Investigating the Nile Delta’s First Settlements: Excavations at Tell el-Samara 2016-2019استقصاء للمستوطنات الأولى في دلتا النيل: أعمال التنقيب في تلّ السمارة ٢٠١٦-٢٠١٩

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the first results from the archaeological fieldwork ­conducted at Tell el-Samara by a joint IFAO and Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities mission. Located in the eastern Nile Delta, Tell el-Samara was a settlement inhabited from the late 5h millennium BCE to the end of the Early Dynastic period. The renewed archaeological investigations on the tell have uncovered the remains of one of the most ancient villages known so far in Egypt—providing detailed insights into the onset of Neolithic economy and sedentary village life in Lower Egypt. They have also revealed a continuous occupation sequence from the Neolithic period to the advent of the 1st Dynasty, which provides relevant data on the emergence and further development of a regional culture in the Nile Delta prior to the rise of a monarchy and the political unification of Egypt at the turn of the fourth and 3rd millennium BCE.