Doctoral Dissertation Research: Local and Intra-Regional Competition in Early Bronze Age Upper Egypt: A Site-Based Approach

在约瑟夫·韦格纳（Josef Wegner）博士的监督下，简·a·希尔（Jane A. Hill）将分析通过磁力计调查、电子测绘和上埃及el-Amra早期青铜时代墓地的挖掘收集到的数据。El-Amra位于Thinite地区，是最早的埃及国王的故乡。它代表了前王朝时期和早期王朝时期（约公元前3900-2900年）的一个主要类型遗址，当时当地的酋邦争夺尼罗河流域越来越大的地区的统治权。因此，el-Amra是一个有价值的试验场，可以在社区层面调查在埃及国家形成过程中起作用的竞争性、强制性和象征性力量，这些力量保存得非常好，但研究不足。从广义上看，本研究考察了在传统社会行为模式迅速改变、强大的宇宙意识形态支持的精英血统的强制力获得优势的时期，精英竞争通过殡葬实践和景观操纵所起的作用。利用有针对性的现场技术和通信分析，研究者将研究el-Amra和邻近Abydos的Umm el-Qaab墓地记录的世系群体之间的精英竞争。在早期王朝，Umm el-Qaab发展成为埃及第一个为国王和他的随从保留的皇家殡仪馆，而el-Amra的墓地人口下降。将el-Amra的新数据与el-Amra和Umm el-Qaab的已发表数据结合起来，以研究国家形成期间区域内竞争和一体化的动态，存在很大的潜力。如果将皇家葬礼崇拜的发展作为早期埃及国家组织原则之一的理论是正确的，那么el-Amra和Abydos精英之间的竞争可以通过墓地在太平间景观中的位置来衡量。此外，后来通过为社区精英强加新的国家资助的“皇家风格”坟墓来限制私人坟墓的建设，可以在这两个地点测量。这些问题适用于美国东南部、早期美索不达米亚和墨西哥瓦哈卡州的竞争政治和新兴国家的研究。虽然大多数古埃及定居点在现代村庄下仍然无法进入，但墓地为人类学家提供了接触社会组织和哲学-宗教因素影响埃及国家发展的证据。然而，埃及不断上升的地下水位正威胁着以前被认为是安全的考古遗址，因为它们的位置不适合居住。El-Amra就是这样一个地方，它离农田足够近，使其成为农业扩张的目标。埃及古物最高委员会的检查人员试图保存残存的文物，但缺乏进行全面调查的资源。与Qena督察团在这个项目上的合作将有助于提高公众对保护重要但“无纪念碑”遗址的必要性的认识。这项研究的结果将提交给北美、欧洲和中东的同行评审期刊，并将以电子方式转发给该地区的学者，以提高对新兴复杂性研究的认识，并协助埃及考古学家进行新的研究。最后，研究者和她的研究生助手将获得上述技术和分析方法的宝贵经验。

Under the supervision of Dr. Josef Wegner, Jane A. Hill will analyze data gathered through magnetometry survey, electronic mapping and excavation in the Early Bronze Age cemetery of el-Amra in Upper Egypt. El-Amra is located in the Thinite region, home to the earliest Egyptian kings. It represents a major type site for the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods (ca. 3900-2900 BC) when localized chiefdoms competed for dominance over larger and larger areas of the Nile Valley. As such el-Amra is a valuable testing ground for a community-level inquiry into competitive, coercive and symbolic forces at work during state formation in Egypt that remains remarkably well preserved and yet understudied.Broadly considered, this research examines the role of elite competition through mortuary practice and landscape manipulation during a period when traditional patterns of social behavior changed rapidly and the coercive power of an elite lineage backed by a powerful cosmic ideology gained ascendancy. Using targeted field techniques and correspondence analyses the investigator will examine elite competition between lineage groups at el-Amra and those documented in the Umm el-Qaab cemetery at neighboring Abydos. In the Early Dynastic Umm el-Qaab develops into Egypt's first royal mortuary precinct reserved for the king and his entourage, while el-Amra's cemetery population drops. Major potential exists for combining new data from el-Amra with published data from both el-Amra and Umm el-Qaab to examine dynamics of intra-regional competition and integration during state formation. If theories concerning the development of a royal funerary cult as one of the organizing principles of the early Egyptian state are correct, competition between elites of el-Amra and Abydos can be measured in the placement of the cemeteries within the mortuary landscape. Additionally, later restriction of private tomb construction through the imposition of the new state-sponsored "royal-style" tombs for community elites can be measured at both sites. Such questions have applications to studies of competing polities and emergent states in the American Southeast, early Mesopotamia, and Oaxaca, Mexico.While most ancient Upper Egyptian settlements remain inaccessible under modern villages, cemeteries provide the anthropologist with access to evidence of social organization and philosophical-religious factors influencing the development of the Egyptian state. However, rising water tables in Egypt are endangering archaeological sites previously thought safe because of their inhospitable locations. El-Amra is such a site, situated close enough to the cultivation to make it a target for agricultural expansion. Inspectors with Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities have attempted to preserve what remains, but lack resources for a full investigation. Cooperation with the Qena Inspectorate on this project will aid this goal of raising public awareness of the need to protect important but "monument-less" sites. Findings from this study will be submitted for publication to North American, European and Middle Eastern peer-reviewed journals and will be forwarded electronically to scholars in the region to increase awareness of emergent complexity studies and assist Egyptian archaeologists in conducting new research. Finally, the investigator and her graduate assistants will gain valuable experience in the techniques and analysis methods mentioned above.