Introduction

In Predynastic Egypt, the ability to produce progressively complicated artifacts gradually grew from the designing and manufacturing skills of craftworkers, assisted by an intelligent use of an abundance of naturally occurring materials acquired from the local environment. These included stone, wood, minerals, sand, and many kinds of vegetation. Predynastic technological developments can be divided into several distinct areas, each with its own specialized tools and techniques, but sometimes sharing other tools, methods and materials. In particular, the establishment of the tools and procedures for the large-scale manufacture of stone vessels during the Nagada II (ca. 3600-3200 BC) and the Nagada III/Dynasty 0 (ca. 3200-3050 BC) periods crucially contributed to the growth of other technologies in these periods, and in the following Dynastic era. For example, the carving of the ceremonial schist palette of King Narmer (Dynasty 0), and Dynastic hard stone statuary, benefited from the skills and tools established for shaping earlier Predynastic hard stone vessels, stone hand-axes and maceheads. Also, it is possible that the Late Predynastic expansion in faience manufacture can be attributed to an increased availability of copper-contaminated quartz powders, a waste product obtained by drilling calcite (Egyptian alabaster), hard limestone and igneous stone vessels with copper tubes and sand abrasive.