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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Offers a broad and unique look at Ancient Egypt during its long age of imperialism Written for enthusiasts and scholars of pharaonic Egypt, as well as for those interested in comparative imperialism, this book provides a look at some of the most intriguing evidence for grand strategy, low-level insurgencies, back-room deals, and complex colonial dynamics that exists for the Bronze Age world. It explores the actions of a variety of Egypt's imperial governments from the dawn of the state until 1069 BCE as they endeavored to control fiercely independent mountain dwellers in Lebanon, urban populations in Canaan and Nubia, highly mobile Nilotic pastoralists, and predatory desert raiders. The book is especially valuable as it foregrounds the reactions of local populations and their active roles in shaping the trajectory of empire. With its emphasis on the experimental nature of imperialism and its attention to cross-cultural comparison and social history, this book offers a fresh perspective on a fascinating subject. Organized around central imperial themes--which are explored in depth at particular places and times in Egypt's history--Ancient Egyptian Imperialism covers: Trade Before Empire--Empire Before the State (c. 3500-2686); Settler Colonialism (c. 2400-2160); Military Occupation (c. 2055-1775); Creolization, Collaboration, Colonization (c. 1775-1295); Motivation, Intimidation, Enticement (c. 1550-1295); Organization and Infrastructure (c. 1458-1295); Outwitting the State (c. 1362-1332); Conversions and Contractions in Egypt's Northern Empire (c. 1295-1136); and Conversions and Contractions in Egypt's Southern Empire (c. 1550-1069). * Offers a wider focus of Egypt's experimentation with empire than is covered by general Egyptologists * Draws analogies to tactics employed by imperial governments and by dominated peoples in a variety of historically documented empires, both old world and new * Answers questions such as "how often and to what degree did imperial blueprints undergo revisions?" Ancient Egyptian Imperialism is an excellent text for students and scholars of history, comparative history, and ancient history, as well for those interested in political science, anthropology, and the Biblical World.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Introduction
Imperialism in Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptian Imperialism
and its Project
1 Trade Before Empire; Empire Before the State (c. 3500–2686)
Establish Unmitigated Access to Highly Valued Resources
Disrupt the Traditional Power Structures of Enemies
Create Allies where Enemies had Existed Before
Crush Resistance
Assume Direct and Indirect Control over Large Quantities of Land and Labor
Erect an Infrastructure so that Resources may be Cultivated and Collected in an Orderly and Efficient Manner
Conclusion
2 Settler Colonialism (c. 2400–2181)
Settler Colonialism and an Encounter Between Others
Close Encounters Prior to Intensive Colonialism
Motivations for Colonization
The Beginning of the Colony
The Colony at its Zenith
The End of the Colony
Postscript
3 Military Occupation (c. 2055–1773)
Fortification
Control Outside the Fortresses
Rejection and Resistance
4 Transculturation, Collaboration, Colonization (c. 1773–1295)
Crumbling Barriers
Becoming Kin
Altering Alliances
A New Kingdom; A Revised Strategy
Collaboration
Discrepant Experiences of Empire
5 Motivation, Intimidation, Enticement (c. 1550–1295)
Plunder
Glory
Recognition
Revenue
Coercion and Enticement in Imperial Attainment
6 Organization and Infrastructure (c. 1458–1295)
Campaign Regularly in Order to Naturalize Rule and Assess Resources
Underwrite the Costs of Empire Locally
Co‐opt, Don’t Construct
Fight Canaanites with Canaanites
Gain Leverage Over Current and Future Leaders
Create Family Ties
Convert Kings into Mayors
Imperial Overview
7 Outwitting the State (c. 1362–1332)
Head for the Hills
Kill Your Lords
Play Imperial Powers off One Another
Engage in Creative Fundraising
Employ Disinformation
Influence, Impugn, or Assassinate Imperial Functionaries
Collaborate for Cash
8 Conversions and Contractions in Egypt’s Northern Empire (c. 1295–1136)
Investments in Infrastructure and in the Information Superhighway
Conversions in the Imperial Footprint
Base Aspirations
Divergent Reactions to Intensified Occupation
Twentieth‐Dynasty Canaan: A Site of Religio‐Political Conversion
The Contraction of Mercenaries
The Contraction of Borders
9 Conversions and Contractions in Egypt’s Southern Empire (c. 1550–1069)
Converting the Built Environment
Divine Conversions
Conversions in Spiritual Wealth
Contractions in Egypt’s Empire Lead to the Birth of the Kushite Empire
Epilogue
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 01
Figure 1.1 Sites from southern Egypt and Nubia mentioned in the chapter.
Figure 1.2 Sites from Lower Egypt and Canaan mentioned in the chapter.
Figure 1.3 Three representations of conquest and its aftermath from the Protodynastic period. (a) The Narmer Palette (redrawn from Quibell 1898, pl. 12); (b) the Cities Palette (redrawn from Quibell 1905, 233, no. 14238); (c) the Narmer Macehead (redrawn from Millet 1990, 54, figure 1).
Chapter 02
Figure 2.1 Desert routes and way stations.
Figure 2.2 Dakhla Oasis in the Old Kingdom and a graffito of a soldier found at a desert watch post (redrawn from Kaper and Willems 2002, 85, figure 4).
Figure 2.3 Map of the Sixth Dynasty and First Intermediate period levels at ‘Ain Asil from Jeuthe 2012, figure 1 © IFAO.
Figure 2.4 Two settlements in western Dakhla. (a) ‘Ain el‐Gazzareen (redrawn from Pettman 2012, 182, figure 2); (b) Amheida, magnetometry plan (redrawn from Smekalova and Smekalov, n.d., figure 8b).
Chapter 03
Figure 3.1 Egyptian installations in Middle Kingdom Nubia.
Figure 3.2 Facsimile of a painting on the sarcophagus of Mentuhotep II’s wife Aashyt by Charles K. Wilkinson. Metropolitan Museum of Art 48.105.31. Rogers Fund, 1948.
Figure 3.3 Middle Kingdom Nubian fortresses (redrawn from Emery 1965, 144–51).
Figure 3.4 The seemingly hypertrophic fortifications of the Middle Kingdom fortress at Aniba (drawing by Franck Monnier © 2017).
Chapter 04
Figure 4.1 Sites mentioned in the chapter.
