The Naqada period extends from about 4000 to 3100 bce, its last centuries (now labeled Naqada III b and III c) also being described as the protodynastic era. The terminology can be confusing, since you'll still see Petrie's century-old classifications of Amratian, Gerzean and Thinite appearing in some sources, corresponding to Naqada I, II, and III, but only roughly. It's frustrating, because it would be much more accessible if they would just give us the dates!

Female iconography is prominent, even predominant in this period, the 4th millennium bce. We see it in figurines of clay, ivory and stone, and in a variety of styles. It took me 50 years to assemble the photos you'll see in the visual talk (see Feb Livecast Recording entry in this same section for a link to the recorded version), and even now I am still digging to locate site names and dates for many of these figurines. This is some measure of the degree of obscuration that this Kemetic history has been subjected to.

For example, for the photo above, all the information I have is Naqada period (that's 900 years!), Louvre.

This figurine dates to 3450-3300, and is said to be limestone (I'm dubious about that because of the ceramic-like modeling of arms and breasts). She has green paint (malachite was widely used for cosmetics) around her eyes, and wears a bitumen coiffure. Her body is painted with many symbols, including the water patterns (seen in ceramic painting also) around her ankles, and animals on her back.

Her shape is one of several classic forms for archaic Egypt: a woman seated with heavy legs outstretched in a single shape, and leaning well back at an angle. Breasts are not emphasized, but hanging in a way that suggests she has nursed children (no signs of age) and with hands gesturing toward them, emphasizing her as life-giver. (The find context of most of the figurines is funerary, suggesting a theme of rebirth and regenerative power.)

The small icon above belongs to another kind, usually standing (although the hips are bent) and with upper body, breasts bare, painted red, the lower body clothed in white cloth. Again the entire lower body is depicted as a single mass. There is considerable overlap in all these styles, since this figurine has the vestigial arms common to so many, while other red-and-white painted figurines have their arms raised in invocation.

This one is quite similar in shape, though with arms raised, and the paint has survived much better. Her hat is rather unusual, and so are the round eyes. No site or date given.

The vulture-headed figures have become rather well-known, and inspired a series of silver pendants popular in the Women's Spirituality movement from about 1980 on. Many of them come from the Naqada site el-Ma'mariya. Most have their arms upraised in a curved shape that suggests the horns of cattle, or wings.

But not all of them, as this example shows.

Nor are all of them painted red and white. Some show the legs covered in a linen skirt and others, like this one, show the legs naked, closed in a single mass. The feet are painted black, unusually. These figurines appear to have been stood upright in ceremony, as some examples have been found placed in clean sand in burials.

Another figurine with upraised arms (very long ones) and body painted with symbols, including animals. May have also had a vulture head, according to pattern. Now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

This one is of the seated type, but with the red and white paint, and a vulture face, again with green-painted eyes. Now in Museo Egizio of Torino, Italy.

Then there are the ivory figurines, standing, with the female delta marked with punctillated patterns, and often with separate ears attached. Their eyes were often inlaid, as you see from the hollow sockets here.

Or the eyes are incised, like the vulvic pelt. This one is early, Naqada I, now in the British Museum.

Inlaid eyes, encrusted with some substance of the ages.

Ancestor eyes, inlaid discs of lapis lazulia, imported all the way from Afghanistan.

For more, see the video (be sure to watch before April 1, when it will be taken down.