Levantine and Cyber-Archaeology Lab

NAHAL TILLAH RECENT PUBLICATIONS

FROM BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST 1995 VOLUME 58, NUMBER 1

NEW LIGHT ON KING NARMER AND THE PROTODYNASTIC EGYPTIAN PRESENCE IN CANAAN.

BY THOMAS E. LEVY, EDWIN C.M. VAN DEN BRINK, YUVAL GOREN AND DAVID ALON

Recent excavations in Israelís northern Negev desert, carried out under the auspices of the new Nahal Tillah Regional Archaeology Project, are beginning to shed new light on the character of late Protodynastic/Early Dynastic Egyptian/Canaanite interaction, ca. 3300 - 3000 BC. Of key importance are new data concerning the role of one of the earliest historically known Egyptian kings - Narmer, in expansion of the Nile Valley civilization. One of the central research problems which the Nahal Tillah project focuses on is the nature of core - periphery relations and the impact of core civilizations on their less socially complex neighbors. Specifically, how do newly emergent ìpristineî civilizations impact and influence culture change in their less socially developed peripheries? These kinds of questions are linked to broader issues of culture evolution, especially the rise of secondary states in the ancient Near East.
In July of 1994, a wealth of new data was recovered in excavations in the Nahal Tillah area near Kibbutz Lahav which have bearing on this problem. In soundings on the Halif Terrace at the Silo site (Figure 1), large numbers of imported Protodynastic/Early Dynastic Egyptian pottery vessels, architecture, a clay seal impression, and a new incised sherd bearing the serekh symbol of King Narmer were found. Narmer, known to archaeologists from the exquisite large stone palette which contains his name symbolized as a catfish, was once thought to have been responsible for the first unification of upper and lower Egypt sometime between 3050 - 3000 BCE. This article outlines the archaeological and historical context of the new Narmer serekh and examines the importance of this early epigraphic artifact for southeastern Mediterranean archaeology.

The Nahal Tillah Study Area
The Nahal (Hebrew; Arabic = wadi) Tillah is a small secondary seasonal drainage which debauches into the larger Nahal Gerar and is located near the interface between the Irano-Turanian semi-arid and Mediterranean environmental zones of Israelís northern Negev and southern Shephelah (Fig. 1). The area is characterized by Eocene chalk hills, dissected by small secondary drainages, with many small valleys in-filled with loessial sediments. Rainfall averages ca. 400 mm on an annual basis. Approximately 1 kilometer to the northeast of Nahal Tillah, the Halif Terrace rise to ca. 490 meters above sea level and marks the water-shed between the Nahal Gerar in the west and the secondary drainages which flow into the Biqaíat Yaval (Yaval valley) in the east. The areas dominates an important ancient transportation/trade route east-west from the Mediterranean coast, and north-south through the southern Shephelah, and northward through the Judean mountain system. The location of the Nahal Tillah region facilitated trade between the northern Negev and the more humid Mediterranean areas to the north.

Previous Excavations in the Nahal Tillah Region
The Nahal Tillah regional projects grows out of earlier pioneering research in this environmental contact zone carried out under the direction of J.D. Seger of the Cobb Institute of Archaeology at Mississippi State University and D. Alon of the Israel Antiquities Authority on the Halif Terrace. The Halif Terrace, extending over an area of some ca. 13 hectares, is located on the eastern side of Tel Halif (Arabic = Tell Khuweilifeh) on the grounds of Kibbutz Lahav (Alon 1974, 1977a-b; Seger 1990-91; Seger et al 1990). Segerís (Seger et al 1990) precise work provides an essential stratigraphic cornerstone which demonstrates the rich evidence for the elusive Chalcolithic through Early Bronze I sequence in southern Israel. In the late 1980s, J.P. Dessel (1991) made the first systematic attempt to understand the changing nature of Egyptian - south Levantine interaction based on an in-depth ceramic analysis of material from Segerís excavations on the Halif Terrace (Sites 101 and 301). Recently, Alon and Yekutieli (in press) made a similar, but less quantitative study, using data from Alonís eight probes on the Halif Terrace carried out in the early 1970s. As a total of ten probes have been made on the Halif Terrace, researchers have given separate names such as ìSite 101,î ìSite 301,î (Seger et al 1990), the ìVilla Siteî (Alon and Yekutieli ibid.), etc. to the different excavation operation as the site. Together, these early excavations cover an area of ca. 1,703 m2. To distinguish our new work on the Halif Terrace from the previous excavations, we use the term ìSilo Siteî which reflects the nearby ìcorn mulchì silos established by the local kibbutz on the terrace.

