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 The people who
are believed to be the ancestors to the predynastic Egyptians were a
people known as the Badarian people. They lived in Upper Egypt, on
the eastern bank of the Nile, near the village of Badari, south of
Asiut. Archaeologists have found both a series of settlement sites
as well as various cemeteries. They lived at about 4400 BC and may
have even been as far back as 5000 BC.
Though they were a semi-nomadic people, they started to cultivate
grain and domesticate their animals. They found the need for a
series of small
villages in the flat desert bordering on the fertile land
created by the Nile, and the burial grounds were found on the
outskirts of these villages. They even gave their cattle and sheep
ceremonial burial!
The graves of the people were simple - the dead were laid to rest
on their left sides facing the west, in a fetal position and wrapped
in matting. They were buried with fine grave goods - beautiful
ceramics, decorated plates, bowls and dishes. Cosmetic utensils
including makeup palettes, ointment spoons, decorative combs and
bracelets, necklaces and copper beads and pins. They also usually
had an ivory or clay female figure (which may have been fertility
doll or idol) placed in the grave with the deceased. Unfortunately
many of the graves were robbed soon after burial.
This seems to point to a highly evolved funerary system - they
dead were buried with their finest possessions, personal possessions
and clothing for use in the next world.
The Amratians
Succeeding the Badari, the Naqada people took over. They were one
of the most important prehistoric cultures in Upper Egypt, and their
development can be traced to the founding of the Egyptian state.
The Amratian (Naqada I) started as a parallel culture to the
Badari, but eventually superimposed itself on the other, and finally
replaced it. These, though, were the race thought of as the first
'true Egyptians', and dominated between 4500-3100 BC.
 Like the Badari,
they lived in villages, and started the first real attempt at
cultivating the fertile Nile valley and supplemented their diet by
hunting for food. Each village had it's own animal deity which was
identified with a clan ensign. From this came the different Egyptian
nomes with their own local totems - the gods of the dynastic
pantheon.
The artistic accomplishment of the people were given a chance to
grow, and pottery decorated with animals, human figures hunting or
worshiping and even papyrus bundle boats started appearing. So, too,
did the female idol figures continue to grow - they appeared in
greater numbers and in a wider variety, and bearded male figures
started to appear on pendants and ivory sticks ("magic
wands"). These last sets of human figures seems to have been of
a magical or spiritual nature.
In the Amratian graves, the deceased were buried with statuettes
to keep him or her company in the afterlife. These were the
forerunners of ushabti figures found in Egyptian tombs. Along
with these figured, the dead person was buried with food, weapons,
amulets, ornaments and decorated vases and palettes.
The Gerzean
 In the middle of
the fourth millennium BC, the Naqada II period superceded the Naqada
I. They had mastered the art of agriculture and the use of
artificial irrigation, and no longer needed to hunt for their food.
The people started live in towns,
not just villages, creating areas of higher population density than
ever before.
The Gerzean people continued to expand in the artistic area,
creating new styles of pottery and more elegant artwork. They
started to create a wide variety of animal-shaped palettes for
mixing cosmetics, as well as a shield-shaped cosmetic pallet, the
ancestor of the ceremonial palettes in early Dynastic Egypt.
Metalworking increased - the Gerzean people made great use of copper
knives. They also created their own cast-metal implements and
weapons.
They traded with far distant peoples for copper and other goods
(they traded much further than the previous two cultures) - silver,
lapis lazuli, lead, cylinder seals were some goods traded for from
Asia and Mesopotamia. Foreign influences through their trading began
to show in their style of dress, ornaments and various implements.
Radical changes in the design of knives, daggers and pottery were
made by the Gerzeans.
They also introduced the images and totems of the falcon, symbol
of the sun god Ra, and the cow, symbol of the love goddess Hathor.
There were also significant changes in the matter of burials.
Whereas cemeteries that dated from an earlier period showed that
the corpse was generally wrapped in some sort of covering and
buried in a contracted position facing the west, those which were
located in Gerzean deposits indicated a lack of regular
orientation, a more elaborate form of grave, and evidences of
ritual procedure at the time of burial in the form of deliberately
shattered pottery.
There is evidence of an elite social class from the graves and grave
goods found. The more elaborate funerary cult created larger,
rectangular graves with walls lined with either masonry or wooden
blanks, which could also hold grave goods. The differences in the
lavish (or not) graves, with many or lesser goods, pointed to the
distinction in classes in the Gerzean people.
In Nekhem (Hierakonpolis), the cult centre of Horus of Nekhem,
there is a Naqada II palace and ritual precinct. This area was made
of timber and matting, and can only be theoretically reconstructed
from the positions of the postholes - some of which were big enough
for entire tree trunks! The features of the complex were compared
with the buildings of Djoser's pyramid complex, where such buildings
were made in stone. It has a large oval courtyard, surrounded by
various buildings, and is clearly the forerunner to the royal ritual
precincts of the early Dynastic Period.
This, then, was the root of the Egyptian kingship system and the
beginning of the unified state.
Predynastic Egypt
The Naqada III had many territorial divisions, known as nomes.
They had their own sacred animal or plant that became the totem,
fetish or emblem of that territory. The emblem was depicted on the
pottery of that area. The nomes then resulted in two powerful states
- Upper and Lower Egypt. It has been found that they ended up with
twenty nomes in Lower Egypt and twenty-two in Upper Egypt! Each
state had their own ruler.
There were thirteen or so rulers at Nekhem, of which only the
last few have been identified (though they are by no means certain):
The rulers who named themselves after animals, were probably
attempting to identify themselves with the divinity found in these
animals. The rulers became the personification of the named
animal-god, as later on the pharaohs were known as the "Son of
Ra". These rulers also wore the white crown of Upper Egypt and
were depicted as superhuman figures, giants who towered above mortal
men. They were depicted as being war-like, with Scorpion's macehead
hints at the nature of Upper Egyptian rulers.
In Lower Egypt, a more commercial system ran the state. The
centres of wealth were ruled over by important families or groups in
each town, rather than by a single hierarchy. Ma'adi, Buto and Tell
Farkha were the larger towns of the state, with the capital probably
at Buto. By the Naqada III period, Buto's pottery was 99% from Upper
Egypt, and so was thought to have been "Naqada-ised" by
that time.
The rulers of Lower Egypt, who wore the red crown, taken from the
Palermo Stone may have been:
-
 Ska
 
