Upper Egypt (Arabic:صعيد مصرṢaʿīd Miṣr, shortened toالصعيد,Egyptian Arabic pronunciation:[es.sˤe.ˈʕiːd],locally:[es.sˤɑ.ˈʕiːd]) is the southern portion ofEgypt and is composed of theNile River valley south of the delta and the 30th parallel North. It thus starts atBeni Suef and stretches down toLake Nasser (formed by the Aswan High Dam).[1]
In ancient Egypt, Upper Egypt was known astꜣ šmꜣw,[2] literally "the Land of Reeds" or "the Sedgeland", named for thesedges that grow there.[3]
InArabic, the region is called Sa'id or Sahid, fromصعيد meaning "uplands", from the rootصعد meaning to go up, ascend, or rise. Inhabitants of Upper Egypt are known asSa'idis and they generally speakSa'idi Egyptian Arabic.
InBiblical Hebrew it was known asפַּתְרוֹסPaṯrôs and inAkkadian it was known asPatúrisi.[4] Both names originate from the Egyptianpꜣ-tꜣ-rsj, meaning "the southern land".[5]
Upper Egypt is between theCataracts of the Nile beyond modern-dayAswan, downriver (northward) to the area of El-Ayait,[6] which places modern-dayCairo inLower Egypt. The northern (downriver) part of Upper Egypt, betweenSohag and El-Ayait, is also known asMiddle Egypt.
It is believed to have been united by the rulers of the supposedThinite Confederacy who absorbed their rival city states during theNaqada III period (c. 3200–3000 BC), and its subsequent unification withLower Egypt ushered in theEarly Dynastic period.[7] Upper and Lower Egypt became intertwined in the symbolism ofpharaonic sovereignty such as thePschent double crown.[8] Upper Egypt remained as a historical region even after the classical period.
By approximately 3600 BC, Neolithic Egyptian societies along theNile based their culture on the raising of crops and the domestication of animals.[11] Shortly thereafter, Egypt began to grow and increase in complexity.[12] A new and distinctive pottery appeared, related to theLevantine ceramics, and copper implements and ornaments became common.[12]Mesopotamian building techniques became popular, using sun-driedadobe bricks in arches and decorative recessed walls.[12]
These cultural advances paralleled the political unification of towns of the upper Nile River, or Upper Egypt, while the same occurred in the societies of theNile Delta, orLower Egypt.[12] This led to warfare between the two new kingdoms.[12] During his reign in Upper Egypt, KingNarmer defeated his enemies on the delta and became sole ruler of the two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt,[13] a sovereignty which endured throughout Dynastic Egypt.
In royal symbolism, Upper Egypt was represented by the tall White CrownHedjet, the flowering lotus, and the sedge. Its patron deity, Nekhbet, was depicted by the vulture. After unification, the patron deities of Upper and Lower Egypt were represented together as theTwo Ladies, to protect all of the ancient Egyptians, just as the two crowns were combined into a single pharaonic diadem.
For most of Egypt's ancient history,Thebes was the administrative center of Upper Egypt. After its devastation by the Assyrians, the importance of Egypt declined. Under the dynasty of the Ptolemies,Ptolemais Hermiou took over the role of the capital city of Upper Egypt.[14]
In the eleventh century, large numbers ofpastoralists, known as Hilalians, fled Upper Egypt and moved westward intoLibya and as far asTunis.[15] It is believed that degraded grazing conditions in Upper Egypt, associated with the beginning of theMedieval Warm Period, were the root cause of the migration.[16]
Mainstream scholars have situated the ethnicity and the origins of predynastic, southern Egypt as a foundational community primarily in northeast Africa which includedthe Sudan,tropical Africa andthe Sahara whilst recognising the population variability that became characteristic of the pharaonic period.[28][29][30][31] Pharaonic Egypt featured a physicalgradation across the regional populations, with Upper Egyptians having shared more biological affinities withSudanese andsouthernly African populations, whereas Lower Egyptians had closer genetic links withLevantine andMediterranean populations.[32][33][34]
Pair of guardian statuettes, depicting Middle Kingdom pharaohs, presumablySenusret I orAmenemhat II, with the white crown of Upper Egypt (left), the other with the red crown ofLower Egypt.[35] The 12th dynasty had origins inTa-Seti, Upper Egypt.[36][37]
In the view of Egyptian scholar and editor ofUNESCOGeneral History of Africa Volume II (1981), Gamal Mokhtar, Upper Egypt and Nubia held "similarethnic composition" with comparable material culture.[38] Mokhtar described a notable difference between the communities with Upper Egyptians having adopted asystem of writing earlier due to the exigencies of the Nile Valley whilst their Nubian counterparts were more reticent due to their higher reliance on mobile,stock-raising as an expressed feature of their economy.[39]
UNESCO International Scientific Committee Chair for GHA and archaeologist, Augustin Holl, stated that Egypt was situated in an intersection betweenAfrica andEurasia but affirmed "Egypt is African" with a "fluctuating distribution of African and Eurasian populations depending on historical circumstances".[40]
