Kom el-Hisn (ca. 2500-1900 BC)

An Ancient Settlement in the Nile Delta

Edited by Robert J. Wenke Edited by Richard W. Redding Edited by Anthony J. Cagle

Book cover: Kom el-Hisn (ca. 2500-1900 BC)

Extent: 500 pages

Publisher: Lockwood Press

Subjects: Ancient Egypt

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(September 2016)

ISBN: 9781937040536

8.46 x 10.98 inches

Price: $110.00

On back order

PDF (Published)

(September 2016)

ISBN: 9781937040543

Price: $25.00

This volume presents the findings of three seasons of excavation in the 1980s at Kom el-Hisn, “the mound of the fortress,” in the northwest Nile Delta. This provincial community was often in the orbit of Memphis, the capital and administrative center of Egypt’s Old Kingdom period. Small areas of occupations of the First Intermediate and early Middle Kingdom periods were also excavated. One of the goals of the excavations was to complement and compare the substantial ancient textual record of this era with Kom el-Hisn’s archaeological record because such evidence is sparse for Lower Egypt between about 2500 and 1800 BC. The findings presented here reveal the complexity of small Old Kingdom settlements in the context of the Memphite state organization and shed light on the changing relationships of this administrative center with its provincial communities. Kom el-Hisn’s faunal, floral, lithic, and architectural remains are presented and discussed in detail, as are some theoretical and methodological issues relevant to this research. With contributions by Paul E. Buck, Anthony J. Cagle, Michal Kobusiewicz, Karla Kroeper, Richard R. Redding, Sarah Sterling, Robert J. Wenke, Wilma Wetterstrom, Anna Wodzinska, and Alexandra Witsell.

Robert J. Wenke is a research associate at the Kelsey Museum of Classical Archaeology, the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), having served as a member of the Anthropology faculty at the University of Washington (Seattle) between 1976 and 2003. He is coauthor (with Deborah I. Olszewski) of Patterns in Prehistory: Humankind’s First Three Million Years, now in its 5th edition (Oxford, 2006) and author of The Ancient Egyptian State: The Origins of Egyptian Culture (c. 8000-2000 BC) (Cambridge, 2009). Richard Redding is a research scientist at the Kelsey Museum, University of Michigan, as well as a principle investigator in Archaeological Projects in North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. He is also the Chief Research Officer (CRO) of the Ancient Egyptian Research Associates (AERA). Anthony J. Cagle is an adjunct professor in the School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle WA. He received his PhD from Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle on “The Spatial Structure of Kom el-Hisn: An Old Kingdom town in the Western Nile Delta, Egypt.”

  • Edited by Robert J. Wenke
  • Edited by Richard W. Redding
  • Edited by Anthony J. Cagle