Due to fertile land and an abundance of prey, some farming communities settled on the banks of the Nile River during the Neolithic period. Egypt’s monumental remains of this period are not particularly available, but the few that remain provide a lot of information.
Most are descriptive paintings, many of which are carved in stone or ivory. On the top of a mace is carved a scene of the Scorpion, king of Upper Egypt, conquering the Scorpion and opening the canal. AD The remains recovered from the fourth and fifth millennium provide a lot of information about the lifestyle of those people before the dynastic rule.
Historians have divided this period into five stages and their last stage is called the Gargian period, which is the most important and from that, B.C. Throws light on the initial situation of the kingdom of Pharaoh, established in Egypt around 3100 BC.
The oldest inscriptions available in Egypt are on royal monuments and are inscribed to commemorate the beginning of kingship. Therefore, we can say that the art of writing began with the beginning of Egyptian history. An ivory knife with game scenes engraved on its hilt, found at Gavel-el-Arak, and several stone tablets engraved with images of human figures and animals have been found in Egypt.
Among the stone plaques, the ‘Hunters’ Plaque’ on which the scenes of lion hunting are depicted and the ‘Narmer Plaque’ on which the scenes of the king’s victory and the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt are depicted are particularly famous. Narmer, the Southern Egyptian king of the first dynasty (3100 BC), attacked Northern Egypt and unified the whole of Egypt. This important event is depicted on the plaque. This plate was used to keep makeup cosmetics. The king’s name is engraved in the upper parts between two heads of the goddess Hathor adorned with cow horns.
On one side, a king wearing a long white crown of Southern Egyptian style is depicted swinging a mace over a bowed prisoner, while in the lower part, slain enemy soldiers are shown spread out in a disorganized manner. The other side of the plaque shows the king, wearing a red crown in the Upper Egyptian style, inspecting slain enemy soldiers. In the lower part, the king is shown attacking the enemy forts under the symbol of the bull.
In the middle of the plaque, where makeup tools were kept, two imaginary creatures with long necks like snakes have been engraved, embracing each other. The above mentioned engravings throw a lot of light on the early Egyptian art. The figures are not scattered in a chaotic manner like the stone age cave paintings. They have been purposefully combined and grouped at their respective places.
All the engravings demonstrate exceptional skill. Artists have expressed their graphical dominance through the figures of animals and humans. The shapes have been depicted in a simplified and fixed form by making changes to suit the principles of objectivity and ornamentation.
Therefore, the Egyptian art of this period is clearly different and advanced in prehistoric art. The important thing about these carvings is that there seem to be some similarities between them and future Egyptian art, especially in the form of naturalistic shapes. The pictures in the engravings are of the nature of narrative depiction, whereas in later Egyptian art, emphasis has been laid on religious expression and classical form.
Apart from the above mentioned engravings, two remains of pre-dynastic painting have been found, one of which is the wall paintings of Hierakonpolis and the other is a piece of cloth found in Gebelin, which is considered to be the oldest cloth relic. We again see in these frescoes the style characteristics of the engravings of Gebel el Arak and the plaque of Narmer.
The figures in the foreground have been grouped and combined by meaning. To establish the shapes, a land line similar to the Narmer plaque has been used. These paintings of the earlier period of development of Egyptian art are important and interesting from the point of study.
