The following is a chronicle of predynastic and ancient Egyptian foreign contacts up through 343 BC. Prehistoric Nabta Playa (c. 7500 BC) In Nabta Playa by the end of the 6th millennium BC, prehistoric Egyptians had imported goats and sheep from Southwest Asia. Predynastic Badari (c. 4500-4000 BC) Foreign artifacts dating to the 5th millennium BC in the Badarian culture of Egypt indicate contact with distant Syria and Uruk. Predynastic Naqada, Gerzeh and Maadi (c. 4400–3100 BC) Predynastic Egyptians in the Naqada I period traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the western desert to the west, and the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean to the east. They also imported obsidian from Ethiopia to shape blades and other objects. Charcoal samples found in the tombs of Nekhen, which were dated to the Naqada I and II periods, have been identified as cedar from Lebanon. Evidence of Naqadan contacts include pottery and other artifacts from the Levant that have been found in ancient Egypt. Egyptian artifacts dating to this era have been found in Canaan and other regions of the Near East, including Tell Brak and Uruk and Susa in Mesopotamia. Lapis lazuli trade, in the form of beads, from its only known prehistoric source – Badakshan, in northeastern Afghanistan – reached ancient Gerzeh. By the first half of the 4th millennium BC, predynastic Egyptians in Maadi were importing pottery from Canaan. Early Dynastic (c. 3100–2575 BC) Evidence of Early Dynastic contacts are basically a continuation of the predynastic above with further extensions into Sudan. There are also some indications of contact with the Aegean and Crete in this period, but this evidence is weak. Narmer had Egyptian pottery produced in southern Canaan – with his name stamped on vessels – and then exported back to Egypt. Production sites included Arad, En Besor, Rafiah, and Tel Erani. An Egyptian colony that was stationed in southern Canaan dates to this same era. First Dynasty Egyptian pottery has been found in southern Canaan, some bearing the name of Narmer. Other reflections of ancient Near Eastern contact particularly include a design of a flint knife. Old Kingdom (before c. 2134 BC) Evidence of Old Kingdom trade (external map here) extends southward to Nubia (in modern Sudan and Ethiopia) and Punt (probably modern Ethiopia/Eritrea or the Eritreo-Sudanese borderlands, possibly Somalia), eastward to the Near East (Byblos and Ebla, Syria), northward to the Aegean