Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" in

Ancient Egypt

MANFRED BIETAK

A shorter version of this paper was presented during the International Congress on
Egyptology, Cairo, January 5-9, 1975, organized by the Egyptian Antiquities Organization,
the University Museum of Pennsylvania and the American Research Center in Egypt. The
revised version of this manuscript was finished during January 1977. During printing important
papers with archaeological viewpoints by B. J. Kemp on this subject have been published in
Antiquity 5 (1977): 185-200 ("The early development of towns in Egypt") and World Archaeology,
Vol. 9, No.2 (October 1977): 123-139 ("The city of Amarna as a source for the study of urban
society in ancient Egypt"). They are not discussed here, but are recommended very much for
further reading. B. J. Kemp concludes that ancient Egypt was an urbanized society from the
beginning of the Old Kingdom and tha~ Egyptology might benefit from the continuing general
debate on the dynamics of urbanism. Surviving inscriptions seem to offer only little for the
reconstruction of society, especially at the dawn of Egyptian civilization.

Introduction

The discussion of urbanization and of towns in antiquity is in fashion

today.l Several recent conferences have been devoted to that subject.
Curiously enough, Egypt, one ofthe oldest and most important civilizations,
is not often represented in such programs even though, from the view of
culture history, ancient Egypt had an urban civilization.
This neglect of Egypt in the general study of urban culture is understand-
able, however, if we remember that while archaeological investigations in
the ancient Near East have concentrated primarily on townsites, in Egypt,
temple sites and cemeteries have been chosen as objects of excavation and
study because they yield more museum objects and, with their imposing
architecture and representations of fine arts, are far more likely to impress
the trustees of institutions than the decayed mudbrick architecture of town-
sites with their tons of potsherds. Also, the difficulties of excavation tech-
niques have remained a reason for avoiding settlements and towns.
It is no wonder that the present state of studies of ancient Egyptian civili-
zation is enormously one-sided. We must admit to ourselves that there are
large gaps in our knowledge of the material culture of Egypt. We are obliged
to put forward a question: what do we know about ancient Egyptian towns
and settlements apart from details of their architecture?

