Ethnicity in Ancient Egypt An Introduct

Journal of Egyptian History 11 (2018) 1–17
brill.com/jeh
Ethnicity in Ancient Egypt: An Introduction to

Key Issues
Juan Carlos Moreno García

CNRS—France
jcmorenogarcia@hotmail.com
Abstract
The study of ethnicity in the ancient world has known a complete renewal in recent
times, at several levels, from the themes studied to the perspectives of analysis and the
models elaborated by archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists and historians. Far
from traditional approaches more interested in detecting and characterizing particu-
lar ethnic groups (“Libyans,” “Medjay”) and social organizations (“tribe,” “clan”, etc.),
in identifying them in the archaeological record through specific markers (pottery,
ornaments, weapons, etc.) and, subsequently, in studying their patterns of interaction
with other social groups (domination, acculturation, assimilation, resistance, centre
periphery), recent research follows different paths. To sum up, a deeper understand-
ing of ethnicity in ancient Egypt cannot but benefit from a close dialogue with other
disciplines and is to enrich current debates in archaeology, anthropology, and ancient
history.
Keywords
ethnicity – identity – community – migration – mixity – ethnogenesis
The study of ethnicity in the ancient world has undergone a complete renewal
in recent times, at several levels, from the themes studied to the perspectives
of analysis and the models elaborated by archaeologists, anthropologists, soci-
ologists, and historians. Far from traditional approaches more interested in
detecting and characterizing particular ethnic groups (“Libyans,” “Medjay”) and
social organizations (“tribe,” “clan,” etc.), in identifying them in the archaeolog-
ical record through specific markers (pottery, ornaments, weapons, etc.) and,
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/18741665-12340040

2 Moreno García
subsequently, in studying their patterns of interaction with other social groups

(domination, acculturation, assimilation, resistance, centre-periphery), recent
research follows different paths. The influence of post-colonial theory, as well
as the renewal of social history, gender studies, and cultural studies, explains
why the focus is put instead on the construction of (changing) identities, in
entanglement, in hybridity, in mutual influence, and in the capacity of people
and individuals to shape and modify their identities through intentional
choices depending on the context, the public, and the expected impact.1 This
means that single individuals may display very different cultural markers in dif-
ferent situations, depending not solely on power relations and hierarchy, but
also on fashion or on strategic choices in order to join coveted social networks,
to obtain status and respectability or to assert autonomy. In this perspective,
a concept such as “ethnic group” becomes much more fluid and less easy to
identify. Thus, human groups cannot be simply reduced to a kind of folkloric
repository of distinctive values and cultural attributes. They appear instead
as active players in which an ethnic label (“Egyptian,” “Nubian”) encompasses
in fact different sub-groups and sub-cultures (based on wealth, gender, age,
social position, beliefs, accessibility to symbolic items, etc.), each one follow-
ing specific interests and strategies depending on the circumstances. In both
cases, agency appears as a central concept, far from the crude social deter-
minism prevalent in so many studies of the last two centuries. Egyptology is
not alien to this move, as can be discerned in many recent publications about
cultural identities, definition of ethnic groups both by ancient Egyptians and
Egyptologists, and the interaction of Egyptians and non-Egyptians at particu-
lar “multicultural” sites (mostly Nubian fortresses and cities in the Middle and
New Kingdom, towns such as Elephantine and Tell el-Dabʿa, cult centres such
as Serabit el-Khadim, etc.).2 Similar perspectives help also in understanding
how identities were forged and changed in Egyptian society.3
1 Jones, The Archaeology of Ethnicity; Kohl, “Nationalism and archaeology”; Hu, “Approaches to
the archaeology of ethnogenesis”; Díaz-Andreu, The Archaeology of Identity; Tilly, Identities,
Boundaries, and Social Ties; Wendrich and van der Kooij, Moving Matters; Halles and Hodos,
Material Culture and Social Identities; McInerney, A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient
Mediterranean; Curta, “Ethnic identity and archaeology.”
2 General introductions: Riggs and Baines, “Ethnicity”; Smith “Ethnicity and culture”; Schnei-
der, “Foreigners in Egypt”; Wendrich, “Identity and personhood”; Spencer, Stevens, and
Binder, “Introduction: History and historiography.” Cf. also Schneider, Ausländer in Ägypten;
Smith, Wretched Kush; Van Pelt, “Revising Egypto-Nubian relations”; Bader, “Cultural mixing
in Egyptian archaeology.” Prejudices linked to the study of some foreign peoples: Moreno
García, “Ḥwt iḥ(w)t,” 70 n. 3.
3 Meskell, Archaeologies of Social Life and Object Worlds in Ancient Egypt; Stevens, Private Reli-
gion at Amarna; Bussmann, “Egyptian archaeology and social anthropology” and “Great and