In a chapter review of UNESCO General History of Africa Volume II (which featured the conclusions of the 1974 symposium) by anthropologist and Egyptologist, Alain Anselin, (2025) the traditional historical view of a “wave of civilizing peoples” from the north to the south had been displaced by the weight of recent evidence in favour of a unifying movement from south to north.[41] He stated that recent research accumulated over three decades had confirmed the migration of peoples from the Sahara and regions south of Egypt to the Nile Valley.[42] This research had also situated Upper Egypt as the origin of pharaonic unification.[43] Anselin argued that this aligned with the position of the lateCheikh Anta Diop, who had attempted to "restore Egypt to its southern African hinterland".[44] Anselin referenced a range of specialist studies (anthropology,linguistics,genetics andarchaeology) presented at a triennial conference in 2005 which he stated was a continuation of the 1974 recommendations.[45] This included a genetic study which quantified the "key impact" of Sub-Saharan populations and showed that the early pre-dynastic population of the Berber people of the Siwa Oasis in north-western Egypt had close demographic links with people of North-East Africa. He further described the value of other studies such as a Crubezy study which "traced the boundaries of the ancientKhoisan settlement to Upper Egypt, where its faint traces remain identifiable and Keita’s work, as the most groundbreaking", and that Cerny's team had identified close genetic and linguistic links between the peoples of Upper Egypt, NorthCameroon (some of whom spoke Chadic languages) andEthiopia (some of whom spoke Kushitic languages).[46]
According tobioarchaeologist Nancy Lovell, the morphology of ancient Egyptian skeletons gives strong evidence that: "In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt andNubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of theSahara and more southerly areas", but exhibited local variation in an African context.[47] S. O. Y. Keita, abiological anthropologist also reviewed studies on the biological affinities of the Ancient Egyptian population and characterised the skeletal morphologies of predynastic southern Egyptians as a "Saharo-tropical African variant". Keita also added that it is important to emphasize that whilst Egyptian society became more socially complex and biologically varied, the "ethnicity of the Niloto-Saharo-Sudanese origins did not change. The cultural morays, ritual formulae, and symbols used in writing, as far as can be ascertained, remained true to their southern origins."[48]
Megaliths from Nabta Playa displayed in theAswan, Upper Egypt
A 1973 X-ray examination of southern king,Seqenenre Tao, by American Egyptologists,Kent Weeks and James E. Harris had identified cranial similarities between his cranio-facial complex along with other Nubian and Old Kingdom Giza Skulls. In their view, this was supportive of scholarly interpretations that Sequenre Tao and his family may have held Nubian ancestry.[58][59]
James Harris and Fawzia Hussien (1991) conducted an X-ray survey on southern based 18th dynasty royal mummies and examined the mummified remains ofThutmose II. The results of the study determined that the mummy of Thutmose II had a craniofacial trait measurement that was common among Nubian populations.[60]
A 1992 study conducted by S.O.Y. Keita onFirst Dynasty crania from the royal tombs inAbydos, noted the predominant pattern was "Southern" or a "tropical African variant" (though others were also observed), which had affinities with Kerma Kushites.[61] The general results demonstrate greater affinity with Upper Nile Valley groups, but also suggest clear change from earlier craniometric trends. Moreover, analysis also found clear change from earlier craniometric trends, as "lower Egyptian,Maghrebian, andEuropean patterns are observed also, thus making for great diversity". The gene flow and movement of northern officials to the important southern city may explain the findings.[62]
In 1996, Lovell and Prowse reported the presence of individuals buried at Naqada, Upper Egypt, in what they interpreted to be elite, high status tombs, showing them to be an endogamous ruling or elite segment who were significantly different from individuals buried in two other, apparently nonelite cemeteries, and more closely related morphologically to populations in Northern Nubia than those in Southern Egypt.[63]
EgyptologistFrank J. Yurco also considered theBadarians as exhibiting a "mix ofNorth African andSub-Saharan physical traits", and referenced older analysis of skeletal remains which "showedtropical African elements in the population of the earliest Badarian culture".[64]
In 2003, Japanese anthropologists Tsunehiko Hanihara, Hajime Ishida and Yukio Dodoet (2003) examined cranial traits from 70 human populations. The survey included samples from Predynastic Naqada (Upper Egypt) and 12th-13th dynastyKushite Kerma (Sudan). In the context of the study, these samples were collectively classified as "North Africans" and other samples from Somalia along with Nigeria were classified as "Sub-Saharans", but lacked a specified dating period.[65] Overall, the samples from predynastic Naqada andKerma clustered most closely and more remotely with European groups, whilst the other samples from Sub-Saharan Africa showed "significant separation from other regions, as well as diversity among themselves".[66]
In 2005, Keita examinedBadarian crania from predynastic upper Egypt in comparison to variousEuropean andtropical African crania. He found that the predynastic Badarian series clustered much closer with the tropical African series. The comparative samples were selected based on "Brace et al.'s (1993) comments on the affinities of an upper Egyptian/Nubian epipalaeolithic series".[67]
In 2006,Barry Kemp found that skeletal samples fromElephantine (the border between Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia) from the6th to26th Dynasties showed very strong affinities with the Nubian population.[68] Comparatively, Kemp examined samples sourced from populations located in Africa, the Near East, and the Mediterranean.[69] Furthermore, he found that samples from northern Egypt (Merimde, Maadi, and the Wadi Digla) from before the 1st Dynasty showed no affinities with samples from Palestine and Byblos, and the proportions of members of these Egyptians group them with Africans, not Europeans.[70]
