Alicia Meza - Ancient Egypt Before Writing: From Markings to Hieroglyphs

ANCIENT EGYPT
BEFORE
WRITING

FROM MARKINGS TO HIEROGLYPHS

ALICIA MEZA

Copyright 2012 by Alicia Meza.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012920871

ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4797-4576-0

Softcover 978-1-4797-4575-3

Ebook 978-1-4797-4577-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:
Xlibris Corporation
1-888-795-4274

122404

CONTENTS

For Maria Ellul

The invention of writing was developed in Mesopotamia, as early as the fourth millennium BCE. Archaeological excavations revealed that a system of counting tokens was used in order to reckon and storage goods in the ancient temples. Although widely used in the area this token system was eventually substituted for the more efficient abstract system of writing, which also allowed to convey ideas. The variety of markings on baked tokens was also convenient for the purpose of a secure long range trade between the area of Mesopotamia and the Nile Valley. A possible relationship between the important development of writing and social change, was emerging with the increase of commerce and the subsequent exchange of new innovations and ideas between the two regions. As the emergence of writing influenced the social complexity of Mesopotamia and its state formation, a parallel social development was occurring in the Nile Valley, perhaps led by the social interaction of both areas and their exchange of goods and raw materials. As proven by archaeological work in the most ancient areas of Egypt, markings on goods were also used by the Predynastic towns to storage merchandise in palaces and temples. This system was probably also used not only for the purpose of economic exchange among the towns and big centers in the Nile Valley, but also for an interregional exchange system between Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Mesopotamian influence on the development of Ancient Egyptian culture and writing has long been debated in Egyptology, since its early days. However, this influence can be traced in art and architecture in Predynastic Egypt as well as in the Egyptian adoption of the Mesopotamian seal, which had already been accepted. Although these adaptations are evident in Egyptian art and architecture as also in some aspects of Ancient Egyptian religion, they always had a distinctive Egyptian style

The purpose of this study is the investigation of a similar marking system used in Ancient Egypt for counting and storing merchandise, which was used then for economic exchange among the towns along the Nile Valley and with other regions, such as Mesopotamia . This investigations is also focused on the relationship between the development of writing and the pristine state formation in Ancient Egypt, where and when it began in the Nile Valley and if it was a gradual, heterogenous occurrence or was it a unique isolated event as always believed? How integrated those Predynastic towns and villages were with each other and what relationship, if any, they had with an outside system such as Mesopotamia?

During the fourth millennium BCE, Mesopotamia experienced unprecedented cultural and social changes that led to the invention of writing and the first state formation in the area. For instance, a simple token counting system, which had been used since the eighth millennium BCE in order to identify a single item, changed to a system of more complex tokens for reckoning diverse items. Complex tokens contained markings to convey more information and therefore, the innovation in the reckoning system rapidly paved the way for the development of writing. This social intellectual development was also adopted in Southwestern Asia and probably in the Nile Valley area, where a marking system for identifying and counting items was in place.

The development of reckoning things into a writing system may have had significant consequences for Mesopotamian political and economic life. For instance, a rapid increase in trade and competition for resources and goods may have led to the creation of the monopoly of production and distribution centers for goods. Subsequently, this increase in economic and political power and competition may have resulted in the development of leaderships, social stratification and state formation (Johnson, 1977:481-94).

Regional archaeological analysis provide us with a method to calculate when Warka in Southern Mesopotamia and Susa in Southwestern Iran developed their first state system in those areas. The studies of both Schmandt-Besserat and Johnson coincide in their predictions of the time period when these intellectual and sociopolitical changes occurred in Mesopotamia. Using their theoretical models and an appraisal of previous research done by Egyptologists within Predynastic Egypt, an attempt will be made here, in order to determine the time of beginning of writing and state formation in Ancient Egypt.

During the fourth millennium BCE significant changes also transformed the Nile Valley area. The idea of Egyptian people living in isolation and developing their own self contained culture, as it has been assumed during the early years of Egyptology, was an idea that originated in Malinowskis own experiences. This idea will be challenged here, following Barths innovation that people always live in interaction with other people. A notion of cultures in contact, as a necessary basis for social development, also has been proposed by Susan Lees. There are no closed systems and boundaries can always be culturally crossed, as has been asserted by Rapaport (Conant, 1993: class notes). Following up on these ideas, parallel intellectual and social developments can be traced in Egypt to those of Mesopotamia and Southwestern Iran during the fourth millennium BCE. As evidence for these changes, the archaeological research done by several Egyptologists will serve as basis for this research. Some scholars had already asserted that Egypt was a stratified society well before the beginning of the third millennium BCE. The precise idea here is that Egypt never generated its pristine state formation in isolation, but that Mesopotamia was an important element in Egyptian social development. Moreover, pristine state formation in Egypt never occurred in the idealistic way of a sole state reuniting the whole country and emerging, as the primeval mound, out of the waters of the chaos. This is a very tempting Ancient Egyptian cosmological concept, but nevertheless non-pragmatic, because an area so diverse and large as Egypt it was geographically impossible to achieve a sole state formation in a pristine stage. Systems emerging in a dotted layout in a gradually heterogenous way is a more probable possibility. This notion can be inferred from the diversity of towns and centers that proliferated during the Predynastic Period throughout the country. Later on, these towns were the basis for the formation of the Lower and Upper Egypt kingdoms described in the historical tradition.

At the beginning, social interaction and trade may have been tenuous among those cities, but with a new improvement in the reckoning system, local exchange may have improved, extending to other regions, such as the Mediterranean, Palestine and Mesopotamia. Furthermore, Egypt was able to trade and interact with the rest of Africa throughout contacts with Nubia and Libya, as it is attested in rock drawings and later in tomb wall paintings.

Cultural interaction may have meant also conflict; there is no doubt about it. Symbolically, there are depictions of early Predynastic conflicts among fortified cities, such as those represented in the Libyan palette and the incense burners from Qustul (Fig. 1-2). Perhaps competition for trade routes, markets and access to natural resources was also a reason for conflict that resulted in improved commercial communications. That the outcome of these events acquired unexpected dimensions is not an alien possibility. In human relationships that involve decision making there is always the element of unpredictability, which escapes planning and programming.