Ethnicity in Ancient Egypt 3
On this basis, the study of ethnicity in ancient Egypt addresses several major
issues. Considering the rich pharaonic imagery about foreign peoples (one can
think about the Nine Bows), a crucial element of analysis is how Egyptians
imagined and characterized the Other, and how the resulting picture was
inspired by information derived from ethnographic and historical observation
but put nevertheless at the service of the construction of stereotypical images
(as it emerges, for instance, from the Amarna Letters and from the iconography
of the expedition of Queen Hatshepsut to Punt).4 This leads to a second issue,
construction of identities. Forging depictions (both literary and iconographic)
of the Other implies not only defining foreignness but also what Egyptianness
meant, from lifestyles, ritual purity, and banqueting to dressing, customs and
the very definition of “civilized,” as many texts reveal. So particular lifestyles
carried with them cultural particularities that Egyptians tended to identify
with “foreignness,” such as Egyptian herders depicted nevertheless as crip-
pled, with exotic hairstyles and wearing cloaks. This also means that, in a
context of pharaonic imperial expansion (as it happened in Nubia and in the
Levant during the Late Bronze Age), the influence of the cultural values and
styles of the dominant culture produced new forms of self-identity on subject
peoples, ranging from Egyptianization to affirmation of “ethnic” labels (one
can think of people defining themselves as Aamu “Asiatics” in their otherwise
typically Egyptian monuments), from preservation of traditional culture to the
selective adaptation of elements taken from the Egyptian society, depending
on the circumstances.5 Thus a cow leather and a skull found beside the coffin
in the otherwise typically Egyptian tomb of Ini, a provincial “great chief” of
Gebelein in the First Intermediate Period, are remainders of a Nubian funerary
custom and of the possible Nubian origin of Ini himself.6 The outcome was a
continuous exchange between cultures and the introduction of foreign cus-
toms (fashion, “international styles,” court manners, commensality practices,
religious beliefs, etc.) not always perceptible in formal art and in scribal cul-
ture, with their emphasis on formal behaviour and traditional practices, but
visible nevertheless in domestic archaeology.
little traditions in Egyptology.” Cf. also the excellent example provided by Miniaci, “The col-
lapse of faience figurine production.”
4 Loprieno, Topos und Mimesis; Baines, “Contextualizing Egyptian representations of society
and ethnicity”; Liverani, International Relations in the Ancient Near East; Bader, “Zwischen
Text, Bild und Archaologie.” Another example: Matić and Franković, “Out of date, out of
fashion.”
5 Smith, “Hekanefer and the Lower Nubian princes.”
6 Donadoni Roveri, “Gebelein.”