The New Nahal Tillah Excavations: Silo Site, Halif Terrace
Building on the work of these earlier researchers, in the summer (July-August) of 1994, the University of California, San Diego and the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology (NGSBA) of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) initiated a pilot excavation and survey in the Nahal Tillah region. This included a large horizontal sounding (ca. 800 m2) on the Halif Terrace which was labeled the ìSilo Siteî (Fig. 2). Survey and excavations in 1994 confirmed a full stratified sequence of Chalcolithic, Early Bronze IA and Early Bronze IB on the Halif Terrace (see Table 1 for comparative stratigraphic table of the Silo Site and other southern Palestinian sites). . Using geophysical survey techniques, A. Witten from the University of Oklahoma located a significant number of potential Early Bronze burial caves in the research area. Most important is the widespread evidence for a substantial late Protodynastic/Early Dynastic Egyptian presence in the Nahal Tillah region, with evidence of possible administrative functions on the Halif Terrace which rival or compliment Tel Erani (e.g.. Brandl 1992) as the generally accepted center of early Egyptian activity in southern Canaan.
The 1994 excavations have reveled large quantities of Egyptian prestige good including Egyptian Late Ware ceramic vessels (Fig. 3; cf. Petrie 1901: Fig. 8), a small faience jar (Fig. 4), Egyptian storage jars, and administrative artifacts such as a clay bullae, or stamp impression, depicting a series of flags (Fig. 5) . The flag hieroglyph (NTR) represents the general conception of god in ancient Egyptian. It is made of a very fine clay which, although has not been tested petrographically, seems certainly to be of Nile valley origin. Clay bullae from this period are exceedingly rare in the archaeological record of Palestine. The discovery of the clay bullae marks the second local outside of En Besor in Palestine (cf. Gophna 1992, 1995; Schulman 1976). The analysis of ca. 990 kilograms of pottery recovered during the 1994 Silo Site excavations indicate a sharp increase in Egyptian pottery in the late EB I (Stratum IIB) ca. 3200 - 3000 BCE. Additional excavation work on the terrace will hopefully provide a comprehensive archaeological data which will help clarify the tempo and character of the Egyptian presence in southern Palestine(Levy et al in press). The remainder of this paper focuses on the context and significance of the newly discovered serekh.

The Serekh in Archaeological Context: Nahal Tillah
Over the years, our excavations in the northern Negev have been aimed at investigating the social dynamics which are represented in the late 5th - 3rd millennium BCE archaeological record of this region (Levy 1995). Consequently, excavation strategies have focused on obtaining extensive exposures which provide archaeologists with a broad view of the layout of these formative settlements. The recent work at Nahal Tillah and the Halif Terrace was similarly organized to maximize the amount of site expose in the relatively short five week digging season. Three main excavation areas were established ( A, B, and C) with Area A situated on the most southern aspect of the site. Four distinct archaeological strata were defined: I, IIa, IIb, III, and IV (Table 1). A total of nine 5 x 5 meter squares were opened in Area A where some of the best preserved late Early Bronze I architecture came to light. Of interest here are the archaeological remains form Stratum IIb which corresponds to the late EB I (EB IB) horizon dating to approximately 3300 - 3000 BC.
For the most part, the Stratum IIb architecture in Area A is non-domestic in character. It can all be stratigraphically connected across the excavation area because of the presence of a hard-packed floor (Locus 30) made of mud plaster. An exceptionally well preserved room (Room One) was found In the center of this surface, The room measures four meters in length from east to west, and 3 meters wide from north to south (exterior measurements; Fig. 2). No evidence of domestic activities were found in this relatively small room which has rounded corners . Instead, the following objects were found: four Late Ware Egyptian ceramic vessels (Fig. 3), a faience vessel (Fig. 4), two unfinished limestone mace heads, and other finds.
Some four meters to the east of Room I a beautifully preserved circular stone structure (Fig. 2, Locus 22) was found. The diameter of this structure is 3.4 meters and forms a nearly perfect circle. It consists of an enclosing wall which is made of large (30-40 cm x 15-22 cm) stones that define the perimeter. There is only one course of stones preserved. The center of the structure is paved with smaller stones. Similar circular structures have been found at contemporary Late EB I sites in southern Israel such as Palmachim (R. Gophna and E. Braun, pers. comm.) and Tel Malhata (small; Amiran et al 1983). The general consensus is that these represent the stone foundations of circular grain storage silos. Several important artifacts were found in association with this structure. An Egyptian ìbag-shapeî vessel was found directly on the surface of the circular installation, as was another unfinished periform limestone mace head (B. 271), and other objects. Most significant was the discovery of a ceramic sherd inscribed with the Serekh of Narmer (B. 259; Fig. 6), found in an EB IB fill directly above the surface of the circular structure. Compared with the corpus of Serekhs from southern Palestine, this newly discovered sample comes from perhaps the most secure archaeological context of the published assemblage. The close association of the large circular ìsiloî and the building with Egyptian prestige goods indicates the presence of a possible public storage area in this part of the Halif Terrace. The discovery of a Narmer serekh and the clay bullae in this area highlights the potential of Area A for revealing important new dimensions of royal Egyptian trade with southern Canaan.

