Ethnicity and Changing Relationships Between Egyptians and South Levantines During the Early Dynastic Period

CAMPAGNO, MARCELO

Egypt at its Origins 2. Proceedings of the International Conference “Origin of the State. Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt”

Peeters

Lugar: Leuven; Año: 2008; p. 689 - 705

In the very beginning of the Early Dynastic period, interethnic contacts between Egyptians and south Levantines seem to have been intense. These contacts are mainly attested in southern Levant, where some sites (Tel Sakan, ‘En Besor) show a dominant Egyptian presence while other sites, such as Tel Halif, seem to testify a pacific coexistence of both ethnic groups in the same places.  However, at the same time, the Egyptian cosmic model centred on the god-king was acquiring its definitive shape and, according to this model, the populations living outside Egypt –including Asiatics as well as Nubians and Lybians– had to be seen as manifestations of chaos and, therefore, as enemies of Egypt. The strong divergence between the State representation of Asiatics as a negative group and the everyday interethnic practices between Egyptians and south Levantines would open an oscillation space, through which these practices, according to different conditions, could fit more or less strictly with the model. In fact, an oscillatory movement of this kind can be considered among the reasons of the Egyptian withdrawal from southern Levant during the Early Dynastic period, as a movement that tried to find a better adjustment between the political-ethnic-cosmic model created by the State and interethnic practices in which the Egyptians were daily involved.