97
98 Manfred Bietak
The best-studied site is Tell al-Amarna, which attracts methodological
caution of being perhaps not a typical Egyptian town. Older, bigger projects,
such as those in Hermopolis and in Memphis, have concentrated mainly on
the temple areas. Some other more recent projects, like Abydos, Hierakon-
polis, Mendes, Tanis, and Tell al-Dabca, have been stopped because of the
Middle East crisis (some of these have recently been resumed); Elephantine
continues in a systematic fashion. Relatively well explored are the big for-
tresses in Nubia, although it is questionable whether they can really be con-
sidered towns because of their uniform military layout.
Even today, no townsite has been completely unearthed. Therefore, the
literature about Egyptian settlement, urban architecture, and life has had to
refer to indirect sources, such as representations of buildings in reliefs or in
models, or descriptions in written evidence. 2 Important supplementary
observations of details of ancient Egyptian towns could be made with s\U'-
J/eys and topographical investigations.
Since urban archaeology can still be considered to be in an elementary
state in Egypt, my remarks can be considered only as introductory.
The Literary Thesis
Before beginning a survey of Egyptian towns, we must first rid ourselves of
conventional ideas about occidental towns. Statistical definitions concern-
i~g population density are probably not relevant to ancient Egypt; neither
are :g)Jf theories of towns as bearers of civilization and as political units,
as we are accustomed to them from Hellenic sources. 3
. As a warning against methodological error, we might refer to conditions
in medieval Europe, where the centers of culture and power were not the
to~ns but, according to the feudal structure of that time, the courts of the
princes and nobility and the monasteries. Only in later medieval times, in
connection with important changes in the social structure (the emergence of
patriciates, guilds, private trade, money), did towns gain political and
cultural importance.
If it is therefore inadvisable to use our usual concept of towns when
dealing with ancient Egyptian settlements, should we not altogether
abandon distinctions between towns, villages, and other kinds of settle-
ments?
If we survey the different ancient Egyptian designations for settlements,
we will realize, as M. Atzler recently noted for the Old Kingdom,4 that there
are no specific words that differentiate between towns and other settlements.
The classification of settlements seems to have been based upon another
kind of distinction .
There are basically two ideograms of walled settlements to be noted:
Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" 99
Qh wt and 0 njwt. The latter represents a settlement of round form, surrounded
by a wall, the interior of which is usually acknowledged to be an extremely
simplified sign of street order. Indeed, at Hierakonpolis and Elkab, remains
of such round settlements are known, although their interiors are largely
unexplored.
Ii wt, on the other hand, depicts a rectangular installation surrounded by a
wall. In one of the lower comers an entrance door is visible. One is im-
mediately reminded of the funerary fortresses at Shunet al-Zibib, at
Hierakonpolis, and at Saqqara, which are models of predynastic and archaic
royal castles, intended as offerings near the royal tomb. Indeed, the designa-
tion hwt is used in lists of the funerary domains only for royal foundations,
while private domains always show the njwt ideogram. Atzler concludes that
the hwwt were centres of the royal administration throughout the country,
originating perhaps in royal strongholds, which housed the king on his
tours to exercise his sovereignty and collect taxes. During the Old Kingdom,
the hwwt were the economic and administrative centers of the crown. They
were combined under the hwwt wt. The normal settlements, with the round
C
;
ideogram only (the njwwt), were controlled from the hwwt insofar as they
were not exempted by decrees from taxes.
No distinction, however, is apparent in the size of settlements, whether
they were towns, villages, or single installations. The designation 0 as
a category covered all kinds of settlements, including even the Qas a special
type.
Aztler argues, therefore, that Egypt, at least during the Old Kingdom, had
no towns, no "town problem," and no distinction of settlements based on
size. The distinctions noted above were all that were necessary according to
the structure of the Old Kingdom. Settlements were not powers in their own
right, but only seats and instruments of power. They were not political
centers and did not have the individual importance of active towns in the
Western sense (e.g., the Greek polis).
Egyptian distinctions between settlements, designations which seem to
correspond to our "metropolis," "town," and "village," appear later:
metropolis, the old njwt (e.g., njwt-rsjt, "the Southern Town" = Thebes);
town, dmj; and village, whjt.' But even these specifications were not used
regularly according to any assumed limitation of size. For example, in the
Onomasticon Amenemope (from the Twenty- FirstDynasty) among the lists
of towns (dmjt, no. 313ff.), we also find several settlements that had neither
urb~n . nor village ch~racter, as, for example, no. 317~ 0 ~qq olinj, Gebel
al-Sllslla, a place whIch had topographic and cult importance but with no
room for a settlement between the river and the bulging rocks. The list of
dmjw seems to include places with shrines and sanctuaries of importance that
were often but not always situated in towns. Under the list of dmjw we also
100 Manfred Bietak
find a settlement called a village (no. 387): T3-whjt-n-Jrjst. Other places in
this list were names of districts or even of waters (no. 418, P; -!wjj).
Because of these and other reasons, some prominent Egyptologists who
have investigated the character of ancient Egyptian settlements from the
philological evidence have come to the conclusion that ancient Egyptian
civilization lacked cities and urban life in our sense of those terms, even in
the New Kingdom.6 So-called cities like Thebes consisted of temples, around
which were clustered a concentration of settlements (priests, administration,
and stores). The processional streets reflected the connection between the
cultic centers and influenced the settlement pattern. There were, of course,
the royal palace, administrative quarters, garrisons, and workmen's camps,
but in the vast area between them, houses were sparsely distributed in what
would seem a rural settlement pattern.7 In some respects, one feels sup-
ported in this belief by the archaeological results at Tell al-Amarna, where
the huge mansions of courtiers and first settlers have the character of coun-
try estates of the noble classes.
In short, according to philological evidence, ancient Egyptian civilization
seems to have lacked towns in our sense. We must now examine how things
look from the archaeological point of view, insofar as the material and
excavation results permit us to study them.
The Archaeological Antithesis
First of all, one must look at the setting, at the kinds of sites that the
different settlements had in ancient Egypt, and at their functions. The possi-
bilities of locating settlements were limited because of the annual inunda-
tion. Building ground had to be situated above the flood level, and that is
most probably the reason why late predynastic and early dynastic (First
Dynasty) sites, even cemeteries, can be found in the Delta only on relatively
high geostratigraphic positions on turtlebacks, which rose over six meters
above the flood plain. (The general flood level was higher during that period,
because of an East African subpluvial,8 than during the later periods of
Egyptian history.)
The turtlebacks, Arabic gezirat, are late Pleistocene sedimentation relics
formed by the later Nile system. They protruded from the flood plain and,
during the annual inundations, formed islands that are very likely the origin
of the popular myth of the primeval mound in ancient Egypt, a mound that
emerged from the primeval flood and on whose top all beings developed.
The gezira settlement was the most important type of settlement in the
Nile Delta, where the numerous turtlebacks created the appropriate locales.
But geziras also existed in Upper Egypt, not sandy mounds as in the Delta,
but, for example at Edfu, in the form of a sandstone ridge above the flood
Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" 101
plain near the river Nile, which serves as a primeval mound with ideal
opportunities for the development of an important settlement (town).
In the mythology concerning the origin of the temple at Edfu, this
ancient natural feature was retained in memory as the primeval island on
which the reed hut (primeval temple) for the god Horus had been built and
enclosed with a reed fence as protection against the chthonic snakes. An-
other gezira settlement in Upper Egypt was Elephantine, situated on a real
island.9
The growth of gezira settlements was limited by the area ofthe turtleback
or island on which they started to develop. Further enlargements were pos-
sible only by settling on the next mound in the vicinity. Therefore, especially
in the Delta, we find double or multiple sites.
Cemeteries developed in the Delta where no desert rim was available, and
also at many sites in Upper Egypt (e.g., Elephantine, Edfu, Abydos, and
MemphislO) in the immediate vicinity of the settlement, sometimes on the
same mound (e.g., Mendes, Tell Basta, Tell al-DabCa). The development
of the tomb with a house-like superstructure thus has an easily understand-
able background: beneath the settlement of the living was situated the
settlement of the dead, in direct, familiar contact. From the scanty evidence
we have, and especially if we take the Giza Necropolis (which did not belong
to a normal type of settlement) into consideration, we may gather that the
"settlements of the dead" with their mastaba superstructures reflected the
hierarchical structure of society and the settlements of the living in the Old
Kingdom: kings, queens, princes, princesses, royal relatives, and high
officials buried in larger tombs; lower officials and the lower classes buried
without superstructures and, after one or two generations, forgotten.
The construction of the mastaba adjacent to the settlements can also be
found during the Old Kingdom in Upper Egypt, most clearly at Edfu, where
mastabas of the Fifth Dynasty were situated just outside the town wall ofthe
same period. In the Delta this custom can be observed until the Late Period
(c.g., at Bubastis and Nebeshe). Very often, however, the cemeteries were
on nearby mounds in the vicinity of the settlement (e.g., Horbeit-Abu Yasin,
Pisopdu-al-Suwa, Tanis-Gezira Ziwilin, etc.).
In addition to turtlebacks and other kinds of mounds, the levees of the
river and its branches offered excellent building ground immediately ad-
jacent to the best means of communication, the river. The tops of the levees,
when artificially heightened by dump material,l! were dry throughout the
year and outside the range of the flood. The levee settlement was especially