Southeastern Mediterranean Regional Context
Recent excavations in the Nile Delta of Egypt at a number of mostly settlement sites dating to the late Predynastic to the Protodynastic/Early Dynastic periods (ca. 3500 - 2800 BC), provide us with a much better understanding of the final stages of the Lower Egyptian Chalcolithic Maadi culture (cf. Kaiser 1957, 1990). These new excavations in the Delta are crucial for understanding the processes which led to the rise of early Egyptian civilization (Wenke 1991). They provide the missing link concerning the processes which brought about the transition from a late Chalcolithic, fairly homogenous Lower Egyptian culture called the ìMaadi-Buto cultureî (von der Way 1992:1) to the following, Protodynastic period, characterized by a material culture with traits shared by the people of both the Delta (Upper Egypt) and lower Egypt. This ìnewî material culture reflects the so-called ìUnification of the Two Landsî of Upper and Lower Egypt. From an archaeological perspective, this is attested by a single, very homogeneous, Early Dynastic material culture which appears rather suddenly throughout Egypt.
Until recently, it was not possible to clarify the temporal processes which characterized the earliest interrelations between Egypt and its eastern neighbors. This ca. 500 year time span was lumped together into ëlate Predynastic/Early Dynasticí for Egypt and Early Bronze I for ancient Canaan or Palestine. Since the early 1990s with the increase in science-based source area characterization analyses and traditional comparative studies, it is now possible to distinguish between the various stages of interaction between the contemporary cultures of Egypt and Canaan. These include: the late Chalcolithic of Lower Egypt, late Naqada IIc-d Upper Egypt and Early Bronze IA Palestine; and Proto and Early Dynastic Upper and Lower Egypt and Early Bronze IB Palestine. In the future, even finer temporal divisions may be possible. However, at least four distinct stages in the earliest contacts between Lower and/or Upper Egypt and Early Bronze I a-b Canaan can now be distinguished (Table 1; cf. Gophna 1992; Tutzundic 1993; Hartung 1994). It is in this more refined temporal sequence that the significance of the new serekh must be evaluated.