Figure 4.2 Monuments celebrating two Nubians from the Second Intermediate period. (a) Bovine skull depicting a Nubian found in a pan‐grave tomb in Mostagedda (redrawn by Severin Fowles from Brunton 1937, LXXVI, no. 3252); (b) Stele depicting the king of Kerma (redrawn from Smith 1976, plate 3, figure 2, courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society).
Figure 4.3 Facsimile of a painting of a Nubian delegation in the tomb of the king’s son of Kush, Huy, by Charles K. Wilkinson. Metropolitan Museum of Art 30.4.21. Rogers Fund, 1930.
Figure 4.4 The self‐presentations of two New Kingdom Nubian rulers in their own tombs. (a) Hekanefer, from the entrance of his tomb in Toshka East (redrawn from Simpson 1963, 9, figure 7). (b and c) Djehutyhotep, from his tomb at Debeira (redrawn from Säve‐Söderbergh 1960, 39 figure 10, and 41, figure 11).
Chapter 05
Figure 5.1 Sites and kingdoms mentioned in the chapter.
Figure 5.2 Information on imperial revenues as recorded in Thutmose III’s annals.
Figure 5.3 Genuflections were a regular part of diplomatic relations. (a) ‘Abdi‐ Aširta of Amurru claims in this letter to fall at the feet of the king seven times, both on his stomach and on his back (EA 64; British Museum E29816 © The Trustees of the British Museum); (b) Foreign envoys from Libya and the Near East bow and scrape before Horemheb, Memphite tomb of Horemheb (redrawn from Martin 1991, 77, figure 49).
Chapter 06
Figure 6.1 Sites mentioned in the chapter.
Figure 6.2 Facsimile of a painting depicting a ruler of Tunip bringing his son to court, by Nina de Garis Davies. Metropolitan Museum of Art 30.4.55. Rogers Fund, 1930.
Chapter 07
Figure 7.1 Sites mentioned in the chapter.
Chapter 08
Figure 8.1 Highways in the New Kingdom. (a) Three Sinai forts and Tjaru in Seti’s (directionally reversed) depiction of the Ways of Horus military highway (redrawn from Gardiner 1920, pl. XI); (b) major border installations and highway forts to the west and east of the Nile Delta. Deir el‐Balah and Tell el‐’Ajjul are omitted between Raphia and Gaza (partially redrawn from Oren 1987, 79, figure 4).
Figure 8.2 Sites mentioned in the chapter.
Figure 8.3 Egyptian‐style buildings in Canaan. (a) Tell el‐Far’ah South (redrawn from Starkey and Harding 1932, pl. 69); (b) Building 1500 at Beth‐Shean, level 6 (redrawn from Mazar 2009, 16, figure 1.5, courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; (c) Tel Mor (redrawn from Dothan 1993, 1073); (d) Aphek (redrawn from Kochavi 1990, xiii, courtesy of the Israel Museum).
Figure 8.4 Egyptian‐style material culture found in Canaan (not to scale). (a) Stele dedicated to the god Mekal, Lord of Beth‐Shean, by the son of an Egyptian architect (redrawn from Levy 2016, 111); (b) clay shabti from Deir el‐Balah (redrawn from Dothan and Brandl 2010, 202, figure 17.7, courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem); (c) beer bottle from Deir el‐Balah (redrawn from Dothan and Brandl 2010, 33, figure 2.5, courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem); (d) spinning bowl from Deir el‐Balah (redrawn from Dothan and Brandl 2010, 45, figure 2.7, courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem).
Figure 8.5 The Egyptian base of Beth‐Shean in the Nineteenth Dynasty (redrawn from Mazar 2009, 6, figure 1.2).
Figure 8.6 Depictions of Aegean individuals. (left) Sea People prisoners from Medinet Habu (redrawn from The Epigraphic Survey 1930, pl. 41); (middle) anthropoid clay coffin from Beth‐Shean (Collection of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem Photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem); (right) gold funerary mask from Mycenae (Scala/Art Resource, NY).
Chapter 09
Figure 9.1 Major New Kingdom settlements and sites in Nubia.
Figure 9.2 Schematic plan of Dukki Gel in the reign of Thutmose III (redrawn from Bonnet 2014, 435, figure 18.12, courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago).
Figure 9.3 Three New Kingdom walled towns. (a) Map of the New Kingdom fortified town of Sai Island, including field work results up to 2016 (redrawn from Budka 2017, 17, fig. 3, courtesy of Julia Budka, ©AcrossBorders, Ingrid Adenstedt); (b) Sesebi (redrawn from Morkot 2012, 316, figure 182, courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society); (c) Amara West with extramural villas (redrawn from Spencer n.d.).
Figure 9.4 The deputy of Wawat dedicates a statue of Ramesses VI to a temple in Aniba along with five fields (redrawn from Breasted 1948, 136).
Figure 9.5 A comparison of Lower Nubian temples in Ramesses II’s time and in the Greco‐Roman period.
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Ancient Egyptian Imperialism
Ellen Morris
This edition first published 2018© 2018 Ellen Morris
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Name: Morris, Ellen, author.Title: Ancient Egyptian Imperialism / by Ellen Morris.Description: Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2018. | Includes index. |Identifiers: LCCN 2018001068 (print) | LCCN 2018004511 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119467670 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119467663 (epub) | ISBN 9781405136778 (cloth) | ISBN 9781405136785 (pbk.)Subjects: LCSH: Egypt–History–To 332 B.C. | Egypt–Politics and government–To 332 B.C. | Egypt–Foreign relations. | Imperialism.Classification: LCC DT83 (ebook) | LCC DT83 .M67 2018 (print) | DDC 932/.01–dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018001068
Cover Design: WileyCover Images: (front cover) Facsimile of a wall painting in the Tomb of Anen by Nina de Garis Davies, Metropolitan Museum 33.8.8, Rogers Fund 1933; (back cover) © OnstOn/iStockphoto
This book is dedicated to Sev and Jules with love and gratitude.
Acknowledgments
Chapters of this book have been written in many different places. I would like to express my gratitude to the curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I held a Jane and Morgan Whitney Art History Fellowship in 2008–2009. Special thanks are due to Dorothea Arnold, Diana Craig Patch, and Janice Kamrin. Chapters for the book were also written while I was employed at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, and I am particularly grateful to Roger Bagnall and Chuck Jones for their support. I would also like to thank Michael Brown and Laura Holt—the latter of whom worked many miracles obtaining particularly tricky interlibrary loans during the time I spent resident at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe. My former student and research assistant, Rachel Kronberg, was also a great help to me that year on this and other projects. Finally, I am deeply appreciative of the support of my colleagues in the Department of Classics at Barnard College and at Columbia University, especially Helene Foley, Kristina Milnor, Nancy Worman, and John Ma. Meredith Wisner, Barnard’s resident expert on permissions, also provided valuable assistance in the final stages of preparing the images.