In 2006,C. Loring Brace and a team of anthropologists examined the skeletal morphology of humans populations from Neolithic and Bronze Age period. The analysis based on 24 craniofacial measures/variables, found close affinities between the EgyptianNaqada Bronze sample and Somalis, Nubia Bronze, Nubians and to a lesser extent, Tanzania Haya, Dahomey, and Congo.[71] On the other hand, lower similarities were found between the Egyptian Naqada sample and the other regions of the world, which included samples named Middle East, Berber, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Italy amongst others, with the exception of the Israeli Fellaheen who also plotted with Naqada Bronze.[72]
In 2008, Keita found the early predynastic groups in Southern Egypt which included Badarian skeletal samples, were similar to Nile-Valley remains from areas to the south and north of Upper Egypt. Overall, the dynastic Egyptians (includes both Upper and Lower Egyptians) showed much closer affinities with these particular Northeast African populations. In his comparison to the various Egyptian series, Greeks, Somali/Horn, and Italians were used. He also concluded that more material was needed to make a firm conclusion about the relationship between the earlyHolocene Nile valley populations and later ancient Egyptians.[73]
Anthropological analysis conducted by Eric Crubézy (2002, 2010) on a Adaïma predynastic cemetery from 3700 CE and which contained 6,000 skeletons had found affinities with a southerly African population.[74]
In 2018, Godde assessed population relationships in the Nile Valley by comparing crania from 18 Egyptian and Nubian groups, spanning from Lower Egypt to Lower Nubia across 7,400 years. Overall, the results showed that the Mesolithic Nubian sample had a greater similarity with Naqada Egyptians. Similarly, Lower Nubian and Upper Egyptian samples clustered together. However, the Lower Egyptian samples formed a homogeneous unit, and there was a north–south gradient in the data set.[75]
In 2020, Godde analysed a series of crania, including two Egyptian (predynastic Badarian and Nagada series), a series of A-Group Nubians and a Bronze Age series from Lachish, Palestine. The two pre-dynastic series had strongest affinities, followed by closeness between the Nagada and the Nubian series. Further, the Nubian A-Group plotted nearer to the Egyptians and the Lachish sample placed more closely to Naqada than Badari. According to Godde the spatial-temporal model applied to the pattern of biological distances explains the more distant relationship of Badari to Lachish than Naqada to Lachish as gene flow will cause populations to become more similar over time.[76]
In 2025, Egyptian historian and archaeological inspector at theMinistry of Antiquities, H. A. A. Ibrahim, examined the megalithic complex ofNabta Playa, Upper Egypt to understand the cultural and population influences of theHolocene on pre-dynastic Egypt. She cited an anthropological study confirming the appearance of a Sub-Saharan high status child in a ceremonial centre and concluded that the megalithic structures had close resemblance to comparable structures in theSahelian and Sub-Saharan regions of Africa.[77]
A 2002 study had found thatTasian dental markers were shown to similar be Sub-Saharan Africans and some also to North Africans. According to the researchers, it is possible that the population may have been a mix of both groups, but the sample size was concluded to be too small to make definitive statements.[78]
A 2006bioarchaeological study on the dentalmorphology of ancient Egyptians in Upper Egypt by Joel Irish found that their dental traits were most similar to those of other Nile Valley populations, with more remote ties with Bronze Age to Christian period Nubians (e.g. A-Group, C-Group, Kerma) and other Afro-Asiatic speaking populations in Northeast Africa (Tigrean). Moreover, the Egyptian groups were generally distinct from the sampled West and Central African populations.[79] Among the samples included in the study is skeletal material from theHawara tombs of Fayum, (from the Roman period) which clustered very closely with theBadarian series of thepredynastic period. All the samples, particularly those of the Dynastic period, were significantly divergent from aNeolithic West Saharan sample from Lower Nubia. Biological continuity was also found intact from the dynastic to the post-pharaonic periods.[80]
Irish (2008) conducted a morphological comparison between the dental traits of human remains from Lower Nubian Neolithic sites at Gebel Ramlah (modern Southern Egypt) and Upper Nubian Neolithic sites from the cemeteries at R12 (modern Northern Sudan). Irish compared these remains to pooled dental samples from post-Neolithic Egyptians and Nubians to determine and distinguish biological affiliatations in the regional context. He concluded that the Lower Nubian samples of Gebel Ramlah and the Upper Nubian samples of R12 were not closely related biologically, whereas the post-Neolithic Egyptians and Nubians were closely related based on the Mean Measure of Divergence statistical analysis of 36 dental traits from the samples. This apparent homogeneity was attributed to population interaction stemming from a combination of trade, migration and genetic exchange along the River Nile, whereas the earlier Neolithic groups were more isolated from each other, both spatially and genetically.[81]
Biological anthropologist Shomarka Keita takes issue with the suggestion of Irish that Egyptians and Nubians were not primary descendants of the Africanepipaleolithic andNeolithic populations. Keita also criticizes him for ignoring the possibility that the dentition of the ancient Egyptians could have been caused by "in situ microevolution" driven by dietary change, rather than by racial admixture.[82]
