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A River In ‘Drought'? Environment and cultural ramifications of Old Kingdom climate change
John W. Burn
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While the idea of a catastrophic drought ending the Old Kingdom has been shown to be too simple an explanation, current research suggests that some climatic change was occurring at this time. Increasing aridity, developing since the third Dynasty, was punctuated with times of unseasonal rain, and both these events would have had some impact upon the environmental circumstances present in the river. This book presents ecological analyses of the riverine habitat as it may have developed in times of excess nutrient load within the river and explores possible environmental consequences. By tracing changes in the tomb decoration repertoire, the author also explores a potential cultural response to the climatic shifts occurring at that time.
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List of Figures
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List of Tables
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Foreword and Introductory Remarks
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F.1. Egypt is the Nile
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F.2. The Effect of ‘Drought’ upon the River
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F.3. The Effect of Excess Water upon the River
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F.4. Scientific Evidence of Irregular Water Supply
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F.5. Rationale, Hypotheses and Goals
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F.6. The A.R.I.D. Hypothesis – an outline
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Part A: Environment, Society and Culture
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1. Climate and Society in the Old Kingdom
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1.1. Egypt and the Nile
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1.2. A Developing Riverine Civilisation
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1.2.1. Egyptian versus Mesopotamian Irrigation
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1.3. Impact of Climate on Old Kingdom Society
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1.3.1. The End of the Old Kingdom
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1.3.2. Relating Science and Environment to Art and Culture
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1.4. Ecological Principles Applied to History
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1.4.1. Introducing Ecosystems
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1.4.2. Changes to Ecosystems
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1.4.3. Succession: Tracing Ecosystem Change
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1.4.4. Applying Ecological Succession to Art
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1.5. Summation: A Changing Environment Changes Society?
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2. Art, Society and the Environment
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2.1. Egyptian Representations of the Environment
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2.2. Art, Society and Culture
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2.2.1. Art as Evidence
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2.2.2. Art as a Branch of Archaeology
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2.2.3. Environmental Influence on Art and Culture
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2.3. Using Art to Make Inferences about Nature
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2.3.1. Patterns of Change
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2.4. The Method
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2.4.1. Chronology
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2.5. Summation: Tomb Decoration Change as Artistic Narrative?
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Part B: The Ecological Background
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3. The Ecology of Rivers
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3.1. Aspects of Riverine Ecosystems
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3.1.1. Factors within Riverine Ecosystems
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3.1.2. Food Chains and Food Webs
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3.2. Physical Factors in Riverine Ecosystems
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3.2.1. Volume, Flow Rate and Nutrient Transport
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3.2.2. Erosion and Secondary Channels
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3.2.3. Turbidity, Light Penetration and Heat Exchange
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3.3. Chemical Factors in Riverine Ecosystems
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3.3.1. Salinity
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3.3.2. Acidity of the Waterways
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3.3.3. Oxygen Availability
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3.4. Biological Factors in Riverine Ecosystems
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3.4.1. Nutrient Availability and Changing Habitats
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3.4.2. Food Web Considerations
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3.5. Rivers and ‘Drought’
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3.5.1. Flow Rates Determine Habitat and Biodiversity
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3.5.2. Sediment Transport and Nutrient Supply
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3.5.3. Temperature Changes and Evaporation Rates in Weaker Rivers
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3.5.4. Characteristics of Weakened Rivers
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3.6. Summation: Can a River Experience ‘Drought’?
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4. The A.R.I.D. Hypothesis: A River In ‘Drought’
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4.1. Nilotic Ecosystem Response to ‘Drought’
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4.1.1. Nile Wetland Classification
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4.1.2. Ecological Impacts of a Low River
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4.2. Aquatic Plants’ Response to ‘Drought’
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4.2.1. Fundamental Vegetation Types
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4.3. Papyrus and A River In ‘Drought’
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4.3.1. Responses to Changing Physical Factors
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4.3.2. Response to Changing Chemical Factors
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4.3.3. Responses to Changing Biological Factors
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4.3.4. Ecological Implications for Papyrus in ‘Drought’
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4.4. Phragmites and A River In ‘Drought’
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4.4.1. Responses to Changing Physical Factors
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4.4.2. Responses to Changing Chemical and Biological Factors
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4.4.3. Ecological Implications for Phragmites in Drought
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4.5. Cattails and A River In ‘Drought’
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4.5.1. Responses to Changing Physical Factors
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4.5.2. Responses to Changing Chemical and Biological Factors
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4.5.3. Ecological Implications for Cattails in Drought
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4.6. Lotus and a River in ‘Drought’
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4.6.1. Responses to Changing Physical Factors
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4.6.2. Responses to Changing Chemical and Biological Factors
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4.6.3. Ecological Implications for Lotus in Drought
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4.7. Low River Habitat and Food Web Changes
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4.7.1. Food Web Impacts
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4.8. Nile Valley Rain: Even More Nutrients?
