If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. Emily Teeter, Research Associate at the Oriental Institute and Curator of the "Before the Pyramids: The Origins of Egyptian Civilization" exhibit at the OI gave this talk to Oriental Institute Members during a special preview of the exhibit. The exhibit runs through December 31, 2011. For more about becoming a member of the OI visit: http://oi.uchicago.edu/getinvolved/ This exhibit of artifacts from the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods (ca. 4000-2685 BC), documents the birth of the most fundamental aspects of ancient Egyptian civilization — architecture, hieroglyphic writing, a belief in the afterlife, and allegiance to a semi-divine king — more than 1,000 years before the pyramids were built. Joining the 140 objects from the permanent collection of the Oriental Institute are the Battlefield Palette and a statue of the Second Dynasty king Khasekhem, two masterworks of Egyptian art from the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford University.