important in Upper Egypt, where the river had created enormous sedimen-
tation ridges along its banks. When the river had the tendency to alter its
bed, as at bends when it moved toward the outer side, one of the levees might
grow to considerable width (e.g., at Thebes).
102 Manfred Bietak
In the Delta, however, the most important sites lay on turtlebacks in the
immediate vicinity of the main branches of the Nile, because only this
situation allowed the development of centers for the outlying districts.
Settlements distant from the main branches could exist only on an agricul-
tural basis and depended for trade upon these settlements on the traffic
routes.
The most important sites in the Delta lay not only near a main branch of
the river on a spacious gezira but also at points of junction. We find many of
the nome capitals along ancient land routes across the Delta, where these
roads meet main waterways: Herakleuspolis mikra (Tell Bileim), Tanis,
Mendes, Baqliya, Sebennytos, Abusir (at some distance south), and Sais,
all along a line of about 30° 57'-58'. In Roman times, this landroad through
the Delta was replaced by the "Butic River."1 2 Other important sitesdevel-
oped at junctions on the land routes from the desert, especially from Asia,
on the first main branch of the Nile: Pelusion, Herakleuspolis mikra, Pira-
messe, Bubastis, Tell al-Yahudiya, Heliopolis.
These examples, which could be augmented by numerous others, illus-
trate that, from the purely geographic point of view, there were very different
individual situations for the function and potentialities of development of
settlements in ancient Egypt: there were many places whose geographical
settings were better suited to serve as trade centers or staple markets; others
had strategic importance; some settlements controlled traffic coming from
and going to foreign countries. The hinterland seems very often to have been
important for the economy and the character of the settlements. We shall
see later that, for special kinds of settlements (temple settlements, pyramid
towns), the hinterland was split up into domains all over the country. We
have already seen from archaeological sources that there was a very struc-
tured hierarchic pattern of population.
All these components, in addition to the knowledge of writing and the
high standard of administration, may have been important factors in the
development of urbanism . One may assume that traffic crossroads, tr:-tde
centers, and staple markets of nomes or districts were a stimulus to the
concentration of population. Also, the agglomeration of inhabitants was
often necessary because of the limited size of the mound in the floodplain,
especially in favorable traffic situations. It may also have been necessary
for security reasons, leading to the construction of defensive walls. 13
An archaeological investigation of how we can locate urbanism in Egypt
and identify the characteristics of ancient Egyptian towns, incomplete as the
sources are at present, must start with definitions of what a town is and with
comparisons with our traditional views of urban life. This means that the
archaeologist is obliged to start with the vocabulary and the definitions of
his mother tongue and not with those of the civilization under study.
Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" 103
Qualities of a Town
The following definitions of ancient towns are to be considered as kinds
of working hypotheses, combining the most essential traditional qualifica-
tions with the results of experience we have already gained from the ancient
Near East. I 4 We shall see how far they can be used when discussing Egyptian
sites. "
1. Highly concentrated settlement of some size, although modern num-
bers of inhabitants (more than 2.000) and size are not applicable for anti-
quity. It also should be mentioned that the pre-industrial figures of density
(more than 500 inhabitants per square kilometer) are "m atched by modern
rural communities in Egypt. For ancient Egypt, exact definitions according
to size and population can be made only after more experience in town
excavations. 15 Townsites in ancient Egypt, like European medieval towns,
ranged between 15,000 and 3,000,000 square meters (from about four to
700 acres).
2. Compact form of the settlement (see below, no. 9).
3. Differentiated internal pattern of settlement: religious, administrative,
industrial, and varied living quarters representing different classes of people.
4. Center of a district in aliministration, commerce, jurisdiction, and
traffic.
5. Not a farming community, although a part of its population may be
agriculturalists. The difference between town and village is the special func-
tion of the town, as opposed to the agricultural background of the village.
6. Concentration of industries, crafts, goods, and stores.
7. Partition in labor, professions, and social hierarchy.
8. A town may be a religious center. In ancient Egypt it generally had
cult installations.
9. Sometimes, at some places, the town was a center of refuge and de-
fense. The town wall has a distinct importance in the pictographic represen-
tations of towns in ancient Egypt; and, as excavations at pyramid towns and
at Elephantine, Edfu, Hierakonpolis, and Abydos have shown, the wall
remained an important element of the town in the Old and Middle Kingdoms.
Even workmen's settlements like Deir al-Medineh (New Kingdom) were
surrounded by a wall.
Not all these qualifications are applicable to every town. Some of the
above-mentioned qualities may be so dominant in some towns that the other
qualities are not represented or are represented in another way, as we might
expect. But these characteristics remain to be demonstrated and stressed
within the study in order to learn the typical pattern and the individual
pecularity of Egyptian urbanism in comparison with other civilizations.
104 Manfred Bietak
For example, a special kind of town is the pyramid town, which, of course,
is not a center of commerce or traffic, and which is limited in size and popula-
tion. The pyramid town was originally not a town in the strict sense (see
below). In the Late Period, Naukratis was a town with special trading
functions for the foreign Greek community and was not a center of ad-
ministration for a certain district.
Kinds of Towns
We may distinguish between:
1. Towns that developed naturally or "organically," generally with tra-
ditional cult centers;
2. Artificially planned and constructed towns such as the capitals Amar-
na, Piramesse, perhaps Itj-t; wj, and possibly even Memphis originally.
This latter example shows that a town may originally be a planned com-
plex but develops into an "organic" type with the renewal of the original
parts; or that, as is the case with Piramesse, a planned construction can be
established on the site of an already existing town of irregular pattern.
Also, pyramid towns were generally built under the supervision of a single
planning body.
According to the sites we may distinguish: 16
1. Gezira-towns: the building ground was a turtleback (late Pleistocene
sedimentation relic, formed by the later Nile system) remaining outside the
effect of the annual flood.
2. Levee-towns: towns developing on the top of high levee-banks which,
especially when artificially heightened by debris (Herodotus II, 137-
38) and annual mud deposits, were perennially dry building grounds. Levee-
settlements generally had a long and narrow form, bordering the river.
We should also refer to:
3. Tell-towns: on mounds created by the deposition of disintegrated mud
brick and other material but developed originally on geziras or levees. By
and by, the original kernel was concealed, and the building ground became
better protected from flooding and moisture. Therefore, every gezira or
levee-townsite with several strata is also a tell-town; conversely, however,
it may sometimes be difficult to say if a tell originated from a turtleback or
a levee.
4. Settlements at the rim of the desert: large settlements developed as
shelters during the flood at the first terrace of the desert rim when the river
was near (Merimde, Kom Abu Billu), or as special townsites for workmen,
Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" 105
craftsmen, officials, and priests, such as pyramid towns. The vast site of
Amarna, which had nearly no restriction on building space, is situated at
the desert rim.
All other classifications refer to the dominating functions of a town: res-
idence of the court; capital of Egypt, of a nome, or of a district; religious or
traditional centers (temple towns); frontier towns (defensive or offensive
centers); harbor towns (for trading purposes or as naval bases); trading
centers at junctions of waterways and land roads; industrial centers (pottery,
metal, textiles, etc.); and others. Usually, towns combined several of these
functions and sometimes became specialized later, when they lost other
functions but, for example, retained their religious importance. The spe-
cialization of towns in ancient Egypt generally seems to have been limited in
comparison with modern times.
Excavations of T ownsites in Egypt
Many general features and details of a civilization can be known only if we
have an initimate knowledge of its towns and their associated finds. As stated
above, we still do not know much about this aspect of Egyptian civilization.
In order to find the origins and differentiated features of a culture, the study
of its towns and settlements by archaeological means is essential. The pheno-
menon of urbanization is often closely linked to the rise of civilization (urban
culture), but the material for this topic (covering such questions as the fac-
tors that exactly caused urbanism, centralized administration and economy,
concentration of settlement, and the invention of writing in a relatively short
period) is very meager in Egypt.
Until a short time ago, when dealing with Egyptian town architecture we
depended only on the sites ofKahun and Amarna, and limited excavations at
Edfu, Hierakonpolis, el-Kab, Abydos, Hermopolis, Abu Ghalib, and a
few other sites and settlement remains at or in Nubian fortresses. Generally,
architects, when dealing with house architecture, were compelled to use
representations of houses, palaces, and town parts in tomb paintings, temple
reliefs, or models (ranging from small examples in wood or clay to monu-
mental models like those in the Djoser complex at Saqqara) as primary
sources of study.
An approach toward a more regular pattern of settlement with rows of
huts along something like a road can be seen even in prehistoric settlements
like Merimde. 17 Rectangular house construction as we know it from
occasional finds at Ma cadi/ 8 Mahasna,19 and from a model from al-Amra,20
seem to have been even more favorable for a rectangular settlement pattern.
We are, however, still compelled to guess at how the transition from rural vil-
106 Manfred Bietak
;--;:
lage commumtles to urban communities took place in Egypt. In Syria, I i ,.
Palestine, and Mesopotamia, more evidence is available. 21 ! ! '
The stimulus for urbanization seems to have arisen from the coinciding of :: I