The New Narmer Serekh for the Halif Terrace
From the Chalcolithic through the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, in southern Canaan there is evidence for a slow but steady increase in trade and exchange with Egypt (e.g., Joffee 1993; Stager 1992). This process crystallizes in the late EB I with evidence of royal trade and exchange based mostly on the presence of Egyptian style clay cylinder seal impressions (bullae) and incised serekh signs. To date there are ca. 18 incised serekh-signs which have been found in Israel, only three of which could be positively identified with Narmer (cf. Amiran 1974; Brandl 1992:447; van den Brink, in press, in prep). In fact, two of the ìnamelessî or anonymous serekhs come from the Halif Terrace (cf. Gophna 1972; Seger et al 1990:5, fig. 4; van den Brink, in prep; ). Thus, the serekh present here is not a surprise per se . However, a combination of factors make the Silo Site serekh of special interest. Firstly, most of the known serekhs from Israel are either in too fragmentary a state of preservation or contain anonymous signs. The Silo Site example can be unambiguously attributed to a known king - Horus Narmer. Secondly, unlike most of the other serekh-signs, the sample presented here comes from a stratigraphically controlled context.
The serekh reported here relates to the later part of the early Egyptian-south Levantine relations, i.e., at the end of the Dynasty 0 in Egypt, contemporary with the very late portion of the EB IB (Stratum IIb, Silo Site; Table 1 ). Petrographic examination of the single pottery sherd with the serekh (Reg. no. IAA 64994, Locus 14, Basket 259) has been shown conclusively to be of Nile silt and Egyptian origin (see below). The incised serekh represents Narmer, the last king of Dynasty 0. The pottery sherd measures ca. 10.5 x 10.5 cm, has a thickness of 10 mm, and comes from the shoulder area of an Egyptian storage vessel. The vessel appears to have been wheel-made, the exterior surface carefully scraped, smoothed over, and finally burnished. No slip was applied. The break in the sherd shows that it was completely oxidized with a red core. The interior surface of the fragment is gray, the exterior surface a gray-pink.
The serekh was incised into the clay before the vessel was fired and with the exception of a small part of its upper left corner, is completely preserved (Fig. 6). The serekh itself measures ca. 6 x 4 cm. Itís frame, generally believed to represent the outline of a royal palace (Wilkinson 1985: 99ff) consists of two incised, vertical straight lines, topped and cut by a single, horizontal curvilinear line. Itës base consists of two horizontal lines, a longer one cutting the right outer vertical line. There is an additional shorter incised stroke which effectively closes off the base of the serekh. There is a single horizontal line at approximately a third of the serekhsí height which subdivides it into an upper and lower register.
Three vertical short strokes, all cutting the serekhsí base line, fill the lower register. On most serekhs, it is generally accepted that this schematically represents the recessed paneling of a mudbrick palace facade (Wilkinson ibid.). A more elaborate example of such a serekh representation, executed in stone was found on a stele of King Djer of Dynasty 1 (ibid.). The upper, or so-called, name compartment contains a rather schematic representation of the Nír - hieroglyph (representing a catfish). It consists of two lines, the upper one horizontal, the lower one slightly oblique/diagonal, and both slightly cutting the serekhís right vertical frame line (thus effectively forming the fishís rear) converge towards the left part of the compartment and sketchily outline the catfishís body; two smaller additional strokes on its left side indicate the fishís ìwhiskers.î
Although this sign is but an abbreviated form (Nír) of the kingís full name Nër-mr (cf. Kaiser and Dreyer 1982, note 194c), the similarity to other Nír(mr) signs (incised both within straight as well as curvilinear topped serekhs) on pottery and stone vessels (cf. Godron 1949, pl. 1) found both in and outside of Egypt, makes a positive identification of this particular serekh with the last king of Dynasty 0, i.e. Horus Narmer possible. As for the general style of the new Halif Terrace serekh, with it curvilinear top, the absence of a falcon surmounting the serekh, the very schematic catfish representation and the absence of the second name component (íml), the closest parallels are found in the Nile Delta sample found at Tell Ibrahim Awad (Fig. 7; Phase 6 - van den Brink 1992: Pl. 2, Fig. 8, no. 3) and another from Tomb B1/2 (ascribed to Iry-Hor), found in the vicinity of Narmerís own tomb (B17/18) in the royal cemetery at Abydos from Dynasty 0 (- 1) (Fig. 8; cf. Kaiser and Dreyer 1982:230 [aus B2] fig. 14, no. 40). The Abydos example is preserved on two conjoinable fragments, the right one found during excavations by Sir Flinders Petrie (1901: pl. XLIV, 1 [B1]), and the left one found during re-excavation work by Dreyer (See Fig. 8).

Petrographic Examination
Visual examination of the ceramic sherd with the incised serekh suggested that it was non-local and came from the Nile valley. However, to be certain of its origin, a petrographic examination of the sherd was carried out by Y. Goren shortly after its discovery in the laboratories of the Israel Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem. The results of the petrographic study were compared with results obtained from similar material at other Early Bronze and Egyptian Protodynastic sites.