Eric Crubézy (2010) found that 25% of the sampled children's teeth from a cemetery in Adaima, Upper Egypt had "Bushmen" upper canines typical of people fromKhoi-San which "confirmed the African origin of the Adamia population.[83]
Robins and Shute (1983) performed X-ray measurements on the physical proportions of Upper Egyptian rulers such asThutmose III,Amenhotep III,Tutankhamun. The authors reported that the limbs of the pharaohs, like those of other Ancient Egyptians, had "negroid characteristics", in that the distal segments were relatively long in comparison with the proximal segments. An exception was Ramesses II, who appears to have had short legs below the knees.[84]
A 2003 study performed bySonia Zakrzewski had found Upper Egyptians, with sample collections sourced from the Badarin and Middle Kingdom eras, as havingtropical body proportions.[85] She described their proportions as measured in the raw data to be "super-negroid" (i.e. the limb indices are relatively longer than in many "African" populations) in line with the results of the Robbins study (1983).[86] Nonetheless, she proposed that the apparent development of an increasingly African body plan over time may also be due to Nubian mercenaries being included in the Middle Kingdom sample.[87] Overall, she found that the available samples featured in the study "relatively clustered together" as compared to other populations. Zakrzewski cautioned that the results were provisional due to the limited small sizes and lack of skeletal material that "cross-cuts all social and economic groups within each time period".[88]
Raxter (2014) examined skeletal collection of 492 males and 528 females, all adults from the Predynastic and Dynastic Periods, a time spanning c. 5500 BCE-600 CE. Overall, she found that Ancient Egyptians have more tropically adapted limbs in comparison to body breadths, the latter she interpreted to be suggestive of intermediate when plotted against higher and lower latitude populations.[89] Her results identified a gradation with Upper Egyptians andLower Nubians having shared affinities whilst Lower Egyptians were more closely linked with Southern European populations.[90] Raxter summarised that her results might also suggest earlyMediterranean orNear Eastern influence in Northeast Africa.[91]
Shomarka Keita reported that a 2005 study on mummified remains found that "some Theban nobles had ahistology which indicated notablydark skin".[92]
In 2023,Christopher Ehret reported that physical anthropological findings, performed by Keita and Zakrzewski, on the "major burial sites of those founding locales of ancient Egypt in the fourth millennium BCE, notably El-Badari as well as Naqada, show no demographic indebtedness to theLevant". Ehret specified that these studies revealed cranial and dental affinities with "closest parallels" to other longtime populations in the surrounding areas ofNortheastern Africa "such as Nubia and the northernHorn of Africa". He further commented that theNaqada and Badarian populations did not migrate "from somewhere else but were descendants of the long-term inhabitants of these portions of Africa going back many millennia".[93]
Multiple forms of genetic analysis have been conducted on the 18th dynasty royalAmarna mummies (including pharaohs Tutankhamun, Amenhotep III and Akhenaten) that were based in Thebes, Upper Egypt with conflicting set of results.[94][95]
Keita, Gourdine and Anselin performedSTR analysis on theTheban royal mummies, which derived from a 2010 genetic study performed byZahi Hawass and his team, to determine the population affinities. According to Gourdine (2025), this he analysis had found “that they had strong affinities with current sub-Saharan populations: 41 per cent to 93.9 per cent for sub-Saharan Africa, compared to 4.6 per cent to 41 per cent for Eurasia and 0.3 per cent to 16 per cent for Asia (Gourdine, 2018).”[96] Gourdine also referenced supporting analysis conducted by DNA Tribes company, which specialized in genetic genealogy and had large datasets, with the latter having identified strong affinities between the Amarna royal mummies and Sub-Saharan African populations.”[97]
Hawass and his team had produced another study in 2020 which identified haplogroup R1b and mtDNA K genetic markers in the Amarna royal mummies and interpreted this to show strong genetic affinities with European and West Asian populations.[98][99]
In another 2025 multidisciplinary review, noting the R1b M89 haplogroup subtype identified among the three Amarna pharaohs (Tutankhamun, Amenhotep III and Akhenaten) was not further specified.[100] The authors also stated that the R1b haplogroup usually interpreted as indicating a back migration to Africa from or via the Near East could have been attributed toAsian back migration ortrans-Saharan connections as the genetic marker is found at relative high frequencies amongChadic populations.[101] Referencing aShort Tandem Report (STR) autosomal background analysis on the Amarna royal mummies, performed by Keita in an earlier publication, the authors considered this analysis could suggest closer trans-Saharan connections.[102] Ehret et al also disclosed through personal communication with the Gad team that "other eighteenth dynasty lineages in the Amarna period were found to be E1b1a (Gad et al 2020)".[103] The authors further postulated that association of the palaeolithic Asian lineage (R1B) and an affiliation that is tropical African (E1b1a) is an example of admixture found in some Nile Valley populations, and that a mixture of lineages could illustrate Egypt being near a crossroads.[104]
Genetic analysis of a modern Upper Egyptian population in Adaima by Eric Crubézy had identified genetic markers common across Africa, with 71% of the cases carrying E1b1 haplogroup and 3% carrying the L0f mitochondrial haplogroup.[45] A secondary review published in 2025 noted the results were preliminary and need to be confirmed by other laboratories with new sequencing methods.[45]
