This still did not explain why territorial unification occurred. Theories that the concept was inspired from abroad – Babylonia and Nubia have both been suggested – are mostly rejected now (cf. Midant‐Reynes 2003 : 275–307), and scholars prefer to focus on indigenous forces. Many think that centers of production and exchange developed along the Nile Valley and that elites in them sought increased territorial powers to gain access to trade items and agricultural areas. When the zones of influence of neighboring centers started to intersect, conflict arose, which was settled through either war or alliances (Bard 1994 : 116–118). But Egypt was rich in resources and had a small population in late prehistoric times, so why would people have competed over them? The desire to control access to foreign goods is thus often seen as the trigger for state formation (Morris 2018 : 11–38). Non‐materialist motives also may have driven expansion. People who settled down became territorial and, like players in a Monopoly game, tried to expand their holdings. Thousands of such games took place along the Nile, and increasingly fewer players became more powerful until one triumphed (Kemp 2018 : 70–75). Conquest was not necessarily the main force of unification; peaceful arrangements (marriages, etc.) may have been more important (Midant‐Reynes 2003 : 377–380).
In recent years, the view that the valley was the primary locus of change has been under attack as the result of much more research in the desert, which was more fertile in the 4th millennium BC than it is now. Archaeologists have shown that there was extensive pastoral life there and that inhabitants of the valley wanted to control access to desert routes. Part of the evidence derives from rock art in the eastern desert (T. Wilkinson 2003 : 162–195); other evidence comes from the western desert oases (Riemer 2008 ). For centuries the pastoralists who moved around outside the valley were more active and wealthier than those who farmed. They developed a greater social hierarchy and an elite that controlled resources, and brought these concepts to the valley when forced to move there in the mid‐4th millennium because of a dryer climate. Ultimately, at the end of the millennium, it was such elites who unified the whole of Egypt – valley, Delta, and desert regions – into a vast territory with a bureaucracy to administer it (Wengrow 2006 ). The question still remains, however: why?
2.6 Foreign Relations
Egypt’s location on the junction of Africa and Asia made it natural that it was in contact with cultures on both continents, and the development of the Egyptian state had a great effect on neighboring regions. There are also indications that outside cultures may have triggered events in Egypt, but historians differ much in opinion on this question.
The Uruk culture of Babylonia
The 4th millennium was also a period of crucial change in Babylonia – the region of southern Iraq and western Iran – that culminated in the appearance of the state. In contrast to Egypt, the focus of the state in Babylonia was the city, and several city‐states existed side by side. But many characteristics of the ancient Egyptian state appeared in Babylonia as well, such as social stratification, monumental architecture, bureaucracies, and writing. The development in Babylonia seems to have been more gradual than in Egypt, and may have concluded slightly earlier, around 3200 rather than 3000. But the absolute dating of the archaeological data that underlies our reconstructions has such a margin of error that it is not a reliable means to determine precedence.
Fourth‐millennium Babylonia was dominated by the Uruk culture, which had a widespread regional impact from its core in the south of Iraq. By 3200, Uruk itself was a large city with many monumental buildings and a distinct culture that is visible in its material remains. One of the culture’s most remarkable features was its influence throughout western Asia, a phenomenon of the mid‐4th millennium we call the Uruk expansion. People living in the peripheries of southern Iraq – in Iran, northern Iraq and Syria, and southern Turkey – adopted elements of the Uruk culture to different degrees. Some people in northern Syria surrounded themselves fully with Uruk‐style goods, and many scholars think that they were colonists coming from southern Iraq. In other places, Uruk and local cultural features occur in varying proportions. Some elements of the Uruk culture, especially a type of container we call the Beveled Rim Bowl, appear over an enormous area from Pakistan to the Syrian coast, and historians assume that trade relations caused this widespread cultural influence. It is thus logical that the Uruk expansion may have reached Egypt as well.
In the art and architecture of late Predynastic Egypt appear several elements that have a strong Babylonian flavor. Their foreign origin is suggested by the fact that they existed only briefly in Egypt whereas in Babylonia they became part of the defining features of the culture. A common scene in the rich visual record of the period is the domination of animals by one or two men. The “master of animals” already appears in the wall painting of tomb 100 at Hierakonpolis of the Naqada II period, and in some examples of the image the men seem to wear distinctly Babylonian clothing. The motif soon disappeared from Egyptian art but flourished in later Babylonia. Similarly short‐lived in Egypt was the use of the cylinder seal, a small stone carved with a picture that becomes visible only when rolled on clay. The Egyptians used cylinder seals in the 3rd millennium only, whereas the Babylonians continued to produce large numbers of them for 3000 years. Also the use of mud‐brick niched façades in Predynastic and Early Dynastic tombs, and most likely palaces, resembles Babylonian architecture where mud‐brick construction dominated throughout its history. These elements have motivated many scholars to suggest a strong Babylonian influence on early Egypt. Some have credited Babylonians with inspiring Egyptian ideas of the state and writing even though these differed in nature from their Babylonian counterparts. But others point out how limited the Babylonian material is and that Babylonian practices do not necessarily predate Egyptian ones. They also stress that no evidence of the Uruk expansion appears in the region between northern Syria and Egypt, which would have been the natural passage from Babylonia to Egypt. It is interesting that no Egyptian or Egyptian‐style material occurs in Babylonia. Today scholars prefer to stress indigenous forces in the evolution of early Egypt and they see the Babylonian features as the result of intermittent trade contacts, which may have been across the Persian Gulf and Red Sea rather than overland via Syria.
Late 4th‐millennium Nubia
Late 4th‐millennium evidence from Nubia north of the 2nd cataract shows the development of a social hierarchy there. Some of the tombs excavated at the site of Qustul were much larger and richer than the surrounding ones and indicate the presence of specially honored people. In one tomb archaeologists found a fragmentary incense burner decorated with Egyptianized royal imagery: A man wearing the crown of Upper Egypt sits in a boat surmounted with a serekh. The scholar who published the tomb claimed that these distinctly royal elements predated evidence from Egypt and suggested that the idea of kingship originated in Nubia and then inspired Egypt. Later research showed, however, that the Qustul tomb was of the same date as the late Predynastic royal‐style tombs of Egypt. Because there is evidence of the processes that led to state formation in Egypt and not in Nubia, it is much more probable that Egyptian events influenced Nubia rather than the other way around.
Indeed, the rise of the Egyptian state had an impact on its immediate