I '
several factors . The possibility of having surplus food from the fertile
alluvial land freed people from food production for other purposes. This , I
I ~
resulted in the possibility of trading with the surplus in order to obtain
things in exchange that are not available locally. The neighborhood of . i
I
Egypt is rich in goods that the Egyptians desired: copper, gold, ebony, ivory, i
ointments, special kinds of wood. We should also mention the experience V
of exchanging imported goods from one country with other imports for prof-
it, and the desire to increase the food surplus by steady progress in techniques
of artificial irrigation . All this required a centralized organization, division
of labor and supervision, concentration of people and goods, a means of
counting and noting down stores, the activities, and the laborers engaged.
The annual flood also led to the introduction of a calendar, and to the
necessary labor to control the water and to protect the settlements with
dykes. All this necessarily led to the formation of well-organized communi-
ties with hierarchical structures, and finally , to-urbanization. In Egypt, how-
ever, it is enormously important to follow up this development toward the
rise of this civilization by excavations of appropriate settlements and town-
sites. Our knowledge of Early Dynastic domestic architecture is based
primarily on models and drawings. Only guesses based on a few field results
can be made about town structure.
•
The remains of a circular wall, which may have surrounded a town (400
and 300 meters in diameter, ca. 100,000 square meters) have been unearthed
at Elkab. 22 If we were to insert two main streets, crossing each other at the
center, we would have a concrete image of the "town" hieroglyph 0 . ;::e
:::.:P".. :
Archaic and Old Kingdom Hierakonpolis (see Fig. 1) was enclosed by a ,
-, .... -! ".
wall in a nearly rectangular compact form (ca . 300 x 230 meters = ca. 69,000 --, -----.--.-.---~ " ~
o
square meters).23 Within this enclosure, a few rectangular mudbrick or o ::, !1D ? ~
"tuff' buildings resting on stone foundations 24 have been excavated by -::::::::::::: =:J<,
I~
Quibell and Green, and Garstang. A circular revetment wall of stone suggests
a sanctuary on an artificial mound within the (perhaps) originally circular
town wall. According to Quibell and Green,25 the rectangular enclosure wall
was built during the Third Dynasty around this old sanctuary or mound, and
around some houses that had accumulated there. Since some house remains
within the enclosure were oflater Old Kingdom date, the town may have had
space to develop within the walled-in area until that time.26 The previously
. , ..
ir
FIGU RE 1. Ancient Hierakonpolis temple plan. From Barbara Adams, Ancient Hierakon-
polis , Supplement, Modern Egyptology series. Edited by H. S. Smith. England: Aris and
Philips Ltd., 1974.
108 Manfred Bietak Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" 109

