Great Wadi

The royal cemetery complex (Tombs 1 and 2), where a considerable amount of fine Plum Red Ware (PRW) was found, was located in the Great Wadi. The Plum Red Ware pottery appeared to have been fired at sites along the northern side of the Great Wadi (localities 39 and 59) on the upper beds of ancient (Cretaceous) sediments (variegated shales and sandstone) that are a part of the Nubian formation. 

The Nubian sedimentary formation has a different origin than the Nile sediments, and the two types of sediments can be easily distinguished on the basis of trace element contents (4). As Figure 1 shows, these ancient variegated shales and ferrugineous sandstone beds are exposed in parts of the low desert surface west of the cultivation zone, as well as in the high desert areas that border the Great Wadi. 

Below Unit B a silty sand layer (Unit C) was encountered in the cores taken between the mouth of the Great Wadi and the center of the Kom el Ahmr. Unit C contained a sequence of Old Kingdom to late Predynastic artifacts dating from about 2500 B.C. to 3200 B.C. Below Unit C, a very compact, well-sorted thick layer of Nile clay and sand was encountered (Unit N). No cores or trenches reached below this sedimentary deposit. Unit N contained occasional Predynastic ceramic and flint artifacts. Samples were collected from each 10-15-cm auger cut within each sedimentary unit in each core or trench. In addition, numerous samples of the Neonile deposits and other sediments from the nearby low desert and Great Wadi were taken for analysis. 

During the middle Holocene era, occasional summer rainy intervals (see ref. 22) carried desert sediments down the Great Wadi into the modern flood plain, building up a succession of alluvial fans under what would later be the site of the walled city of Nekhen (Kom el Ahmr). The level of Nile flooding in this area (marked by the Nekhen lithozone) reached to within about 100 m of the modern boundary between the cultivation and the low desert, at an elevation of approximately 80 m above sea level. 

After about 3500-3400 B.C., rains ceased, the Great Wadi was temporarily deactivated simultaneously, the level of the Nile floods dropped. Concurrently, the focus of the human occupation shifted from the low desert toward the flood plain, and the site of Nekhen experienced substantial growth (23). After the political unification of Egypt under the first pharaohs (ca. 3100 B.C.), Nekhen continued to flourish for centuries before going into slow decline after about 2500 B.C. Nekhen was finally abandoned (except for its temple) after 2230 B.C. 

Although the number of samples analyzed is limited, the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from our data is that some of the Nile silt formations can be differentiated on the basis of trace element contents and REE distribution patterns. In addition, we conclude that the Early Predynastic (Amratian) pottery was made from clays found in the immediate vicinity of the kiln. Older shales that are found layered with the much earlier sandstone deposits that were cut by the Great Wadi were also analyzed. The REE patterns as well as the scandium, chromium, and iron concentrations are different enough to suggest that these materials were not used to produce pottery (21), In a previous paper, we discussed the possibility that some of this shale, or the white salt found associated with it (anhydrite-CaSOj, was mixed with the local clay to produce the finer, harder plum red ware (21). This addition could account for the slight difference in the average composition of the sherds from localities 11, 39, and 59 and the Masmas silt. 

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