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Egyptian Origins (6 Abridged)
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Naqada & Nekhen

Naqada (Egyptian: Nubt, "gold") and the nearby, much larger site of Nekhen, are located south of modern Luxor (slightly north of modern Edfu). The Naqada cemeteries cover a period of almost 1,500 years, and have given the name "Naqada" to nearly the whole post-Badarian millennium (4000-3100 BC) in Upper Egypt.

Throughout the Naqada period, archaeologists see a gradual change in the artifacts, and for convenience they have developed terms to describe styles and artifact inventories from the earlier and later parts of this long period. The following more or less complete sequence worked out for Nekhen seems to work for other Naqada-like sites as well:

Badarian period 5000 - 4000 BC
Naqada I (= Amratian period) 4000 - 3500
Naqada II (= Gerzean period) 3500 - 3100
Naqada III (= Protodynastic period) 3200 - 3100 (overlapping)
Early Dynastic (Archic period) 3100 - 2700
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