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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Djehuti: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by Doug M: [qb] Egypt was the most advanced civilization in most parts of the world during the old kingdom. MOST cultures on the planet had not "advanced" as far as Egypt. So to say that other parts of Africa were not as "advanced" is not really a big deal. But getting back to my point about African cultures and where the Egyptian style of carving, glass working and stone building came from, I think it is ALL African. My opinion is that there was a unique confluence of cultures from the Sahara, the Nile, Sudan and Ethiopia that started the trends that led to dynastic Egyptian culture. These ideas then spread to other parts of the world. The problem, as I was trying to say earlier, is that the African cultures that LED to Egypt, either in the Sahara or along the Upper Nile, have largely disappeared, because they did not build in stone and it is hard to piece together the EXACT composition and culture of all the peoples involved in Egypt's early development. What we do know comes from large sites in Abydos and elsewhere, where TOMBS have been found. Pretty much MOST of what we know about Egypt comes from temples and tombs. If it wasnt for those temples and tombs having painted and carved scenes of daily life, we would surely be at a loss to explain Egyptian culture at all, and it wouldn't be as fascinating to us today. Another problem is the flooding of lake Nasser and the ongoing strife in the Sudan, with another dam being built, possibly flooding areas of ancient Kush as well. [/qb][/QUOTE]We are not debating about which African culture was the most advance, but the point that there were other cultures in Africa that were advance and sophisticated. And that civilzations in Africa were not some rare novelty but was much more widespread in the continent than people think! [QUOTE] [i]“Ancient Egypt is one of the earliest examples of (primary) state formation, and Predynastic data should elucidate general processes which may be applicable to other cases of state formation. but we only have a partial understanding of the Predynastic, based on different types of data in the north and south. Possibly new and forthcoming evidence from the Delta will provide information on the processes of state formation and unification there, [b]but in the south there is the problem of so many missing settlement data,[/b] which are needed in order to make theoretical generalizations. Despite the problem of poorer settlement evidence in Upper Egypt, the emerging picture of Egypt in the 4th millennium B.C. is of two different material cultures with different belief systems: the Predynastic Naqada culture of Upper Egypt and the Maadi culture of Lower Egypt. Archaeological evidence in Lower Egypt consists mainly of settlements, with very simple burials in cemeteries, and suggests a culture different from that of Upper Egypt, where cemeteries with elaborate burials are found. While the rich grave goods in several major cemeteries in Upper Egypt represent the acquired wealth of higher social strata, the economic sources of this wealth cannot be satisfactorily determined because there are so few settlement data, though the larger cemeteries were probably associated with centers of craft production. Trade and exchange of finished goods and luxury materials from the Eastern and Western Deserts and Nubia would also have taken place in such centers. In Lower Egypt, however, settlement data permit a broader reconstruction of the prehistoric economy, which at present does not suggest any great socio-economic complexity.”[/i] Also… [i]“Only more recently has interest in Upper Egypt shifted to the detailed excavation of Predynastic settlements. But such settlements, located on spurs above the floodplain, are deflated, [b]with little or no evidence of permanent architecture.[/b] Missing, or perhaps deposited under alluvium, are large (fortified?) sites on higher ground of the floodplain, such as Kemp (1989: 33) posits; an exception is Nekhen, probably founded on a Nile levee, as shown by coring and sondage in 1984 (Hoffman, Hamroush, and Allen 1986: 181).[/i][/QUOTE]As materially wealthy as Egypt was, even the evidence of its urbanisation is scanty compared to its contemporaries in Eurasia! Even Ausar himself has stated many times that Egypt is known to many scholars as a "civilization without cities" since there were actually very few cities relative to the actual size and distribution of its culture. Even West Africa had more cities and urban centers than the Nile Valley, but as to exactly how many and how extensive its own material wealth is may not be fully known because of difficult preservation. [i]"The flood plain of the Middle Niger of West Africa is line with hundreds of ancient tells [b]rivaling those of Asia both in area and in clues to the emergence of city life...the Middle Niger is dominated by numerous monumental tumuli [/b](McIntosh 1991:203)."[/i] - R.J. McIntosh [/QB][/QUOTE]
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