- H`yw
 
- Tyu
  
- Tshsh
 
- Nhb
 
- Wadjha
 
- Mch
 
There is not much known about these rulers, other than their names.
Some believe that there was never one ruler over Lower Egypt in
predynastic times, because of a lack of evidence of these rulers.
 Narmer (who
some believe to also be King Scorpion because of lack of evidence of
the other king, other than one macehead) managed to take over the
state of Lower Egypt, by force according to decorated palettes and
maceheads. The famous Narmer palette shows him on one side wearing
the white crown of Upper Egypt, and the other shows him wearing the
red crown of Lower Egypt. It also shows the hawk emblem of Horus,
the Upper Egyptian god of Nekhem, dominating the Lower Egypt
personified papyrus marsh. From this, Narmer is believed to have
unified Egypt.
Manetho attributes the unification of Egypt to Aha
"Fighter" Menes. He has been listed as the first pharaoh
of the 1st Dynasty, but Menes and Narmer may be on in the same man.
Menes was from Thinis, in the south of Upper Egypt, but he built his
capital at Memphis, according to Diodorus.
The Narmer palette was found in the temple at Nekhem where they
had been dedicated to Horus, as were other expensive objects with
royal imagery. These items were not for every day use - they were
more than twice the size of normal items! There was a clear link
between the ruler and religion as he was a central figure in
religious art. Burial customs became even more stratified, and much
more elaborate for the highest classes - for the elite, there were
two places to be buried: Abydos in Upper Egypt, and Saqqara in Lower
Egypt. Many nobles and rulers were buried in both places in the
early Dynastic Period.
Religion
The religion of Neolithic and predynastic Egypt appears to have
been animistic nature worship, with each village or town with its
own spirit in the form of an animal, bird, reptile, tree, plant or
object. The spirit was always in something that played a prominent
part in the life of the people of that locality. The spirits fell
into two general groups - that which was friendly and helpful, such
as cattle, or that which was menacing and powerful such as the
crocodile or snakes. In both cases, the favour of the spirit had to
be solicited with a set formula of words and action, and they had to
have houses built for them and offerings made to them.
 As the spirits
became gods, in each town or village, the deity had its own temple
staffed by priests, who dealt with the deity's daily wants. In
return for these services, the god was thought to protect its
people, ensuring fertility and well-being. But if the needs weren't
met, the deity might call down wrath on the community in the form of
plague or famine or other such natural disasters.
The totemic origin of the Egyptian religion is that of great
antiquity. From spirits worshiped through animals, plants and even
mountains to being the standard of the town itself, then to being
the god of the town. The standard of the nome clearly showed which
deity protected the town. And, as the town gained prominence, so too
did the town's standard.
The religion was interwoven into not only the ruling power, but
into life itself. The deity of the town was who the people turned
to, through the government, to prevent the everyday hazards of
living - magic, spells, charms, folklore and amulets. They appealed
to the deity for protection against hazards and to intercede on
their behalf for anything from the Nile flooding to sowing and
harvest to protection from poisonous animals to childbirth.
Horus and Nekhbet, the vulture goddess of Al Kab, came to
represent Upper Egypt. In Lower Egypt, Set and Udjo, the cobra
goddess of Buto, were worshiped. In later Egyptian history, the
vulture and cobra were united in the royal diadem, to represent
dominion over both lands. So when Nekhem became the most powerful
town, Horus became the god par excellence. The rulers started to
identify themselves as the living embodiment of the hawk god.
The growth of the Egyptian religion is one of the reasons why
Egypt ended up with such a complex and polythestic religious system.
When a town grew in prominence, so did the god. When the town was
deserted, the god disappeared. Only a few of the many deities ended
up in the Egyptian pantheon, and even then their popularity waxed
and waned through the thousands of years of Egyptian history.
Another reason for complexity was when people moved, their god did,
too. This meant that at the new town, there was sometimes a battle
between the old and new gods - but the Egyptian gods were easily
merged, with other gods taking over that god's attributes and
abilities! So it is that some of the ancient gods of Neolithic and
Predynastic Egypt came to national prominence are considered to be
some of the main gods in the Egyptian pantheon today: Amun of
Thebes, Ptah of Hikuptah (Memphis),
Horus (the Elder) of Nekhem, Set
of Tukh (Ombos), Ra of Iunu (Heliopolis), Min of Gebtu (Koptos), Hathor
of Dendra and Osiris of Abydos.
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