The sacking of the archaeological Museum at Ma’adi, First Part

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(Second part)

The sacking of the archaeological Museum at Ma’adi

By Luc Watrin
(June 2005)

First part: location of the site

Ma’adi is a major chalcolithic era site that emerged between 3850 and 3600 B.C. The site is located on a low shelf of the Nile at the mouth of the Wadi-Digla, at around 15 km upstream from Cairo. This major prehistoric site, already heavily damaged by the Egyptian construction companies Nerco and Ma’adi in the 1980’s, suffered a new outrage in 2003 with the pillaging of its archaeological museum by very informed and organized thieves who remain to-date unidentified. At that time, no echo of the theft rang out in the press. A vital part of Egyptian prehistory had been sacked, and the silence concerning the affair suggests that the affair was carefully silenced…

The stealing of archaeological objects from Ma’adi began without anyone being alarmed by the disappearance of objects from the museum, nor their reappearance on the market. The scandal of the pillaging and trafficking was nonetheless detected in October 2004 by several members of the GREPAL (Groupe De Recherche Européen Pour l'Archéologie Au Levant). The Ma’adi affair had begun… Before investigating these dramatic events for the Egyptian cultural heritage, let’s go back to the origins of this major site for Egyptian prehistory.
 

MA’ADI, A SINGULAR CHALCOLITHIC STATION IN LOWER EGYPT

Ma’adi is one of the rare sites of the 4th millennium to feature both habitations and cemeteries. It was carefully excavated by the University of Cairo in the 1930’s at a period where in Upper Egypt prehistoric archaeology concentrated on cemeteries alone due to the pressure of sponsor (western museums), eager to acquire antiquities. The originality of Ma’adi is illustrated by the habitat, which reveals the local traditions and the adopting of exotic models inspired by contacts with Levantine populations. The first type of construction consists in oval huts whose roofs were composed of tamarisk wood posts. These huts, of local tradition, are similar to those observed at Merimde-Benisalame, which is a little older (5th millennium).

But the greatest architectural factor at Ma’adi, which makes the site so original, is the presence of partially underground structures built using both mudbricks and stone, or constructed in limestone. These constructions would appear to be “cellars” accessible by stone stairways. This type of subterranean shelter is unattested in prehistoric Egypt. Perhaps this architectural model was meant to provide constant coolness, even against the burning summer heat.

Yet we do not know the exact function of the partially underground structures: were they dwellings or silos? The excavations revealed large jars, which could make us see the structures as silos, but in this case, how can we explain that the most elaborate structure contained a copper statue representing a woman holding a child? Most of the storage jars, which still hold wheat, meat, or dried fish, were found outside the structures.
 

Figure 1: Stone structure at Ma’adi-west

The most sophisticated of these constructions is probably the most recent, to the west of the site, and has a sub-rectangular shape. It was discovered in 1987 by Fathi Afifi Badawi, professor of archaeology at the University El-Azhar. It is entirely made of stone, its floor is limewashed, and it is totally comparable to contemporary Palestinean dwellings from the Early Bronze Age I (around 3700 B. C. On the other side of the Sinaï, during this period, constructions are not semi-subterranean but are subrectangular. The Ma’adians thus adapted this architectural model for their own needs. This exceptional Ma’adi structure is the subject of GREPAL study from 1995-1996, and the subject of a joint excavation project involving our group and the University El-Azhar. This project for reopening excavations in the western sector of Ma’adi, submitted in 1997 to the SCA, did not succeed because the German Institute at Cairo (D.A.I.) was informed of the operation and did everything possible – to put it kindly – to block the project and usurped our research and performed a Ma’adi excavation between 1999 and 2002.

Contrarily to a widely held idea, which defends an endogenous development of Egypt in prehistoric periods, Lower-Egypt is in the early 4th millennium the place for intense trade with the Levant. In adopting a Levantine architectural model and adapting it to local requirements, Ma’adi attests to acculturations through repetitive contacts, and to the dynamism of its populations that are too often seen as anchored in their own thousand-year old traditions.
 

Original and sometimes nearly standardized productions

An evolution in ceramic shape is attested across the occupied area. Some of the vases have animal motifs.

Ceramic, reflecting trade with Upper Egypt and Palestine

Ceramics are a good marker of exchanges because they are easily transportable and are also the packaging material for food products. The theft of the vases from Ma’adi and the cleaning of the ceramics that followed, especially among imported objects, makes it practically impossible to identify the contents, and laboratory analyses had not yet been performed. The inhabitants of Ma’adi also produced painted bowls similar to the White Cross-lined class bowls of Upper Egypt (and not with the later series of the Decorated class as has been advanced by some researchers), testimony to contacts with Upper Egypt in an early period contemporary with Naqada I. A few sherds of Blacktopped in beaker forms along with local imitations reinforce that theory. In 2000, a new concrete proof of commerce between Ma’adi and the cities of Upper-Egypt emerged by the discovery, in what is probably an elephant grave in Hierakonpolis, a vase produced at Ma’adi associated with White Cross-Lined and Blacktopped ceramic, two types of kitchenware that only Upper Egyptians produced. We also note a few polished red ceramics decorated with a dotted line under the rim, probably from Ma’adi, in the graves of Upper-Egypt like the one discovered in grave 1783 of the Great Cemetery of Naqada that we place in the Naqada Ia period.

