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Images abound in Gobustan implying a reverence for the sun, the sky, and fire: solar chariots and boats, the sun depicted in the form of a swastika, goats with sun-shaped horns, and human forms raising their arms above their heads to form perfect circles. Images of the sun are associated with fire and the hearth, and hearths are sometimes located near solar imagery.
More than 120 images of ancient Egyptian boats have been discovered adorning the inside of a building in Abydos, Egypt. The building dates back more than 3,800 years and was built near the tomb of pharaoh Senwosret III, archaeologists reported.
Near the entranceway of the building — whose interior is about 68 feet by 13 feet — archaeologists discovered more than 145 pottery vessels, many of which are buried with their necks facing toward the building's entrance. "The vessels are necked, liquid-storage jars, usually termed 'beer jars'
..early excavation of a ten-foot portion of one of the wooden hulls has already yielded surprising results: the archaeologists now believe the boats were not models, as many mortuary-associated objects could be, but viable vessels which could accommodate as many as 30 rowers. According to boat expert Cheryl Ward, the mode of construction is unique among surviving ancient Egyptian boats.
About 75 feet in length and seven to ten feet in width at the widest point, these boats are only about two feet deep, with narrowing prows and sterns.
Abydos Royal Boats
originally posted by: Kantzveldt
a reply to: ignorant_ape
Shouldn't need to be considered if they're commemorating arrival on the Red Sea coast and dragging the boats across the Eastern Desert,...
originally posted by: stabstab
You guys had a chance to see this national geographic stuff coming up? I dunno exactly whats the deal with it all but I would like to know.
www.youtube.com... National Geographic Atlantis rising new thing.
3800-3100 B.C. Qustul: The oldest tombs of a pharaonic type are found in Nubia (Kingdom of Qustul), and these thirty-three A-Group tombs appear in Nubia before the dynastic period. Cemetery L at Qustul, which is a small cemetery containing unusually large and wealthy tombs of A-Group. It was in one of these graves, “L-24” coded by the excavators, that the mysterious incense burner came to light. An incense burner with figures and pictographs gouged deep into the clay. This censer had been found, not in Egypt, but nearly 200 miles deep in Nubia. The inscription showed three ships sailing in procession. The three ships were sailing toward the royal palace. One of the ships carried a lion – perhaps a deity. The central boat carries the king, sitting and equipped with long robe, flail and White Crown. All motifs that would later become symbols of Pharaonic rule in Egypt. This piece had been made no later than 3400 B.C. At that early date, there were not supposed to have been any such things as pharaohs or pharaohs’ palaces.
originalpeople.org...
Gebel el-Arak Knife Pre-historic Egypt, Naqada II (3500-3100 B.C.) Petrie, W.M. Flinders. The Making of Egypt, London. New York, Sheldon Press; Macmillan, pp. 65-66, 1939. Petrie famously known as "The Father of Pre-history". Chapter VII. The Dynastic Conquest Conflict of Races We now have to view as a whole the tumultuous age of dynastic invasion. For some centuries we may see large movements going on, threats from the south and east, and influences from other quarters--one of the great ages of unrest and admixture like the ages of the XIII-XVIIth or XXIIIrd-XXVth dynasties. This troubled time occupied the Semainean age. For a demonstration of the invasion by the dynastic race, one of the greatest events in the history of Egypt, we turn to a single sculpture in ivory, the knife handle from Gebel el-Arak, probably presented to some great chief. The flint blade of the knife was a fine example of parallel flaking. The ivory handle is carved in relief on both sides. On the top of the first side is shown a combat between short-haired men with bullet heads and long-haired men. The bullet heads, like the followers of Narmer, are in all cases getting the better.
Both parties are unclothed, but wear a waist cord to hold up a dagger sheath. The invaders only are armed, using a truncheon. In the lower scene are two lines of ships, and drowned men lying in the sea between them. The upper line is of vessels with high prow and stern, the lower has vessels with cabins like the Egyptian. This is Egyptian history what the Bayeux tapestry is to English history, a national monument of conquest. Happily this is not the only representation of these opposing people, but they are shown also on the one painted tomb at Hierakonpolis. There are also combats of black men overcoming red men.
