West Asia (6000–3500 BC)
55-672: Europe (5500–2200 BC) Central Asia (3700–1700 BC) South Asia (4300–1800 BC) China (5000–2900 BC) The A-Group was the first powerful society in Nubia , located in modern southern Egypt and northern Sudan that flourished between the First and Second Cataracts of the Nile in Lower Nubia . It lasted from the 4th millennium BC, reached its climax at c. 3100 BC , and fell 200 years later c. 2900 BC . In 1907,
110-445: A black or dark brown hue. On average, the men were 169.9 cm in height and the women stood around 155.5 cm. Some individuals were wrapped in leather and positioned on reed mats. All of the tombs contained various burial items, including personal ornaments, utensils and ceramics. According to a study of Nubian dental affinities by Joel Irish, traits characterizing Late Paleolithic samples from Nubia are common in recent populations south of
165-403: A horizontal "n" at the bottom of the previous block, it should be thought that the vertical "n" is also chosen for a visual effect; in other words, it visually spreads out the running text of words, instead of piling horizontal prepositions in a more tight text. Visually it is also a hieroglyph that takes up more 'space'-(versus a straight-line type for the horizontal water ripple ); so it may have
220-476: A pastoralist society to a more sedentary society by the end of the 4th millennium BC, which could suggest that the conditions were right to develop more complex social organization. The two main types of pottery created during the A-Group period were eggshell ceramics and black-topped red ware. Eggshell ceramics are characterized by their eggshell-thin walls. Black-topped red ware pottery was created by oxidizing
275-715: A series of crania which included two Egyptian (predynastic Badarian and Naqada series), a series of A-Group Nubians, and a Bronze Age series from Lachish , Palestine. The two pre-dynastic series had strongest affinities, followed by closeness between the Naqada and the Nubian series. Further, the Nubian A-Group plotted nearer to the Egyptians, and the Lachish sample placed more closely to Naqada than Badari. According to Godde,
330-652: A sweeping claim, saying that he was only trying to raise the possibility that dynastic Egypt originated near Qustul, and Nubia facilitated that process. Gatto additionally referenced the Red Crown from the late Naqada I vessel, referenced above, claiming that Nubia almost certainly did not play a pivotal role in the rise of the Egyptian monarchy. While she also mentions that the tombs found in Qustul were comparable to that of Egyptian ruler's tombs, William Y. Adams suggests that
385-575: The Dnieper-Donets culture , and migrated northwest to the Baltic and Denmark, where they mixed with natives ( TRBK A and C). This may be correlated with the spread of Indo-European languages, known as the Kurgan hypothesis . Near the end of the period, another branch left many traces in the lower Danube area (culture of Cernavodă culture I), in what seems to have been another invasion. Meanwhile,
440-1022: The Nile valley , and East Africa. Among the sampled populations, the A-Group people were nearest to the Kerma culture bearers, Kush populations in Upper Nubia , and to Ethiopians. This is followed by the Meroitic , X-Group and Christian period inhabitants of Lower Nubia and the Kellis population in the Dakhla Oasis , as well as C-Group and Pharaonic era skeletons excavated in Lower Nubia and ancient Egyptians ( Naqada , Badari , Hierakonpolis , Abydos and Kharga in Upper Egypt ; Hawara in Lower Egypt ). In 2020, Kanya Godde analysed
495-598: The Western Desert as well as gold mined from the Eastern Desert in exchange for Egyptian craft products, olive oil, and other items from the Mediterranean basin. A-Group dwellings consisted mostly of reed huts and rock shelters, with most settlements taking the form of temporary settlements and pastoralist communities. A substantial A-Group Settlement is at the site of Afyeh in Lower Nubia , where
550-580: The little owl (Athene Noctua) and the long-eared owl (Asio otux). This period extended from c. 2500 BC to c. 1800 or 1700 BC (depending on the region). The dates are general for the whole of Europe, and the Aegean area was already fully in the Bronze Age. c. 2500 BC the new Catacomb culture , which originated from the Yamnaya peoples in the regions north and east of
605-428: The phoneme 'n'. One old use of the red crown hieroglyph is to make the word: 'in'!, (formerly an -(a-with dot)-(the "vertical feather" hieroglyph a, plus the red crown). Egyptian "in" is used at the beginning of a text and translates as: Behold! , or Lo! , and is an emphatic. The Red Crown is also used as a determinative , most notably in the word for deshret. It is also used in other words or names of gods. In