mentioned town plan shows houses already lying in more or less rectangular
blocks along straight streets, which can be considered as characteristic for
Egyptian town planning.
Very promising new excavations were begun at Hierakonpolis in 1967 by
W. A. Fairservis, Jr.,27 who laid a series of lO-meter squares across the tell
from the town entrance to the northwest end of the temple, revealing a part
of a real town pattern of Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom times and touch-
ing a palace facade of the First Dynasty in the middle of the site. Altogether,
the results show that Hierakonpolis was not only a compactly formed town,
enclosed by a town wall, but also a town that had a differentiated functional
pattern, including religious quarters in the old tradition. These were renewed
during the Old Kingdom and during the Eighteenth Dynasty, when the
original background of the town had vanished and only its religious import-
ance remained. Hierakonpolis also had a palace, ordinary buildings, and
workshops of vase-makers28 and of coppersmiths. 29 This is really an old
townsite, which shows us the peculiarities of Egyptian urbanism, and it is
hoped that these important excavations can be resumed in the near future.
Another important town excavation is being conducted by the German
and the Swiss Archaeological Institutes at Elephantine.3D While Hierakon-
polis and Elkab are situated in the alluvial plain, the town of Elephantine r -
rests on the southern end of Elephantine Island (Gezirat al-Aswan). The
original Old Kingdom town has been traced only along its undulating enclos-
ure wall of mud brick, which shows a rounded elliptoid form (ca. 170 x 100
meters) with a town gate opening to the northwest, toward the ancient
harbor. Remains of houses have only occasionally been unearthed at the
edge of the Satis Temple 31 because the Mission is still engaged in excavating
and recording the upper strata. (Fig. 2).
Although Elephantine was originally a relatively small settlement (ca.
16,000 square meters), far smaller than the huge prehistoric villages of
Merimde (ca. 180,000 square meters) or Macadi, it had all the qualities and
functions of a town, such as a compact form, a town wall, and an obviously FIGURE 2. General map of the town of Elephantine. Walls in black date to the Old King-
differentiated pattern, as we must assume from the quarters of state officials dom, walls in crosshatching date from the Middle Kingdom to the Late Period. Courtesy of
and noblemen of the end of the Old Kingdom, whose tombs are known on the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, MDAIK 27 (1971): Fig.!.
.the western bank of the Nile in the cliff of Qubbet al-Hawa. Religious
quarters seem to have dominated the northeast end of the town, because meters. Perhaps this extension started during the Sixth Dynasty, when
it appears that the Satis Temple rests on an Old Kingdom sanctuary whose trade with the Sudan via both land and water routes flourished and caused
remains were still in evidence within the Satis Temple until the late the formation of an extramural suburb which was later, during the Middle
Period.32 Elephantine was provided with a harbor, and it is known from Kingdom, incorporated into the area of enclosure. This enlarged town was
written records to have been the capital of the first nome of Upper Egypt surrounded by a mud brick wall. Within the northwestern area, the remains
and a southern bastion and trading center for Egypt from the Old Kingdom. of rectangular houses, along partly straight, partly crooked, narrow streets,
Until the Middle Kingdom, the town was considerably enlarged towards show an "organic" growth.
the north, approximately reaching its final size of 70,000 to 80,000 square East of these buildings, which date from the Old Kingdom, remains of at
110 Manfred Bietak Urban Archaeology and the " Town Problem " III
,
least three Middle Kingdom houses (20 x 20, 15 x 15, and 20 x 15 meters) •• TOMBS '
were unearthed, showing by their attached or semi-attached position that
space within the city wall had become scarce. This stratum shows narrow, ,,
winding lanes as well. ,
Part of a spacious building of Old Kingdom date that covered an area
more than 30 x 25 meters, with a columned hall in the center and rooms
around it, a forecourt, and a thick surrounding wall, lies in the center of the
original town. It shows a higher social standard, especially when we take into .... -- .....
consideration the cramped architecture within the town. According to the
most recent results, the excavators assume that it was a funerary building
similar in its function to the Heqa-ib memorial "temple" built during the '-
Middle Kingdom in the town area. All we can see is that the town pattern
became even more differentiated during the Middle Kingdom. I would also
like to mention a square granite massif in the northwestern part of the
town outside the OK-area, possibly indicating another religious center, ,,
,
which dates back, according to the surrounding oldest buildings, at least
to the Sixth Dynasty . North of the site, Middle Kingdom cemeteries have
been found by the German Mission. From the New Kingdom onwards, the
religious aspects of the town became more important than its function as
a bastion against the south until, in the Late Period, the temple areas with
,,
/
their installations occupied more of the former town area of Elephantine,
while the profane settlement developed more and more on the opposite east
bank, known as Syene. The Khnum Temple especially covered a large part of
the old town . We can see a trend toward the separation of nearly equal-sized
religious and secular quarters in many other towns of the Late Period,
especially in Delta sites (Heliopolis, Mendes, Sais, Buto).
A townsite of utmost importance for study is Edfu (see Fig. 3), capital of
the second Upper Egyptian nome and favorably situated, as mentioned tk - - - - .......

