slaughtered prisoners, striking a northern enemy, and wearing the crowns of both kingdoms.

Egyptian votive objects, tomb paintings, and palettes depict battles, ships, animals, and vase bearers.

The Egyptians of the Old Kingdom, like all peoples of this time, wear sandals.

Egyptian men wear belted loincloths wrapped around the waist; sometimes supplementing it with a linen cape or an animal hide draped over the shoulders.

Egyptian women wear linen tunics or skirts that extend from above or below the breast down to the ankle.

Shoulder straps often support the garments, although some tunics are short-sleeved.

The basic design of Egyptian clothing is minimal because of the warm temperatures, and simple: the usual fabric is linen, left in its natural off-white color, some of which is so finely woven that it is transparent. (The Egyptian practice of weaving gold thread into fabric is today a lost art.)

The elaboration and color of the costumes comes from the belts, collars, and headdresses that accessorize them.

Wide collars and other adornments are of gold and semiprecious stone or of glass.

Headdresses are ornamented with elaborate depictions of birds or serpents in gold and with colorful stones signifying rank.

Black wigs and cosmetics invariably complete the costume.

Both men and women use kohl, a paste made from soot, antimony, or galena, a form of lead ore, on the lashes, lids, and eyebrows and for protection against the sun, edging the underside of the eye with a green paste made from ground malachite and outlining the eyes with a mixture of ground ants' eggs.

Henna is used as a hair dye, and to dye the fingernails, the palms of the hands, and the soles of the feet.

Both sexes among the upper classes daily employ rouges, whitening powders, abrasives for cleaning the teeth, bath oils, and lipsticks.

The Pyramid Texts, a collection of ancient Egyptian religious texts from the time of the Old Kingdom, are the oldest known religious texts in the world.

Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts are carved on the walls and sarcophagi of the pyramids at Saqqara during the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties of the Old Kingdom.

The oldest of the texts date to between 2400-2300 BCE.

Egyptians begin placing small pieces of crystal on the forehead of the deceased before mummification.

By about 2350, Egyptians coat the bandaged corpse of mummies with a layer of plaster, colored light green; the facial features are represented in paint like a mask.

Scents and unguents, initially restricted to use in the rituals of mummification, now become an important product in the Egyptian export trade.

Raw essences are gathered from throughout the Mediterranean to be compounded in Egypt and sold as perfumes, creams, and lotions.

Almond, olive, and sesame oils, thyme and oregano, frankincense and myrrh, spikenard, saffron, rosewater, and chypre provide the basis for concoctions that will eventually find use throughout the world.

Tyre, which probably enjoys some primacy over the other cities of Phoenicia in the tenth and eleventh centuries, is ruled by kings whose power is limited by a merchant oligarchy.

The thirteenth-century BCE sarcophagus from Byblos (mentioned earlier in the text) is reused for King Hiram of Tyre in the tenth century BCE.

The Phoenician culture, a cosmopolitan blend of Egyptian, Anatolian, Greek and Mesopotamian influences in religion and literature, reaches its greatest height during this age.

The Bible names the notorious Jezebel, wife of King Ahab, as the daughter of Ethbaal, “king of Tyre and Sidon.” (The Old Testament also tells of Queen Jezebel employing the naturally occurring sulfide of antimony as a cosmetic to beautify her eyes.)

According to the Hebrew scriptures, the city of Tyre supplies cedars, carpenters, masons, and bronzesmiths for the kings of Israel.

Pliny the Elder and Pedanius Dioscorides, writing in Rome the first century CE, both describe auripigmentum, a substance now thought to have been the dyestuff orpiment, As₂S₃, a compound of arsenic.