4 Moreno García
A third issue concerns modern prejudices about the identification of

peoples and ethnic groups (particularly non-literate ones) from the archaeologi-
cal record. Older interpretations based on diffusionism and on the ascription
of specific sets of artefacts (pottery, ornaments, etc.) to particular peoples and
cultures have given way to the elaboration of more sophisticated perspec-
tives. Of course, this does not mean that cultural particularities are useless to
help identifying people from one culture living in a foreign environment.7 For
instance, the presence and absence of toggle pins in some areas of Tell el-Dabʿa
point to dressing styles common among some people living there (Levantine)
but hardly used at all by their Egyptian neighbours.8 However, the discovery of
Nubian pottery and points of arrows at different archaeological contexts in Tell
el-Dabʿa has been considered as solid proof of the existence of Nubian merce-
naries, despite other alternative interpretations (merchants, etc.), as if Nubians
living in Egypt could only be military specialists, herders, or enslaved people.9
Similar conflictual interpretations emerge in other contexts. When archaeol-
ogy reveals the presence of houses with an Egyptian plan in the Levant, it is
difficult to decide if they were inhabited by local elites imitating the architec-
ture of the dominant power or if, on the contrary, they were the residences of
Egyptians living abroad that kept with them the building traditions of their
homeland.10 This is the basis of a fourth issue, non-colonial interaction and the
possibility that ethnic communities not only crossed and settled in Egypt, but
that they also lived in distinctive settlements and preserved their own culture.
The case of the Pan-Grave cemeteries found in most of Egypt is well known,11
not to mention the Jewish community living in Elephantine or the temples
from the 3rd millennium BCE with a Levantine, not Egyptian, plan discovered
in the eastern Delta.12 However, occasional textual references also point to the
existence inside Egypt of settlements that seem not to be Egyptian and that
were inhabited by foreign populations. Thus the Middle Kingdom papyri from
Ilahun record Asiatics coming from wnt settlements close to Ilahun, whereas
these kind of sites are usually associated with Bedouin and Asiatic populations
living east of Egypt.13 Another Semitic term (sgr) designated an enclosure or
7 Sparks, “Strangers in a strange land.”

8 Bietak, “The Egyptian community in Avaris.”
9 Compare Matić, “ ‘Nubian’ archers in Avaris,” with Aston and Bietak, “Nubians in the Nile
Delta.”
10 Holladay, “Toward a new paradigmatic understanding of long-distance trade.”
11 Näser, “Structures and realities of Egyptian-Nubian interactions.”
12 Bietak, “Two ancient Near Eastern temples.”
13 Luft, Urkunden zur Chronologie der späten 12. Dynastie, 45; Bietak, “From where came the
Hyksos,” 147. Cf. also the Middle Bronze Age enclosures known as “Hyksos camp” at Tell
el-Yahudiya, in Wadi Tumilat: Petrie, Hyksos and Israelite Cities, pl. ii–iv.

a kind of fortification in the area of Wadi Tumilat (as in papyrus Anastasi V

19, 7).14 But the Wilbour papyrus mentions seven sgr in the area of Fayum
and northern Middle Egypt (one of them was situated near Heracleopolis).15
Having in mind that both wnt and sgr designated enclosure-type settlements,
it might be possible that foreign populations living in Egypt preferred to keep
their own distinctive types of settlement when they established themselves (or
were forced to settle) in this area. In any case, Middle Egypt also witnessed the
emergence of the term wḥy.t in the very late 3rd millennium BCE, a term that
means “tribe,” but also a particular type of site (perhaps a kind of clanic village)
before it became synonymous with “village” around the middle of the 2nd mil-
lennium BCE.16 Papyrus Harris I and the Wilbour papyrus also refer to Sherden
towns and to allotments of land to Sherden people in the Fayum, while papy-
rus Amiens mentions estates established for the Sherden in the tenth nome
of Upper Egypt. Later on, a 1st millennium BCE dedicatory stela from Tell
Minia el-Shorafa, near Heracleopolis, refers to “fields of the Sherden,”17 while
another two early 1st millennium dedicatory stelae discovered at the temple of
Herishef at Heracleopolis belonged to a general and to a Sherden soldier and
both mention, respectively, “the great fortress (nḫt.w ꜤꜢ) of the Sherden” and “the
great fortress” (nḫt.w ꜤꜢ).18 Sherden were not unique in this respect. Inscriptions
from the times of Merenptah and Ramesses III mention Libyan “invasions”
but they also refer to Libyans settled and living within Egyptian borders, in
some cases in towns. Early Middle Kingdom iconography from Beni Hassan
also depicts Libyan caravans arriving into this area of the Nile Valley, a fact
concomitant with the new importance of itinerant cattle raised there (and
the introduction of the term mnmn.t “cattle on the move”) and with the first
appearance of wḥy.t-villages in Middle Egypt.19 To this evidence one could
also mention Nubians settled in some localities of southernmost Egypt
(Elephantine, Gebelein, etc.), where they formed distinctive communities.20
So, a fifth issue relates to migration, the movement of populations, and the
redefinition of borders as ethnic dividers.21 According to pharaonic ideology,
one of the main duties of pharaohs was to repel foreigners outside the Nile
14 Bietak, “On the historicity of the Exodus,” 21; Hoch, Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts, 270–71
n° 385; Morris, The Architecture of Imperialism, 422, 823.
15 Gardiner, Wilbour Papyrus II, 35.
16 Moreno García, “Ḥwt iḥ(w)t,” 82–83.
17 Ritner, The Libyan Anarchy, 346; Emanuel, “ ‘Šrdn from the sea’.”
18 Petrie, Ehnasya, 22, pl. xxvii [1–2].
19 Moreno García, “Invaders or just herders?” and “Trade and power in ancient Egypt.”
20 Raue, “Who was who in Elephantine” and “Nubian pottery on Elephantine Island”;
Ejsmond, “The Nubian mercenaries of Gebelein.”
21 Bader, “Migration in archaeology”; Moreno García, “Ḥwt iḥ(w)t.”

