The Nile Delta as a centre of cultural interactions with Upper Egypt and the Southern Levant in 4th millennium BC

Open Access Publications of the project “The Nile Delta as a centre of cultural interactions with Upper Egypt and the Southern Levant in 4th millennium BC”

The Nile Delta as a centre of cultural interactions between Upper Egypt and the Southern Levant in 4^th millennium BC, edited by A. Mączyńska, Studies in African Archaeology, vol. 13, Poznań, 2014.

This volume is part of and concludes the project entitled The Nile Delta as a centre of cultural interactions between Upper Egypt and the Southern Levant in 4^th millennium BC. It contains a collection of papers by researchers involved in investigating the development of the Nile Delta in the Pre- and Protodynastic Periods. Nearly all of these papers were presented at the same-titled conference held on June 21 and 22, 2013 in the Archeological Museum in Poznań, Poland. Although originally planned as a workshop presenting the results of research carried out as part of the project, the conference eventually evolved into a major event and became an opportunity to meet and talk about the role of Delta communities in the development of the Egyptian civilization in the 4^th millennium BC, with particular emphasis on their relations with neighboring areas, i.e. the Southern Levant and Upper Egypt. The conference was attended both by project partners and by invited guests whose papers made an excellent addition to the main topic of the event. Only the paper by Steven Rosen was presented at a workshop called Imports during the Naqada Period: Investigating Two Sides of a Phenomenon organized by W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem on November 26, 2012. The main goal of the workshop was to meet Israeli archeologists, who keep finding Egyptian imports on various sites. An important element of the workshop was the opportunity to discuss Egyptian-Levantine relationships not only from the Egyptian, but also from the Levantine perspective. The article by Steven Rosen is a fine example here.

Lower Egyptian Communities and Their Interactions with Southern Levant in the 4^th Millennium BC, A. Mączyńska, Studies in African Archaeology, vol. 12, Poznań, 2013.

This monograph is based on my doctoral dissertation written under the supervision of professor Lech Krzyżaniak and defended in the fall of 2004. Although many people encouraged me to publish the dissertation and the Council of the Faculty of History at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, issued a positive opinion on the matter, I did not manage to have my thesis printed. Some of the issues addressed there were presented at conferences and published as research papers. In May 2011 I received a grant to finance a 3-year project entitled The Nile Delta as a centre of cultural interactions between Upper Egypt and South Levant in 4th millennium B.C. The grant was part of the Parent Bridge program financed by the Foundation for Polish Science, was aimed at providing assistance to young parents-researchers returning to research work after a parenting break. Publishing my doctoral dissertation was originally one of the project tasks. However, I well realized that archeological evidence and its interpretation had changed (sometimes significantly) after 2004. Likewise, my own views and knowledge had evolved during those years. It was thus only natural to update the dissertation and to revise my views presented back in 2004. As a result, this monograph is not merely an English translation of the dissertation defended nearly 10 years ago, but also addresses new discoveries from the Nile Delta and Southern Levant. In addition, it presents my current views on the interactions between the Delta, Upper Egypt and Canaan, reflecting the last two years of intensive research.