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Concept
Badarian culture
Summary
The Badarian culture provides the earliest direct evidence of agriculture in Upper Egypt during the Predynastic Era. It flourished between 4400 and 4000 BC, and might have already emerged by 5000 BC.
Badari culture is so named because of its discovery at El-Badari (البداري), an area in the Asyut Governorate in Upper Egypt. It is located between Matmar and Qau, approximately northwest of present-day Luxor (ancient Thebes). El-Badari includes numerous Predynastic cemeteries (notably Mostagedda, Deir Tasa and the cemetery of el-Badari itself), as well as at least one early Predynastic settlement at Hammamia. The area stretches for along the east bank of the Nile. Some Badarian sites also show evidence of later predynastic use.
It was first excavated by Guy Brunton and Gertrude Caton-Thompson between 1922 and 1931. About forty settlements and six hundred graves have been located.
The Badarian economy was based mostly on agriculture, fishing and animal husbandry. Populations in the Badari culture planted wheat, barley, lentils and tubers. Pits that have been found may have served as granaries. They kept cattle, sheep, and goats; their livestock, as well as dogs, were given ceremonial burial. They used boomerangs, fished from the Nile and hunted gazelle.
Little is known of their buildings, although remains of wooden stumps have been found at one site and may have been associated with a hut or shelter of unknown construction.
The deceased were wrapped in reed matting or animal skins and buried in pits with their heads usually laid to the south, looking west. This seems contiguous with the later dynastic traditions regarding the west as the land of the dead. They were sometimes accompanied by female mortuary figures carved from ivory, or with personal items such as shells, flint tools, amulets in the shape of animals like the antelope and hippopotamus, and jewelry made of ivory, quartz or copper. Green malachite ore has also been detected on stone palettes, perhaps for personal decoration.
Official source
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