Na najbliższym Seminarium PCMA dr hab. Joanna Dębowska-Ludwin (Instytut Archeologii Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego) wygłosi wykład „Are Delta Cemeteries Different? Mortuary Discontinuities and Political Change at Tell el-Farkha during the Transition from Prehistory to Early Historic Egypt“.
Abstrakt: The transition from prehistory to early historic Egypt is most often reconstructed through evidence from Upper Egypt, where the emergence of kingship and royal ideology creates an impression of linear political development. This lecture asks whether such narratives are equally applicable to the Nile Delta. Focussing on the mortuary sequence at Tell el-Farkha, it explores how cemeteries reflect political ambition, disruption and reorganisation between the late Predynastic, Protodynastic and Early Dynastic periods.
The talk is structured around three distinct sepulchral phases. The earliest, represented by Mastaba no. 10 (Naqada IIIA2/B1), provides evidence for the formation of a local centre of power and a highly developed elite, at least in regional terms. This is followed by a Protodynastic cemetery (Naqada IIIB–IIIC), which reflects a very wealthy community with limited social differentiation, suggesting a degree of political autonomy supported by economic strength and control of exchange. The final phase, an Early Dynastic cemetery (Naqada IIIC–IIID), presents a fully stratified community whose mortuary practices are consistent with integration into a wider state framework and subordination to external centres of authority.
Rather than forming a single continuous funerary tradition, these phases appear to represent successive and potentially discontinuous mortuary regimes. Possible explanations include political rupture, demographic change, or the arrival of new groups from southern centres, as well as forced incorporation into the emerging Egyptian state. Although the precise mechanisms behind these transformations cannot yet be resolved without laboratory analyses, Tell el-Farkha evidence shows that Delta cemeteries record not delay or marginality, but political volatility and experimentation at a crucial moment in Egypt’s journey from prehistory to history.
Seminarium odbędzie się w poniedziałek, 16 listopada 2026 r., o godz. 12:00 w formie hybrydowej: na platformie Zoom oraz w siedzibie CAŚ UW przy ul. Tynieckiej 15/17 (pokój 119).
Aby otrzymać link, prosimy o kontakt na adres: seminarium.pcma@uw.edu.pl