Origin of the Followers of Horus

a reply to: Byrd

Those links give a fair summary and indicate that the Southern Naqada II culture is developing largely independently of the Delta region and that therefore the reason for their new cosmopolitan outlook and contacts is unlikely to be via the Mediterranean, which means that this pretty much has to be through a Red sea network.

As far as the Nubian resources are concerned i think that once one has connections to groups that are looking to exploit resources and expand trading connections it's only natural that Naqada II culture would have begun to expand their own areas of interest and potential available resources, leading on to Naqada III.

The presence of cylinder seals in Egypt would have indicated they were importing, but of course given the nature of trade at the time they would also have been trading their own resources, i think it unlikely they established these connections themselves but were in fact sought out or discovered through the colonization efforts based at Uruk with Hurrian expertise, as an extension of their Magan project.

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
a reply to: Byrd

Those links give a fair summary and indicate that the Southern Naqada II culture is developing largely independently of the Delta region and that therefore the reason for their new cosmopolitan outlook and contacts is unlikely to be via the Mediterranean, which means that this pretty much has to be through a Red sea network.

Actually, if you read the whole thing, it's due to their own population expansion and the need to control and manage resources.


Wikidot has a list of the most commonly traded things - metals came from their "best allies" whoever those were at the time (which is most likely to be nearby places in predynastic.)

From pre-dynastic times onwards Egypt had contacts with Mesopotamia, though they probably were of little economic importance, unlike those with Nubia and later the Sinai desert which were annexed during the Old Kingdom. Africa was reached both overland through Kush and by ship via the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Arabia likewise had overland and overseas connections. The cities of the Levant, above all Byblos, were mostly accessed by ship, again since the Old Kingdom.

From Reshfam, which also has a map of the major trade routes

The fact that Mesopotamian trade is not terribly important shows in that they are not using Mesopotamian goods in their households nor are they copying any symbols or absorbing any deities or language. Some of these goods were undoubtedly gotten through intermediaries rather than hotfooting it all the way up the Med.

As far as the Nubian resources are concerned i think that once one has connections to groups that are looking to exploit resources and expand trading connections it's only natural that Naqada II culture would have begun to expand their own areas of interest and potential available resources, leading on to Naqada III.

Naqada III and Naqada II expand from Nubia. Not the other way around.

The presence of cylinder seals in Egypt would have indicated they were importing, but of course given the nature of trade at the time they would also have been trading their own resources, i think it unlikely they established these connections themselves but were in fact sought out or discovered through the colonization efforts based at Uruk with Hurrian expertise, as an extension of their Magan project.

The Hurrians at that time (their precursors, really) were not well organized ... unlike Egypt. With good resources, they had no real need to run off and trade with Egypt and they're not going to wander around the whole basin carrying rocks and wood and hoping to find people who wanted rocks and wood. They weren't the British Empire (a large and stable government with a lot of resources) sending out expeditions to conquer land and bring back trade and resources.

And they were apparently importing Egyptian faience for jewelry and for cylinder seals (which were undoubtedly easier to make and therefore much more cheap than the Mesopotamian stone ones.) This faience seal (Mitanni) shows that the faience material could be used to make exquisite and elaborate impressions It dates to Egypt's early New Kingdom)

And having the resources and ability to develop faience (an export product, which is made by access to local minerals including copper deposits) shows that the Egyptians had technology capable of working metal (pottery ovens are very hot) and that there was no need for a mythic band of metalworkers to come down to Egypt and "civilize the Egyptians."

a reply to: Byrd

From pre-dynastic times onwards Egypt had contacts with Mesopotamia, though they probably were of little economic importance

It was more about the cultural and technological importance, otherwise the Egyptians would have still been in the Chalcolithic period, the Hurrians had good working relationship with the most advanced cultures at that time, the Mesopotamian and Indus Valley, the latter of which had the necessary Maritime skills to make long coastal journeys, and were those Naqada boat representations look suspiciously like theirs.