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#1732766010869660-444: The 198 BC Rosetta Stone , the 'Red Crown' as hieroglyph has the usage mostly of the vertical form of the preposition "n". In running text, word endings are not always at the end of hieroglyph blocks ; when they are at the end, a simple transition to start the next block is a vertical separator, in this case the preposition, vertical n, (thus a space saver). Since the start of the next hieroglyphic block could also be started with
715-686: The A-Group culture while the culture was starting to disintegrate. With the existential crisis of the B-Group, it is suggested that these burials were simply poorer versions of A-group burials and that the span of the A-group culture lasted beyond 3100 BC. Chalcolithic Europe West Asia (6000–3500 BC) Europe (5500–2200 BC) Central Asia (3700–1700 BC) South Asia (4300–1800 BC) China (5000–2900 BC) The Chalcolithic (also Eneolithic, Copper Age) period of Prehistoric Europe lasted roughly from 5000 to 2000 BC, developing from
770-641: The Austro-Hungarian Empire in recent times. The rest of the Balkans was profoundly restructured after the invasions of the previous period but, with the exception of the Coțofeni culture in a mountainous region, none of them show any eastern (or presumably Indo-European) traits. The new Ezero culture , in Bulgaria, had the first traits of pseudo-bronze (an alloy of copper with arsenic ); as did
825-537: The Black Sea. Some of these infiltrated Poland and may have played a significant but unclear role in the transformation of the culture of the Globular Amphorae into the new Corded Ware culture . In Britain, copper was used between the 25th and 22nd centuries BC, but some archaeologists do not recognise a British Chalcolithic because production and use was on a small scale. Around 2400 BC. this people of
880-545: The Corded Ware replaced their predecessors and expanded to Danubian and Nordic areas of western Germany. One related branch invaded Denmark and southern Sweden ( Single Grave culture ), while the mid-Danubian basin, though showing more continuity, also displayed clear traits of new Indo-European elites ( Vučedol culture ). Simultaneously, in the west, the Artenac peoples reached Belgium. With the partial exception of Vučedol,
935-653: The Danubian Lengyel culture absorbed its northern neighbours of the Czech Republic and Poland over a number of centuries, only to recede in the second half of the period. In Bulgaria and Wallachia (Southern Romania ), the Boian-Marica culture evolved into a monarchy with a clearly royal cemetery near the coast of the Black Sea. This model seems to have been copied later in the Tiszan region with
990-660: The Danubian cultures, so buoyant just a few centuries ago, were wiped off the map of Europe. The rest of the period was the story of a mysterious phenomenon: the Beaker people . This group seems to have been of mercantile character and preferred being buried according to a very specific, almost invariable, ritual. Nevertheless, out of their original area of western Central Europe, they appeared only inside local cultures, so they never invaded and assimilated but rather went to live among those peoples, keeping their way of life. The rest of
1045-542: The Egyptian language as an alphabetic uniliteral , vertical form for letter "n" as a phoneme or preposition . It became functional in running hieroglyphic texts, where either the horizontal or vertical form preposition satisfied space requirements. Both the vertical and horizontal forms are prepositional equivalents, with the horizontal letter n, the N-water ripple (n hieroglyph) being more common, as well as more common to form parts of Egyptian language words requiring
1100-506: The Egyptologist George A. Reisner first discovered artifacts belonging to the A-Group culture. Reisner named this society the A-Group, which is now an outdated archaeological term, but remained in the literature. Early hubs of this civilization included Kubaniyya in the north and Buhen in the south, with Aswan , Sayala, Toshka and Qustul in between. The A-Group population was once described as ethnically “very similar” to
1155-651: The Iberian Peninsula: one in the Portuguese region of Estremadura (culture of Vila Nova de São Pedro ), strongly embedded in the Atlantic Megalithic culture; the other near Almería (SE Spain), centred on the large town of Los Millares , of Mediterranean character, probably affected by eastern cultural influxes ( tholoi ). Despite the many differences the two civilizations seemed to be in friendly contact and to have productive exchanges. In
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#17327660108691210-475: The Mediterranean basin, several cultures (most notably Chassey in SE France and La Lagozza in northern Italy) converged into a functional union, of which the most significant characteristic was the distribution network of honey-coloured flint . Despite this unity, the signs of conflicts are clear, as many skeletons show violent injuries. This was the time and area where Ötzi , a man whose well-preserved body