Palestinian vases with light paste and white slip (cream ware) with wavy horizontal handles may indicate the importing of oil from southern Palestine at the opening of Early Bronze Age I. Other containers such as juglets in grey ceramic suggest a relation ship with northern Palestine during the same period. Palestinian ceramics, arriving in Ma’adi as part of the oil trade, is also imitated locally as illustrate these small double-vases decorated with incisions under the rim. They are typical of contemporary Palestinian productions.
 

Stone and metal

Trade with Palestine thus led to transmissions in architecture and ceramics. But it also brought on changes in lithics. Local stone tools at Ma’adi are rudimentary, involving flint chipped on only one side, but it integrates a more elaborate foreign aspect including large Palestinian-type sickle blades and large tabular scrapers (fan-shaped), along with a few tools typical of the Naqada I culture (U-shaped blades, discoidal maces).

Figure 6: Discoidal maces imported from Upper-Egypt

One of the most prestigious and emblematic kitchenware productions of Ma’adi is the stone vases, most of which are in light grey basalt. A vein of basalt providing the raw material for the Ma’adi productions is located near the “Haddadin Lava flow”. The characteristic shared by the pottery and the basalt vases is the presence of a ring base, a trademark of Ma’adi craftsmen. The basalt vases at Ma’adi are exported to Upper Egypt, where they are frequently found in graves from the Naqada I-IIa period, but also in Jordan, as evidenced by a recent discovery at Tell Hujayrat el-Ghuzlan.

The origin of this emblematic civilization

There is no enigma concerning the origin of Ma’adi, contrary to what some researchers have suggested (e.g. Stan Hendrickx), but there is large foreign (Palestinian) origin its population, just as there was earlier in the northern Delta in the first Buto village (phase Ia). This phenomenon of population migrations from Palestine to the Delta, that can be attested as of 4000 B.C. at Buto then at Ma’adi, takes place in the context of regular exchanges between the two regions going back to the Natoufian. From 9000 B.C., Aspatharias-type Nile shells are found in Palestine at the stations of Abu-Gosh and Mallaha, attesting to contacts with Egypt.

Funerary aspects

Contrarily to graves at Merimde-Benisalame, which apparently overlapped the inhabited area and which are the most ancient yet known in the Nile Valley, the cemeteries at Ma’adi are located outside of the village. In reality there exist at least two distinct cemeteries: the first, to the south of the dwellings, includes 76 graves; the second cemetery, still further south, counts 471 graves. The graves are simple elliptic trenches in which the deceased was placed, in contracted posture with the hands brought close to the chest and to the face. Every other grave held offerings of crude pottery, shells, flint blades, ivory combs, or palettes. The potteries are identical to kitchenware found in the dwellings. Individual animal graves, sometimes bearing offerings, sometimes appear among the graves of humans, without forasmuch being in a specific area within the cemetery. This may have some spiritual meaning, possible foreshadowing of the coming religion, burying animals with the same respect as homo sapiens. We find this arrangement on a contemporary site of Heliopolis.

The brainteaser of chronology

Ma’adi is the main establishment of chalcolithic culture in Lower Egypt. Though other such centers as Heliopolis and Buto Ib existed, Ma’adi is the only predynastic village to have been excavated on such a great scale. In Upper Egypt it is difficult to get an idea of the dwelling of this region because they have largely been ignored (El-Kab), is residual (Hierakonpolis), or poorly excavated (El-Adaima). The southern Delta village came after the neolithic 5th millennium villages of Merimde-Benisalame and El-Omari. Yet the relative chronology of this great prehistoric site had long been problematic: most researchers placed Ma’adi too late, in the Gerzean (Naqada IIc-d, around 3500-3300 B.C.)., or else much too early in the Ghassoul-Beersheva (Palestinian Chalcolithic, around 4500-3900 B.C.). Our own works performed directly on Ma’adi archaeological artifacts in the 1990’s, along with survey work on the site, lead to results falling on a middle-ground: they demonstrate that Ma’adi is essentially contemporary with the first part period of Naqada (Naqada Ia-IIa), from Buto Ib and early in the southern Palestinian Early Bronze Age (EB Ia1). A set of radiocarbon dates confirms this chronology and places Ma’adi around 3850-3625B.C.

Figure 10: Inter-regional commerce during the Ma’adi period

Second part: the museum robbery