Welcome to Ponda.org

The Predynastic online database, or Ponda for short, is a freely accessible, useful research tool dedicated to the Egyptian predynastic material culture, dating to of the fourth millenium BC.

The project aim is to publish extensive, currated corpora of artefacts. The objects are fully described, with special focus placed on linking them to the archaeological sites and/or contexts they come from, to their modern collecting and/or museum history, and to their publication history. References are listed chronologically instead of alphabetically in oder to better highlight the publication history of artefacts.

As a picture is worth a thousand words, images and drawings are included when available. This can include archival images, since they allow seeing modifications that happened to an object since its first publication – artefacts may have been lost, added to, mended, or conserved.

Each object is assigned a unique, permanent number, allowing for easy referencing to Ponda.org in publications. As research progresses, some artefacts are published in a large number of monographs, scientific articles, websites, digital catalogues, and so on. It is hoped that referring to Ponda.org will allow authors to  not necessarily include these often repetitive and lengthy lists of references.

Work in progress

C-ware vessels

Corpus of ca. 900 vessels (ca. 40% achieved)

Curated by Xavier Droux

Completed

Barbary sheep and ibex palettes

Corpus of 42 palettes

Curated by Xavier Droux

Work in progress

Boat models

Corpus of ca. 260 models (ca. 17% achieved)

Curated by Dorian Vanhulle

Completed

Bull head pendants

Corpus of 129 pendants

Published by Stan Hendrickx

Work in progress

Rhomboid palettes

Corpus of ca. 520 palettes (ca. 41% achieved)

Prepared by Stan Hendrickx

Coming soon

Frog-shaped zoomorphic vessels

 

Work in progress

Forged artefacts

Curated by all contributors

Coming soon

Decorated palettes

 

Coming soon

Tusks and tags

 

Prepared by Stan Hendrickx

Coming soon

D-ware vessels

Prepared by Xavier Droux

In Memoriam Stan Hendrickx (1954 – 2023)

Stan Hendrickx was a central figure in predynastic studies, who will be remembered by all for his passion, generosity, and kindness. We mourn his passing, at home in Belgium, as the year 2023 drew to a close.

It was always a pleasure to meet Stan at conferences, as much in lecture theatres, listening to his seminal presentations, as in the pub, debating over a beer or two on any topic you could think of. Many scholars – me included – benefited enormously from his advice and boundless knowledge during their studies and research.  He strongly believed in the necessity for data and information to be shared among colleagues, and he was always keen to give access to his vast lists of predynastic artefacts that he meticulously compiled over the years.

Writing articles with Stan was fascinating, and I am so glad I had the opportunity to experience it: he never failed to know the best and most interesting parallels to support his ideas, or what publication to cite, even the most obscure ones. And when all co-authors didn't agree with him on some detail or point of interpretation, he was happy to accept and acknowledge it.

Stan's work was so extensive that it cannot be easily summarised. It ranged from chronology – we owe him the Naqada phases chronology, used on ponda.org – to predynastic iconography and how to better understand its symbolic messages, to painstakingly compiling the annual Bibliography of the Prehistory and the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt and Northern Sudan that became its own comprehensive database hosted by the Institut français d'Archéologie orientale in Cairo. He was also active in the field, at el-Kab and Deir el-Bersha among other sites such as Hierakonpolis.

Stan was a keen supporter of the ponda.org platform since its creation, and we owe him the preparation of three corpora: bull head pendants, rhomboid palettes, and tusks and tags. The latter is yet to be created on the platform, while rhomboid palettes are still being processed and progressively made available; I will keep working on the mass of information that Stan wanted to share with all of you and cannot express enough how grateful I am for his selfless involvement.

Ma’a salama Stan, I will miss you.

 

What's in store for the future?

It will take us a little time to fully incorporate the C-ware vessels and boat models. The next steps will focus on technical enhancement of ponda.org with the development of additonal front-end interfaces.

The next corpus that will be published is that of D-ware vessels, which will include of 1800 vessels. As you can imagine, it is no small task finalise each and every entry, so bear with us while we prepare it for launch.

Another useful corpus that will be published is of a different nature: instead of focusing on a type of material, it will be dedicated to all the artefacts discovered by Petrie at Naqada during his 1895-1896 excavation, updating on the work of Elise Baumgartel and Joan Payne.

Disclaimer

  1. The inclusion of an artefact in this dataset is not evidence of its authenticity.
  2. Ponda.org does not claim any copyright ownership on any image made available, nor does it (or the authors of object notices) profit in any manner from them. Therefore, images should not be saved as a file, nor screen-printed. Should you wish to use an image for your own research and/or publication, please contact institutions and individuals holding copy rights, or refer to original publications. The source and copyright notice of each image is clearly stated. By accessing the database you agree to this policy.
  3. Ponda.org is meant as a research tool and we hope that the non-for-profit and scientific nature of the database will be widely regarded as consistent with fair usage of images. However, if you are an institution or copyright holder and would like to see images removed from ponda.org, please kindly email us.
  4. Ponda.org is - and will remain - an ongoing project that gets added to, modified, and corrected as time goes by. Please check the website regularly for the latest and up-to-date info.
  5. Hyperlinks to external websites appear in full on the detail view of the reference (for museum catalogues for examples), not within the refernce on the detail view of an artefact, in order to lighten these references and facilitate updating URL's as they get modified in future.