ABSTRACT
A s exploited by Gerzean farmers the soil o f the Nile valley must readily have yielded a surplus above the peasant’s domestic needs. It was no doubt used in part to contribute to the support of specialist craftsmen and merchants. Indeed the Gerzean period, as illustrated by the cemeteries o f Upper Egypt, witnessed both an absolute increase in wealth, reflected in the multiplication o f grave goods and the enlargement of the graves, and also a growing in equality in its distribution, suggested by disparities in size and wealth between contemporary graves. But this must not be pictured
as a peaceful process of internal expansion. There are some definite hints in the archaeological record of warfare for the acquisition o f cattle, booty, or land. Towns and villages were certainly fortified. Scenes carved on the ivory handles for some serially-flaked, Late Gerzean flint knives, like Fig. 32, 5, point in the same direction (Fig-39)-
A whole series of ivories1 depicts rows of animals, always repre sented in the same order with the elephant, historically the emblem of the first nome of Upper Egypt (Elephantine), at their head. So the animals are the totems of clans, such as have been inferred even from Amratian documents. Benedite1 suggests that they are pictorial records of struggles between neighbouring clans, comparable to the armed conflicts which throughout Egyptian history broke out between adjacent villages whenever the central authority was weak. It is still the clan totems that contend together, so perhaps the totem has not yet been monopolized by any chief. The Falcon, Horus, is not represented; hence Benedite infers that the ivories date from a time before the Falcon-clan had obtained predominance in Upper Egypt.