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4.8.1. Alluvial versus Pluvial Events
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4.8.2. Rainfall Events and Impacts
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4.8.3. Do Rainfall Events Encourage More Marshlands?
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4.9. The Nile in ‘Drought’: a Re-Interpretation?
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4.9.1. Does ‘Drought’ Encourage Marshlands?
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4.10. Summation: Excess Nutrients Cause some Plants to Thrive?
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Part C: The Cultural Response
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5. Changes in Tomb Wall Scenes
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5.1. Papyrus: Art Suggesting Riverine Change?
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5.1.1. Marshlands Become a More Crowded Place
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5.1.2. Fishing and Fowling in Crowded Marshlands
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5.1.3. Swampweed and Boats
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5.2. Tomb Decoration: Patterns of Change
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5.2.1. The Sample: Distribution and Abundance of Artistic Themes
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5.2.2. Old Kingdom Scene Types: An Overview
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5.2.3. New Iconographical Scenes: Mid-Fifth Dynasty
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5.2.4. Niuserra: A Changing Emphasis?
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5.2.5. New Iconographical Scenes: Sixth Dynasty Onwards
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5.3. A Shifting Artistic Imperative?
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5.3.1. Tomb Decorations: Proportion as a Variant over Time
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5.3.2. Pre- and Post-Sixth Dynasty: The Impact of ‘Drought’
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5.3.3. Some Result Limitations
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5.4. Resources: A Need to Re-arrange the Data?
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5.4.1. A Resource-based Analysis May Be Needed
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5.4.2. Theme Proportion Changes and A River in Drought
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5.5. A Changing Emphasis in Tomb Decoration?
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5.5.1. Fishing and Fowling in the Marshes in A.R.I.D times
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5.6. Summation: An Unfolding Ecological Narrative?
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6. Cultivation’s Failure and A River In ‘Drought’
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6.1. Cultivation’s Declining Importance
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6.1.1. Changes to the Proportion of Representation of Agriculture
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6.1.2. Cultivation and A River In ‘Drought’
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6.1.3. Barley versus Wheat
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6.1.4. Barley More Reliable Than Wheat?
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6.1.5. Flax Failures?
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6.2. Gardens, Orchards and A River In ‘Drought’
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6.2.1. Gardens and Orchards at the End of the Old Kingdom
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6.2.2. The Growing of Lotuses
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6.3. The Keeping of Records
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6.3.1. The Storage and Distribution of Food Types
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6.3.2. Indicators of Food Stress: Punishment Scenes
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6.3.3. Indicators of Food Stress: Granary Shape Changes
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6.4. Summation: Changing Climate = Changing Cultivation?
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7. Fishing and A River In ‘Drought’
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7.1. Fishing: Techniques and Related Technologies
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7.1.1. Spearfishing
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7.1.2. Techniques and Technologies
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7.1.3. Adaptations to Fishing Performance and Practice
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7.2. The Narrative of the Nets
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7.2.1. Dragnetting
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7.2.2. Large Nets Set from Boats
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7.2.3. The Need to Re-classify all Large Nets used for Fishing?
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7.3. Angling, Trapping and Small Nets
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7.3.1. New Scene Types: New Techniques and New Technologies
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7.3.2. Smaller Traps Take Advantage of New Channels
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7.4. Fighting Boatmen
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7.4.1. Boatmen and A River In ‘Drought’
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7.5. Catfish, Drought and Art
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7.5.1. Upside-down and Top-down/Both-eyes Catfish Scenes
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7.5.2. Catfish Depictions and A River In ‘Drought’
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7.6. Summation: An Increasing Reliance upon Fishing?