In terms of individual scholars and friends, Josef and Jennifer Wegner have been very generous in sharing information on their research and also in granting me rights to utilize their detailed illustration of the scene from Meryre II’s tomb that is discussed in the Epilogue. I am also extremely grateful to Georges Soukiassian, Clara Jeuthe, Julia Budka, Amihai Mazar, and Tony Mills for permission to utilize up‐to‐date plans of their excavations as well as to Franck Monnier for allowing me to publish his illustration of Aniba. My thanks are also due to Stuart Tyson Smith, Jeff Blakely, Amihai Mazar, Julia Budka, Vincent Francigny, Nadine Moeller, Jana Mynářová, Aaron Burke, James Hoffmeier, Lindsey Weglarz, Jacob Damm, Tony Mills, Colin Hope, Olaf Kaper, Laurent Bavay, and to numerous other scholars who have shared their insights and the results of their investigations into Egypt’s imperial endeavors with me. The main challenge in writing this book has been keeping up with all of the recent excavations and re‐examinations of Egypt’s imperial past. The amount of new work published within the past few years alone is both daunting and exciting, and I hope that I have done at least some of it justice.
Finally, I appreciate the thoughtful commentary of three anonymous reviewers and also the graduate student participants in Egypt and the Outside World, a seminar at UCLA taught by Kara Cooney, who all read and commented on an earlier draft of this manuscript. Participants in the seminar were Danielle Candelora, Nadia Ben‐Marzouk, Carolyn Arbuckle MacLeod, Jordan Galczynski, Jeffrey Newman, Marissa Stevens, Luke Brenig, Vera Rondano, Rose Campbell, and Michael Moore. I look forward to enjoying the work of these scholars in the years to come.
Most directly responsible for the success of this project are Haze Humbert and Janani Govindankutty, my editor and project editor at John Wiley & Sons, to whom I owe a great deal of thanks for their skill and patience. Finally, I am deeply grateful to Severin Fowles, whose love, support, artistic ability, and various areas of expertise I have drawn upon throughout this project, as well as to Andrew Miller and my parents (Dee Morris, Wendy Deutelbaum, and David Morris), who read over the page proofs and helped me see the text with new eyes. The encouragement of a great many more family, friends, and colleagues, was crucial and, moreover, much appreciated!
Chronology of Ancient Egypt
Late Predynastic (Nagada II) Period
3500–3200
Protodynastic (Nagada III) Period
3200–3000
Early Dynastic Period (Dynasties 1–2)
3000–2686
First Dynasty
3000–2890
Second Dynasty
2890–2686
Old Kingdom (Dynasties 3–6)
2686–2160
Third Dynasty
2686–2613
Fourth Dynasty
2613–2494
Fifth Dynasty
2494–2345
Sixth Dynasty
2345–2181
First Intermediate Period
2181–2055
Seventh and Eighth Dynasties
2180–2160
Ninth and Tenth Dynasties
2160–2025
Early Eleventh Dynasty
2125–2055
Middle Kingdom
2055–1650
Late Eleventh Dynasty
2055–1985
Twelfth Dynasty
1985–1773
Thirteenth Dynasty
1773–after 1650
Fourteenth Dynasty
1773–1650
Second Intermediate Period
1650–1550
Fifteenth Dynasty
1650–1550
Sixteenth Dynasty
1650–1580
Seventeenth Dynasty
1580–1550
New Kingdom
1550–1069
Eighteenth Dynasty
1550–1295
Nineteenth Dynasty
1295–1186
Twentieth Dynasty
1186–1069
Introduction
Every book has its germ of inspiration, which, mostly, long precedes its publication date. In the case of this book, I trace the idea back to the winter semester of 2003, when I taught a class titled State and Empire in the Ancient Near East at the University of Michigan. Between the first meeting and the final exam, the American government had rattled its saber at Saddam Hussein, scrambled for allies, declared war, arguably shocked and awed its opposing army, declared “mission accomplished,” and installed its second American governor.
Although I appreciate the numerous ways in which global media coverage, smart bombs, corporate interests, and other facets of modernity have transformed the practices of war in the past 3500 years, what struck me repeatedly as I covered the empires of the Hittites, the Assyrians, and the Persians, was how much remained fundamentally recognizable. As I lectured on the elaborate lengths to which the Hittites and the Assyrians would typically go to assemble allied forces1 and to justify their casus belli before their enemies and their gods,2 the American government spent January, February, and much of March mounting a case for war before the United Nations and assembling a Coalition of the Willing. The Hittites and Assyrians both likewise anticipated the American PSYOP (psychological operations) campaigns of aerial leaflet distribution over Iraq by yelling up exhortations directly to the people who peered down from besieged city walls, urging them to abandon loyalty to their ruler.3
As the specter of war loomed closer, the Americans bargained long and hard, though eventually to no avail, to be allowed to invade northern Iraq from Turkish soil. This proposed point of entry was the same as Mursili I of Hatti had employed to demolish Babylon in 1595 BCE, a pyrrhic victory that the king did not long survive. Indeed, in the centuries that followed, this ancient road would be the main highway traveled—now in the opposite direction—by countless Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian armies looking to extend their influence into lands formerly under Hittite sovereignty.
In mid‐March, after a final ultimatum of the type typically offered by the Hittites and Assyrians to rival rulers,4 the Americans declared war and attempted—via a spectacular display of power—to cow Saddam Hussein’s forces into submission. While the United States deployed 1,700 air sorties in order to induce feelings of hopelessness among Iraqi soldiers, the ancient imperialists mustered massive armies against city‐states, obliterated as much as possible of their enemy’s agricultural and industrial wealth, and liberally applied the most gruesome of terror tactics. Of his attack on the fortified city of Tela, for example, Ashurnasirpal II records:
In strife and conflict I besieged (and) conquered the city. I felled 3,000 of their fighting men with the sword. I carried off prisoners, possessions, oxen, (and) cattle from them. I burnt many captives from them. I captured many troops alive: from some I cut off their arms (and) hands; from others I cut off their noses, ears, (and) extremities. I gouged out the eyes of many troops. I made one pile of the living (and) one of heads. I hung their heads on trees around the city. I burnt their adolescent boys (and) girls. I razed, destroyed, burnt, (and) consumed the city.5
Such displays were far in excess of the effort necessary to achieve a military victory and clearly were designed to communicate the message that resistance was, and always would be, futile.
