Under the supervision of Dr. Josef Wegner, Jane A. Hill will analyze data gathered through magnetometry survey, electronic mapping and excavation in the Early Bronze Age cemetery of el-Amra in Upper Egypt. El-Amra is located in the Thinite region, home to the earliest Egyptian kings. It represents a major type site for the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods (ca. 3900-2900 BC) when localized chiefdoms competed for dominance over larger and larger areas of the Nile Valley. As such el-Amra is a valuable testing ground for a community-level inquiry into competitive, coercive and symbolic forces at work during state formation in Egypt that remains remarkably well preserved and yet understudied.
Broadly considered, this research examines the role of elite competition through mortuary practice and landscape manipulation during a period when traditional patterns of social behavior changed rapidly and the coercive power of an elite lineage backed by a powerful cosmic ideology gained ascendancy. Using targeted field techniques and correspondence analyses the investigator will examine elite competition between lineage groups at el-Amra and those documented in the Umm el-Qaab cemetery at neighboring Abydos. In the Early Dynastic Umm el-Qaab develops into Egypt's first royal mortuary precinct reserved for the king and his entourage, while el-Amra's cemetery population drops. Major potential exists for combining new data from el-Amra with published data from both el-Amra and Umm el-Qaab to examine dynamics of intra-regional competition and integration during state formation. If theories concerning the development of a royal funerary cult as one of the organizing principles of the early Egyptian state are correct, competition between elites of el-Amra and Abydos can be measured in the placement of the cemeteries within the mortuary landscape. Additionally, later restriction of private tomb construction through the imposition of the new state-sponsored "royal-style" tombs for community elites can be measured at both sites. Such questions have applications to studies of competing polities and emergent states in the American Southeast, early Mesopotamia, and Oaxaca, Mexico.
While most ancient Upper Egyptian settlements remain inaccessible under modern villages, cemeteries provide the anthropologist with access to evidence of social organization and philosophical-religious factors influencing the development of the Egyptian state. However, rising water tables in Egypt are endangering archaeological sites previously thought safe because of their inhospitable locations. El-Amra is such a site, situated close enough to the cultivation to make it a target for agricultural expansion. Inspectors with Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities have attempted to preserve what remains, but lack resources for a full investigation. Cooperation with the Qena Inspectorate on this project will aid this goal of raising public awareness of the need to protect important but "monument-less" sites. Findings from this study will be submitted for publication to North American, European and Middle Eastern peer-reviewed journals and will be forwarded electronically to scholars in the region to increase awareness of emergent complexity studies and assist Egyptian archaeologists in conducting new research. Finally, the investigator and her graduate assistants will gain valuable experience in the techniques and analysis methods mentioned above.
