Abstract:
On Prestige Goods, Order and Chaos. The Egyptian State and its Peripheries during the Early Dynastic Period (ca. 3000-2700 b.C) Throughout the Early Dynastic Period, the Egyptian State consolidates a double way of relationship with peripheral regions. On the one hand, such regions will be treated as providers of good required by the State elite and not available in the area under its direct dominion, a policy which prolongs a perception of peripheries that goes back to pre-State times. On the other hand, in coincidence with the stabilization of the idea of Egypt as a dual unity integrated by the Nile's valley and the delta, peripheries will be conceived as essentially negative realms, outside the cosmos guaranteed by the king and, therefore, potentially hostile to the Egyptian order, all of which justified the military and ritual attacks on them.