Szymon Zdziebłowski
Translated by Agnieszka Gabor
The third international conference on the pre- and Early Dynastic Egypt, Egypt at its origins, was held between July 27th and August 1st in London. The first meeting took place in Cracow in 2002, the next one in Toulouse in the year 2005.
The first day of the session was combined with the annual conference of the British Museum Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan (Annual Egyptological Colloquium) whose main focus was the current research in the abovementioned field. Among the scheduled attractions, the biggest one was a special lecture delivered by professor Krzysztof M. Ciałowicz, as part of the annual Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation Distinguished Lectures in Egyptology. Extra tickets were sold to those interested solely in the lecture for in order to attend the whole conference a reservation had to be made earlier. The event generated as much interest as the presentation once given by dr. Zahi Hawass (General Secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities – SCA). What is more, a part of the audience had to listen to the lecture in the room next door where the professor’s performance was displayed live on a big screen. All in all, the presentation during which professor Ciałowicz put forward the most spectacular discoveries from the latest seasons at Tell el-Farcha attended about 400 people.
On the same day one could listen to other equally fascinating lectures such as the one given by dr. Dirk Huyge from the Royal Museum of Art and History in Brussels. Dr Huyge was talking about the most recent research in the late Pleistocene rock engravings that were recorded in the Valley of the Nile in the area of Qurta. Huyge in his presentation entitled “Lascaux along the Nile” showed rather shocking examples of certain engravings that are stylictically similar to those dated to the Franco-Cantabrian territory. According to him, those analogies are evident because both independently developing cultures were joined by means of a similar environment and through what Huyge called using an ambiguous English term, atmosphere. What seems essential to notice is that only recently the reports on the Paleolithic rock art engravings have started to be taken seriously. Apart from Qurta, members of the Supreme Council of Antiquities have lately identified another site of this type in Wadi Abu Subeira.
Two presentations that took place on the same day were devoted to the most recent discoveries in Hierakonpolis. Both dr. Renée Friedman and professor Thomas Hikade pointed out that the roots of the late monumental stone temples derive from the predynastic wooden or, more precisely, “pillar-like” architecture. The monumental foundations made of large wooden pales are being tracked down in different parts of the site. Some of these discoveries are interpreted as places of funeral rituals, the other ones as temples.
The next part of the programme was a lecture delivered by dr Matthew D. Adams from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. Dr. Adams was talking about his latest research on the Abydos territory where the so-called tomb enclosures of the first Egyptian pharaohs made of mud brick are gradually being discovered.
The next day of the conference can be safely described as the triumph of the Tell el-Farkha team. The Polish researchers presented 5 lectures in total on various subjects. Dr. Marek Chlodnicki explained the history of the central kom, dr. Joanna Debowska – Ludwin put forward the structures of the tombs identified on the eastern kom, dr. Mariusz Jucha presented the development in ceramics technology over the Early Dynastic and the Old Kingdom periods. As for the last issue, although it frequently appeared at the conference, it remains to be sloved for no compromise has been reached so far. After the break the colleagues dealing with the area of Upper Egypt, mainly Hierakonpolis, returned fire and proudly reported on the results of their investigations. The evening ended by peace with wine drinking in the gallery of Egyptian sculpture in the British Museum. With a glass of wine, one could allow oneself to have a moment of contemplation over the Rosetta Stone which can also be found there.
The remaining days of the conference were marked by more specialist seminars and discussions.
Along with the lectures, the organisers offered a visit to Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaelogy where the collection gained during the excavations made by the father of egyptology, Sir William Flinders Petrie, is located. The exhibition comprises a line of narrow and terribly stuffy rooms which resemble a stock room rather than an exposition. Priceless relics, including those coming from the earliest Egyptian periods, can be found all over. On the next day the participants went to Ashmolean Museum in Oxford where, especially for the conference, a number of monuments obtained during the research conducted by Quibell and Green at the turn of the 19th and the 20th century in Hierakonpolis were made public for the first time.
The conference was very well-organised by dr Renée Friedman and Liam McNamara with a substantial co-operation of Anna Pieri, Xavier Droux i Olga Romanova. The most significant conclusions from the conference constitute the importance of the results of the research done on the Delta territory. Thanks to these results, it seems clear that in the process of shaping the united Egyptian nation, not only Upper Egypt but also Lower Egypt communities played a considerable role. There is still a shortage of well-recognised sites from the Delta coming from that period. Fortunately, some new projects proposed by a few institutions have been launched so that a number of extremely interesting presentations is likely to be given during the next conference which will take place in two years’ time in New York.
The abstracts (in English) from the lectures are available here .
An account prepared by another participant during the conference, Juan Jose Castillos, is available in Spanish and English here .