above, on a sandstone ridge emerging from the floodplain relatively close to I

,I
the river. Edfu is surrounded by a vast hinterland, which is six kilometers I
I

broad at its widest and covers an area running thirteen kilometers down- I

stream, to a point where the desert reaches the Nile at SaCayda, and fifteen
kilometers upstream, where the same happens south of NagCal-Hasaya. Con- ,
I
tour maps show also an ancient minor Nile branch, west of Edfu, following I
I

I
in part the course of the modern Qandifiya Canal. This branch offered the
,,
I

agricultural area behind Edfu additional natural irrigation possibilities and

afforded protection for the town from the desert. Edfu was excavated by EDFU ...
AND ITS HINTERLAND
French and Polish missions. 33 Unfortunately, large areas of the tell, which is / NAG EL HAGG ZEIDA~.:... :'::::
more than ten meters high, were destroyed by Sebakh-digging from the north ,
/ TOMB1 ...... :: :.
NAG E L HASoiAYA .... . '
I ,
and the south, leaving an H-shaped remainder. Huge sections have been
o 2 3 L. 5 6 7 8000M "
I I I I I I I I I /
,, "
I
/

FIGURE 3. Edfu and its hinterland. I

112 Manfred Bietak Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem " 113

exposed, which show successive town walls. During the Old Kingdom the
town was surrounded at least twice, showing that the place ofthe Ptolemaic hF:,;;;;~,~;-;'~;;¥;;Iiii'"
and, earlier, the Ramesside temple was approximately in the center ofthe old
town. The foundations were laid by cutting down through the old habitation ~; ': t./
mound to virginal bedrock and sand, the primeval mound, thus destroying
already a large part of the Old Kingdom town. Perhaps this temple's site
{·r
had an old tradition, going back to religious installations of the Old King-
dom. This assumption is not unlikely, if we take the central situation into
account and the fact that such traditions have been proved at the Satet i.
temple at Elephantine (v. supra) .
The area between the inner and the outer town wall ofthe Old Kingdom is
exposed in the north and east section of the southern sebakh pit and shows ~

compact occupation from the Fifth Dynasty onwards until the time of the ,. .r.
0

Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate period. As can be observed at .:;:':'.~~'.:

...0
tells in the Delta, house walls rested on old foundations on ruins. Roofs or
:."".
......
...... L

ceilings were constructed of barrel vaults in mudbrick, suggesting structures "...'" .;

::::
that would resemble recent Nubian houses in the Kenzi district, being some- '"Q
~
what different from the constructions of the New Kingdom at Deir al- £
'-
Medina or Amarna. 0

There was a mastaba cemetry of the Fifth Dynasty outside the town wall, '"Q
.;;
but in direct proximity to the settlement, recalling situations seen in e.,
~
the Delta (see Mendes). The mastabas, however, reflect an upper class of
that time ; at the same site simple pitgraves crammed next to each other with- ..,Z
~
out space for superstructures can also be found.
-.i
By and by the town waste and brick material, thrown beyond the outer
'"'"
::>
townwall, covered the cemetery, and a third wall enclosing parts of the <;)

former cemetery area was built for the expanding town. The area covered, a:
"
...0
·
according a vague guess, 250 x 150 m (ca. 37,500 m2). The original town
prior to the Fifth Dynasty was perhaps half of that size. This new belt,
".."' ..
.- ...
~o>­
",

","w
constructed possibly at the end of the Old Kingdom or during the First "'0"
:5~ N
Intermediate Period in the same fashion as the previous walls, remained the
western limit for the town until the early Eighteenth Dynasty-a very
interesting fact for the study of development of ancient Egyptian towns. The
western part remained largely uninhabited till the Late and Ptolemaic
Period, when the town expanded once more after enough waste-accumula-
tion beyond the walls. During the time of the Nineteenth Dynasty until
the Persian period, occupation of the tell area can be observed only around
the temple, making it likely that the center of settlement had shifted towards
the east of the temple, under the modern town of Edfu.
As far as can be seen (Fig. 4), Edfu shows the same signs of an urban com-
munity from the Old Kingdom onwards: a compact form of settlement, sur- :::l

