The Gebel el Arak knife

[Locksley]

The Gebel el Arak knife
Depiction of a predynastic battle scene


This flint knife with a carved ivory handle was found near Denderah. It is one of the oldest examples of bas-relief carving. The whole knife is 25 cm, the handle about 10 cm long.

It depicts two groups of men fighting each other. Those with short cut hair attacking from the left are armed with clubs, maces and short bows, while the long haired group seem to be unarmed. This points to the attack being a raid against civilians. Apart from the hairlength there are few differences between the two groups: they all wear loincloths or penile sheaths, are barefoot and - as far as one can tell - beardless and have uncovered heads.
The fallen seem to belong to the short haired attackers.

Two different kinds of boats are shown. Those in the lower row have the crescent shape of Egyptian reed boats, while the flat keeled boats with the high prows and sterns look foreign; it has been suggested Mesopotamian. But there are Egyptian pictographs of such boats in both the eastern and western deserts as well as pictures on vases. The eastern desert rock-paintings pre-date similar Mesopotamian finds by generations.

That there were contacts between Egypt and Mesopotamia in the late fourth millennium BCE is not doubted, but chances are slim that this battle scene depicts an incursion of Mesopotamians into Egypt as has been proposed by some: the garb worn by the fighters of either group is more similar to traditional African than Near Eastern attire.
Photo of the reverse side of the knife handle, showing Mesopotamian influence. Picture by Jon Bodsworth

http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/kni ... ide-jb.jpg

front view

http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/kni ... index.html

 

[Locksley]

This knife is from the early founding of the Egyptian nation and from the early kings or pharaoh.
The 4th millennium BC saw major changes in human culture. It marks the beginning of the Bronze Age and of writing. The city states of Sumer and the kingdom of Egypt are established and grow to prominence. Agriculture spreads widely across Eurasia. World population in the course of the millennium doubles, approximately from 7 to 14 million people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4th_millennium_BC
Ancient Egypt was a civilization in Northeastern Africa concentrated along the middle to lower reaches of the Nile River, reaching its greatest extent in the second millennium BC, during the New Kingdom. It stretched from the Nile Delta in the north as far south as Jebel Barkal at the Fourth Cataract of the Nile, in modern-day Sudan. Extensions to the geographic range of ancient Egyptian civilization included, at different times, areas of the southern Levant, the Eastern Desert and the Red Sea coastline, the Sinai Peninsula, and the oases of the Western desert.[2]

The civilization of ancient Egypt developed over more than three and a half millennia. It began with the political unification of the major Nile Valley cultures under one ruler, the first pharaoh, around 3150 BC,[3] and led to a series of golden ages known as Kingdoms, separated by periods of relative instability known as Intermediate Periods. After the end of the last golden age, the New Kingdom, the civilization of ancient Egypt entered a period of slow, steady decline, when Egypt was conquered by a succession of foreign adversaries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egypt