Naqada III is the last phase of the

Naqada culture The Naqada culture is an archaeological culture of Chalcolithic Predynastic Egypt (c. 4000–3000 BC), named for the town of Naqada, Qena Governorate. A 2013 Oxford University radiocarbon dating study of the Predynastic period suggests a be ...

of ancient

Egyptian prehistory Prehistoric Egypt and Predynastic Egypt span the period from the earliest human settlement to the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period around 3100 BC, starting with the first Pharaoh, Narmer for some Egyptologists, Hor-Aha for others, with ...

, dating from approximately 3200 to 3000 BC. It is the period during which the process of state formation, which began in

Naqada II The Gerzeh culture, also called Naqada II, refers to the archaeological stage at Gerzeh (also Girza or Jirzah), a prehistoric Egyptian cemetery located along the west bank of the Nile. The necropolis is named after el-Girzeh, the nearby contem ...

, became highly visible, with named kings heading powerful polities. Naqada III is often referred to as Dynasty 0 or the Protodynastic Period to reflect the presence of kings at the head of influential states, although, in fact, the kings involved would not have been a part of a dynasty. In this period, those kings' names were inscribed in the form of

serekh In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a serekh is a rectangular enclosure representing the niched or gated façade of a palace surmounted by (usually) the Horus falcon, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The serekh was the earliest conven ...

s on a variety of surfaces including pottery and tombs.

History

The Protodynastic Period in ancient Egypt was characterised by an ongoing process of political unification, culminating in the formation of a single state to begin the Early Dynastic Period. Furthermore, it is during this time that the

Egyptian language The Egyptian language or Ancient Egyptian ( ) is a dead Afro-Asiatic language that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts which were made accessible to the modern world following the deciphe ...

was first recorded in

hieroglyphs A hieroglyph (Greek for "sacred carvings") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatonis ...

. There is also strong archaeological evidence of Egyptian settlements in southern

Canaan Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...

during the Protodynastic Period, which are regarded as

colonies In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

or trading '' entrepôts''. State formation began during this era and perhaps even earlier. Various small city-states arose along the

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest riv ...

. Centuries of conquest then reduced

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south. In ancient E ...

to three major states:

Thinis Thinis (Greek: Θίνις ''Thinis'', Θίς ''This'' ; Egyptian: Tjenu; cop, Ⲧⲓⲛ; ar, ثينيس) was the capital city of the first dynasties of ancient Egypt. Thinis remains undiscovered but is well attested by ancient writers, incl ...

Naqada Naqada ( Egyptian Arabic: ; Coptic language: ; Ancient Greek: ) is a town on the west bank of the Nile in Qena Governorate, Egypt, situated ca. 20 km north of Luxor. It includes the villages of Tukh, Khatara, Danfiq, and Zawayda. Ac ...

, and

Nekhen Nekhen ( egy, nḫn, ); in grc, Ἱεράκων πόλις Hierakonpolis ( either: City of the Hawk, or City of the Falcon, a reference to Horus or ''Hierakōn polis'' "Hawk City" in arz, الكوم الأحمر, el-Kōm el-Aḥmar, lit=the ...

. Sandwiched between Thinis and Nekhen, Naqada was the first to fall. Thinis then conquered

Lower Egypt Lower Egypt ( ar, مصر السفلى '; ) is the northernmost region of Egypt, which consists of the fertile Nile Delta between Upper Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, from El Aiyat, south of modern-day Cairo, and Dahshur. Historically, ...

. Nekhen's relationship with Thinis is uncertain, but these two states may have merged peacefully, with the Thinite royal family ruling all of Egypt. The Thinite kings were buried at

Abydos Abydos may refer to: *Abydos, a progressive metal side project of German singer Andy Kuntz *Abydos (Hellespont), an ancient city in Mysia, Asia Minor * Abydos (''Stargate''), name of a fictional planet in the ''Stargate'' science fiction universe ...

in the

Umm el-Qa'ab Umm El Qaʻāb (sometimes romanised Umm El Gaʻab, ar, أم القعاب) is a necropolis of the Early Dynastic Period kings at Abydos, Egypt. Its modern name means "Mother of Pots" as the whole area is littered with the broken pot shards of o ...

cemetery. Most

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religiou ...

s consider

Narmer Narmer ( egy, Wiktionary:nꜥr-mr, nꜥr-mr, meaning "painful catfish," "stinging catfish," "harsh catfish," or "fierce catfish;" ) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period (Egypt), Early Dynastic Period. He was the successor ...

to be both the last king of this period and the first king of the First Dynasty. He was possibly preceded over some parts of Upper Egypt by

Crocodile Crocodiles (family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant me ...