rounded by walls, with different classes of population. Pangrave sherds

u.
a
UJ
........
... 0
114 Manfred Bietak
found from the First Intermediate Period till the Second Intermediate
Period strata give additional clues to trade with Nubian desert nomads, who
started to settle in the Nile valley from the end ofthe Old Kingdom onwards.
We may further conclude that here was a rich development with shifting of
town areas, observing also that the site was a most favorable center of a
clearly defined fertile hinterland.
Two other townsites that were very important from the inception of the
Old Kingdom onwards were Abydos 34 and Heliopolis. From both sites virtu-
ally only the sacred areas and cemeteries are known, and we may suppose that
it was their outstanding religious importance and not their political or econo-
mic background that caused these towns to survive and prosper. The site of
Abydos, buried under the village of Beni Mansur, was situated nearly six
miles from the main traffic route, the Nile, at the rim of the low desert. Its
economic strength was undoubtedly provided by the unusually wide alluvial
plain there. Most probably, it was connected to the river by a branch or a
canal.34a The political activities of the nome were meanwhile concentrated
from the beginning of Egyptian history onward, as we may conclude from
tradition, in the town of This (modern Girga), which was a levee-settlement
with direct access to the main waterway.
The sacred area of Abydos, approximately 300 x 200 meters, enclosed by
a mudbrick wall probably to be dated to the Late Period, partly covered the
area of a late Predynastic and Early Dynastic town, the remains of which
were discovered by W. M. F. Petrie beneath the temple complex of the
Early Dynastic period. It is very much to be hoped that the Pennsylvania-
Yale Expedition will soon resume its extremely promising investigations at
Kom al:Sultan.
In a discussion of Old Kingdom town remains, pyramid towns must also
be m~ntioned. Minor areas with houses are known from Dahshur, Abusir,
and other sites, but the most extensive area has recently been cleared by
the University of Cairo in Giza; a part of the same site was also studied by
the John Hopkins University. The debris from this pyramid town, removed
for the construction of the Mycerinus pyramid and deposited on the desert
mountain to the south, is being studied by Innsbruck University.35
The settlement quarters themselves, mainly south of the Mycerinus
causeway, were surrounded by a wall which limited the area in the south
along the mountain ridge. The area of the settlement proper was divided by
walls into districts. The excavators believe that most ofthose walls had been
substructures for ramps used to transport the huge building blocks. The
town wall continued into the sandy plain at the desert edge and had a door
there. A harbor .is to be expected in the neighborhood.36
At present, little can be said about the town's functional pattern. We must
assume that workshops of craftsmen, laborers' barracks, houses for priests,
Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" li5
scribes, and administrative officials were part of it.37 We may assume, there-
fore, a complex town with a surrounding wall, a differentiated pattern, a
social hierarchy, and a religious center (which, however, was not made for
the town's sake, but vice versa). There was division oflabor, workshops, and
industries, but a prerequisite for urban life that seems lacking is evidence
of trade, industries to provide everyday necessities, and agricultural produc-
tion for the inhabitants of the town. Perhaps the land districts assigned to
the town were some distance away.
Similar remarks can be made about the so-called Kahun town,38 a rec-
tangular settlement (ca. 370 x [370 + X] meters = 136,900 square meters)
planned to house the workmen and administrative staff of the pyramid
complex of Sesostris II at Lahun. Later, it served perhaps as a domicile for
priests, officials, and workmen concerned with the funerary cult. This was a
pyramid town of the Middle Kingdom, surrounded by an enclosure wall and
divided internally by other walls into areas of cramped and uniformly built
apartments for workmen, and extravagantly large buildings for the heads of
the town, each of which covered an area equal to twenty laborers' houses.
The streets were very narrow and straight, and the buildings were similar
except for the size differences already mentioned.
Although the size of this settlement, its population (more than 2,000), its
compact form (with a town wall), and its social hierarchy would suggest that
it was a "town," some essentials are lacking: evidence of trading installa-
tions, workshops to meet the demands of the inhabitants for goods, and
affiliation with a district. And, finally, there is the fact that the population
was too uniform and too undifferentiated in profession, despite the evidence
for social differentiation. This was a huge camp for workmen and their
governing officials, all of them working more or less in the same field. Never-
theless, the domestic architecture found here is an important source of evi-
dence that is still to some extent lacking from real town sites.
The same has to be said of the workmen's settlement at Deir al-Medina.39
The population there was perhaps even more unifrom than at Kahun. Only
slight social differences can be noted during its later occupation.
To return once more to Old Kingdom towns, very little evidence remains
to be studied. Most of these towns are buried far below the occupation
layers of later periods. Excavation results at Mendes40 suggest that, in the
Delta, mounds have been used for settlements and, if spacious enough, also
for cemeteries. These were thus situated in close proximity, similar to
necropolis towns with mastaba superstructures.
This situation makes the house graves more understandable than the posi-
tion of mastabas within desert cemeteries far from the towns. Later, when
a town's area extended, the cemeteries were covered by houses and other
buildings, and other dry, elevated ground was sought in order to bury the
116 Manfred Bietak Urban Archaeology and the 'Town Problem" 117

dead. Even now, geziras and tells are preferred for cemeteries in order to o
keep the dead dry. 4o a
In the Late Period, we meet at Mendes a phenomenon very similar to other
sites (e.g., Elephantine). One major mound was covered by a huge sacred
area (Tell aI-Rube) while the settlement developed on another, detached
mound (Tell al-Timai).
At Bubastis, during the Middle Kingdom, cemeteries can be found in the "-! --~
neighborhood of living quarters, even close to the royal palace. During the
I '
Old Kingdom (Sixth Dynasty), the two Ka-houses ofTeti and Pepi 141 suggest
that a huge sacred area existed, either within the town or near the cemetery. ~I
But no part of the real Old Kingdom towns of Mendes or Bubastis has yet (I) , ~

<tJ
been unearthed. ...
(I)

Other towns of later date had their cemeteries on another mound, in the
<
vicinity of the town mound proper (Horbeit-Abu Yasin, Saft al-Hinna~ 'ill
<'"
al-Suwa, part of Tanis-Gezira Ziwilin). Ow
Of special interest is the town of Tell al-Dabca-Qantir, although excava- Ow
w ....
tions have revealed only small areas of this large site. 42 The foundation of a J:
..J()
..J-
settlement there probably goes back to the internal colonization of the w~
Heracleopolitan kings.43 We should not forget that quite a number of towns, I-tIl

especially near the eastern border, originated from their colonization policies.
Tell al-Dabca shows several strata of uninterrupted settlement during the
Middle Kingdom (strata H-GI1 and, after a break, several strata of con-
tinuous settlement during the Second Intermediate Period. During the latter
period, the site was inhabited by a purely A siatic population [Syro-Palestin-
ian Middle Bronze Age Culture]).
The town developed on a gezira mound, south of a huge lake, which
offered, by means of a feeder channel from the Pelusiac branch, very favor-
able harbor facilities and shipping connections. The settlement spread
around the lake as well.
From the main excavation area (70 x 50 meters) some concept of a part of
the town plan becomes apparent. During periods of uninterrupted settle-
ment, the configuration of building lots between the streets remained the ..
same but subdivision of the lots can be discerned (see Fig. 5). At the
beginning of the Second Intermediate Period, when new settlers used the
area, more or less rectangular pieces of land (approximately 50 x 30 meters
or more) were simply surrounded by hurdle walls, and small houses were
erected within those areas (see Fig. 6). Some of those lots were used either
completely or partially as cemeteries, one of them even having a mortuary