6 Moreno García
Valley. Literary texts, monumental epigraphy, even names of border fortresses

(“Repressing-the-Medjay,” “Destroying the Nubians,” “Curbing-the-Foreign-
Countries,” “Repelling-the-Iuntiu”), stress this aspect and their powerful imagery
has greatly contributed to underestimate the presence of foreigners on Egyptian
soil. In this perspective, when Egyptian sources mentioned Nubians or Asiatics
living in Egypt, it was common to interpret them either as prisoners of war,
mercenaries, or starving beggars arriving in search of food. Whether military
campaigns were certainly a source of manpower (prisoners, people sent as
tribute, deportees, hostages), and pastoral populations frequented Egypt, it is
also evident that traders and specialists (craftsmen, sailors, warriors, etc.) also
penetrated into the Nile Valley, settled there, and adopted Egyptian customs.
It is not rare that in their monuments they refer to themselves as “Asiatic”
(ꜤꜢmw),22 “Nubian” (Nḥs.y),23 “Sherden” (Šrdn),24 etc. The nature of these
“waves” of foreign settlers might provide important clues about the social, geo-
political, and economic conditions underlying the movement of populations
on a broader scale. For example, the expansion of pastoral populations across
the Near East during the very late Early Bronze Age and the Middle Bronze Age
was concomitant with the development of international trade networks and
the introduction of new metallurgical techniques. Not by chance, it was then
that “warrior burials,” typical of the Levant, appeared also in Egypt (as it hap-
pened at Kom el-Hisn).25 In other cases, movements such as the Sea Peoples in
the Late Bronze Age seem connected to changes in the organization of maritime
trade and routes and to shifts in economic demand in the Mediterranean and
the Near East. Finally, analysis of DNA and biological archaeological samples
might cast light on population movements, their extent and impact, particu-
larly in contexts when documentary sources are silent about them.26
A sixth issue is mixity.27 Peoples from different origins lived and worked
together, especially at specific sites where they are easy to identify, such as
harbours (Mersa/Wadi Gawasis), fortresses, and mining centres (Serabit el-
Khadim, Gebel el-Zeit), and their shared cults (Hathor, amulets, etc.) reveal
22 An example: Satzinger and Stefanović, “The domestic servant of the palace Rn-snb.”
23 Darnell, “The rock inscriptions of Tjehemau at Abisko,” 33–34.
24 Petrie, Ehnasya, 22, pl. xxvii [2].
25 Wengrow, “The voyages of Europa”; Moreno García, “Trade and power in ancient Egypt”
and “Métaux, textiles et réseaux d’échanges à longue distance.”
26 Cabana and Clark, Rethinking Anthropological Perspectives on Migration; Cameron,
“How people moved among ancient societies”; Meller, Daim, Krause, and Risch, eds.,
Migration und Integration. For ancient Egypt: Zakrzewski, Shortland, and Rowland,
Science in the Study of Ancient Egypt, 202–16. An example: Buzon and Simonetti, “Stron-
tium isotope.”
27 Bader, “Cultural mixing in Egyptian archaeology.”

