Black clay steatopygous figure
Provenance: Badari
Source: Petrie Musuem Website.

Red clay figure, slightly steatopygous.
Provenance: Badari
Source: Petrie Musuem Website.

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Male clay steatopygous figure, with traces of black paint.
Provenance: ?
Period : Predynastic ?
Source: Petrie Musuem Website.

Excavations from early pre-dynastic sites indicate an ancient human type. The early representational art depicts steatopygic females and males, a unique feature characteristic of one of Africa's oldest ethnic groups, sometimes refered to as Bushmen or Hottentots[1].
At our current state of knowledge, this early steatopygus element of the population was absorbed or integrated with waves of Nubian, Ethiopian, and Saharan migrants.
At our present state of knowledge, we really do not know what the function of these figures.

This document represents a king, embodied as the symbolic lion of kingship, sacrificing his oppositional parties. Two such men, are depicted bound to their
political provinces.  We can confirm these men's social importance by the fact that they have long beards.  All the men have strong African traits, fleshy noses, tightly curled afro hair, and rounded buttocks.

These figures are often described as "non-Egyptian." A foreign classification is incorrect, as we will see these men all closely resemble a Upper Egyptian phenotype preserved on the Narmer document. The Gazelle document is important because "now firmly established is the convention of showing hips and limbs in side-view and frontal eyes in a profile head that was to continue for centuries through Egyptian [and Nubian] art."
(ALDRED, C. Egypt to the end of the Old Kingdom. p.42)

We know this document symbolizes a political event, or perhaps the political milieu when the southern princes sought to curb political anarchy and unify the land. This document also functions on a spiritual level. This is evident because the king appears as a lion, which is symbolically feasting from the navel of one of his opponents. Here we can already see the complex esoteric and semiotic thoughts these most ancient Africans were already using with subtle mastery.