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Sealing Practice at Askut and the Nubian Fortresses: There has been a lively debate between Egyptologists and Syro-Palestinian archaeologists on the synchronism of Egyptian and Syro-Palestinian chronology in the Middle Bronze Age. Although absolute chronology dominates these discussions, the real significance of the debate lies not in providing absolute dates, but rather in gauging the nature and level of interaction between Egyptians and Syro-Palestinians in the Nile Delta during the Middle Kingdom, a process that eventually lead to Hyksos hegemony over the northern half of Egypt in the Second Intermediate Period. When did the Egyptian decline and rise of Hyksos power take place, at the end of the 12th or 13th Dynasty? In particular, Dever's high dates favor the former, and resonate with traditional Egyptological views of the 13th Dynasty as weak and ineffectual. Bietak's low chronology favors the latter, implying a much slower process culminating only at the end of the 13th Dynasty. Dever's arguments for a high chronology in Syro-Palestine and at Avaris ultimately rely on Ward and Tufnell's stylistic analysis of Egyptian scarabs, which in turn depends upon assumptions about the chronology of royal name scarabs and the large sealing assemblages at Kahun and Uronarti. This paper discusses the evidence for sealing use in Nubia, challenging Ward and Tufnell's chronological assumptions through a reassessment of the sealings' archaeological context. This evidence, combined with a synchronization of Egyptian, Middle Bronze Age, and Kerma ceramics at Tell ed-Daba, Askut, and Kerma, allows us to reassess the interaction of the Kerman and Hyksos states with the declining Egyptian empire at the end of the 13th Dynasty. |
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