Implications of a Decorated Predynastic Terracotta Model for Saharan Neolithic Influence in the Nile Valley

Abstract

HIS article describes a uniquely decorated terracotta model from the collections of the Egyptian Department, Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) (figs. 1-5) and offers some thoughts on its possible meaning in the context of late prehistoric cultural developments in Egypt. The specimen (no. 9002.45) was acquired by the ROM in Luxor before 1910 and has not been previously published. Generally considered to be a house model, it could as easily represent a stable or a storehouse if, in fact, it has a real life counterpart.' Its painted and incised decorations are unique when compared with Predynastic ceramic or rock art of the Nile Valley, but they show some remarkable similarities with the rock art of the Western Desert of Egypt. The specimen is said to date to the Naqada II period of the Predynastic era according to the accession records. A thermoluminescence (TL) age-determination of between 4200 and 6400 B.P. was obtained on the model by the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Oxford (no. 481b570).2 The TL range is too broad to be useful in dating the model precisely, and both Naqada I and Naqada II assignments have been proposed.3