ARCHAEOLOGICAL GEOCHEMISTRY OF HIERAKONPOLIS IN THE NILE VALLEY, EGYPT (GEOLOGY, NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS, SEDIMENTS, RARE EARTH ELEMENTS, TRACE)

Hierakonpolis is an important archaelogical site linked to the first pharaohs of Egypt and as such provides important clues to understanding the development of the first nation state. At Hierakonpolis, the Predynastic archaeological artifacts are found in different types of sediments. It is difficult to differentiate these sedimentary units in the field because of their great geological similarities. Another source of difficulty arises in deciphering the environmental factors which affected the predynastic and early dynastic settlements in the Nile floodplain. It has been proposed that the trace element distributions in the various Nile sediments are different and highly related to how the Nile valley evolved with time. Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) was used to measure the trace elements in the Nile sediments and in several different size and mineral fractions taken from these sediments. The results of the distributions of trace elements in these sediments indicate that the various Nile silt units do have small differences in composition which can be used as a chemical fingerprint.; Trace element analysis of Predynastic pottery from Hierakonpolis that the pottery, straw tempered wares and finer untempered plum red wares, were made from particular Nile silt units and not from earlier geological deposits found in the immediate vicinity of the kilns. Mineralogical and chemical compositions of the major types of ceramic styles show that the variation among styles of pottery reflects kiln conditions and the treatment of pottery before the firing of the clay, rather than the firing temperature of the clay.