Fience is interesting as it was developed as a poor mans substitute for Lapis Lazuli, indicating the cultural importance of that resource in terms of amulets, which should raise the question how and why that had become so important.

The association of faience with turquoise and lapis lazuli becomes even more conspicuous in Quennou's funerary papyrus, giving his title as the director of overseer of faience-making, using the word which strictly means lapis lazuli, which by the New Kingdom had also come to refer to the 'substitute', faience

It's not a question of whether Egypt had the capacity to become largely economically self sufficient in terms of their extensive resources, clearly they did, but the attitude, and that's all it is, that they were self sufficient in terms of cultural and technological developments conflicts with the evidence.

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
a reply to: Byrd

From pre-dynastic times onwards Egypt had contacts with Mesopotamia, though they probably were of little economic importance

It was more about the cultural and technological importance, otherwise the Egyptians would have still been in the Chalcolithic period,

Upper Egypt was moving out of the Chacolithic... and they were the ones who took over Lower Egypt.

the Hurrians had good working relationship with the most advanced cultures at that time,

How are you proving that a relatively small group had "good relations" with peoples who were known to be involved with the Sumerians and others? From what I read, they had numerous wars and as an outcome were pushed west by 1700 BC.

the Mesopotamian and Indus Valley, the latter of which had the necessary Maritime skills to make long coastal journeys, and were those Naqada boat representations look suspiciously like theirs.

Where, exactly are these boats and how are they identified as Hurrian? I see Sumerian and so forth ,but would like an image of a Hurrian boat from 3000 BC.

The Naqada boats look like typical Egyptian boats that were developed at that time and continued to be used through the Middle Kingdom and beyond. There is at least one tomb (and probably much more) showing men binding the reeds and shaping the prow in that same shape.

It's not a question of whether Egypt had the capacity to become largely economically self sufficient in terms of their extensive resources, clearly they did, but the attitude, and that's all it is, that they were self sufficient in terms of cultural and technological developments conflicts with the evidence.

The style, writing, images, etc in Egypt are all very Egyptian. There's little to no evidence of strong Mediterranean influence. And "Sons of Horus" doesn't appear until thousands of years lager.

a reply to: Byrd

I suggested the Indus Valley culture had developed maritime skills, not the Hurrians, and thus the colonization of say Magan involved co-operation and sharing of skills and expertise of at least three different ethnic and cultural groups with access to resources across considerable regions, an Indus valley reed boat was identical to what developed in Egypt and is often seen on Naqada II pottery;



The Hurrians could however also have developed maritime skills as there is very early evidence from the Caspian sea illustrating ships on petroglyphs, this is 6,000 years older than the first Egyptian representations, these actually more closely resemble the ships seen on the Red sea petroglyphs, long ships with oars.

Reed boats

I think there has always been a tendency towards magical thinking with regards to Egyptian origins and that the position you cling to is the latest manifestation tied in with current socio-political belief systems, it's entirely irrational to consider that a culture has developed entirely of it's own intuition when resources from distant lands begin to appear there and new skills are seen in association with them, that when progress everywhere else can be seen to be through the inter-action of diverse ethnic and cultural groups the Egyptians have achieved all in splendid isolation or worse still it was the Nubians...

Apologies for the late reply; I was dealing with canceled flights and scrambling to find a flight home. I will be traveling later this week, so other responses will be delayed.

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
a reply to: Byrd

I suggested the Indus Valley culture had developed maritime skills, not the Hurrians, and thus the colonization of say Magan involved co-operation and sharing of skills and expertise of at least three different ethnic and cultural groups with access to resources across considerable regions, an Indus valley reed boat was identical to what developed in Egypt and is often seen on Naqada II pottery;

Okay... first of all, drawing with crude tools on surfaces that don't take detail well will produce a lot of "similar" things. A viking ship carved on rock and a sailing ship carved on rock can look rather alike.

Second, there's only a very few ways you can make a boat out of reeds (and only reeds) - just as there's only a few ways that you can make ovens out of earth or storage jars out of clay. The fact that they look alike is pretty meaningless without other strong evidence of contact.