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8. Waterfowl and A River In ‘Drought’
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8.1. Avian and Associated Attestations
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8.1.1. Poultry Proportions
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8.2. The Parable of Proliferating Poultry
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8.2.1. Waterfowl Depictions and A River In ‘Drought’
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8.2.2. Poultry Becoming a More Significant Resource
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8.3. Avian Predators
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8.3.1. The Genet and the Mongoose
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8.3.2. Avian Predator Depictions and A River In ‘Drought’
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8.4. Changes in Art: Fowling in the Marshes
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8.4.1. Fowling Scenes and a Cluttered Papyrus Thicket
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8.4.2. Poultry Farms
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8.5. Summation: A Perception of Predominating Poultry?
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9. The Rise of Cattle and A River In ‘Drought’
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9.1. The Developing Importance of Cattle
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9.1.1. Cattle Depictions and A River In ‘Drought’
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9.2. Fording Scenes and A River In ‘Drought’
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9.2.1. Fording Impacts
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9.2.2. Immersion Levels
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9.2.3. Swamps, Marshes and Channels
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9.2.4. Travelling North to the Delta
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9.2.5. Foraging Impacts
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9.3. Small Cattle: Goats
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9.3.1. Goats in Trees: an Indicator of Environmental Deterioration?
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9.3.2. Goats AND Trees
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9.3.3. Goat Attestations and A River In ‘Drought’
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9.4. But … Where are the Pigs?
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9.4.1. Pigs and Early Egypt
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9.4.2. Pigs and Old Kingdom Society
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9.4.3. Pigs and A River In ‘Drought’
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9.5. Increasing Reliance on a ‘Mobile’ Economy?
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9.5.1. The Rise of the ‘Cattle Barons’
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9.5.2. Move your Ass: Donkeys and their Increasing Role in Society
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9.6. Summation: An Emerging Status of Cattle, Goats and Donkeys?
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10. The Desert and A River In ‘Drought’
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10.1. The Desert Hunt
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10.2. The Desert Hunt as a Tomb Decoration Theme
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10.2.1. Scene Development
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10.2.2. Non-Royal Depictions of the Desert Hunt: Dynasty 4 → 6
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10.3. Changing Decoration Variants
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10.3.1. Increasing Complexity of Desert Hunt Scenes
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10.3.2. Desert Hunters
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10.3.3. The hunter as Archer
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10.3.4. Increasing Artistic Prioritization of Depicting the Desert Hunt?
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10.4. Desert Resources and A River In ‘Drought’
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10.4.1. Hunting or Domestication in a Time of a Changing Climate?
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10.4.2. A Deepening Dependency on the Desert
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10.5. Summation: An Increasing Necessity to use Desert Resources?
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Part D: Discussion and Conclusions
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11. Art Imitating Life? Niuserra to the First Intermediate Period
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11.1. The Ascent of the Marshland Economy?
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11.1.1. Resources Change in Response to a Changing Environment
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11.1.2. Dietary changes in A.R.I.D. Times: Fish, Fowl and Cattle
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11.1.3. The Persistence of the Hippopotamus Hunt
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11.1.4. Back to the Past: Return to a Semi-subsistence Existence?
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11.2. Tomb Decorations in pre-A.R.I.D. Cemeteries
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11.2.1. Pre-Niuserra Cemeteries: Tehna and El-Hammamiya
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11.3. Ra Setting… Osiris Rising in A.R.I.D. Times?
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11.3.1. Osiris in the Ascendant?
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11.3.2. A Moral Re-alignment at the End of the Old Kingdom?
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11.4. Trade, Warfare and Foreign Relations
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11.4.1. Fall of the Cities in the Levant
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11.4.2. Trade or Conquest?
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11.4.3. Foreign Relationships in A.R.I.D. Times
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11.5. Chronological Re-Appraisals?
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11.6. Reign of Niuserra: A Re-Alignment?
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11.7. Summation: Re-adjusting for a New ‘Normal’?
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12. The A.R.I.D. Project: Extending the Investigation
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12.1. Middle Kingdom Tomb Decoration Programmes
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12.1.1. Art Succession and A River In ‘Drought’
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12.1.2. Art Databases Plotting the Evolution of Artistic Themes
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12.2. Geoarchaeology: Messages in the Mud?
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12.2.1. Geoarchaeology
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12.2.2. Archaeobiology
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12.3. Human Archaeology: Beacons in the Bones?