Assyrian campaigns, at least those recorded in the official annals, by and large achieved the same quick blush of (often ephemeral) success as met the Americans. In the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the country was to be governed by an American, just as the rulers of the Hittites, Assyrians, and Persians had once sent members of their own inner courts to administer areas deemed too politically unstable to rule themselves in a manner acceptable to imperial interests. By term’s end, then, our class had witnessed a drama that in many essential facets had been playing out in the same geographical region for millennia. But such dynamics are not tied to place.
Imperialism in Ancient Egypt
While I am fascinated by the structure and trajectory of empires generally, my area of expertise and special interest is pharaonic Egypt. Many of the same issues I explored with my class in 2003, therefore, brought Egypt to mind as well. At various points in its expansive history, Egypt exercised dominion over a heterogeneous assortment of polities and people (from Nilotic villages, to “kingdoms” based in mountain strongholds, to cosmopolitan port cities, to the arid haunts and oases frequented by Bedouin). The many examples of Egypt’s experimentation with empire remain largely unknown to scholars interested in the comparative studies of imperial systems, although the work of individuals such as Barry Kemp, Stuart Tyson Smith, Robert Morkot, Bruce Trigger, W. Paul van Pelt, and a handful of others who have published in cross‐disciplinary venues has done much to remedy this situation. In general, however, it may be safely stated that Egyptologists tend to write for other Egyptologists and for specialists in the ancient Near East when undertaking the crucial work of analyzing particular campaigns, archives, or excavations.
My own contribution to the study of Egyptian imperialism can easily be enfolded into this last critique. The question I pose in my book The Architecture of Imperialism: Military Bases and the Evolution of Foreign Policy in Egypt’s New Kingdom is big: namely, how do Egypt’s military bases, as they evolved over the course of the New Kingdom, enlighten shifts in its imperial priorities? Yet the great mass of data brought to bear on this question limits its readership to scholars already invested in regional specifics. It is a pleasure, then, to step back and to craft a book with a much wider focus for a more diverse audience. As its title implies, Ancient Egyptian Imperialism is intended to interest equally readers for whom Egypt is the main attraction and also those whose curiosity is piqued primarily by investigations into grand strategy, low‐level insurgencies, back‐room deals, and all the internal complexities of empire. It seeks therefore to explore not only the actions of empires but also—just as importantly—the reactions to them, divergent as these often are.
This book is organized around central imperial themes, each of which is explored in depth at a particular place and time in Egypt’s history. Chapter 1, “Trade Before Empire; Empire Before the State,” takes as its premise that strong parallels can be drawn between the formation of Egypt’s first unified government and the country’s later imperial interventions. Escalating tensions between regional centers in Upper Egypt in late prehistory (c. 3500–3200),6 for example, led to an elite preoccupation with obtaining exotic goods in order to express power and to augment it. Just as trade proceeded, prompted, and facilitated empire in the colonial scramble for Africa, so expeditions to the north and south assumed a much more martial character just prior to the advent of the First Dynasty, when the political unification of the state was unambiguously accomplished. Within the Nile Valley and in southern Canaan, Protodynastic and Early Dynastic (c. 3200–2686) efforts were made to eliminate middlemen, to regularize extraction, and to co‐opt resources, just as would be accomplished later when Egypt’s frontiers were farther flung. This early internal colonization, then, which sought to harness the resources of a newly defined nation‐state for the benefit of its ruling elite, not only provided a backbone for the pharaonic state; it also created a foundational template for the expansion and consolidation of political power.
Chapter 2, “Settler Colonialism,” traces another imperial project, this time undertaken at the end of the Old Kingdom in the late Fifth and Sixth Dynasties (c. 2400–2181). At this time Egyptian settlers were drawn in large numbers to a remote oasis in Egypt’s Western Desert. Motivations for this venture are difficult to decipher. Large‐scale settlement certainly followed initial explorations for minerals and other resources. Dakhla’s special allure at this juncture, however, may have been due to the combined effect of a string of perilously low floods in the Nile Valley (likely decreasing agricultural profits and putting pressure on individual farmers) and the rise of increasingly ambitious rulers in Lower Nubia (whose internal conflicts and ambivalent relations with Egypt threatened the profitability of state‐sponsored trading ventures). These dual factors provided strong economic incentives for potential settlers to farm oasis land and for the central government to exploit desert routes to Nubia. This chapter discusses what is presently known about the evolution and nature of this state‐sanctioned settlement as well as the relations between the Egyptian colonists and the indigenous inhabitants of Dakhla Oasis.
Egypt’s Middle Kingdom (c. 1985–1650) occupation of Lower Nubia and the legacy thereof is the subject of Chapters 3 and 4. “Military Occupation” explores how Twelfth‐Dynasty pharaohs attempted to assure themselves unfettered access to highly valued Nubian resources (such as gold, valuable stones and minerals, as well as sub‐Saharan trade goods) by erecting a series of massive mud‐brick fortresses in Lower Nubia, each of which was at first staffed primarily by rotating garrisons. Throughout the Twelfth Dynasty, archaeological and textual evidence suggests that the Egyptian and the riparian Nubian population kept their interactions to a minimum, perhaps due to mutual enmity. As has been noted by various scholars, conquered populations for whom armed resistance is not an option often practice aggressive boundary maintenance. Evidence from this period in Nubia’s history is thus brought into dialogue with Britain’s ultimately unsuccessful efforts in the early portion of the twentieth century CE to lure the largely pastoralist population of occupied Sudan into abetting their own subjugation.
In the early Thirteenth Dynasty (c. 1773–1650), due to worsening economic conditions in Egypt’s core, imperial soldiers began to settle permanently in the Nubian fortresses and to engage in a much more collaborative manner with the surrounding communities. When the state finally collapsed during the Second Intermediate period (c. 1650–1550), Egyptian and Nubian interactions intensified further, and the former occupiers even unabashedly switched loyalties to the Nubian kingdom of Kush! Chapter 4, “Transculturation, Collaboration, Colonization,” follows this initial cultural détente between Egyptian and Nubian communities to a point in the mid‐Eighteenth Dynasty (c. 1450), at which time pharaonic armies had reconquered and secured their hold on the region. The inhabitants of Lower Nubia had of their own accord selectively adopted aspects of Egypt’s material culture, and this process intensified markedly post‐conquest, such that in the absence of strong contextual clues it is extremely difficult to distinguish “Egyptians” from “Nubians” north of the Third Cataract.