Anthropologist Alain Anselin found the distribution of linguistic, archaeological data to be consistent with initial genetic findings on Upper Egyptian population inGurna which had a remnant of highM1 haplogroup and sub-Saharan affinities.[105] This has been interpreted to suggest that the current population structure of Egypt may be the result of neighbouring influences on the ancestral population.[106] Anselin also suggested that the combination of historical genetics and recent archaeological excavations in the Western Desert could contribute to the peopling of Egypt for which Saharan affinities had been identified in a previous, interdisciplinary review.[107]
Another 2004 mtDNA study featured the Gurna individuals samples, and clustered them together with theEthiopian andYemeni groups, in between the Near Eastern and other African sample groups.[108]
Compiled genetic publications have identified a high frequency ofE haplogroup subclades across Egypt, including among Egyptian Copts in Adaima, Upper Egypt and émigré Coptic communities in Sudan.[109] Other haplogroups with a notable occurrence in the Egyptian populations have included theJ andR haplogroups.[110] The E-M35 haplogroup subclade is found among allAfro-Asiatic speaking regions, with theM-78 clade now commonly thought to have arisen in either Sudan or Egypt.[111]
Upper Egypt is considered to have formed the pre-dominant basis for the cultural development of Pharaonic Egypt and the Proto-dynastic kings emerged from the Naqada region.[113][114] Several dynasties of southern or Upper Egyptian origin, which included the11th,12th,17th,18th and25th dynasties, reunified and reinvigorated pharaonic Egypt after periods of fragmentation.[115]
"The XIIth Dynasty (1991-1786 B.C.E.) originated from the Aswan region. As expected, strong Nubian features and dark coloring are seen in their sculpture and relief work. This dynasty ranks as among the greatest, whose fame far outlived its actual tenure on the throne."[116]
An assemblage of older scholarship have identified a common African substratum for early Egyptian cultural practices. Central African tool designs are featured in the Badarian and Naqada archaeological sites.[117] According to archaeologist,Charles Thurstan Shaw, "the early cultures of Merimde, Badari, Naqadi I and II are essentially African and early African social customs and religious beliefs were the root and foundation of Egyptian way of life."[118]
Qustul Incense Burner, excavated from a royal Nubian tomb inLake Nasser, considered among the earliest representations of the White Crown Hedjet in Upper Egypt.[119]
Archaeologist Bruce Williams has advanced the view that Nubians participated with the first dynastic counterparts in the development of the pharaonic civilization.[120] Williams also clarified in 1987 that his discovery of the Qutsul incense burner advanced no claim of a Nubian origin or genesis for the pharaonic monarchy but that excavations had shown Nubian linkages and contributions.[121] He maintained that detailed, archaeological evidence has found cemeteries of tombs situated inQustul, Nubia vastly greater and wealthier in size than theAbydos tombs of the first dynastic rulers.[122]
Excavations at Hierakonpolis (Upper Egypt) found archaeological evidence of ritual masks similar to those used further south of Egypt, and obsidian linked toEthiopian quarry sites.[123]Frank Yurco stated that depictions of pharonic iconography such as theroyal crowns,Horus falcons and victory scenes were concentrated in the Upper Egyptian Naqada culture andA-Group Lower Nubia.[124]
Anthropologist Joseph Vogel (1997) stated "The period when sub-Saharan Africa was most influential in Egypt was a time when neither Egypt, as we understand it culturally, nor the Sahara, as we understand it geographically, existed. Populations and cultures now found south of the desert roamed far to the north. The culture of Upper Egypt, which became dynastic Egyptian civilization, could fairly be called a Sudanese transplant."[125]
Similarly,Christopher Ehret, historian and linguist, stated that the cultural practice of sacral chiefship and kingship which emerged in Upper Egypt in the fourth millennium had originated centuries earlier in Nubia and the Middle Nile south of Egypt. He based this judgement on supporting,archaeological and comparativeethnographic evidence.[126] Ehret also reviewed the excavations from the neighbouringLower Nubia which demonstrated that “The Qustul elite and ruler in the second half of the fourth millennium participated together with their counterparts in the communities of the Naqada culture of southern Egypt in creating the emerging culture and paraphernalia of pharaonic culture”.[127] Ehret argued that archaeological data had presented cultural continuity between the Afian period andHolocene epoch, with existing populations of Upper Egypt incorporating new crops and food productions from the Levant without evidence of any notable population intrusions into that region during theseventh andsixth millennia.[128]
Anthropologist Alain Anselin cited recentarchaeological data compiled which had identified Tasian andBadarian Nile Valley sites as peripheral networks of earlier African cultures that featured the movement ofBadarian,Saharan,Nubian, andNilotic populations.[129] American archaeologist, Bruce Williams, has stated "The Tasian Period is significantly related to the Neolithic of Sudanese-Saharan tradition as found just north of Khartoum and near Dongola inSudan".[130][131]
Stan Hendrick,John Coleman Darnell and Maria Gatto in 2012 excavatedpetroglyphic engravings from Nag el-Hamdulab to the north ofAswan, in southern Egypt, which featured representations of a boat procession,solar symbolism and the earliest known depiction of theWhite Crown with an estimated dating range between 3200 BCE and 3100 BCE.[132]
