Predynastic Egypt
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Predynastic Egypt covers the period from about 4400 to 3100 BCE, before the unification of the two lands under the first pharaohs, and it saw the villages of the Nile grow into the society that would make the Egyptian state. The culture is divided into the Badarian and the Naqada I, II and III, named after cemeteries at Badari and Naqada where thousands of graves were found. Farming communities grew emmer wheat and barley, kept cattle and fished the Nile, and the delta's reed boats carried goods up and down the river. Craftsmen polished stone vessels to a mirror finish, wove linen, and made the painted pottery called Naqada ware, decorated with boats, animals and geometric patterns. Trade reached the Red Sea for shells and the desert for carnelian and copper. The cemeteries show growing differences between rich and poor graves, and the largest tombs of the late period, such as those at Abydos, anticipate the royal burials of the dynastic age. Writing appears in the last centuries, first as labels on jars, and the icons that follow develop into hieroglyphs. The cemeteries give the whole sequence its names, and their goods were the first evidence that Egypt had a long history before the pharaohs.