1265-530: The Megalithic super-culture , which extended from southern Sweden to southern Spain, including large parts of southern Germany. But the Mediterranean and Danubian groupings of the previous period appear to have been fragmented into many smaller pieces, some of them apparently backward in technological matters. After c. 2600 several phenomena prefigured the changes of the upcoming period. Large towns with stone walls appeared in two different areas of
1320-530: The Nile delta. The fact that no crown has ever been found buried with any of the pharaohs, even in relatively intact tombs, might suggest that it was passed from one reign to the next, much as in present-day monarchies. Toby Wilkinson has cited the iconography on rock art in the Eastern Desert region as depicting what he interpreted to be among the earliest representations of the royal crowns and suggested
1375-536: The Qustul incense burner found in the cemetery may be better suited to prove that the monarchy was situated somewhere near the Nile Valley instead of the monarchy being initially situated in Nubia. From excavations at A-Group cemeteries, archaeologists have been tracing the genetic and ancestral lineage between A-Group Nubians and other societies. The specimens found in A-Group cemeteries typically had straight hair of
1430-599: The Red Crown could have originated in the southern Nile Valley. Deshret, the ancient Egyptian Red Crown, is one of the oldest Egyptian hieroglyphs . As an iconographic element, it is used on the famous palette of Pharaoh Narmer as the "Red Crown of the Delta" , the Delta being Lower Egypt . The first usage of the Red Crown was in iconography as the symbol for Lower Egypt with the Nile Delta , horizontal letter 'n', Gardiner no. 35, Later it came to be used in
1485-542: The Sahara, whereas traits shared by Final Neolithic and later Nubians more closely emulate those found among groups originating to the north, i.e. in Egypt and, to a diminishing degree, greater North Africa, West Asia, and Europe. Irish concluded that genetic discontinuity occurred in Nubia sometime after the late Pleistocene. Dental trait analysis of A-Group fossils found affinities with populations inhabiting Northeast Africa ,
1540-641: The Upper Egyptian Naqada culture and A-Group Nubia. He further elaborated that: "Egyptian writing arose in Naqadan Upper Egypt and A-Group Nubia, and not in the Delta cultures, where the direct Western Asian contact was made, further vititates the Mesopotamian-influence argument". Oshiro Michinori argued, in reference to the A-Group culture, that the external influence from Nubia on the formation of Ancient Egypt in
1595-441: The archaeological cemeteries at Qustul are no longer available for excavations since the flooding of Lake Nasser . According to David Wengrow , the A-Group polity of the late 4th millenninum BC is poorly understood since most of the archaeological remains are submerged underneath Lake Nasser. Frank Yurco stated that depictions of pharonic iconography such as the royal crowns, Horus falcons and victory scenes were concentrated in
1650-470: The area of Dordogne ( Aquitaine , France), a new unexpected culture of bowmen appeared, the culture of Artenac , which would soon take control of western and even northern France and Belgium. In Poland and nearby regions, the putative Indo-Europeans reorganized and consolidated again with the culture of the Globular Amphoras. Nevertheless, the influence of many centuries in direct contact with
1705-614: The bodies buried in the A-Group cemeteries would lay on either side with their head facing south or east. Similar to that of a curled-up position, their hands could be found near the face and their legs folded-in upwards. Leather wrappings were also found in the burials as a means of clothing and bags. However, this leather wrapping was not typically found in more lavish cemeteries, such as Cemetery L at Qustul. As for distinct pottery styles, decorative vessels were more likely to be found in larger tombs at Qustul, whereas simpler burial arrangements contained ripple-burnished or simple vessels. However,
A-Group culture - Misplaced Pages Continue
1760-696: The centre of the Beaker Pottery returned to Bohemia, while in Iberia there was a decentralization of the phenomenon, with centres in Portugal but also in Los Millares and Ciempozuelos . [REDACTED] Media related to Copper Age in Europe at Wikimedia Commons Red Crown Deshret ( Ancient Egyptian : 𓂧𓈙𓂋𓏏𓋔 , romanized : dšrt , lit. 'Red One')
1815-610: The clay, rich in iron, creating the distinctive red color. Subsequently, the rim was dipped in sawdust to cut off oxygen supply, creating the "black-topped" rim. Almost all knowledge about the A-Group comes from cemeteries, as few settlements have been excavated. Cemetery L is a royal cemetery dating back to the A-Group, and excavated by archaeologist Bruce Williams. Cemetery L contains tombs of rulers and high officials, Cemetery V contains tombs of other officials, and Cemetery W exclusively contains burials of people with lesser status. Excavations at Cemetery L yielded an incense burner , which
