Where Was Ancient Egypt Born?

Features September/October 2026

Archaeologists are reimagining a time before the first pharaohs
Fish figurine
Courtesy Robert Słaboński/Tell el-Farkha Expedition
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A two-foot-tall statue (left) and a one-foot-tall statue (right), each made of gold foil covering a wooden core, were found at the northern Egyptian site of Tell el-Farkha.

On a hot, humid day two decades ago, a team of Polish archaeologists was working in a village deep in northern Egypt’s Nile Delta at a site known as Tell el-Farkha, Arabic for “chicken hill.” A hush fell over the site. “It was completely quiet,” says Jagiellonian University archaeologist Marcin Czarnowicz. The a

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