, Iry-Hor, Ka, and perhaps by the king

Scorpion Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the order Scorpiones. They have eight legs, and are easily recognized by a pair of grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back and always en ...

, whose name may refer to, or be derived from, the goddess

Serket Serket ( egy, , italics=no, translit=srqt) is the goddess of healing venomous stings and bites in Egyptian mythology, originally the deification of the scorpion. Her family life is unknown, but she is sometimes credited as the daughter of Neith ...

, a special early protector of other deities and the rulers. Naqada III extended all over

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

and was characterized by some notable firsts: *The first

*The first graphical narratives on palettes *The first regular use of

s *The first truly royal cemeteries *Possibly the first example of

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been devel ...

And at best, a notable second: *The invention of sail navigation (independently from its prior invention in the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bo ...

2,000 years earlier) According to the Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities, in February, 2020, Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered 83 tombs dating back to 3,000 B.C, known as the Naqada III period. Various small pottery pots in different shapes and some sea shells, makeup tools, eyeliner pots, and jewels were also revealed in the burial.

Decorative cosmetic palettes

Many notable decorative palettes are dated to Naqada III, such as the Hunters Palette. File:HuntersPalette-BritishMuseum-August21-08.jpg, Hunters Palette, circa 3100 BC File:Palette with quadrupedes-E 11052-IMG 9460-9470-gradient.jpg, "Four Dogs Palette" (3300–3100 BC) File:Fragment of a ceremonial palette illustrating a man and a type of staff,ca. 3200–3100 BC.jpg, Fragment of a ceremonial palette illustrating a man and a type of staff, ca. 3200–3100 BC File:Duck-shaped palette-90000838-IMG 9538-white.jpg, Duck-shaped palette File:Palette with Bull-E 11255-IMG 9459-9466-gradient.jpg, Bull Palette, 3100 BC File:The Battlefield Palette 3100 BC - Joy of Museums.jpg, The Battlefield Palette, possibly showing the subjection of the people of the Buto-Maadi culture, by the Egyptian rulers of Naqada III, circa 3100 BC. File:Fragment of a palette 3200-2800 BCE.jpg, Fragment of a palette, 3200–2800 BC.

Other artifacts

BaboonDivityBearingNameOfPharaohNarmerOnBase.png, Baboon Divinity bearing name of Pharaoh Narmer on base Kingscorpion.jpg, The Scorpion Macehead,

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University o ...

. File:Dynastie 0 Stabaufsatz.jpg, Protodynastic sceptre fragment with royal couple.

Staatliche Sammlung für Ägyptische Kunst The Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst (, ''State Museum of Egyptian Art'') is an archaeological museum in Munich. It contains the Bavarian state collection of ancient Egyptian art and displays exhibits from both the predynastic and dynastic p ...

, Munich File:Hair Comb Decorated with Rows of Wild Animals 3200-3100 BCE Naqada III.jpg, Hair Comb Decorated with Rows of Wild Animals 3200–3100 BCE, Naqada III File:Vase mit Vogelfries.jpg, Naqada III vessel File:Cylindrical Jar MET LC-12 187 5 EGDP026693.jpg, Typical Naqada III cylindrical jar

References

External links

Naqada III: Dynasty 0
* . {{Rulers of the Ancient Near East 4th millennium BC in Egypt Predynastic Egypt Archaeological cultures in Egypt 4th-millennium BC establishments 4th-millennium BC disestablishments

History

Decorative cosmetic palettes

Other artifacts

References

Further reading

External links