Chapter 4, thus, considers two important factors in the turn toward the expression of an apparent Egyptian identity in New Kingdom Nubia. The first is the well‐attested practice on frontiers and in colonial settings of men from the imperial culture and local women raising families together that are culturally neither “his” nor “hers.” As generations progress, bicultural families often curate socially significant aspects of their paternal heritage, while continuing to embrace aspects of a more deeply rooted local culture, such as foodways, that tend to be passed down through the maternal line—a dynamic that highlights the vital importance of gender in any nuanced discussion of empire. By virtue of sustained interaction and transculturation, ethnically mixed communities not only forge a hybrid that is all their own but also retain the ability to deploy aspects of their dual heritage strategically. Thus, in the Second Intermediate period, Nubio‐Egyptians might highlight their indigenous identity when seeking to interact with Nubian neighbors and with the Kerman forces that controlled their land. Descendants of the same community, however, seem to have played up their status as Egyptians‐by‐descent when pharaonic armies once again reasserted their dominance.
The second factor in such a seeming switch of cultural allegiance in the New Kingdom is the effect of imperial policies for promotion—policies dictating that individuals could only rise in the new regime if they shed outward signs of their indigeneity and, presumably, encouraged their family to do likewise. This process, well attested in Ptolemaic Egypt among other colonial situations, results in the rather ironic situation that the more indigenous a local leadership becomes under colonial rule, the less indigenous it looks. Neither abandoned nor forgotten, traditional material signatures typically become for a time far less visible.
Chapter 5 shifts northward in space and back slightly in time to the very beginnings of Egypt’s New Kingdom empire in Syria‐Palestine (c. 1550). “Motivation, Intimidation, Enticement” argues that Egypt’s empire wasn’t envisioned at its origins. After Theban rulers succeeded in defeating and expelling the Syro‐Palestinians who had dominated the Delta during the Second Intermediate period, they launched a series of pre‐emptive strikes to protect their realm. The lucrative nature of the booty, the relative ease with which Egypt could extend its area of influence, and the seduction of international power, it is argued, were unexpected and exciting. Once the Egyptians decided not to retreat back behind their borders but rather to keep control, however, they needed to rely on methods other than brute force. Increasingly included in their imperial arsenal, then, were veiled threats, deft diplomacy, and even outright bribery. Despite these efforts at incentivizing collaboration, Egypt’s empire in the early Eighteenth Dynasty remained essentially informal and, as such, inherently unstable.
Rulers like Pachacuti, Gengis Khan, Shaka Zulu, and Qin Shi Huang are primarily famous for their radical reorganizations of army, infrastructure, and empire. The keystone of any successful empire, of course, is the creation of an efficient infrastructure that allows people, goods, and information to travel from the peripheries to the core (and vice versa) with maximum speed and safety. The reforms of these rulers and those of Thutmose III (c. 1479–1425)—their Egyptian counterpart—helped extend and stabilize their conquests. Under Thutmose III’s watch, the Egyptian empire was transformed from an intermittent smash‐and‐grab operation to an efficient and predictable machine. Thutmose’s reforms—the subject of the sixth chapter, “Organization and Infrastructure”—aimed to naturalize Egypt’s control, facilitate resource extraction, reliably provision armies and imperial functionaries, and ensure that local rulers internalized early on a healthy dose of Egyptian ideology, such that they would accept their new status as mayors (rather than kings). With the aid of imperial tutelage and infrastructure, the pharaoh intended that locals, with limited oversight, would administer their country for the twin benefits of Egypt’s revenue and reputation.
Chapter 7, “Outwitting the State,” argues the perhaps unsurprising point that Egypt’s vassals had no desire to run their realms for Egypt’s benefit. Nor did the population of Syria‐Palestine necessarily appreciate the extra overlay of extraction. An archive of diplomatic correspondence, unearthed at the city of Amarna in Egypt and covering roughly three decades (c. 1362–1332), offers an invaluable glimpse into the ways that the region’s inhabitants and vassals managed to subvert Egypt’s authority. From the reports of vassals, we learn that disaffected subjects did not hesitate to stage coups against rulers they felt were too tightly intertwined with imperial interests. Others simply voted with their feet, heading for mountainous zones where everyone knew Egypt’s armies were loath to tread. If situated in the contested border zone between rival powers, vassals had the unique opportunity—and one that they routinely took advantage of—to play one great power against another. Even for those closer to the core, however, it was still possible to “safeguard” Egyptian stores in the absence of an Egyptian official, to employ dissimulation to mask seditious acts, and to impugn one’s rivals such that imperial armies might be manipulated into acting against them.
Perhaps because the many loopholes that locals could utilize to exploit the system had become increasingly apparent over time, the Egyptians again restructured their system of governance at the very end of the Eighteenth Dynasty or the beginning of the Nineteenth (c. 1300). Chapter 8, “Conversions and Contractions in Egypt’s Northern Empire,” focuses on the manner in which Egypt intensified its presence in the heart of its territory, thereby rendering it much more visible to Canaanites and archaeologists alike. As part of this strategic conversion, the pharaonic state created purpose‐built bases stocked with many of the comforts of home. Egyptians stationed abroad could live in an Egyptian‐style dwelling, eat Nilotic fish, savor the taste of geese, and drink “Egyptian” beer from Egyptian‐style jars. The more pious and patriotic among them could also, increasingly, worship Amun and his close associate, the divine king, in an Egyptian‐affiliated temple. At such temples, too, Canaanites were evidently encouraged to deliver taxes to Amun, although locals may have greeted this particular reform in religio‐economic practice with muted enthusiasm. Indeed, the notion of discrepant experiences of empire, especially with regard to the co‐existing highs and lows in prosperity observed in the most securely held areas of Egypt’s northern empire at this time, is crucial to the chapter’s project. Considerations of contractions—both of foreign mercenaries to staff Egyptian bases and, in another sense, of the sphere of Egypt’s effective control in the decades following the death of Ramesses III—round out these meditations on the country’s northern empire.