some cultural basis common to them all.28 Tell el-Dabʿa in the Middle Bronze
Age has provided fascinating evidence about the creation of a new culture,
neither Egyptian nor Levantine, born from the interaction of peoples from
different origins that crystallized in the creation of a new identity. Papyrus
Wilbour also provides evidence about foreigners who had become soldiers and
officials in the Egyptian armies and who enjoyed considerable wealth as holders
of substantial plots of land, like any other Egyptian official, priest, or land-
holder. Integration is also evident in the tomb of Ben-Ia (TT343), an overseer of
works as well as “child of the kap” during the reigns of Hatshepsut and Thutmo-
sis III. Issued from a foreign family (his name was Semitic, and those of his
parents, Irtenena and Tirkak, were non-Egyptian), he was nevertheless bur-
ied in a tomb decorated in a typically Egyptian style. Another case is that of
Maiherpri, a Nubian prince educated with the royal princes, and buried in the
Valley of the Kings. In his Book of the Dead, Maiherpri was represented as an
Egyptian, and only his curly hair reveals that he was a Nubian.29 As for slaves,
there are examples in which they married the family of the owner. Thus, the
Adoption papyrus mentions a slave woman (ḥm.t), bought by a couple. She
married the man and gave birth to a boy and two girls who were raised at home;
one of the girls married the brother-in-law of the owner and became a “free
woman” (nmḥ.t), like her brother and sister.30 As for statue Louvre E 11.673, it
mentions a man who placed his slave (ḥm) as a barber in a temple and gave him
his niece as a spouse.31 In other cases, foreigners preserved their cultural iden-
tity or, at least, some cultural practices from their countries while displaying,
at the same time, those of their land of adoption. Thus, Asiatics living in Egypt
held Egyptian titles and functions, were represented wearing Egyptian clothes,
owned Egyptian-like monuments, bore Egyptian names but, at the same time,
they still designated themselves as “Asiatics.”32 Another example comes from
Gebelein, a locality where numerous Nubian soldiers settled during the First
Intermediate Period. Their monuments in Egyptian style as well as their acqui-
sition of goods and property in the area of Gebelein reveal their integration
into the Egyptian society, whilst still being depicted as Nubian, thus retaining
28 Bloxam, “Miners and mistresses”; Moreno García, “Métaux, textiles et réseaux d’échanges
à longue distance.”
29 Franci, “Being a foreigner in Egypt.”
30 Gardiner, “Adoption extraordinary”; Allam, “De l’adoption en Égypte pharaonique”; Eyre,
“The Adoption Papyrus in social context.”
31 Urk. IV 1369: 4–16.
32 Cf. note 20 supra.

8 Moreno García
their ethnic identity.33 The mixed population of Nubians and Egyptians thus
resulting is evoked in the stela of one of these mercenaries called Qedes:
I was an excellent citizen who acted with his strong arm, foremost of his
entire generation. I acquired oxen and goats. I acquired granaries with
Upper Egyptian barley. I acquired title to a [great?] field. I made a boat of
30 (cubits) and a small boat which ferried him who had no boat across dur-
ing the inundation-season. It was in the house of my father Iti that I did this,
(but) it was my mother Ibeb who acquired it for me. I surpassed everyone
in this entire town in swiftness, its Nubians as well as its Upper Egyptians.34
Other examples can be found in Nubia, either in the Egyptian fortresses built
during the Middle Kingdom, in the mining communities at Wadi el-Hudi also
from this period,35 or in New Kingdom communities such as Tombos and
Amara West.36 At least some of the fortresses were surrounded by notice-
able open settlements probably inhabited by a mix of Egyptians and Nubians
involved in commercial exchanges.37
A seventh issue deals with ethnogenesis. Not by chance, the expansion and
intensification of Egyptian interests and contacts with foreign regions, was
accompanied by the introduction of new ethnic terms in which appears to
be not only the “discovery” of new human groups but also the redefinition of
the identities and characteristics of peoples known for a long time. One can
think, for instance, in the introduction of the term Tjehemu in the inscriptions
of the 6th Dynasty, when a permanent pharaonic settlement was established
at Dakhla, Egyptian officials crossed the “route of the oasis,” and the interac-
tion between Egyptians and peoples of the Western Desert intensified. This
led to a reinterpretation of the traditional term, Tjehenu, used when referring
to the western neighbours of Egypt. Again, the New Kingdom witnessed the
introduction of new terms designating peoples living in this area (e.g., Libu,
Meshwesh).38 Another example concerns Medjay people. The Egyptians per-
ceived the people of the Eastern Desert near Lower Nubia as one unified ethnic
33 Fischer, “The Nubian mercenaries of Gebelein.”