Source of the Conquerors Adding to the history, there is on the other side of the knife handle a figure of a hero or divinity subduing two lions. Such a group is widely spread, anciently, with lions in Elam, Mesoptamia and Greece; tigers in the Harappa of India; winged bulls or horses in Assyria; ibex in Arabia and deer in Italy; wolves at Athens; swans in Greece. For various animals we see that the idea is not the restraint of violence, but the assumption of power over all Nature, however untamable. Such then is the purpose of this group, and the source of it is a cold country, for the hero has a thick coat and cap, and the lions have thick hair under the whole body as a protection in snow. It must be from mountainous Elam and not from the plains of Mesopotamia that the figures come. The two beautiful figures of dogs belong to the Babylonian myth of Etana on the flying eagle, with two dogs looking up after it. Below these are exquisitely spirited figures of animals, the connection of which we cannot realize in the broken connection. Here is an historic monument of the highest value, but badly wreaked by the Government policy of seizing discoveries.
In a free system of rewards, the tomb where this lay would have comes under official care, all collateral objects would have been preserved, and every fragment of such an ivory could be recovered by sifting. But this object was never known officially till in the hands of the dealer. The ships on the ivory knife handle are distinguished by having an animal head on the prow, probably as a figurehead. These are the bull's head and the oryx head, and they possibly signify the names of the vessels. Below is the black ship at Hierakonpolis, belonging to the black men who are shown as conquering the red men; and the other ship of these conquering invaders on the knife handle, with the similar high prow and round-topped cabin. The subjects of the invasion and conquest carved on this knife handle, and depicted with such vigour . . . . serve to clear away the distorted view of supposing all the history to have been a smooth uniform development of a single people. - W.M. Flinders Petrie
www.newsnfo.co.uk...
The distinctive black top was produced during the firing process, the precise nature of which is still a source of considerable debate.5 Recent research suggests that it was probably made during a single firing.6 The origin of the ware is found in Badarian black-topped red and brown bowls, a tradition with roots in the Western Oases and the ancient Sudan.7 Early Naqada I shapes were predominantly open jars and bowls of varying heights; in the later part of Naqada I and early Naqada II, closed vessels in globular and ovoid shapes appeared.8 Isolated examples exist in Naqada III, whether these represent genuinely later types or pots gathered from earlier tombs requires further study.9 Black-topped ware was evidently much admired, with Nile Valley 'imports' and/or regional variations in local shapes and clays found in Predynastic deposits at the Dakhleh Oasis,10 Nubia,' Buto,12 Maadi,13 and possibly Southern Palestine.
www.academia.edu...
Around 3800 BC, the second "Nubian" culture arose. It was a contemporary of, and ethnically and culturally the same as, the polities in predynastic Naqada of Upper Egypt. Around 3300 BC, there is evidence of a unified kingdom, as shown by the finds at Qustul, that maintained substantial interactions (both cultural and genetic) with the culture of Naqadan Upper Egypt.
originally posted by: Kantzveldt
a reply to: Spider879
There really isn't that much to differentiate the more Southern Ta-Seti culture from that of Naqada I, they both owed their origins to the Neolithic expansion into Egypt that had begun in Anatolia.
I think it's true that Petrie was thinking in terms of invasions, one people displacing another, but i'm not, more in terms of a group looking to find and develop resources and establish trade connections based upon good relationships, activities beneficial to both parties.
So i think that this arrival via the Red Sea was the catalyst for the more advanced Naqada II culture, with the greater interest in metallurgy and firing techniques for the pottery you showed as an example, which of course required expertise in kiln design, so the establishment of contact with a trading group that included Mesopotamian and Indus valley connections, but would have been facilitated by a relatively small group, yet highly influential.
As early as the Badarian and Naqada I the cemeteries denote the beginning of social stratification [13]. The increasingly larger funerary offerings in certain tombs, the same presence of larger tombs and wealthy burials for children, are all the expressions of two important factors: 1) diffused specifical mortuary beliefs; 2) the formation of a ruling class which did not share anymore the same destiny in life and death as the common people . The small egalitarian communities are becoming large low-density farming villages
xoomer.virgilio.it...
originally posted by: Kantzveldt
a reply to: Byrd
Anatolia had a great tradition in ship building, the first Neolithic expansion into and across the entire Mediterranean and beyond started from there, Greek culture had it's origins in Anatolia
and they knew a thing or two about ship building as well as the Minoans, the only surprise here is that doesn't appear to have been the general direction from which Egyptian civilization received it's impetus to develop.
Of course the Nile dwellers did have their own boat building traditions which is why it is important to differentiate the various types seen in the Petroglyphs, the longship tradition was not theirs, frond/reed boats were.
a reply to: Spider879
There are lots of assumptions involved there, why on Earth would anyone want to be in contact with a bunch of farmers in Sudan even if they did have chiefs and elders in their stratified society, like everybody else in the world, and were's this evidence for Levantine contact...?
once these are established through contact with a culture that had expertise in such it then becomes a case of what local resources can we exploit and can we expand our area of interest and produce trade goods of our own.