scholarly journals Significant depositional changes offshore the Nile Delta in late third millennium BCE: relevance for Egyptology

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-92
Author(s):  
Jean-Daniel Stanley ◽  
Sarah E. Wedl
Keyword(s):  
Nile Delta ◽  
Earth Science ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Intermediate Period ◽  
Ancient Society ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
First Intermediate Period ◽  
Environmental Events

Abstract. No environmental factor has been as critically important for Egypt's ancient society through time as sufficiently high annual flood levels of the Nile River, the country's major source of fresh water. However, interpretation of core analysis shows reduced depositional accumulation rates and altered compositional attributes of the sediment facies deposited seaward of the Nile Delta during a relatively brief period in the late third millennium BCE. These changes record the effects of displaced climatic belts, decreased rainfall, lower Nile flows, and modified oceanographic conditions offshore in the Levantine Basin, primarily from 2300 to 2000 BCE, taking place at the same time as important geological changes identified by study of cores collected in the Nile Delta. It turns out that integrated multi-disciplinary Earth science and archaeological approaches at dated sites serve to further determine when and how such significant changing environmental events had negative effects in both offshore and landward areas. This study indicates these major climatically induced effects prevailed concurrently offshore and in Nile Delta sites and at about the time Egypt abandoned the Old Kingdom's former political system and also experienced fragmentation of its centralized state. In response, the country's population would have experienced diminished agricultural production leading to altered societal, political, and economic pressures during the late Old Kingdom to First Intermediate Period at ca. 2200 to 2050 BCE.

Autobiographische Textüberlieferung im Alten Reich anhand phraseologischer „Cluster“

2021 ◽  
Vol 148 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-100
Author(s):  
Nicole Kloth
Keyword(s):  
Common Source ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Intermediate Period ◽  
Lower Ranking ◽  
Place Of Origin ◽  
First Intermediate Period

Summary There exists a group of texts among the autobiographical inscriptions of the Old Kingdom that, due to their close phraseological relationship, must go back to a common source, and which can be described as “Saqqara group” according to their place of origin. It dates back to the turn from the 5th to the 6th dynasty. This group can now be extended by additional autobiographies and furthermore differentiated. The classical creation of a stemma cannot be used, but instead different significant text sequences, which are called “clusters” here, are examined. The texts of this autobiographical cluster, starting from Saqqara, find their prolongation at the beginning of the 6th dynasty in El-Hawawish and it can be observed that they are transferred from higher-ranking officials at the end of the Old Kingdom to lower-ranking officials in the First Intermediate Period.

The Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period

2020 ◽  
pp. 618-637
Author(s):  
Nigel Strudwick
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Intermediate Period ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Early Dynastic ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Intermediate Period ◽  
First Time ◽  
Egyptian History

The Old Kingdom is usually characterized as the first great epoch of Egyptian history, when the phenomenal cultural, iconographical and political developments of the late Predynastic Period and the Early Dynastic Period coalesced to give an eminently visible culture that says ‘ancient Egypt’ to the modern audience. This development may best be symbolized by the pyramid, the most persistent image of the era. For its part, the First Intermediate Period is the first clear manifestation in Egyptian history of the periods of disunity and systemic weakness that have affected every long-lasting ancient and modern culture in one form or the other. The time-period covered in this section illustrates for the first time both the highs and lows of ancient Egypt. The Old Kingdom is usually defined as consisting of the Third to Eighth Dynasties of Manetho (c.2686–2125 bc), and the First Intermediate Period of the Ninth and Tenth and roughly two-thirds of the Eleventh Dynasty (c.2160–2016 bc).

scholarly journals “Cylinder seals for the lower classes”

2018 ◽  
Vol 145 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-204
Author(s):  
Harco Willems
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Central State ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Intermediate Period ◽  
Object Categories ◽  
State Authority ◽  
Egyptian Culture ◽  
First Intermediate Period ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Cylinder Seals

Summary Egyptologists have paid much attention to inscribed administrative seals and their impressions. By contrast, the so-called figure seals, which render no or hardly any text, but instead use icons and signs inspired on hieroglyphs which however yield no coherent sense, have received far less attention. Usually this material is related to the lower strata of society. According to current interpretations, it is rooted in the Egyptian culture of the later Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period. The phenomenon would be a corollary of the decreasing prominence of central state authority in this era. Proceeding from a number of recent early Old Kingdom finds from al-Shaykh Saʽīd/Wādī Zabaydā, the present article argues that a) figure seals were continually in use from the late Predynastic until the late Old Kingdom and b) different from what is commonly assumed, stamp seals were in existence long before the late Old Kingdom. The article challenges the relationship between these object categories and developments specifically in late Old Kingdom Egypt.

scholarly journals The High Priesthood of Memphis during the Old Kingdom and the First Intermediate Period. An Updating Study and a Prosopography

2018 ◽  
pp. 7-63
Author(s):  
Josep Cervelló Autuori ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
High Priest ◽  
Good Opportunity ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Intermediate Period ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Subject ◽  
First Intermediate Period ◽  
The One

The inscriptions recovered from the looted necropolis of Kom el-Khamaseen, located in southwest Saqqara and dated between the end of the Old Kingdom and the beginning of the First Intermediate Period, document a hitherto unknown high priest of Memphis: Imephor Impy Nikauptah. This character must be incorporated into our prosopographical repertoires and placed in his historical and cultural context. This provides a good opportunity to return to the issue of the Memphite pontificate during the third millennium B.C. as a whole. The aim of this article is therefore to offer, on the one hand, a systematic and updated overview of the subject by integrating the new data from Kom el-Khamaseen, drawing upon the complete sources, and critically reviewing the literature on the matter. On the other hand, it is also about providing a new reasoned chronological list and a prosopography of the Memphite high priests of the Old Kingdom and the First Intermediate Period.

scholarly journals Gebelein Archaeological Project 2019: Pathyris and the cemeteries in East Gebelein and the Chert Survey in West Gebelein

2019 ◽  
pp. 215-237
Author(s):  
Wojciech Ejsmond ◽  
Julia M. Chyła ◽  
Piotr Witkowski ◽  
Dawid F. Wieczorek ◽  
Dániel Takács ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Intermediate Period ◽  
The Third ◽  
Local Tradition ◽  
Archaeological Project ◽  
First Intermediate Period

Fieldwork in early 2019 by the Gebelein Archaeological Project encompassed surveys of two cemeteries situated south of the ancient town of Per-Hathor/Pathyris in the area of the Eastern Mountain of Gebelein. One of these is dated to the Old Kingdom and the First Intermediate Period, the other tentatively to Fatimid times. The third survey searched for local chert sources on the Western Mountain, investigating a local tradition of lithic tool production.

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