The final chapter, “Conversions and Contractions in Egypt’s Southern Empire,” redirects focus southward again to Egyptian‐held Nubia. While Chapter 4 already considered numerous conversions—of soldiers to settlers, troop commanders to mayors, and Nubian rulers to Egyptian‐style nobles—this chapter considers two further fundamental changes wrought by Egyptian imperialism. First, when Egypt extended its authority into Upper Nubia at the beginning of the New Kingdom, it chose not to emulate the fortress system by which its Middle Kingdom predecessors had governed Lower Nubia. Rather, it sponsored the building of a number of lightly fortified Egyptian‐style towns, each of which possessed a temple at its heart. Such administrative temple‐towns, it must have been believed, would not only attract Egyptian settlers but would also encourage Nubians from this previously unconquered region to move into them and thereby to settle into an Egyptian pattern of life.
Not surprisingly, given the nature of the towns, the New Kingdom imperial government also oversaw a number of conversions in the sphere of religion. For instance, in the south especially they strategically altered the visage of the god Amun into a ram‐headed manifestation, likely intended to attract the devotion of Nubians. With similar intent, the Egyptian government re‐envisioned a prominent—and no doubt spiritually significant—mountain as the heart of a complex dedicated to Amun’s worship. Finally, in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties especially, they constructed massive stone‐built temples throughout Nubia in an effort to convert the southernmost portion of the empire into a temple‐based economy capable of subsidizing a variety of extractive enterprises. Scattered evidence suggests, however, that many of these temples may have been administered by Nubians, both in order to secure the loyalty of prominent families and also in acknowledgment of the fact that the “Egyptian” administration in Nubia was increasingly Nubian. Such incorporation of influential Nubians into Amun’s cult no doubt accounts for the fact that the god’s reign in Nubia far outlasted that of Egypt’s New Kingdom pharaohs.
The contractions noted in the chapter’s title refer not only to the progressive diminishments of the territory over which Egypt claimed dominance, but also metaphorically to the contractions that herald a birth. As Egypt’s control in the region became ever more precarious at the very end of the Twentieth Dynasty, Nubians seemed to become increasingly invested in resuscitating elements of their traditional material culture. This trend intensified after Egypt ceded control completely, and it resulted finally in the birth of a powerful Nubian kingdom based at Napata, the site of the aforementioned holy mountain. In legitimizing their own expanding empire, these new indigenous rulers drew quite deliberately upon both Nubian and Egyptian models. Indeed, fittingly enough, it was none other than the divine, ram‐headed Amun who would give his blessing to Nubia’s invasion and annexation of Egypt (c. 730). An investigation of imperial conquests both by Egypt and of Egypt could, of course, go on well into modern times. The end of this book is not the end of the story. It is but a preface.
Ancient Egyptian Imperialism and its Project
Political scientists, anthropologists, and comparative historians have added immeasurably to our understandings of empire, crafting models and charts that claim (with varying degrees of success) to fashion order out of chaos and find method in madness. This book is indebted to the insights of these theorists and draws upon their work throughout. The creation and/or reification of classificatory schemes, however, is not an end goal of this work. Empires, like sharks, must swim or die, and as such, I would argue, constitute moving targets. These predatory beasts are difficult to classify, not only because they adjust their tactics rapidly in response to challenges to their authority, but also because even the very same empire at the very same period may look quite different in its various nooks and crannies. As Sue Alcock has cogently observed:
…to manufacture a rigid typology into which any individual empire slots neatly is neither feasible nor desirable, for more often than not all of the above strategies are to be seen at work in one and the same empire, operating in different locations.… There is the additional complication that these different strategies could be implemented at different stages in the rise or decline of an empire.… Imperial systems are nothing if not dynamic in nature.7
Neither uniformly “direct” nor “indirect” in their rule, Egypt’s empires most often combined aspects of multiple—often seemingly contradictory—organizational models, because what worked well in some contexts failed abysmally in others.
Empires are complex entities, and I am interested in the experimental nature of imperialism—how a whole host of variables affected decisions regarding the structure of government. A jostling crowd of related questions thus vies for attention. How, for instance, did the goals at the outset of empire change over time in dialogue with the responses of individual peoples and with unforeseen logistical challenges? What pre‐existing political structures (and infrastructures) were to be found in a given region, and how did their presence influence choices made and policies implemented? What pushback or support did imperial administrators receive in various regions? Did factional schisms in dominated peripheries or in central administrations influence imperial decisions and trajectories? What experiments failed (from the perspective of either the ruler or the ruled), and how did these failures influence subsequent decisions? How often and to what degree did imperial blueprints undergo revisions, and when did it happen that they were scrapped entirely? What factors, it is crucial to ask, accounted most fundamentally for the discrepant experiences of empire?
Throughout this work analogies are drawn to tactics employed by imperial governments and by dominated peoples in a wide variety of historically documented empires, both old world and new. These comparative examples are not intended to obscure vital differences that distinguish one society and situation from another. Rather, I draw upon these comparisons especially when the rationale behind a given choice is more clearly explicated than it is in Egypt’s own empire and when it adds extra nuance or perspective to the discussion. These comparative examples are good to think with. They likewise help combat any notions either of Egyptian exceptionalism or that the somewhat small scale of Egypt’s expansionary efforts (by comparison perhaps to those of Assyria, Persia, or Rome) would disqualify it from the status of empire. Critiqued often for its insularity, Egyptology stands to benefit from attending to contemporary dialogues. As should be evident, however, it also has a vast amount to contribute to such conversations. It is in the spirit of abetting such disciplinary cross‐fertilization, then, that Ancient Egyptian Imperialism is offered.
Notes
1
For example: “[The Hittite king] had left no silver in his land. He had stripped it of all its possessions and had given them to all the foreign countries in order to bring them with him to fight” (Kadesh “Poem,” trans. Lichtheim
1976
, 64).
2
Oded
1992
, 177–81 et passim; Elgavish
2008
.
3
See Beal
1995
, 552; Grayson
1995
, 961.
4
See Gurney
1990
, 94–5; Kuhrt
1995
, 509–10.
5
Grayson
1991
, 201.
6
The chronology presented in
The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt
is utilized throughout this book.
7
Alcock
1989
, 92. For a very similar assessment, see Sowell
1998
, 15.
