Tarkhan (also Kafr Tarkhan) is an ancient Egyptian necropolis, located around south of Cairo on the west bank of the Nile. The cemetery was excavated in two seasons by Flinders Petrie. Tombs of almost all periods were found, but most importantly many belonging to the time of Egyptian state formation, the Naqada IIIA2-IIIB period (c. 3300-3150 BC). Petrie found more than 2,000 tombs, most of them simple holes in the ground belonging to common people. However, there were also several mastabas of the First Dynasty, decorated with a palace facade.
The most important finds include a tomb with many seal impressions belonging to king Narmer and the Tarkhan dress, the world's oldest piece of woven clothing. The cemeteries of the later periods are called Kafr Ammar, although lying side by side with the earlier tombs. From a Roman period tomb came a Fayum mummy portrait.
Archaeology The Tarkhan necropolis consists of tombs on a series of hills (designated A thru S) running north to south for about 1.5 kilometers and also in the associated valley (wadi). About 1300 graves were found on the hills and about 1100 in the valley. It was used heavily in the late 4th millennium BC and early 3rd millennium BC and then intermittently until the Roman period. Excavation in the valley was limited on the east by ground water and the excavator estimated the actual necropolis was two or three time larger than that excavated.Mawdsley, Lisa, "Provenanced and unprovenanced potmarks from Tarkhan", Cahiers Caribéens d’Egyptologie 11, pp. 19-36, 2008
The site was excavated "responding to reports of looting by local villagers" under the auspices of the British School of Archaeology in Egypt between 1911 and 1913 by W.M. Flinders Petrie, working with his wife Hilda Petrie and Gerald Avery Wainwright. T. E. Lawrence was a worker at the site in the first season of work. It is estimated that at least two thirds of the tombs have been looted at some point. W M. Flinders Petrie, G.A. Wainwright, B.A., A.H. Gardiner, D. Litt, "Tarkhan I and Memphis V", London, 1913 W.M. Flinders Petrie, "Tarkhan II", London, 1914 W.M. Flinders Petrie, "Heliopolis, Kafr Ammar and Shurafa, London, 1915Wilkinson, Toby AH, "Early Dynastic Egypt", Routledge, 2002 About 2000 Naqada IIIA period to the end of the First Dynasty tombs were excavated. Fourteen bovine graves were also excavated. Finds included a total of 282 First Dynasty potmarks.Mawdsley, L., "The Corpus of Potmarks from Tarkhan", British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and the Sudan, 13, pp. 197-219, 2009 Six cylindrical pottery jars (diagnostic of the Naqada III) with inscribed post-fired inked serekh symbols were found. One (UC16072) was ascribed to ruler Ka, one to Narmer (UC17291, not published and whereabouts unknown), two (UC16071 and UC16947) have been proposed as being of ruler Crocodile, one (UC 16086) is in dispute. The last (UC16085) has been ascribed to Narmer, Aha, and Djer though consensus has settled on Aha (Hor-Aha).Kaplony, P., "Eine Schminkpalette von König Skorpion aus Abu ‘Umûri", Orientalia 34, pp. 132-167, 1965Mawdsley, Lisa, and L. Mawdsley, "It really is Aha: Re-Examining an Early Dynastic Ink Inscription from Tarkhan", Egyptology in Australia and New Zealand, pp. 115-123, 2009 Many of the finds were sent to various museums with the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology being the primary destination. Half of the pottery, palettes and stone vessels went to the Cairo Museum where they were placed in the sale room and lost to science.Piacentini, P., "The Antiquities Path: from the Sale Room of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, through Dealers, to Private and Public Collections. A Work in Progress", Egyptian and Egyptological Documents, Archives. Libraries (EDAL IV), pp. 105-130, 2013/2014
Mastaba 2050
In the previously looted tomb Petrie found a "great pile of linen cloth". The tomb contained Naqada IIIC1 type stone vessels. Conservation of the linen in 1977 revealed the Tarkhan dress.Johnstone, Janet, "Lost and Found: The Rediscovery of the Tarkhan Dress", Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology: Characters and Collections, edited by Alice Stevenson, 1st ed., UCL Press, pp. 36–37, 2015 Originally, using conventional radiocarbon dating, it was dated to the late 3rd millennium BC. More recent AMS radiocarbon dating, on a very small sample, found a value of 4570±36 BP (calibration method not stated) which corresponds to a date of 3482–3102 BC, late 4th millennium BC. Stevenson, Alice, and W. Dee Michel, "Confirmation of the worlds oldest woven garment: The Tarkhan Dress", Antiquity Project Gallery 349, 2016
