Near East (4,365 – 2,638 BCE) Late Neolithic–Chalcolithic — Canal Gardens, Copper, and Maritime Aegean

Geographic and Environmental Context

• Anchors: the Nile Valley and Delta; Sinai–Negev–Arabah; the southern Levant (with Tyre as the sole Levantine node in this subregion); Hejaz–Asir–Tihāma on the Red Sea; Yemen’s western uplands/coast; southwestern Cyprus; western Anatolian littoral (Smyrna–Ephesus–Miletus–Halicarnassus–Xanthos; Troad).

Climate & Environment

• Flood variability increased; Delta marshes fluctuated; Aegean coasts stable; Arabian west slope drier, highlands stable.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Canal/levee fields in Nile Delta/Valley matured; orchard–garden mosaics; caprine herding in Sinai–Negev; mixed farming in Ionia–Lydia–Caria.

• Yemen western terraces in embryo; Hejaz oases (Ta’if-like) incipient.

Technology

• Copper metallurgy in Anatolia; advanced pottery; reed boats; early sails; improved qanat/terrace conceptions in Arabia highlands (proto-forms).

Corridors

• Nile–Delta–Mediterranean shipping; Anatolian maritime loops; overland Sinai/Negev into the southern Levant.

Symbolism

• Temple precincts (Egyptian cores outside our exact geography but influence strong); Aegean cape sanctuaries; ancestor cults.

Adaptation

• Canal/qanat + terraces hedged droughts; coastal fisheries stabilized diets.

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 original settlement on the Nekhen site dates from the culture known as Naqada I of 4400 BCE or the late Badarian culture, which may date from 5000 BCE.

Nekhen, later transliterated as Hierakonpolis, Hieraconpolis, or Hieracompolis, is at its height from about 3400 BCE, with at least five thousand and possibly as many as ten thousand inhabitants.

The oldest known zoological collection was revealed during excavations at Hierakonpolis in 2009 of a menagerie that dates to around 3500 BCE.

The exotic animals included hippos, hartebeest, elephants, baboons, and wildcats.

A jar with boat designs, from Hierakonpolis (today in the Brooklyn Museum), is created between about 3500 and 3400 BCE.

The first walled towns appear in Egypt around 3400.

Totemism, a complex of varied ideas and ways of behavior based on a worldview drawn from nature, is the basis for the belief system of Pre-Dynastic Egypt.

Positing a relation between kinship groups and specific animals and plants, Totemism is frequently mixed with different kinds of other beliefs, such as ancestor worship, ideas of the soul, or animism.

Each independent principality has its own totem.

Horus the falcon, one of the oldest and most significant deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion, is worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period.

The protector of Naqada in the south, Horus is also sometimes known as Nekheny, meaning "falcon.” Some have proposed that Nekheny may have been another falcon-god, worshiped at Nekhen (city of the hawk), but then Horus was identified with him early on.

Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and Egyptologists treat these as distinct gods.

These various forms may possibly be different perceptions of the same multi-layered deity in which certain attributes or syncretic relationships are emphasized, not necessarily in opposition but complementary to one another, consistent with how the Ancient Egyptians viewed the multiple facets of reality.

Horus is to serve many functions in the Egyptian pantheon, most notably being the god of the Sky, god of War and god of Protection.

Lower Egypt, known as Ta-Mehu, which means "land of papyrus," is divided into twenty nomes, the first of which is at el-Lisht.

Because Lower Egypt is mostly undeveloped scrubland, undeveloped for human life and filled with all types of plant life such as grasses and herbs, the organization of the nomes will continue to undergo several changes.

In mythology, the earth deity Geb, original ruler of Egypt, invested Horus with the rule over Lower Egypt.

The Low Red Crown Deshret represents Lower Egypt with its patron deity; its symbols are the papyrus and the bee.

Seth is the lord of Deshret, the Red Land that comprises the deserts and foreign lands on either side of Kemet, the fertile Nile river basin.

