2 Interesting Predynastic Discoveries in Egypt

For the most part, because of a whole host of factors, announcements of noteworthy Predynastic finds come from Upper Egypt.  Contrary to this, the Polish mission in Lower Egypt has announced the discovery of a bunch of really interesting finds – all at Tell el-Farkha in the northern province of Dakahliya in the Delta.  The first was the discovery of what the Egyptian authorities are calling the largest Predynastic brewery in the Delta.  Unfortunately, detailed information on the find is pretty thin – it would be very interesting to compare this Lower Egyptian brewery with the one excavated by Jeremy Geller at Hierakonpolis.  Preliminary dating (which I don’t doubt) places the brewery around the Naqada II D/C period (roughly 3500 BC-ish)

The second big find was that of a lower/middle class cemetery.  Beyond the fact that that the cemetery has about 33 individual burials, there is absolutely no additional information available.  While cemeteries are pretty common (relatively speaking) in Upper Egypt (in fact, for those who don’t know, much of chronology that is used by Predynastic Egyptian archaeologists today is derived from material recovered from Upper Egyptian cemeteries by Flinders Petrie at the end of the 19th century), cemeteries in Lower Egypt are nowhere near as common.  Both geographical and regional climatological factors often result is very poor preservation of cemeteries in Lower Egypt.  So, this cemetery (obviously depending on its state of preservation) could be a very big deal. 

The third big find was that of a cache of 65 items in (or around) a Dynasty 0/Dynasty 1 ceramic vessel.  Most of the items in the cache were ivory figures (apparently hippopotami) or small faience vessels.

The final find (and it’s a big one) was of two wooden statues.  Both statues were of nude men, and features lapis inset eyes.  The statues themselves were pretty big (one was 70cm and one was 40cm).  The announcement doesn’t speak of any associated material that could indicate an exact date for the statues, but they are obviously Predynastic in nature (though, that is definitely a huge time frame).  There is some confusion in the actual announcements about the statues – one says that the statues were found wrapped (or partially wrapped) in gold foil, while another announcement doesn’t actually speak about the discovery of the statues, but instead speaks about the discovery of the gold foil itself.

To read more about the finds (and frankly, there isn’t much), check out the post on Andie Byrnes’ Egyptology news blog.