Maria Gatto (2014) stated that archaeological research in theAswan area had identified cultural admixture in the boundary region of thefirst cataract of the Nile during the fourth millennium BCE.[133] According to Gatto, the advent of the Naqada culture lead to a divergence between Egyptian and Nubian identities.[134] This culture was later spread northwards in Egypt and southwards in Nubia. Prior to this period, earlier Egyptian cultures (Tarifian, Badarian and Tasian) in the southern region were strongly similar to Nubian and Nilotic pastoral traditions and the cultural substratum in Upper Egypt was Nubian mostly-related.[135]
In 2018, American anthropologistStuart Tyson Smith, reviewed evidence which indicated linkages between the Upper Egyptian region, the Sahara and the Sudanese Nubia.[136] He argued that the cultural features which characterised the Egyptian civilisation were "widely distributed in north-eastern Africa but not in western Asia" and this had earlier origins in the Saharan wet phase period.[137]
American Egyptologist, Frank Yurco, affirmed that "Egyptian writing arose in Naqadan Upper Egypt andA-Group Lower Nubia, and not in the Delta cultures, where the directWestern Asian contact was made, further vitiates the Mesopotamian-influence argument".[138]
Viktor Cerny's research team had identified close biological and linguistic links between the peoples of Upper Egypt, NorthCameroon (some of whom spokeChadic languages) and Ethiopia (some of whom spokeCushitic languages).[139]
Anthropologist Alain Anselin had issued a comparative review ofAfro-Asiatic language families which suggested earliest speakers of the Egyptian language could be located in regions south of Upper Egypt or the Saharan hinterland.[140] In his concluding passage, he found it plausible that early Upper Egyptian cultures were a crossroads forNorth Eastern African groups such as theBeja peoples.[141] From this interpretation, Anselin, found the most probable scenario that some Saharao-Nubian populations moved southwards to regions such as Darfur whilst others had migrated to Upper Egyptian territories such asBir Sahara, Nabta Playa,Gebel Ramlah, andNekhen/Hierakonpolis.[142] Anselin viewed this to hold wider significance forglottochronology andcultural anthropology.[143]
According to historical linguist, Christopher Ehret, thematerial cultural indicators of the Nabta Playa complex in Upper Egypt, correspond with the conclusion that the inhabitants of the wider Nabta Playa region were aNilo-Saharan-speaking population.[144]
The Cushitic language which is a sub-branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family was spoken in Lower Nubia, an ancient region which extends from Upper Egypt to Northern Sudan, before the arrival of North Eastern Sudanic languages in the Middle Nile Valley.[147][148][149][150]
^The title was first used byPrince Farouk, the son and heir ofKing Fouad I. Prince Farouk was officially named Prince of the Sa'id on 12 December 1933.[17]
^See list of nomes. Maten (Knife land) is the northernmost nome in Upper Egypt on the right bank, while Atef-Pehu (Northern Sycamore land) is the northernmost on the left bank.Brugsch, Heinrich Karl (2015).A History of Egypt under the Pharaohs. Vol. 1. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p. 487., originally published in 1876 in German.
^Brink, Edwin C. M. van den (1992). "The Nile Delta in Transition: 4th.-3rd. Millennium B.C."Proceedings of the Seminar Held in Cairo, 21.-24. October 1990, at the Netherlands Institute of Archaeology and Arabic Studies. E.C.M. van den Brink.ISBN978-965-221-015-9.
^Griffith, Francis Llewellyn, A Collection of Hieroglyphs: A Contribution to the History of Egyptian Writing, the Egypt Exploration Fund 1898, p. 56
^Zakrzewski, Sonia R. (April 2007)."Population continuity or population change: Formation of the ancient Egyptian state".American Journal of Physical Anthropology.132 (4):501–509.Bibcode:2007AJPA..132..501Z.doi:10.1002/ajpa.20569.PMID17295300.When Mahalanobis D2 was used, the Naqadan and Badarian Predynastic samples exhibited more similarity to Nubian, Tigrean, and some more southern series than to some mid- to late Dynasticseries from northern Egypt (Mukherjee et al., 1955). The Badarian have been found to be very similar to a Kerma sample (Kushite Sudanese), using both the Penrose statistic (Nutter, 1958) and DFA of males alone (Keita,1990). Furthermore, Keita considered that Badarian males had a southern modal phenotype, and that together with a Naqada sample, they formed a southern Egyptian cluster as tropical variants together with a sample from Kerma
^Mokhtar, Gamal, ed. (1981).Ancient Civilizations of Africa. UNESCO International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa; Heinemann Educational Books; University of California Press. pp. 20–21, 148.ISBN978-0-520-03913-1.The difference in behaviour between two populations of similar ethnic composition throws significant light on an apparently abnormal fact: one of them adopted and perhaps even invented, a system of writing, while the other, which was aware of that writing, disdained it
^"There is now a sufficient body of evidence from modern studies of skeletal remains to indicate that the ancient Egyptians, especially southern Egyptians, exhibited physical characteristics that are within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa. The distribution of population characteristics seems to follow a clinal pattern from south to north, which may be explained by natural selection as well as gene flow between neighboring populations. In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas.”Lovell, Nancy C. (1999). "Egyptians, physical anthropology of". InBard, Kathryn A.; Shubert, Steven Blake (eds.).Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. London: Routledge. pp. 328–331.ISBN0415185890.