34 Fischer, “The Nubian mercenaries of Gebelein,” 44–56.
35 Liszka, “Egyptian or Nubian?”.
36 Smith and Buzon, “Colonial encounters at New Kingdom Tombos”; Spencer, Stevens, and
Binder, Amara West.
37 Smith, Askut in Nubia; Knoblauch, Bestock, and Makovics, “The Uronarti Regional Ar-
chaeological Project.”
38 Cf. Moreno García in this issue.

group. Yet these people were not politically unified and did not identify them-
selves as Medjay until the middle of the 12th Dynasty, when increased inter-
action between the Egyptians and the people of the Eastern Desert caused
certain pastoral nomads to adopt the term “Medjay.”39 Similar concerns may
explain the use of terms relating to peoples living inside Egypt. Early Dynastic
inscriptions refer, for instance, to “northerners” whose relation with the first
pharaohs were conflictual, perhaps because they still kept mobile lifestyles in
Lower Egypt that clashed with the attempts of the kings to assert their author-
ity and taxation system in this area.40 Quite significantly, a district within the
Delta itself was referred to as ḫꜢst Ṯḥmw, “the land of Tjehemu,” an area on the
western border of Lower Egypt but not necessarily outside the Delta.41 Finally,
the sources of the early 2nd millennium BCE mention for the first time peoples
living in the eastern margins of Lower Egypt and in adjacent desert areas. They
were referred to as sḫtjw and jmnw, they worked as auxiliaries in the phara-
onic mining expeditions to Sinai as well as in the construction of the pyramids
at Lisht, and Senwosret I even created the office of jmj-r sḫtjw, “overseer of the
marshland dwellers,” perhaps to control or to deal with autonomous, mobile,
local populations not thoroughly placed under the king’s rule.42 Thus, the
interaction between Egyptians and other social groups led to a continuous
redefinition of identities and characterizations that culminated quite often in
processes of ethnogenesis. In some cases different social groups became amal-
gamated under a single label (Medjay) while in other cases distinctive sectors
of the Egyptian society, perhaps living in liminal areas, received a particular
designation that underlined their specific lifestyles.
An eighth issue concerns modern perceptions and prejudices about ethnic-
ity in ancient Egypt. Egyptology has traditionally accepted at face value the
powerful imagery and ideological values displayed in Egyptian monuments,
such as preserving the borders of Egypt, rejecting foreigners, and proclaiming
the superiority of Egyptian culture and lifestyle over those of neighbouring,
barbarian populations. This has led quite often to consider, for instance, that
foreigners (particularly from Libya and Nubia) were backward populations,
living at the very edge of subsistence according to very simple economic pat-
terns. However, recent research stresses the importance of pastoral activities
as complementary of the economy of the Nile Valley, as they were part of
39 Liszka, “We have come from the well of Ibhet.”

