Ethan (as per our Tweets!) mentioned in the introductory videos about order and chaos. Since then I have been thinking in those terms in reference to our readings and the videos.
The predynastic sites, Buto and Ma’adi, really stuck out to me as some of the first examples of how Egypt has this order/chaos motif. Buto seems to have to controlled chaos while Ma’adi is comparatively more ordered. I noticed this when the reading and the videos touched on ceramics. Lower Egypt (The majority of the Nile Delta & Buto) has ‘inferior ceramics’ which are unparalleled when they are compared to the ceramics of Upper Egypt. Ma’adi shows how they keep their materials and craftsmanship in line and thereby show how ordered they were as a society.
It makes me wonder how these communities thrived within proximal distance from each other. On one hand we have a community that seems to prosper with trading, greater social stratification, and developing superstitions. The other community, however, seems to be struggling just to make it through each season while scattering their dead more sporadically.
I found myself wondering that if over time the community around Ma’adi would have progressively expanded and shared their ideas with others. This would have eventually caused the ordering of chaos in Buto. Perhaps there’s evidence of this in the fact that modernly the Ma’adi site is within throwing distance of Cairo while Buto is modern day Tell el-Fara’in, which after a google search, is considered a village.
It seems that the order engulfed and tamed the chaos. I feel that this class will elaborate on what other ways this has happened in Egypt.
-Alexandria
It’s interesting to note that even though Ma’adi was more orderly and had the increased complexity due to trade, Naqada culture eventually displaces Buto-Ma’adi culture in Lower Egypt and develops into the dynastic culture.
In the readings it also talks about how the development of Buto and Ma’adi occurred over time. Occupation of the Ma’adi site was finished by Naqada II. Buto on the other hand continued to exist into Naqada times and showed evidence of Naqada cultural assimilation as well as Dynastic occupation, but dynastic occupation that developed out of Naqada culture.
I’m interested in how the whole idea of order and chaos might be related to the cultural interactions between Buto-Ma’adi culture and Naqada culture. Would Naqada culture be more or less ordered, and how this is explained with the evidence showing that Naqada culture ultimately led to Dynastic Egypt? Naqada and Upper Egypt seem have more resources and technology than Buto-Ma’adi and Lower Egypt, but does this make Naqada culture more chaotic? I thought the idea of order and chaos was more of a cultural belief, but it is interesting to think how it might also be applied to societal organization and state formation to explain why Naqada thrived and Buto-Ma’adi was assimilated.
I also found it really intriguing when looking at order/chaos from a cultural prospective. The seed of it seems to stick in my head and I tend to relate most of the things we have done so far to it. It seems that it also can be applied to the agricultural and state formation framework. I am hoping that another student tackles this idea from a different standpoint. It will be interesting to see how they see it.