It is considered a region of chaos, without law and full of dangers.

Deshret, from ancient Egyptian, is also the formal name for the Red Crown of Lower Egypt.

The end has a curly wire on it, representing the proboscis of a honeybee.

Deshret or DSRT also represents the insect known as the honeybee.

The Red Crown in Egyptian language hieroglyphs eventually will be used as the vertical letter “n.” The original language "n" hieroglyph from the Predynastic Period and the Old Kingdom was the horizontal letter n, (N-water ripple (n hieroglyph)).

No Red Crown has survived, and it is unknown how it was constructed and what materials were used.

Copper, reeds, cloth, and leather have been suggested, but this is purely speculative.

Upper Egypt, known as Ta Shemau, which means, "the land of reeds,” is divided into twenty-two districts called nomes.

The first nome is roughly in the location of modern Aswan and the twenty-second is at modern Atfih (Aphroditopolis), just to the south of Cairo.

The main city of predynastic Upper Egypt is Nekhen (Greek Hierakonpolis), whose patron deity is the vulture goddess Nekhbet.

Hedjet is the formal name for the White Crown of pharaonic Upper Egypt.

The symbol sometimes used for the Hedjet is the vulture goddess Nekhbet shown next to the head of the cobra goddess Wadjet, the Uraeus on the Pschent.

The white crown, along with the red crown of Lower Egypt, has a long history, with each of their respective representations going back into the Predynastic Period, indicating that kingship has been the base of Egyptian society for some time.

The earliest image of the Hedjet known so far is in Northern Nubia (Ta-Seti) around the Naqada II period.

It is possible that the "White crown clan" either migrated northward and southern Egyptians adopted their regalia, or the conquering upper Egyptians took the white crown as their own as they absorbed the kingdom into the new unified state, as they later will with Lower Egypt.

Nekhbet, the tutelary goddess of Nekhebet (modern el Kab) near Hierakonpolis, is depicted as a woman, sometimes with the head of a vulture, wearing the White Crown.

The falcon god Horus of Hierakonpolis (Egyptian: Nekhen) is generally shown wearing a White Crown.

As with the Deshret (Red Crown), none of the White Crowns has survived either, and it is hence unknown how it was constructed and what materials were used.

Felt or leather have been suggested, but this is purely speculative.

The fact that no crown has ever been found, even in relatively intact tombs (such as that of king Tutankhamun) might suggest that the crown was passed from one regent to the next, much as in present day monarchies.

A famous depiction of the White Crown is on the Narmer Palette found at Hierakonpolis in which the king of the South wearing the hedjet is shown triumphing over his northern enemies.

The first walled towns appear in Egypt.

Tombs also begin to be constructed in classic Egyptian style, being modeled like normal houses, and sometimes composed of multiple rooms.

Although excavations in the delta have still to be meticulously undertaken, these traits are interpreted as having come largely from the north, and are probably not indigenous to Upper Egypt.

The Egyptian deity Set, or Seth, is a god of the desert, storms, and foreigners.

Set is mostly depicted in art as a fabulous creature, referred to by Egyptologists as the Set animal or Typhonic beast, known as a Typhon, with a curved snout, square ears, forked tail, and canine body, or sometimes as a human with only the head of the Set animal.

It has no complete resemblance to any known creature, although it could be seen as a composite of an aardvark, a donkey, and a jackal.

The earliest representations of what may be the Seth animal comes from a tomb dating to the Naqada I phase of the Predynastic Period (circa 3790 BCE–3500 BCE), though this identification is uncertain.

If these are ruled out, then the earliest Set-animal appears on a mace-head of the Scorpion King, a Protodynastic ruler.

The head and forked tail of the Set-animal are clearly present.