The petrographic fabric of the sherd in question corresponds with the typical characteristics of what has been termed as ìNile siltî (Bourriau 1981:14). This term refers to pottery manufactured in Egypt from local Nile sediment. The main features of Nile silt, when examined under polarized light in the petrographic microscope, are as follows:
ï a) the contents of poorly sorted sand to silt quartz in varying quantities and size ranges.
ï b) the high proportion of accessory and heavy minerals including mainly minerals of the mica and feldspar groups.
ï c) straw and other vegetal matter (phytoliths) are commonly apparent in the clay body.
ï d) the matrix is non-calcareous with abundant mica minerals. All these characteristics were observed in the examined sherd and are totally foreign to the known petrographic corpus of Canaanite wares (Goren 1992; Porat 1989). Thus, the sherd and the vessel bearing the serekh is of certain Egyptian origin.

Conclusions: Implications of the new Serekh
In exploring the nature of the expansionary dynamics of early pristine states such as Egypt (cf. Algaze 1993), epigraphic data like the clay bullae and the newly discovered serekh from the Silo Site (Halif Terrace) provide scholars with an unusually fine-grain tool for monitoring social interaction. Although our sample is extremely small (n = 1!), a typological study of serekh- bearing Egyptian storage vessels by van den Brink (in press) has shown that it is possible to isolate earlier (i.e., Type III) storage jars from later ones (i.e., Type IV) which bear the serekh of King Narmer. On the basis of a single serekh - bearing sherd, it is impossible to definitively attribute the fragment to one of these jar types. However, circumstantial considerations point to a later date in the lengthy reign of King Narmer, which stretched for a period spanning between 30 to 60 years (Emery 1961). These considerations include the following:

ï 1) Of the two closest parallels to our serekh - sign, one comes from Tomb B2, Umm el-Qaab, Abydos, Egypt. This sample comes from the immediate vicinity of Narmerís own tomb at Abydos. Assuming that the Tomb B2 serekh sample was incised on the ceramic vessel while funerary arrangements for Narmerís burial were being prepared around the time of his death, its stylistic similarity with the Silo Site sample indicates that it was produced at the same time and perhaps from the same workshop. This points to a late date for the Silo Site serekh, near the end of Narmerís reign.

ï 2) Paleographic considerations also point to a late date in Narmerís reign for the Silo Site serekh. Assuming that the earliest examples of Narmerís name are the fullest and most explicitly written (i.e., with both signs Nír and mr) and that only later it was felt sufficient to refer to Narmer only with the first part of his name (i.e., Nír), we conclude that our sample reflects the end of Narmerís reign.

ï 3) Based on the ceremonial Narmer Palette discovered almost 100 years ago (e.g., Fairservis 1991), it seems that King Narmer had to first establish a strong foothold in the Nile delta, before intensive contacts could be established with more eastern regions such as EB IB Canaan. Thus, only after a period of conquest and consolidation of the Nile Delta was Narmer able to turn his royal administrative machinery toward new foreign horizons, such as the Negev.

The Nahal Tillah project, although only in its infancy, has already added significant data to the debate concerning the nature of the late Protodynastic/Early Dynastic Egyptian presence in Canaan. The discovery of an unambiguous incised serekh-sign with the name of Narmer, most likely dating from the end of his reign, adds texture to models concerning the process of early Egyptian expansion into southern Canaan. While it has generally been assumed that the center of Egyptian activity in Canaan focused on the site of Tel Erani, the administrative artifacts, the imported prestige items, and the discovery of monumental Egyptian Dynasty 1-style architecture at the Halif Terrace (cf. Levy et al in prep), highlights the possibility that the Egyptian trading and administration network in southern Canaan was much more complex than previously thought. While the small site of ëEn Besor has produced over 90 clay seal impressions related to EB IB administrative activities on the coastal plain, the Halif Terrace can now be linked to a similar system of exchange. Petrographic analysis of the sample published here (Fig.5) is needed, as are additional samples before the character of that trade can be defined. However, the discovery of the Narmer serekh from the Halif Terrace illustrates conclusive evidence of royal Egyptian interest and relations with this strategic location in southern Canaan. The full impact of those relations can only be understood through further excavation.



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