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12.3.1. Dental Health
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12.3.2. Skeletal Health
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12.3.3. Parasites
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12.3.4. Anaemia
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12.4. Identifying A Changing Pattern of Health?
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12.4.1. Dietary Considerations
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12.4.2. Meat, Dairy, Diet and Health Indicators
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12.4.3. À la Famine?
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12.4.4. Future Explorations
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12.5. Network Analyses
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12.5.1. Tracing Change
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12.5.2. Continuity, Change or Collapse during A River In Deviance?
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12.6. Summation: An Ongoing (or never-ending?) Investigation?
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13. Conclusion: Resilience, not Regression
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13.1. Riverine Ecosystems and A River In ‘Drought’ (A.R.I.D.)
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13.2. Tomb Decoration Analyses Suggest a Changing Ecology
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13.3. A Developing Pictorial Narrative within Tomb Decorations
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13.4. New Depictions of Fishing Indicate its Increasing Significance
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13.5. Increased Depictions of Waterfowl suggest Thriving Birdlife
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13.6. Cattle in Marshlands taking Advantage of New Feed Sources
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13.7. Desert Hunt Scenes Imply a Rising Reliance on the ‘Wild’
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13.8. A Partial Reprise of the Herder-Forager Lifestyle?
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13.9. Final Statements: Innovation and Invention, NOT Inertia
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Bibliography
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Figure F.1: An inundation deposits resources onto the land.
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Figure F.2: No inundation means that the nutrients remain in the river.
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Figure F.3: Rainfall returns nutrients to the river.
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Figure 1.1: Simplified cross-section of the Nile valley.
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Figure 1.2: Influences on environmental characteristics.
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Figure 1.3: A succession in distance.
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Figure 1.4: Identifying the source of the disturbance.
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Figure 2.1: Project chronology.
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Figure 3.1: Environmental factor interactions.
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Figure 3.2: Factors affecting Nilotic flow.
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Figure 3.3: Sediment deposition due to river power.
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Figure 3.4: Secondary channel formation.
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Figure 3.5: Turbidity and zone of photosynthesis.
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Figure 3.6: pH scale.
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Figure 4.1: More secondary channels provide more grazing opportunities.
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Figure 4.2: Normal versus weaker nutrient-excess.
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Figure 4.3: Excess growth disrupts flow and hinders transportation.
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Figure 5.1: Fishing and fowling in the marshes: overall proportion change.
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Figure 6.1: Agricultural sequence: proportion change over time.
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Figure 6.2: Gardens, orchards and the growing of food: proportion change over time.
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Figure 6.3: Record-keeping: proportion change over time.
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Figure 6.4: Recorded foodstuffs: proportion variance change over time.
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Figure 6.5: Punishment as a relative proportion of record-keeping change over time.
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Figure 7.1: Fishing and associated technologies: proportion change over time.
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Figure 7.2: Fishing technique groups: relative proportion change over time.
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Figure 7.3: Drag and seine net: Relative proportion change over time.
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Figure 7.4: Boatmen depictions: proportion change over time.
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Figure 7.5: Boatmen fighting: proportion of boatmen returning peacefully over time.
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Figure 8.1: Avian representations: proportion change over time.
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Figure 8.2: Poultry within avian attestations: proportion change over time.
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Figure 9.1: Cattle and pastureland scenes: proportion change over time.
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Figure 9.2: Meat depictions: proportion change over time.
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Figure 9.3: Cattle fording and feeding scenes: proportion change over time.
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Figure 9.4: Crossing cattle immersion levels: proportion change over time.
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Figure 9.5: Waterway Vocabulary.
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Figure 9.6: The narrative of the goat: proportion change over time.
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Figure 9.7: Goats in trees.
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Figure 10.1: Desert hunt scenes: proportion change.
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Figure 10.2: Component elements of desert hunt scene.
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Figure 10.3: Desert scenes: proportion of hunter depictions change.
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Figure 11.1: Changing Aspects of the Resource Economy.
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Figure 11.2: Early Bronze Age Egypt and the southern Levant: latest dating correlation.
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Figure 12.1: Modified copy of figure 2, Touzeau et al., Ancient Egyptian Diet. Note the lack of samples from late Old Kingdom to early First Intermediate Period. (Red interval bar is the current author’s addition.)
Citable Link
Published: 2021
Publisher: BAR Publishing
- 9781407358116 (ebook)
- 9781407358109 (paper)
BAR Number: S3036