^“The data clearly suggests that the population in southern Egypt became more diverse as the society more complex (Keita 1992). Egyptian society seems never to have been “closed”, and it is hard to believe that the modal phenotype could have remain unchanged, especially if social and sexual collection were operating. However, it is important to emphasize that, while the biology changed with increasing local social complexity, the ethnicity of Niloto-Saharo-Sudanese origins did not change. The cultural morays, ritual formulae, and symbols used in writing, as far as can be ascertained, remained true to their southern origins”.Keita, S. O. Y. (1993)."Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships".History in Africa.20:129–154.doi:10.2307/3171969.ISSN0361-5413.JSTOR3171969.S2CID162330365.
^p.85–“The physical anthropological findings from the major burial sites of those founding locales of ancient Egypt in the millennium BCE, notably El-Badari as well as Naqada, show no demographic indebtedness to the Levant. They reveal instead a population with cranial and dental features with closest parallels of those of other longtime populations of the surrounding areas of northeastern Africa, such as Nubia and the northern Horn of Africa. Members of this population did not come from somewhere else but were descendants of the long-term inhabitants of these portions of Africa going back many millennia.”Ehret, Christopher (20 June 2023).Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 83–86, 97,167–169.ISBN978-0-691-24409-9.Archived from the original on 22 March 2023. Retrieved20 March 2023.
^p.355 - “The importance of iconographic sources was emphasized in the main. Säve-Söderbergh and Leclant stressed that the links indicated by cave paintings between the vast expanses of the Sahara and the banks of the Nile nodded to a migration of peoples of the Sahara and groups from the South to the valley –something confirmed by research over the last thirty years. Diop set out to return Egypt to its southern African hinterland by systematically using Pharaonic statues and art to support his point of view. Although a debate on the north-south orientation of a ‘civilizing’ wave of peoples in the valley had prevailed up to that point, the avalanche of new data now made this idea redundant, suggesting instead the image of a growing and unifying political movement in the valley from south to north that repositioned its starting point back in time: in Upper Egypt, digs at the Uj tomb of King Scorpion at the Abydos necropolis push back the origin of the first Horus back to circa 3250 BCE, and the resumption of excavations at Nekhen led to the exhumation of the famous ‘Elephant Kings’ of Hierakonpolis (Nekhen) which have no inscriptions and date back even further to circa 3700 BCE.” p.356 - “It quantified the key impact of sub-Saharan populations and found a clear link between the Siwi and the peoples of North-East Africa. We could continue with work by Zakrzewski on the predynastic population of Nekhen, investigations by Crubezy which traced the boundaries of the ancient Khoisan settlement to Upper Egypt, where its faint traces remain identifiable, and Keita’s work, as the most groundbreaking.”' p.356 - “Hence the work by Cerny’s team highlighting the close links between the peoples of Upper Egypt, North Cameroon and Ethiopia – the Cameroon people living in the Mandara mountains speaking Chadic languages, and the Ethiopians speaking Kushitic languages, prior to Ge’ez being spread throughout the region during the Aksumite period. This broadens the linguistic debate to include language families that had been little studied or used in comparisons that have long focused on the East.”Anselin, Alain."Review of Ancient Civilizations of Africa: General History of Africa Volume II " in (General history of Africa, IX: General history of Africa revisited. pp. 355–75.
^Zakrzewski, Sonia R. (April 2007)."Population continuity or population change: Formation of the ancient Egyptian state".American Journal of Physical Anthropology.132 (4):501–509.Bibcode:2007AJPA..132..501Z.doi:10.1002/ajpa.20569.PMID17295300.When Mahalanobis D2 was used, the Naqadan and Badarian Predynastic samples exhibited more similarity to Nubian, Tigrean, and some more southern series than to some mid- to late Dynasticseries from northern Egypt (Mukherjee et al., 1955). The Badarian have been found to be very similar to a Kerma sample (Kushite Sudanese), using both the Penrose statistic (Nutter, 1958) and DFA of males alone (Keita,1990). Furthermore, Keita considered that Badarian males had a southern modal phenotype, and that together with a Naqada sample, they formed a southern Egyptian cluster as tropical variants together with a sample from Kerma
^Van de Mieroop, Marc (2021).A history of ancient Egypt (Second ed.). Chichester, West Sussex. p. 99.ISBN978-1119620877.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Lovell, Nancy C. (1999). "Egyptians, physical anthropology of". In Bard, Kathryn A.; Shubert, Steven Blake (eds.).Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. London: Routledge. pp. 328–331.ISBN0415185890.There is now a sufficient body of evidence from modern studies of skeletal remains to indicate that the ancient Egyptians, especially southern Egyptians, exhibited physical characteristics that are within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa. The distribution of population characteristics seems to follow a clinal pattern from south to north, which may be explained by natural selection as well as gene flow between neighboring populations. In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas
^Yurco, Frank (1996). "An Egyptological Review". InLefkowitz, Mary R.; Rogers, Guy MacLean (eds.).Black Athena Revisited. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. pp. 65–67.ISBN978-0-8078-4555-4.