Third, evidence of colonization requires strong evidence of ties between the cultures. This includes adoption of words from each language (so there will be linguistic similarities), similar burial styles (or different types of burial styles in the same layer, each easily identifiable as coming from a certain culture).

Third, genetics shows there's no real significant contact there.

The Hurrians could however also have developed maritime skills as there is very early evidence from the Caspian sea illustrating ships on petroglyphs, this is 6,000 years older than the first Egyptian representations, these actually more closely resemble the ships seen on the Red sea petroglyphs, long ships with oars.

* the Hurrians didn't exist at that time
* people around the world who weren't in contact with each other developed reed boats
* Egyptians lived on the Nile and the only way to get from one area to the other was by boat. Why do you think it was impossible for them to not have developed boats without outside help?

I think there has always been a tendency towards magical thinking with regards to Egyptian origins and that the position you cling to is the latest manifestation tied in with current socio-political belief systems,

Actually, it's based on "what have they found in digs and how does it fit with the pattern of other evidence from this area and beyond."

Speculating using one or two items is no longer done in archaeology. Agatha Christie called this "finding a button and sewing a vest on it" (in other words, assuming a vest was plaid, or plain or paisley or embroidered and was a certain size and cut in a certain style based on finding a single button and nothing else), and as with detective stories, making a conclusion based on a few items usually leads to the author's ideas being overturned when more evidence shows up.

it's entirely irrational to consider that a culture has developed entirely of it's own intuition when resources from distant lands begin to appear there and new skills are seen in association with them, that when progress everywhere else can be seen to be through the inter-action of diverse ethnic and cultural groups the Egyptians have achieved all in splendid isolation or worse still it was the Nubians...

Except that your idea can't explain why the big developments in metals and so forth start in metal-rich Nubia and spread along the Nile in sequence as seen by archaeological evidence. If your idea was correct, we would see the big ideas starting near Cairo or in the Eastern Delta and spreading downwards from there.

a reply to: Byrd

Okay... first of all, drawing with crude tools on surfaces that don't take detail well will produce a lot of "similar" things. A viking ship carved on rock and a sailing ship carved on rock can look rather alike.

They have already found Viking style ships used in ship burials at Abydos and elsewhere dating to around 5,000 years ago, so again the question is was that an imported technology related to the region were such are first seen to have developed in the Caucasus, are ship burials a Nubian tradition?

...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

I think we can assume those are what is also seen on the Red Sea Petroglyphs, so this raises the issue of those early period Egyptians sort of developing the Caucasian longship and related burial traditions and then sort of forgetting about it, as later ship construction was not really similar.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

Do you have some sort of academic/archaeological link showing that the Abydos boats are identical to the Viking boats or Caucasian boats? I am not finding anything.

a reply to: Byrd

I'm thinking it's something i should have a an in-depth consideration of so i'll see what i can find to present in future, meanwhile this might interest you, in conjunction with the Abydos ship burials were also found many beer jars;

More than 30 pointed-bottom pottery jars, about a foot tall and of a shape that typically was used to transport beer, were found near one of the boat graves. Excavators found seal impressions, too deteriorated to be legible, from the jars' stoppers; more impressions of this sort are anticipated, and may even yield the name of the king for whom the boats were interred.

Which may seem coincidental but there was also discovered at Abydos a curious cultic practise which seemed to have developed regarding boats and beer jars

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'

Ancient Egyptian boat tableau

This is later of course but seems to indicate an ongoing association that the ship burial folk had liked their beer...

a reply to: Kantzveldt

The connection is not so curious if you study Egyptology (that's part of the offering formula for the dead) and the boats, etc, are from King Senwoseret (there's been articles in the Egyptological message system about this) The boats date from 1840 BC or thereabouts. Other boats from that necropolis date to a thousand years earlier or so, but don't have any Viking-like features.Wikipedia

a reply to: Kantzveldt






The look similar to me.