El-Omari was located in Lower Egypt, and is now currently located in the southern suburbs of Cairo (1). Through the search for the three villages of El-Omari many great outcomes were expected. Unfortunately, El-Omari has not been extensively excavated and only limited site reports have appeared (2). Two Frenchmen by the name of Bovier-Lapierre and Fernand Debano uncovered the evidence of the three villages of El-Omari in the 1920's and 40's. The recent Carbon 14 dating has established that the sites were occupied from 4000 BC and continued to be inhabited until the Archaic Period, Omari C being the later of the three (1). All of these sites where nearby and also in the mouth of the Wadi Hof. Their way of living was quite similar to that of the Merimde. Such as, Omari A covered a large area and yielded remains of over 100 circular and oval huts with sunken floors (1). Again like Merimde, Omari's houses were all well preserved with reed fences. This type of housing reflected the Omari living in smaller nuclear family units, which may have been self-contained.
The Omari had a way of farming similar to that of the Old Kingdom as well. The crops were harvested by threshing and the pure crop was later stored in muddy bins until consumption. The El-Omari also had a mortuary culture that was also similar to that of the Merimde in that the residents buried the dead within the village (1). This was done by placing the dead in round pits, before then they were placed in mats, animal skins, and different kinds of fabric. The way that the El-Omari lay their dead was very diverse from everyone else. The dead were laid out in a contracted position on their left sides with the head to the south and facing west, which was of course toward the traditional Dynastic "Realm of the Dead." (1) Many of the dead were buried with a very simple ornament. This was done to show some sort of authority; for example, one was buried with a clay box and another with a staff in his hand. More research and excavating needs to be done on the villages of El-Omari, so we can get a better understanding of the Old Kingdom in Lower Egypt.