^Godde, K. (July 2018). "A new analysis interpreting Nilotic relationships and peopling of the Nile Valley".Homo: Internationale Zeitschrift für die Vergleichende Forschung am Menschen.69 (4):147–157.doi:10.1016/j.jchb.2018.07.002.ISSN1618-1301.PMID30055809.S2CID51865039.
^Anselin, Alain (2011)."Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context: proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009. Oxford: Archaeopress. pp. 43–54.ISBN978-1-4073-0760-2.
^Anselin, Alain (2011)."Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context: proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009. Oxford: Archaeopress. pp. 43–54.ISBN978-1-4073-0760-2.
^Anselin, Alain (2011)."Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context: proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009. Oxford: Archaeopress. pp. 43–54.ISBN978-1-4073-0760-2.
^Davies, W. V. (1998).Egypt uncovered. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang. pp. 5–87.ISBN1556708181.
^Yurco, Frank J. (1996). "The Origin and Development of Ancient Nile Valley Writing". In Theodore Celenko (ed.).Egypt in Africa. Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art. pp. 34–35.ISBN0-936260-64-5.
^Encyclopedia of precolonial Africa: archaeology, history, languages, cultures, and environments. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press. 1997. pp. 465–472.ISBN0-7619-8902-1.
^Ehret, Christopher (20 June 2023).Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE. Princeton University Press. p. 141.ISBN978-0-691-24410-5.
^Ehret, Christopher (20 June 2023).Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE. Princeton University Press. p. 112-113.ISBN978-0-691-24410-5.
^Ehret, Christopher (20 June 2023).Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE. Princeton University Press. p. 97.ISBN978-0-691-24410-5.
^Anselin, Alain (2011)."Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context : proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009. Oxford: Archaeopress. pp. 43–54.ISBN978-1407307602.
^Williams, Bruce (1996)."The Qustul Incense Bruner and the Case for a Nubian Origin of Ancient Egyptian Kingship" In Egypt in Africa. Celenko, Theodore (ed.). Indianapolis, Ind.: Indianapolis Museum of Art. pp. 95–97.ISBN978-0936260648.
^Cultural Entanglement at the Dawn of the Egyptian History: A View From The Nile First Cataract Region; by Maria Carmela Gatto; 2014; published in Prehistory and Protohistory of Ancient Civilizations, from the Università Di Roma Dipartimento Di Scienze Dell'antichità – Museo Delle Origini;ISBN978-88-492-3024-6, at[1]
^Cultural Entanglement at the Dawn of the Egyptian History: A View From The Nile First Cataract Region; by Maria Carmela Gatto; 2014; published in Prehistory and Protohistory of Ancient Civilizations, from the Università Di Roma Dipartimento Di Scienze Dell'antichità – Museo Delle Origini;ISBN978-88-492-3024-6, at[2]
^Cultural Entanglement at the Dawn of the Egyptian History: A View From The Nile First Cataract Region; by Maria Carmela Gatto; 2014; published in Prehistory and Protohistory of Ancient Civilizations, from the Università Di Roma Dipartimento Di Scienze Dell'antichità – Museo Delle Origini;ISBN978-88-492-3024-6, at[3]
^Yurco, Frank J. (1996). "The Origin and Development of Ancient Nile Valley Writing". In Theodore Celenko (ed.).Egypt in Africa. Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art. pp. 34–35.ISBN0-936260-64-5.
^Anselin, Alain (2011)."Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context: proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009. Oxford: Archaeopress. pp. 43–54.ISBN978-1-4073-0760-2.
^Anselin, Alain (2011)."Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context: proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009. Oxford: Archaeopress. pp. 43–54.ISBN978-1-4073-0760-2.
^Anselin, Alain (2011)."Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context: proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009. Oxford: Archaeopress. pp. 43–54.ISBN978-1-4073-0760-2.
^Anselin, Alain (2011)."Some notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures" in Egypt in its African context: proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009. Oxford: Archaeopress. pp. 43–54.ISBN978-1-4073-0760-2.
^Rilly, Claude (2019)."Languages of Ancient Nubia".Handbook of Ancient Nubia. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.ISBN978-3-11-042038-8. Retrieved2019-11-20."Two Afro-Asiatic languages were present in antiquity in Nubia, namely Ancient Egyptian and Cushitic.
^Bechhaus-Gerst, Marianne (27 January 2006). "Linguistic evidence for the prehistory of livestock in Sudan". In Blench, Roger; MacDonald, Kevin (eds.).The Origins and Development of African Livestock: Archaeology, Genetics, Linguistics and Ethnography. Routledge. pp. 469–481.doi:10.4324/9780203984239-37 (inactive 1 July 2025).ISBN978-1-135-43416-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)
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Bard, Kathryn A.; Shubert, Steven Blake, eds. (1999).Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. London: Routledge.ISBN0-415-18589-0.
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Edel, Elmar (1961)Zu den Inschriften auf den Jahreszeitenreliefs der "Weltkammer" aus dem Sonnenheiligtum des Niuserre Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen,OCLC309958651, in German.
_ca._1919%25E2%2580%25931885_BCE._Egyptian_Museum%2c_Cairo%2c_JE_44951._Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art%2c_14.3.17.jpg)