Tomb 412 Looted and superstructure lost (though thought to have had a mastaba because of the large open area around it). The mud plastered tomb chamber is sizable at 1.54 meters by 3.18 meters by 1.53 meters in depth, one of the largest at the site. The body was male and oriented to the South. Pottery dated the tomb to the Naqada IIIC1 period. Finds included two copper adzes, a copper bowl, and a small ivory/bone object marking this as a high status burial. One cylindrical pottery jar (UC 16086) had an ink inscription for which the reading is disputed with proposals ranging across the name of a king (possibly Ka), a tax stamp, and a product mark.Grajetzki, W., "Tarkhan, Tomb 412", Cahiers Caribéens d’Egyptologie 9, pp. 59-67, 2006Wilkinson, Toby, "State formation in Egypt: chronology and society", University of Lincoln, 1996
Tomb 414 Adjacent to Tomb 412 and also thought to have had a mastaba. Its construction is similar to Tomb 412 though it is brick lined. The tomb chamber was 1.67 meters by 3.55 meters by 1.8 meters in depth. The tomb contained a number of seal impression of ruler Narmer as well as a cylindrical pottery jar inscribed with that name. Grajetzki, Wolfram, "The architecture and the signification of the Tarkhan mastabas", Archéo-Nil 18.1, pp. 103-112, 2008Edqvist, Pia, "King Catfish and His Mud Seals", Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology: Characters and Collections, edited by Alice Stevenson, 1st ed., UCL Press, pp. 40–41, 2015 A cylinder seal was found in the tomb showing "the crocodile Sobek with two plumages on its back standing above a stand which is surrounded by other representations of crocodiles and coiled ropes".El-Sattar, I. A., & Ibrahim, O., "Philological Development of ‘šdἰ.t’ (Madinet el Fayoum) until the End of the Middle Kingdom", Abgadiyat, 8(1), pp. 22-27, 2013
Tomb 1060 (palace facade tomb) Tomb 1060 was a mastaba constructed of "crude" mud bricks on a low mud brick platform surrounded by a wall. It measured 34.04 meters by 15.62 meters for an area of about 539 square meters with an exterior palace facade with niches (about 9 on the long sides and about 4 on the short sides). It was originally covered with white plaster and traces of red paint remain. The area of the platform is unknown due to the edges being lost. There were 14 rooms on the level above the underground burial chamber, one above the chamber, 9 around that room, 1 at one short end, and 3 more at the other short end. The burial chamber itself had 2 false doors (painted red) on the north and on the south walls and had 4 side rooms (filled with sand) and all walls were white plastered.
Gallery
See also
List of ancient Egyptian sites, including sites of temples
References
Further reading Bommas, Martin, and Eman Khalifa, "Shallow bowls for mortuary meals from Tarkhan: archaeology of the path towards the intellectual formation of the state in Early Dynastic Egypt", Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo 74, pp. 21–32, 2019 Ellis, C., "A statistical analysis of the Protodynastic burials in the "Valley"cemetery of Kafr Tarkhan", in E. C.M. van den Brink, ed., The Nile Delta in Transition: 4th. - 3rd. Millennium B.C., Tel Aviv, pp. 241–258, 1992 Ellis, C., "Expression of social status: a statistical approach to the Late Predynastic/Early Dynastic cemeteries of Kafr Tarkhan", in L. Krzyzaniak, K. Kroeper and M. Kobusiewicz, eds, Interregional Contacts in the Later Prehistory of Northeastern Africa. Poznan Archaeological Museum, Poznan, pp. 151–164, 1996 Grajetzki, W., "Tarkhan: A Cemetery at the time of Egyptian State Formation", Golden House Publications, London, 2004 Wolfram Grajetzki, "The architecture and the signification of the Tarkhan mastabas", in Archeo-Nil 18, pp. 103–112, 2008 W. Grajetzki, "Tarkhan", in J. Picton, I. Pridden (editors): Unseen Images, Archive Photographs in the Petrie Museum, Volume I: Gurob, Sedment and Tarkhan, London, pp. 185–237, 2008, Janßen, U., "Gesellschaten im Wandel: Funerärer Aufwand und soziale Wirklichkeit im frühstaatlichen Mesopotamien und Ägypten anhand von Grabbefunden aus Ur and Kafr Tarkhan", Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2015 Mawdsley, Lisa, "Burying the dead with textiles at the Naqada III cemetery of Tarkhan", Dust, Demons and Pots. Studies in Honour of Colin A. Hope, hrsg. v. Warfe, Ashten R. (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 289), pp. 503–514, 2020 Mawdsley, Lisa Ann, and Linda Evans, "The foundation and development of Tarkhan during the Naqada IIIA2 period", Ancient Memphis 'Enduring is the Perfection', pp. 331 – 347, 2012 Mawdsley, Lisa, "Rediscovering Tarkhan", WAMCAES News, Western Australian Museum, 2012 Mawdsley, Lisa Ann, "Mortuary Practices and Social Relationships at the Naqada III Cemetery of Tarkhan in Egypt" Monash University, 2020 MacArthur, E. V., "The Pots and People of Tarkhan", Cahiers Caribéens d’Egyptologie, 13–14, pp. 73–98, 2010
External links Tarkhan page at University College London Tarkhan Dress: World's oldest known outfit was worn to an ancient Egyptian funeral 5,000 years ago - LiveScience - Kristina Killgrove -16 June 2025