The Tell el-Iswid site

The issues at stake

The fourth millennium constitutes the period of formation of Egyptian civilization. It is during these centuries which precede the birth of the State, around 3000 before our era, that the outlines are developed, the essential features which will last for several millennia. Of the two great cultural groups which dominate in the Nile valley at the end of the 5th millennium, Naqada in the south and “  Maadi-Bouto  »Or CBE (Cultures of Lower Egypt) in the north (from the Memphite region to the tip of the Delta), a homogeneous cultural whole will be revealed around 3500/3400 BC, which will borrow its main characteristics from the cultures of the South. The modalities of this transition remain controversial  : migrations  ? conquests  ? acculturation  ? What led communities in the north of the country to one day abandon their cultural traditions (burial methods, ways of making pottery, lithic tools) to adopt those of their southern neighbors?  ?

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The answers to these questions - or at least some of the answers - can be found in the stratified habitat sites of the Delta. They write  : 1 / changes in the habitat with, in particular, the appearance of mud brick architecture and the question of its origins, 2 / the adoption of new traditions to shape and decorate ceramics, 3 / renewal lithic tools and their sources of supply, 4 / the evolution of agricultural practices, breeding and modes of subsistence in a changing landscape. These are the objectives of Tell el-Iswid's mission.

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