Badarian culture

Ancient Badarian mortuary figurine of a woman, held at the Louvre

Badari culture is so named because of its discovery at El-Badari (Arabic: البداري), an area in the Asyut Governorate in Upper Egypt. It is located between Matmar and Qau, approximately 200 km (120 mi) 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 30 km (19 mi) along the east bank of the Nile. It was first excavated by Guy Brunton and Gertrude Caton-Thompson between 1922 and 1931. Most of the local cemeteries have yielded distinctive pottery vessels (particularly red-polished ware with blackened tops), as well as terracotta and ivory anthropomorphic figures, slate palettes, stone vases and flint tools. The contents of Predynastic cemeteries at el-Badari have been subjected to a number of analyses attempting to clarify the chronology and social history of the Badarian period.

Populations in the Badari culture planted wheat and barley, and kept cattle, sheep, and goats; their livestock was given ceremonial burial. They used boomerangs,[3] 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. Pits that have been found may have served as granaries. Some Badarian sites also show evidence of later predynastic use.[4] The Badarians discovered that malachite could be heated into copper beads.[3] They wore jewelry made of ivory, copper and quartz. Amulets in the shape of animals such as the antelope and hippopotamus have been found.[3]

Badarian grave goods were relatively simple and the deceased wrapped in reed matting or animal skins and placed with personal items such as shells or stone beads. Green malachite ore, perhaps used for personal decoration, has also been detected on stone palettes. Their dead were generally buried facing west, and sometimes accompanied by female mortuary figures carved from ivory.[3]

Basalt vases found at Badari sites were most likely traded up the river from the Delta region or from the northwest. Shells came in quantities from the Red Sea. Turquoise possibly came from Sinai. A Syrian connection is suggested for a four-handled pot of hard pink ware. The black pottery, with white incised designs, may have come directly from the West, or from the South. The porphyry slabs are like the later ones in Nubia, but the material could have come from the Red Sea Mountains. The glazed steatite beads were not made locally. These all suggest that the Badarians were not an isolated tribe, but were in contact with the cultures on all sides of them. Nor were they nomadic, having pots of such size and fragility that would have been unsuitable for use by wanderers.[5]

A Badarian burial. 4500–3850 BC

The Badarian culture seems to have had multiple sources, of which the Western Desert was probably the most influential. The Badari culture was likely not solely restricted to the Badari region, since related finds have been made farther to the south at Mahgar Dendera, Armant, Elkab and Nekhen (named Hierakonpolis by the Greeks), as well as to the east in the Wadi Hammamat. Archaeological evidence has suggested that the Tasian and Badarian Nile Valley sites were a peripheral network of earlier African cultures that featured the movement of Badarian, Saharan, Nubian and Nilotic populations.[6]

Dental trait analysis of Badarian fossils found that they were closely related to other Afroasiatic-speaking populations inhabiting Northeast Africa and the Maghreb. Among the ancient populations, the Badarians were nearest to other ancient Egyptians (Naqada, Hierakonpolis, Abydos and Kharga in Upper Egypt; Hawara in Lower Egypt), and C-Group and Pharaonic era skeletons excavated in Lower Nubia, followed by the A-Group culture bearers of Lower Nubia, the Kerma and Kush populations in Upper Nubia, the Meroitic, X-Group and Christian period inhabitants of Lower Nubia, and the Kellis population in the Dakhla Oasis.[7]^: 219–20 Among the recent groups, the Badari markers were morphologically closest to the Shawia and Kabyle Berber populations of Algeria as well as Bedouin groups in Morocco, Libya and Tunisia, followed by other Afroasiatic-speaking populations in the Horn of Africa.[7]^: 222–4 The Late Roman era Badarian skeletons from Kellis were also phenotypically distinct from those belonging to other populations in Sub-Saharan Africa.[7]^: 231–2

Others cranial analysis and skeletal studies have demonstrated strong biological affinities between Badarians and other African populations.[8][9][10] Anthropologist Shomarka Keita (1990) conducted a craninometric analysis of pre-dynastic Badarian and Naqada skulls and found both series to "cluster with tropical Africans".[11][12] A 2005 study was conducted by Keita on pre-dynastic Egyptian Badarian male crania with comparative analysis to other African and European series. The Badarians showed greater affinity to indigenous Africans while not being identical. This suggests that the Badarians were more affiliated with local and an indigenous African population than with Europeans.[13] In 2020, Goode analysed a series of crania, including two Egyptian (predynastic Badarian and Nagada series), a series of A-Group Nubians and a Bronze Age series from Lachish, Palestine. The two pre-dynastic series had strongest afffinities, followed by closeness between the Nagada and the Nubian series. Overall, both Egyptian samples were more similar to the Nubian series than to the Lachish series.[14]

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  Vase in the shape of a hippopotamus. Early Predynastic, Badarian. 5th millennium BC. From Mostagedda. This vessel is carved from elephant ivory. The fine modeling and attention to detail show the skill in achieving these pieces.
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  Ancient Badarian mortuary figurine of a woman, held at the British Museum
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  Badarian arrowhead, 4000-3800 BC.[15]
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  String of bead, Badarian, 4400-3800 BC.

• Merimde culture
• Tasian culture

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Badari culture.

• Badarian Art Badarian figurines in the British Museum
• Badarian Government and Religious Evolution
• The Journal of African History