Early Dynastic Egypt
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of artefacts from Early Dynastic Egypt, dating from 3100 to 2686 BC. This collection contains slate bracelets, an earthenware model granary, ivory arrowheads, potsherds and stone bowl fragments inscribed with hieroglyphs. Its ceramics include painted pottery, coarse earthenware vessels with potters’ marks, and wine jars sealed with clay. Many of the objects in the collection were excavated by Flinders Petrie in graves at Tarkhan and in the royal tombs of the First Dynasty at Abydos, which contained the kings Ka, Djer, Djet, Anedjib, Qa’a and queen Merneith. This collection also notably shows how craftsmen of the period could shape stone without the aid of metal tools. This is illustrated by a bowl grinder of very hard crystalline rock and slate cosmetic palettes used for grinding galena or malachite to prepare eye paint. The First Dynasty of the kings of Egypt united Upper and Lower Egypt, two large political groupings of smaller states. During this period the Egyptian civilization emerged, and writing in the hieroglyphic script appeared for the first time.
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