The Near East (3213–3070 BCE): Egyptian Unification and the Dawn of Writing

Proto-Dynastic Egypt and Cultural Integration

During the late Naqada III period (circa 3200–3000 BCE), Egypt moves decisively toward political and cultural unification. The characteristic material culture of southern Egypt gradually expands northward, replacing the previously distinct culture of Lower Egypt. Typical Egyptian artifacts evolve: undecorated stone vessels from the Gerzean period supersede Amratian-style pottery. This era also witnesses an influx of distinctly Mesopotamian influences, including cylinder seals, recessed panel architecture, and ceremonial maceheads executed in the Mesopotamian "pear-shaped" style. Cosmetic palettes bearing relief carvings share stylistic elements with the contemporary Mesopotamian Uruk culture.

Evidence suggests trade connections between Egypt and Mesopotamia occurred via maritime routes. The presence of artifacts from Byblos indicates Mediterranean trade routes, possibly involving land transit across Sinai or maritime travel along the Red Sea coast. Gerzean settlement distribution, notably at wadis opening to the Red Sea, supports this interpretation.

Egyptian Fortresses and Trade in Canaan

At Tell as-Sakan, south of modern-day Gaza, settlement begins around 3300 BCE with an Egyptian fortress in Canaanite territory. Initially thriving through trade in agricultural products, the settlement later declines when Egypt shifts economic interests toward Lebanese cedar, reducing Gaza to a mere transit port. Consequently, Tell as-Sakan is virtually abandoned by the Early Bronze Age II.

Dynasty 0 (Proto-Dynastic Period)

Egypt's Proto-Dynastic Period, or Dynasty 0 (circa 3200–3000 BCE), marks the culmination of state formation processes begun in the previous period. Powerful regional kings lead emerging polities, their names inscribed within serekhs (royal name-symbols) on pottery, tombs, and votive objects. This is also when hieroglyphic script first emerges, recording names and brief inscriptions on artifacts.

Southern Israel contains evidence of Egyptian colonies or trading outposts during this period, indicating extensive regional influence.

King Narmer and Political Unification

King Narmer emerges as a key historical figure around this time, traditionally recognized for uniting Upper and Lower Egypt into a single state. Depicted prominently on the famous Narmer Palette, Narmer wears the double crown—symbolically uniting the lotus flower (Upper Egypt) and papyrus reed (Lower Egypt)—foreshadowing later Egyptian royal symbolism. Although the historian Manetho credits "Menes" with Egypt’s first unified kingship, scholars widely believe Narmer and Menes might be the same person.

Development of Hieroglyphic and Hieratic Scripts

Around 3100 BCE, Egyptians transition from using purely pictorial representations to an organized system of writing, inventing hieroglyphics. These early hieroglyphs appear initially on ceremonial objects like the Narmer Palette, and even earlier on clay labels discovered at Abydos (Tomb U-j), dated to the early Naqada IIIA period (circa 3200 BCE).

A related, more cursive script, hieratic, emerges concurrently, used primarily for brush-and-ink writing. Contrary to earlier beliefs, hieratic and hieroglyphics develop in parallel, not sequentially, with hieratic becoming the common writing method of scribes, predating monumental stone-carved hieroglyphs, which appear only in the First Dynasty.

Formation of Egyptian City-States

Multiple small city-states develop along the Nile, with Upper Egypt eventually consolidated into three dominant states: Thinis, Naqada, and Nekhen (Hierakonpolis). The Set cult is prominent in Naqada, while Thinis and Nekhen are centers of the Horus cult. Naqada, positioned between the two, becomes the first to be absorbed, subsequently followed by the conquest of Lower Egypt by Thinis. Thinis is possibly the origin of the First and Second Dynasties, though its exact location remains uncertain (possibly near modern Girga). Thinite kings are buried in Abydos.

King Serket ("Scorpion King"), possibly contemporary with Narmer, rules either Nekhen or a competing region and is depicted on ceremonial maceheads. His identity and relationship to Narmer remain unclear; he may represent either a rival or an alternate identity for Narmer.