40 Moreno García, “Ḥwt iḥ(w)t,” 77–78.
41 Moreno García, “Ḥwt iḥ(w)t,” 75.
42 Moreno García, “Ḥwt iḥ(w)t,” 88.

10 Moreno García
broader economic cycles involving specialization from both sedentary and

mobile populations. The particular ecological conditions of the Nile Valley in
Egypt (a narrow fluvial “oasis” surrounded by harsh deserts) limit the existence
of steppes and, consequently, of itinerant populations of herders and substan-
tial flocks, as it happened in the Near East. However, the development of the
Egyptian state and its huge demands of raw materials (leather, special oils/
unguents, medicinal plants, cattle and livestock, perhaps also cheese and milk-
derived goods, desert minerals, etc.) and transport facilities across difficult
environments43 might have encouraged economic specialization, particularly
pastoralism, among populations living not only in “marginal” areas bordering
the Nile Valley as well as in Nubia but also in Egypt itself. Thus, the interaction
between sedentary populations, “foreigners,” and Egyptians specialized in full-
time or seasonal mobile lifestyles (particularly in marsh environments, such
as fishermen, fowlers, herders, papyrus gatherers, etc.), might have induced a
complex set of relations, ranging from collaboration to conflicts resulting from
rival strategies for the exploitation of disputed areas.44 Such relations cannot
be reduced to the narrow and ideologically biased perspective of “Egyptians
versus foreigners.” Instead, they become only intelligible when considering the
complex interplay between alternative uses of the territory, the landscapes
resulting from these activities, the complementarity between populations with
different lifestyles and the occasional creation of rituals and ceremonies (from
cults to commensality on special occasions) that cemented social relations
and prevented conflict. In this perspective, “Libyans” and “Nubians” developed
in fact diversified lifestyles and economic activities, partly as a result from
interaction with Egyptians, that cannot be reduced simply to mere pastoralist
subsistence strategies. This is the case of Late Bronze Age Libyan small metal-
lurgy at Bate’s Island, Libyan agriculture and wadi irrigation at Zawiyet Umm
el-Rakham, Nubian gold extraction in the area of the Fourth Cataract (leading
to a re-evaluation of “Egyptian” gold extraction at Wadi el-Hudi), Nubian pres-
ence in the oases of the Western Desert probably linked to trading activities,
etc.45 The integration of archaeological, textual, and ethnographic data is thus
essential to get a more balanced perspective about the lifestyles encompassed
by too reductive terms such as “Libyan” or “Nubian.”46
43 Cf. from a comparative perspective, Scheele, “The need for nomads.”
44 Moreno García, “Ḥwt iḥ(w)t,” “La gestion des aires marginals,” and “Leather processing,
castor oil, and desert/Nubian trade.”
45 Cf. Moreno García in this issue.
46 Smith, “A portion of life solidified.”

A final issue concerns the potential of comparative research. Studies about

the interaction between nomad and sedentary populations in the ancient
Near East have helped overcome traditional interpretations in which nomads
were systematically regarded as parasitic and inferior to urban and agricultural
populations.47 Ethnography has also revealed the resilience, capacity of adap-
tation, and innovation of ethnic groups when they come into contact with
other groups (from colonial encounters to migration, etc.). Social and cultural
history, as well as archaeology, also reveal how identities emerge, change, and
adapt themselves to different stimuli. As for ethnoarchaeology, it has still much
to contribute in Egyptology, for instance about how peoples, landscapes, and
lifestyles evolved together, particularly in cultural and socio-economic pro-
cesses marked by state intervention and by attempts to minimize or to elude it.
Such processes led to the emergence of distinctive societies in and around the
Nile Valley. The relation of these societies with the political formations known
as “pharaonic monarchy/monarchies” was a dynamic one, and its outcome
was a continuous redefinition of Egyptianness and foreignness, including pro-
cesses of ethnogenesis that hide quite often the rich variety of peoples and
lifestyles under ethnic labels such as “Nubian” and “Egyptian” indeed.
To sum up, a deeper understanding of ethnicity in ancient Egypt cannot but
benefit from a close dialogue with other disciplines and can enrich current
debates in archaeology, anthropology and ancient history.
Abbreviations
Urk. IV Sethe, K. Urkunden der 18. Dynastie. Historisch-Biographische

Urkunden IV. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1906.
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Journal of Egyptian History 11 (2018) 1–17