1870-606: The continent remained mostly unchanged and in apparent peace. From c. 2300 BC the first Beaker Pottery appeared in Bohemia and expanded in many directions, but particularly westward, along the Rhone and the sea shores, reaching the culture of Vila Nova (Portugal) and Catalonia (Spain) as its limit. Simultaneously but unrelatedly, c. 2200 BC in the Aegean region, the Cycladic culture decayed, being substituted by
1925-465: The culture of Bodrogkeresztur . Labour specialization, economic stratification and possibly the risk of invasion may have been the reasons behind this development. The influx of early Troy (Troy I) is clear in both the expansion of metallurgy and social organization. In the western Danubian region (the Rhine and Seine basins) the culture of Michelsberg displaced its predecessor, Rössen . Meanwhile, in
1980-414: The desert Red Land on either side of Kemet (Black Land), the fertile Nile river basin. In mythology, the earth deity Geb , original ruler of Egypt, invested Horus with the rule over Lower Egypt . The Egyptian pharaohs , who saw themselves as successors of Horus, wore the deshret to symbolize their authority over Lower Egypt. Other deities wore the deshret too, or were identified with it, such as
2035-530: The distribution of sites all indicate that the Naqada people and the Nubian A-Group people were from different cultures. Kathryn Bard further states that "Naqada cultural burials contain very few Nubian craft goods, which suggests that while Egyptian goods were exported to Nubia and were buried in A-Group graves, A-Group goods were of little interest further north." Nubian excavations in Serra East found that
2090-471: The existence of an elite group in Kadero parallels the evidence of an elite group within the A-Group. Cemetery L at Qustul provides evidence of an elite burial, containing nearly 200 pottery vessels, some containing expensive imports from Egypt and Palestine. There is little evidence outside of Cemetery L to suggest social stratification of the A-Group. However, there is evidence that the A-Group moved from
2145-684: The first significant Aegean group: the Cycladic culture after c. 2800 BC . In the North, the supposedly Indo-European groups seemed to recede temporarily, suffering a strong cultural danubianization . In the East, the peoples of beyond the Volga ( Yamnaya culture ), surely eastern Indo-Europeans, ancestors of Iranians , took over southern Russia and Ukraine. In the West the only sign of unity comes from
2200-420: The large size and contents of their grave support a different story than the one Williams paints, relating back to social stratification. He states that the large tombs and their contents provide evidence for a stratified society, one that archaeologists previously had not envisioned in the A-group period. He claims that this evidence cannot be extended and correlated to the Egyptian monarchy. Adams also argues that
2255-487: The new palatine phase of the Minoan culture of Crete . The second phase of Beaker Pottery, from c. 2100 BC onwards, was marked by the displacement of the centre of this phenomenon to Portugal, inside the culture of Vila Nova. This new centre's influence reached to all southern and western France but was absent in southern and western Iberia, with the notable exception of Los Millares. After c. 1900 BC ,
A-Group culture - Misplaced Pages Continue
2310-505: The pre-dynastic Egyptians in physical characteristics, although this view is considered largely outdated, with the A-Group now considered of having been closely related to Sub-Saharan and North African populations. The A-Group maintained commercial ties with the Ancient Egyptians . They traded raw materials like incense , ebony and ivory , which were gathered from the southern riverine area. They also bartered carnelian from
2365-406: The pre-dynastic period to the dynasty period predates influence from eastern Mesopotamia. He notes an increase in the appreciation of the contribution of Nubia in the south to Ancient Egyptian culture at the time of his writing. According to him, chiefs of the same cultural level as Upper Egyptian powers existed in Lower Nubia and exhibited pharaonic iconography before the unification of Egypt. It
2420-616: The preceding Neolithic period and followed by the Bronze Age . It was a period of Megalithic culture, the appearance of the first significant economic stratification, and probably the earliest presence of Indo-European speakers. The economy of the Chalcolithic, even in the regions where copper was not yet used, was no longer that of peasant communities and tribes: some materials began to be produced in specific locations and distributed to wide regions. Mining of metal and stone
