ABSTRACT
Ethnic identities are created by individuals but shaped by historical context (Stein 1999). Any study of ethnicity and culture contact should therefore be situated within its cultural and historical background (Rogers 1990). Ideally an understanding of past cultural contexts should be derived from a variety of sources, and incorporate a diachronic framework to identify shifts in the expression of ethnicity and the elements of material culture that represent it over time (Jones 1996). This chapter provides a broad historical background to the course of Egyptian imperialism in the second millennium BC and the development of the colonial communities that form the central focus of this study. Egyptian imperialism can be reconstructed through a combination of historical sources and large-scale patterning in the archaeological record. Most studies of Egyptian imperialism end at this level of resolution (Kemp 1978; Frandsen 1979). For this study, this basic background represents a point of departure for a deeper investigation of colonial identities and dynamics through the contextual analysis of material culture patterning at two Egyptian colonial sites, the fortress-settlement at Askut and cemetery at Tombos.
