Parentesco, intercambios, conflictos. Consideraciones sobre el surgimiento del Estado en Egipto

CAMPAGNO, MARCELO

Relaciones de intercambio entre Egipto y el Mediterráneo Oriental (IV-I Milenio A.C.)

Biblos

Lugar: Buenos Aires; Año: 2001; p. 3 - 31

The archeological register supply us with some clues which allow us to pressume the dominant position of kinship in the communities of Predynastic Nile. When kinship is dominant, there is a limit against the structuring of any outright social inequality. That limit is the structural impossibility of the monopoly of physical coercion. This means that kinship logic is in clear contradiction to the process that implies the State emergence. But then, how does the State emerge? Provided that kinship practice is dominant in the inside of communities but it cannot extend its network of positive relations beyond the boundaries of the community, the interstitial space between communities appears as a propicious ambit for the advent of practices incompatible with kinship norms. Typically, the main links between non-State communities are exchanges and war-like conflicts. From the Nile Valley, during the crucial phase of Nagada II, we have at our disposal a certain number of testimonies for both kinds of relations between communities. And both exchanges and conflicts appears to be linked with the process of emergence of the Egyptian State.