Merimde culture

{{Infobox archaeological culture

|name = Merimde culture

|map = Merimde clay head, Predynastic Period, Maadi Era, 4th millennium BCE.jpg

|mapcaption = Merimde clay head, Predynastic Period, Maadi Era, 4th millennium BCE. This is one of the earliest known representations of a human head in Egypt.

{{Location map+|Egypt|relief=yes|float=center|width=250|caption=|places=

{{Location map~|Egypt|relief=yes|lat=30.316667|long=30.850000|position=left |label_size=75 |label=Merimde Beni Salama}}

}}

|map_alt =

|latitude =

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|region = Egypt

|period = Neolithic

|dates = {{circa|4,800 BC — 4,300 BC}}

|typesite =

|majorsites =

|extra = Contemporary with Tasian culture, Badari culture

|precededby = Faiyum A culture

|followedby = Amratian culture

}}

The Merimde culture (also Merimde Beni-Salame or Benisalam) ({{langx|ar|مرمدة بني سلامة}}) was a Neolithic culture in the West Nile Delta in Lower Egypt, which corresponds in its later phase to the Faiyum A culture and the Badari culture in Predynastic Egypt. It is estimated that the culture evolved between 4800 and 4300 BC.{{cite book |last=Bogucki |first=Peter I. |title=The origins of human society |year=1999 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |isbn=1-57718-112-3 |pages=355 }} Merimde also refers to the archaeological site of the same name.

Archaeological work

The culture was concentrated around Merimde Beni Salama, the main settlement site, located in the West delta of the Nile in Lower Egypt 45 km northwest of Cairo. The site was discovered by German archaeologist Hermann Junker, who excavated 6,400 m² of the site during his West Nile Delta expedition in 1928.{{cite book |last=Hoffman |first=Michael A. |title=Egypt before the pharaohs |year=1980 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=0-7100-0495-8 |pages=168 }}

Early on, the settlement had been considered to be ca. 25 hectares, but recent research expanded this to at least 40 hectares.Joanne M. Rowland (2021), [https://www.academia.edu/53256737 New Perspectives and Methods Applied to the ‘Known’ Settlement of Merimde Beni Salama, Western Nile Delta.] in Joanne M. Rowland, Giulio Lucarini (eds.), Geoffrey J. Tassie | Revolutions. The Neolithisation of the Mediterranean Basin: the Transition to Food Producing Economies in North Africa, Southern Europe and the Levant | Berlin Studies of the Ancient World

Later excavations in the 1970s performed by the Egyptian Antiquities Organization and the German Institute of Archaeology led to the establishment of the stratigraphical sequence.{{cite book |editor-last=Bard |editor-first=Kathryn |editor-link=Kathryn A. Bard |editor2=Steven Blake Shubert |title=Encyclopedia of the archaeology of ancient Egypt |year=1999 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-18589-0 |pages=501 }}

Characteristics

Merimde shows a sequence of occupations which lasted almost a millennium according to some estimates. While Junker identified three sequences, others such as Joseph Eiwanger established in 1977 that there are five with significantly different levels of development. Artifacts such as ceramics were quite primitive during phase I – a phase characterized by a light occupation. Eiwanger documented that storage areas appeared during phase II when the intensity of the occupation increased.{{cite book |last=Shaw |first=Thurstan | authorlink=Charles Thurstan Shaw |title=The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns |year=1995 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-11585-X |pages=212 }}

=Economy=

File:Bifacial Sickle Insert, 4500-4000 BCE, Egypt, Western Delta, Merimda Beni Salama.jpg

Archaeological evidence suggests that the Merimde economy was dominated by agriculture although some fishing and hunting were practiced to a lesser degree. The settlement consisted of small huts made of wattle and reed with a round or elliptical ground plan. Merimde pottery lacked "rippled marks".{{cite book |last=Brewer |first=Douglas J. |author2=Emily Teeter |title=Egypt and the Egyptians |year=2007 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-85150-3 |pages=35 }}

=Burials=

Burials had unique characteristics, different from those practiced in Upper Egyptian Predynastic Egypt and later Dynastic Egypt. There were no separate areas for cemeteries and the dead were buried within the settlement in a flexed position in oval pits without grave goods and offerings.Hoffman - pp. 174.

In the time of the Maadi culture, the place was used as a cemetery.

Excavations of Merimde burials have yielded a number of skeletons, chiefly those of females. The fossils are generally taller and more robust than later predynastic Egyptian specimens. In this regard, the Merimde skeletons are most similar to those associated with the Tasian culture. Furthermore, although the Merimde crania are dolichocephalic (long-headed) like many of the other predynastic skulls, they have a large and wide vault like the Tasian crania. Skulls excavated from Badarian, Amratian sites tend instead to be smaller and narrow.{{cite book|last1=Forde-Johnston|first1=James L.|title=Neolithic cultures of North Africa: aspects of one phase in the development of the African stone age cultures|date=1959|publisher=University of California|page=58|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MsQuAQAAIAAJ|accessdate=16 June 2016}}{{cite book|title=Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 65|date=1935|publisher=Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland|page=27|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RMDNAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=17 June 2016}}

File:Sample of Grain from Merimda MET 33-4-59.jpg|Grain from Merimde, MET

File:Hand ax MET 33.4.35 EGDP013233.jpg|Hand ax, Neolithic Period, Buto–Merimde–Maadi, {{circa|4500–4000 BC.}} Western Delta, Egypt

File:Pounder MET 33.4.5 EGDP013219.jpg|Pounder, Neolithic Period, Buto–Merimda–Maadi, circa 4500 –4000 BC. Western Delta, Egypt.