Badarian

An Upper Egyptian, Predynastic culture of the later 5th millennium BC, named for the type site of el-Badari, on the east bank of the Nile River. It extended over much of Middle Egypt also. Excavations during the 1920s revealed settlements and cemeteries dating to about 4000 BC (Neolithic). Their fine pottery, black-topped brown ware (later red), was very thin-walled, well-baked, and often decorated with a burnished ripple. This effect was apparently produced by firing it inverted to prevent the air from circulating inside and over the upper rim, keeping these areas black whereas the base and lower wall externally were oxidized to brown or a good red color. Other remains include combs and spoons of ivory, slate palettes, female figurines; and copper, shell, and stone beads. Badarian materials have also been found at Jazirat Armant, al-Hammamiyah, Hierakonpolis (modern Kawm al-Ahmar), al-Matmar, and Tall al-Kawm al-Kabir. Flinders Petrie and other found large numbers of graves with artifacts in 1893-1894 and divided it into two phases: Naqada Culture I and Naqada Culture II.

An early predynastic industry of Upper Egypt, dating from the early 4th millennium bc. Settlement sites have proved elusive, and much of the available information comes from graves. Badarian material culture was essentially Neolithic, the only metal objects being beads made of native, that is not smelted, copper. The characteristic pottery is red with black tops to the vessel walls; a range of vessels was also hollowed from basalt and alabaster. Barley and emmer wheat were cultivated, while cattle and sheep or goats were herded. Flax was grown and woven into linen cloth. Recent research tends to emphasize the continuity of cultural development in Pre-dynastic Egypt, and the Badarian is no longer regarded as the distinctive entity it once appeared to be.