In 1898--1899, Sir Flinders Petrie excavated Predynastic, pharaonic, and Roman period cemeteries in the vicinity of Hu, Egypt, SE of Nag Hammadi. As few Predynastic settlements have been preserved and excavated in Egypt, fieldwork to locate settlements associated with Petrie's Predynastic cemeteries was conducted in 1989. The Egyptian Predynastic was a crucial period of social, political, and economic change, dating from approximately 4000 to 3000 B.C., in which complex society and the state evolved from simple village farming communities. As the Hu region had a major concentration of Predynastic burials, fieldwork there was aimed at a study of Predynastic settlements which would yield more specific data about major cultural changes than did the limited burial data recorded by Petrie.
Two Predynastic settlement sites were located at Abadiyeh and Semaineh. Much of the Abadiyeh site was previously cultivated, but the Semaineh site was undisturbed. Because of its proximity to a Nagada III cemetery, the Semaineh settlement is thought to date to this period, immediately preceding the founding of the First Dynasty. Very little settlement data exists for the Nagada III period, and it is hoped that future excavations at Semaineh will provide information for a better understanding of this poorly known period.