Urbanization and Religious Authority

The emergence of walled towns, structured tombs resembling houses, and advanced architectural techniques, many likely derived from northern (Lower Egyptian) influence, becomes widespread. Increased trade and craft specialization lead to significant social stratification and hierarchical governance.

The spiritual power of divine kingship solidifies during this period. Cults of gods like Horus, Set, and Neith enhance royal legitimacy, and rulers assume divine roles to consolidate authority. Horus, associated prominently with Nekhen, becomes a potent symbol of kingship, protection, and unified sovereignty.

Sodom, Gomorrah, and Natural Disasters

Southwest of the Dead Sea, five settlements (Bab edh-Dhra among them) dating from this period possibly correspond to the biblical cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar. The presence of bitumen and petroleum deposits rich in sulfur and natural gas suggests potential historical foundations for legends of their fiery destruction. Recent hypotheses propose that the catastrophic explosion of a meteor over Austria around 3123 BCE could have triggered such widespread devastation, providing a geological explanation for the biblical narrative.

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 Egyptian language begins to be written in words instead of pictures, when a Egyptian scribes invent or adopt a writing system, based on hieroglyphics, around 3100 BCE.

Hieroglyphic script develops from the preliterate artistic traditions of Egypt, possibly influenced by trading contacts with Sumer, although the syllabic signs do not indicate differences in vowel sounds, as does the Sumerian script.

A hieroglyph can represent either a sound, an idea, or an identifying mark attached to another sign.

The earliest recognizable Egyptian hieroglyphics occur sparsely, as personal and place names, in narrative reliefs dating from this period.

The earliest known hieroglyphic inscription was for many years the Narmer Palette, found during excavations at Hierakonpolis (modern Kawm al-Ahmar) in the 1890s, which has been dated to about 3200 BCE.

A German archaeological team under Günter Dreyer excavating at Abydos (modern Umm el-Qa'ab) in 1998 will uncover tomb U-j of a Predynastic ruler, and recover three hundred clay labels inscribed with proto-hieroglyphs, dating to the early Naqada IIIA period.

Egyptian scribes, when using brush and ink, have adopted a cursive writing system known as hieratic.

First used during the Protodynastic Period, developing alongside the more formal hieroglyphic script, hieratic will continue to develop until it bears little resemblance to the hieroglyphic script.

Hieratic is not a derivative of hieroglyphic writing; true monumental hieroglyphs carved in stone do not appear until the First Dynasty, well after hieratic had been established as a scribal practice.

The two writing systems, therefore, are related, parallel developments, rather than a single linear one.

Various small city-states have arisen along the Nile.

Centuries of conquest have reduced Upper Egypt to three major states: Thinis, Naqada, and Nekhen.

Not much is known of Lower Egypt's political makeup but they may have shared in Naqada's Set cult while Thinis and Nekhen are part of the Horus cult.

Being sandwiched by Thinis and Nekhen, Naqada is the first to fall.

Thinis then conquers Lower Egypt.

Nekhen's relationship with Thinis is uncertain but these two states may have merged peacefully with the Thinite royal family ruling all of Egypt.

Thinis is attributed in Manetho's chronological list to being the home of the First and Second Dynastic kings, though no proof of this has been found.

The location of the ancient city of Thinis is unknown, but there is the possibility it was located near or under the modern town of Girga.

The Thinite kings are buried at Abydos in the Umm el-Qa'ab cemetery.

King Serket, translated as King Scorpion or sometimes The Scorpion King, refers to one or two kings of Upper Egypt during the Protodynastic Period.

His name may refer to the goddess Serket.

Believed to have lived just before or during the rule of Narmer at Thinis, the only pictorial evidence of his existence is a macehead found in the main deposit in a temple at Nekhen.

He may have been a local king of Nekhen who had nothing to do with the ruling house of Thinis or a rival from within that family; another theory makes him identical to Narmer as an alternate name.