1Trade Before Empire; Empire Before the State (c. 3500–2686)
Trade is said to follow the flag. More often than not, however—at least at first—the reverse is true.1 This is one of two main arguments this chapter pursues with regard to Protodynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt. The other is that nations are often a product of empires, rather than simply a producer of them. As history and archaeology demonstrate, many of the world’s greatest pre‐modern states arose—by virtue of sudden, successful military action—out of a constellation of relatively comparable polities to unite vast swaths of territory under their rule. In some cases, these polities were already recognizably urban (such as Teotihuacan, Uruk, and Rome), while in others thriving metropolitan centers followed on the heels of empire (as with the Inka empire and Achaemenid Persia). Regardless, the salient point is that just prior to expansion, the polity that was to become an empire may have closely resembled its peers and even have been dominated by one or another among them for a period of time. Such seems to have been the trajectory of Abydos, whose political fortune lagged behind those of Hierakonpolis and Nagada—its more precocious southern neighbors—for much of early and mid‐prehistory, at least so far as it is possible to ascertain archaeologically (see Figure 1.1).
Figure 1.1 Sites from southern Egypt and Nubia mentioned in the chapter.
Colin Renfrew and John Cherry have termed the type of competitive milieu in which similarly sized political units tend to operate “peer polity interaction.”2 The city‐states of the Mayan heartland and Early Dynastic Mesopotamia are classic exemplars of this potentially generative dynamic. Two cities in such a system might ally themselves against a mutual foe one century, might attack one another’s territory the next, and might exist for a time in the relationship of vassal and overlord. Typically, however, any suzerainty enjoyed by one city remained on a relatively small scale and was balanced by similar relationships negotiated among its peers. As Renfrew and Cherry note, over the course of such intense and ever‐shifting interaction, the material culture of such cities tended to become ever more homogenized, heightening the impression that one differed little from the others.
The point at which a polity switches from exercising political paramountcy to wielding imperial power is related primarily to the unprecedented size of the new dominion and to the complexity of the mechanisms necessary to govern it effectively. Definitions of empire differ widely, but one tenet that most scholars agree upon is that in order to qualify, a polity must lay claim to a vast expanse of land and great numbers of people. Further, these new subjects should lie outside the constellation of peers traditionally feuded with and include a heterogeneous assortment of cultures. Carla Sinopoli offers a pithy, yet broadly representative, definition of empires as “geographically and politically expansive polities, composed of a diversity of localized communities and ethnic groups.”3
It is interesting, therefore, to compare this definition of an empire with Robert Carneiro’s definition of a state as “an autonomous political unit, encompassing many communities within its territory and having a centralized government with the power to collect taxes, draft men for work or war, and decree and enforce laws.”4 A close look shows the two to be inextricable to some degree, for without the initial conquests typical of an empire, the consolidation of many hundreds of communities into a state is difficult to envision. By the same token, an imperial project—whether launched by a local leader, a city, or a state—is only distinguished from a series of predatory razzias by the erection of an administration capable of doing what states do: regularly gathering resources, mustering manpower, and imposing political will.
The initial scalar leap necessary for the transformation of a relatively small polity into what was first an empire and then a consolidated (and more or less expansive) territorial state often occurred with remarkable speed.5 While groundwork may have been laid in peaceful as well as martial interactions that occurred many years prior, the leap into unknown territory and scale often came within the reign of one highly organized and ambitious ruler, such as Sargon or Shaka. The genius of such forgers of states and empires, however, was their ability to figure out not just how to conquer but also how to consolidate and keep—how to reorganize their own political structure to cope with a massive increase in the number of communities ruled and resources requisitioned.
In the Nagada II period (c. 3500–3200),6 Upper Egypt had been a land divided among a number of competing polities, each of which developed local industry, engaged in trade, constructed monuments, and buried its leaders in sumptuous style. The large‐scale diversion of power from the courts of individual regional leaders to that of a single ruler of Upper Egypt seems to have first taken place in the Nagada IIIA period (c. 3200). This conclusion stems from the massive, symbolically potent, and extravagantly wealthy tomb U‐j at Abydos; from the lack of other comparable “royal” tombs north of the First Cataract; and from the fact that the majority of known Nagada III kings (Iry‐Hor, Ka, Narmer) and all of the First Dynasty kings (c. 3000–2890) were subsequently buried at Abydos. It would be foolhardy to assume, however, that the process of establishing Abydene political supremacy was easy or linear. Indeed, the fact that U‐j was larger than any of the other Protodynastic tombs at Abydos—including Narmer’s tomb—points to the complexity of this process.
It was Narmer, after all, whose economic and political influence is most notably attested from Upper Egypt all the way to the southern coastal plain of Canaan. While this king undoubtedly stood firmly on the shoulders of the rulers who came before him, it is Narmer whose serekhs litter the Nile Valley, the eastern Delta, and Canaan; Narmer whose victories over enemies are most coherently broadcast and whose royal iconography is most elaborately expressed; and Narmer whose achievements allowed Hor‐Aha (c. 3000) to ascend to the throne of a united Upper and Lower Egypt as the first god‐king of the First Dynasty. While much of our evidence concerning this Protodynastic king’s purported accomplishments is gleaned from the iconography on votive gifts—sources that should not be accepted uncritically—the very fact that this king sponsored such ideologically laden pictorial statements speaks volumes about the political sophistication of his rule.
This chapter does not attempt to construct a chronological narrative of how the unification of Upper—and then Upper and Lower—Egypt progressed; such would be unabashed guesswork and would require far more space than is available here. Rather, its aim is to bring to the fore a sampling of the many strategies employed by the Abydene kings of Nagada III and the First Dynasty to co‐opt economic, political, and spiritual sources of power from the peoples they conquered and to consolidate their political grip. Many of the techniques utilized in this initial project and discussed below bear strong similarities to those that pharaohs, millennia later, were to deploy with good effect in Syria‐Palestine and Nubia. The bulk of these state‐forging strategies should likewise strike notes resonant to those whose investments reside in other empires.
