Crossing boundaries between Egypt and Nubia. A rock art perspective

Archaeology and rock art studies conducted in the past twenty-five years deeply changed our perception of human occupation of the Lower Nile Valley during the Neolithic, Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods (c. 6000-2600 BC). The fundamental function played by the deserts as highways for goods and people, although demonstrated by archaeology in the recent past regarding both the Western and Eastern Desert, still needs further investigations from a socio-ecological perspective. As far as southern regions are concerned, Upper Egyptian and Lower Nubian communities shared common origins and cohabited for several centuries before entering into conflict by the time of the formation of the Egyptian State. The nature of this cohabitation, the often-suggested regionalisms regarding material and iconographic cultural manifestations, the use of strategic desert entry routes to the valley but also the discovery of archaeological structures belonging to exogenous people both in the Egyptian Nile Valley hinterland and the deserts, are all pending issues. Crossing data recently obtained by the Aswan-Kom Ombo Archaeological Project in Wadi Rasras - a highly engraved eastern desert route connecting Lower Nubia with Egypt - but also in the Sudanese Eastern Desert and in Egypt at Wadi Shatt el-Rigal and el-Hosh, this paper aims to demonstrate the potential of rock art as an archaeological source able to highlight the strong interculturality of the Lower Nile Valley prior/concomitantly to the formation of the Egyptian State and to inform about the evolution of its socio-ecology. Moreover, when considered inside its larger Nilotic context, which we would call Egypto-Nubian although these terms are to a certain extent meaningless when it comes to Prehistoric times, rock art is a major source to discuss the transformation of the socio-spatial landscape during these critical times for the whole region.