2475-519: The protective serpent goddess Wadjet and the creator-goddess of Sais, Neith , who often is shown wearing the Red Crown. The Red Crown would later be combined with the White Crown of Upper Egypt to form the Double Crown , symbolizing the rule over the whole country, "The Two Lands" as the Egyptians expressed it. No Red Crown has been found. Several ancient representations indicate it
2530-484: The remains of houses with stone foundation slabs have also been found. The location, architecture, and material culture of Afyeh, along with its uniqueness in Nubia, indicate that it may have been an Egyptian ( Naqadian ) outpost. Ceramic decorative motifs conserved among the A-Group and the settlement at Kadero , located northeast of Khartoum , suggests that the two groups were influenced by one another, whether directly or indirectly through trade with Egypt. Additionally,
2585-561: The representation of the Red Crown on a late Naqada I ( c. 3500 BC) pottery vessel from Abydos or the triumphal scenes in the painting from Hierakonpolis Tomb 100 ( c. 3400-3300 BC) are much older than the Qustul censer. It seems thus that it was the Qustul rulers who adopted symbols of royal authority developed in Egypt and not vice versa. Furthermore, Williams received backlash from William Y. Adams and Maria Carmela Gatto. Gatto argued that Bruce Williams explicitly denied making such
2640-472: The spatial-temporal model applied to the pattern of biological distances explains the more distant relationship of Badari to Lachish than Naqada to Lachish, as gene flow will cause populations to become more similar over time. Overall, both Egyptian samples included were more similar to the Nubian series than to the Lachish series. More recent and broader studies have determined that the distinct pottery styles, differing burial practices, different grave goods and
2695-512: The still-powerful Danubian peoples had greatly modified their culture. In the southwestern Iberian peninsula , owl -like plaques made of sandstone were discovered and dated to be crafted from 5500 to 4750 BP (Before Present). These are some of the most unique objects discovered in the Chalcolithic ( copper age ) cultural period. They have generally a head, two rounded eyes, and a body. Theses species were modeled after two owl species,
2750-479: Was adorned with ancient Egyptian royal iconography. Williams asserted that the royal monarchy of Egypt originated in Qustul. He based his reasoning on Cemetery L from three archaeological finds: the size of the tombs, their expensive contents, and royal iconography (such as pottery vessels and stone censers), however, further research established the antecedence of the predynastic Egyptian regalia: The earliest known examples of Egyptian royal iconography, such as, e.g.,
2805-600: Was found in the Alps, lived. Another significant development of this period was the Megalithic phenomenon spreading to most places of the Atlantic region, bringing with it agriculture to some underdeveloped regions existing there. This period extends along the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. Most significant is the reorganization of the Danubians into the powerful Baden culture , which extended more or less to what would be
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#17327660108692860-541: Was originally determined by Reisner that the A-Group culture came to an end around 3100 BC, when it was destroyed by the First Dynasty rulers of Egypt. Reisner originally identified a B-Group and C-Group culture that existed within Nubia following the fall of the A-Group. However, the B-group theory became obsolete when Henry S. Smith demonstrated from funerary evidence that it was an impoverished manifestation of
2915-649: Was particularly developed in some areas, along with the processing of those materials into valuable goods. From c. 5000 BC to 3000 BC, copper started being used first in Southeast Europe , then in Eastern Europe, and Central Europe. From c. 3500 onwards, there was an influx of people into Eastern Europe from the Pontic-Caspian steppe ( Yamnaya culture ), creating a plural complex known as Sredny Stog culture . This culture replaced
2970-731: Was the Red Crown of Lower Egypt . When combined with the Hedjet (White Crown) of Upper Egypt , it forms the Pschent (Double Crown), in ancient Egyptian called the sekhemti . The Red Crown in Egyptian language hieroglyphs eventually was used as the vertical letter "n". The original "n" hieroglyph from the Predynastic Period and the Old Kingdom was the sign depicting ripples of water. The word Deshret also referred to
3025-404: Was woven like a basket from plant fiber such as grass, straw, flax, palm leaf, or reed. The Red Crown frequently is mentioned in texts and depicted in reliefs and statues. An early example is the depiction of the victorious pharaoh wearing the deshret on the Narmer Palette . A label from the reign of Djer records a royal visit to the shrine of the Deshret which may have been located at Buto in
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