Establish Unmitigated Access to Highly Valued Resources
Agriculture, livestock, and labor formed the basis of Egypt’s economy and the building blocks of power—a power that first began to be co‐opted by local rulers in the late Nagada I period at Hierakonpolis (c. 3600) and throughout Upper Egypt in Nagada II. Social prestige might be gained from gathering resources and from using these staple goods to fete others or to fund projects. The industrial breweries discovered at Hierakonpolis, capable of producing beer for hundreds of individuals at a time, represent early efforts to this end, and by the Nagada IIA period similar industrial establishments could be found at Abydos and the nearby site of Mahasna.7
An essential second step for rulers seeking to build and articulate power in Upper Egypt for themselves and for their earthly and divine supporters, however, seems to have been to co‐opt all that inspired awe. In anthropological terms, in the Nagada II period there can be no doubt that Egypt entered into a prestige‐goods economy in which items accessible only through external exchange and which lacked any practical function with regard to the physical welfare of their users became a fetishistic source of power. As Randall McGuire puts it,
The artefacts derive their power from ideology, and their exchange and distribution maintains the ideology. Goods that are rare, that require unusual skill to produce, or that are associated with more powerful social systems provide the best candidates for valuables.8
Some of these marvels would be disbursed as gifts and rewards, while others (it was surely hoped) would endow the ruler, if kept by him alone, with a similar capacity to excite wonder. Such extraordinary entities, of course, did not need to be fetched from afar. At Hierakonpolis, for example, archaeologists exhumed the bones of monstrously large perch from a ceremonial precinct and the bones of a dwarf from a grave sunk into the funerary chapel of a royal tomb.9 Admittedly, however, by far the most effective way to obtain items the likes of which had never yet been seen was to seek them out from foreign lands.
As early as the Nagada IIC period, an influx of items, images, and ideas from the greater Mesopotamian world arrived in Egypt. Their effect on the elite of Upper Egypt—a stratum of society eager to adopt new vocabularies of power into its semiotic system—was to inspire immense creativity. Although the duration of this interchange was short, ideas introduced at this time (especially regarding the technology of sealing in order to mark ownership, the utility of writing, the communicative power of heraldic imagery, and the design of niched buildings of monumental proportions) helped forge the visual insignias of high social status in the late Predynastic and Protodynastic period as well as pharaonic iconography throughout the Early Dynastic period and beyond.10
When this contact ceased, Upper Egyptian rulers did not have the resources to sponsor their own expeditions to Syria, but they do appear to have emulated their Mesopotamian counterparts in sending out traders in order to facilitate the importation of yet more wonders. Thus, already in the late Nagada II period caches of hundreds of Egyptian storage jars at Khor Daud (located at the mouth of the resource‐rich Wadi Allaqi) betray a thriving trade between Upper Egyptian polities and contemporary peoples in northern Nubia. In such exchanges, exotica funneled up from sub‐Saharan Africa and perhaps also minerals exhumed from the Wadi Allaqi were exchanged for Egyptian foodstuffs (such as jars of beer, oil, honey, cheese, and grain) and manufactured items (such as linen, metal tools, and sundry items typical of court culture).11
Similar ventures took place also in the foreign territories of Lower Egypt and Canaan (see Figure 1.2). Upper Egyptian material was found in greater quantities at the settlement of Maadi than at any other excavated site in Lower Egypt in the Nagada I and early Nagada II periods, suggesting a robust trade relationship. Moreover, local and imported pottery from Maadi, or settlements very much like it, was recovered from the contemporary cultic precinct at Hierakonpolis as well as from elite burials at the same site—including one belonging to a ruler’s elephant!12
Figure 1.2 Sites from Lower Egypt and Canaan mentioned in the chapter.
Upper Egyptian traders may have been particularly attracted to Maadi due to the site’s close relationships with settlements located across the Sinai in the southern coastal plains of Canaan. Archaeologists discovered that the inhabitants of the town had stockpiled goods such as shells and catfish barbs for export. Such trade commodities would likely have been supplemented with ivory and a variety of other raw and manufactured items as well as the foodstuffs originally contained in the Black Ware drop‐pots commonly attested at Maadi and in the assemblages of Early Bronze IA sites such as Taur Ikhbeineh, Tel Halif Terrace, and Fara H. Egyptian‐style pottery, presumably manufactured in Canaan for the use of resident traders, was also discovered in limited quantities at these sites.13 From such enclaves, the merchants evidently loaded copper, bitumen, resins, tabular flints, and vessels (most likely originally containing wine and oil) onto donkeys for transport to Maadi. Drawing on Colin Renfrew’s typology of exchange, Tim Harrison has characterized Maadi as an entrepôt and its relations with its Canaanite partners as “freelance middleman trading.”14
Just who initiated the early trade ventures that linked the commercial hub of Maadi with polities in Upper Egypt is unclear. One might speculate that elites from Abydos focused on fostering trade with the north, elites from Hierakonpolis on trade with the south, and elites from Nagada (ancient Nubt, meaning “gold town”) on extracting gold from veins in the Wadi Hammamat. As Stephen Savage has demonstrated, however, there were more political players than only these three in the latter half of the Nagada II period, and even within specific settlements certain lineages may have specialized in obtaining access to a variety of trade goods.15
The manner in which the rulers of Abydos came to assert their sovereignty over their rivals in other polities is not clear. Superiority in military matters may well have played an important role. Signs of large‐scale violence and militarization are difficult to discern in the archaeological record, but the numerous scenes of combat and of prisoners that ornamented the walls of the Painted Tomb at Hierakonpolis, the ivory hilts of knives, and the most elaborate of cosmetic palettes provide evidence that elite identity and martial prowess were already closely entwined in the transition between the late Nagada II and the early Nagada III periods.16 Regardless of any practical reasons for engaging in internecine warfare (such as settling disagreements over rights to land, mineral resources, or trade routes), the ideology that victory in war brought personal glory and the reality that it also provided an occasion for plunder undoubtedly fueled the violence and encouraged the participation of all levels of society in it.
What is certain—and of paramount importance for the argument that trade often excites imperial ambition—is that after the political unification of Upper Egypt, the Abydene kings moved quickly to establish unmitigated access to the high‐value resources the court desired most fervently in both Nubia and Canaan. This too is typical of early complex societies. As McGuire explains,
Lineage heads gain power relative to their subordinates when they come to control the production or source of the valuables used in the system. The greater this control the less dependent the lineage heads are on foreign lineage heads, and the more they are able to monopolize access to valuables. This means less redistribution to dependents and an increasingly restricted circulation of valuables only to those in the elite group.17
Although McGuire wrote in order to elucidate the process by which the elites at Chaco Canyon assumed power, his description fits what we know of Egypt during this period as well. In Protodynastic Egypt, however, as in European colonialism, the elites mustered martial force to retain access to what had become for them crucial resources. As in European colonialism, in Egypt the flag followed quickly on the heels of trade. The guiding policy of the new Protodynastic and early First‐Dynasty rulers seems to have been to eliminate middlemen and to seize direct control of both resources and trade contacts.