FIGURE 5. Tell al-Dabca: Sacred cemetery and domestic areas, showing open distribution
of lots within the townsite of the early Hyksos period (ca. 1650 B.c.). Courtesy of MDAIK
26 (1970): Fig. 3. o
 Manfred Bietak Urban Archaeology and the ''Town Problem" 119
118
temple. One huge piece of land was used as a cult area with a large temple.
All this looks like a planned settlement, although the lots seem to differ
o in size and to have irregular outlines. This can be explained partially by the
influence of the still-existing Middle Kingdom ruins on area division . The
orientation of the settlement according to the situation of the lake was taken
over from Middle Kingdom remains, but not the actual size of the building
parcels.
By and by, due to the growth of the population, these areas had to be
used more intensively for building until houses or house-blocks completely
filled the outlines of the unit, the cemeteries disappeared, and the graves
were dug into the house floors. All this suggests that these lots were held,
during periods of more than one hundred years, as legal units, by families or
other bodies, who kept a keen eye on the outlines of their properties. It is
characteristic of this kind of settlement to place the newly constructed walls
where possible upon already-existing remains. This prevents the shrinking
and collapse of parts of the buildings.
The opportunity to follow and compare the changes or the continuity in a
town pattern from stratum to stratum is unique at Tell aI-Dab Ca. It gives
a very detailed picture of the development of urban life, although we must
take into consideration the fact that the major strata were not deposited by
an Egyptian population.
.. ~ .
During the Ramesside occupation of this site, when a new town had been
founded there and re-oriented north-south, east-west under a huge planning
. . concept, it is especially interesting to note that the axis of a large temple,

'~/
which was most probably devoted to Sutekh, still showed the orientation of
the late Second Intermediate Period . We have reason to assume that this
deviation derives from an already-existing cult installation for this god at
that site.
Tell al-Dabca-Qantir was a town of enormous extent during the Nine-
teenth Dynasty (four kilometers from north to south , three square kilo-
meters in area or more) and it owed its importance to its very favorable
geographic position. Situated at the Pelusiac branch and on a lake harbor,
it was protected from the eastern frontier by an enormous drainage system,
which flowed into a series of huge lakes, one more than ten kilometers long
north to south. Further, it was located at the northeastern entrance ofthe
Delta, between the Pelusiac branch and the above-mentioned drainage
system. Therefore the site was a link between the waterway leading to the
Mediterranean and to Upper Egypt and the land route to Palestine. The
o

FIGUR E 6. Tell al-Oabca: Strata (Str. 0 / 2- 3) above the lots, within the same configura-
tion , show partitioning to create new domestic areas in the same space. Late Hyksos period
(c. 1550 B.c.). Courtesy MOAIK 26 (1970): Fig. 6.
 Manfred Bielak
120
lake offered facilities for the establishment of a naval base for military and
trading purposes.
Geographic investigations in the region of Tell al-Dabca-Qantir make it
seem very probable that the main traffic routes within this town were canals,
linking the partially separated centers and lakes of the city with each other
(see Fig. 7). This is a very interesting aspect of our slowly growing knowl-
edge of features of towns in ancient Egypt.
One of the largest excavations of a town site, except for Amarna, was
conducted by G. Roeder at Hermopolis 44 between 1929 and 1939. This
enterprise was stopped, however, before the investigations of the sacred
GESAMTE SlEDLUNGSFLACHEN
VON TELL EL-DAB~-aANTIR
lO R IEll OEM kl1 oY H_, 11 LW Z1 , UtlO OEM Xl)l OYM
FIGURE 7. General map of the reconstructed townsite of Arons and Piramesses at Tell
el-Dabca-Qantir.
Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" 121
areas had been completed and before the domestic architecture had been
studied. The tell of Hermopolis covers an area of nearly two square kilo-
meters and had been occupied throughout nearly all epochs of Egyptian
history. Nearly all of the northern half of the tell was covered from Ramesside
times onward by a huge sacred area surrounded by a big temenos wall. These
temple enclosure walls were very often misinterpreted as town walls as, for
example, the enclosure of Elkab 45 or the temple area of Tanis.46 At the
latter site, P. Montet's work 47 was devoted primarily to the temple areas,
and it was J . Yoyotte who started excavations in the domestic area on a
larger scale. 48
What remains to be mentioned is primarily the capital of Akhenaton,
Amarna, the best-explored town site in Egypt,49 which has provided most of
our knowledge of Egyptian cities. Caution, however, is required . The
unusual religious doctrine and the unusual style of Akhenaton's reign
may have influenced the planning of his capital. Initially, the choice ofthe
site along the desert edge in a nearly uninhabited area seems to be un-
paralleled in Egypt, but at Malqata a similar, though slower, development
had already begun under Akhenaton's father .49 a The site offers no special
advantages for a capital to grow there, other than space. All other capitals
were situated on fertile land at the most favorable spots, with traffic
routes leading to them and, above all, with a plentiful water supply, which
was lacking at Amarna.
The whole layout of the city of Akhenaton (four or five kilometers in
length, approximately 800 meters in breadth) is unlike the other very
complex towns in Egypt: it is long, narrow, and open, without an enclosure
wall. Perhaps one could even say that it was modern in our sense of the word
and it seems to lack the traditional Egyptian form. Enormous space w~
available, and originally houses seem to have had few limitations in
planning. Most of the building complexes were situated along one of the
three parallel roads, which ran through nearly the whole of Amarna (See
Fig. 8).
The internal pattern of the town was highly differentiated. In the central
part, there was a huge Aton Temple complex more than 1,500 meters in
length, that included, besides the main sanctuary, the later temples "Gem
Aton" and the "House of Rejoicing." In addition, we find storehouses,
centers of administration (the records office with the famous foreign
affairs correspondence), and the royal state palace, which was connected
with the large residence palace by a bridge-corridor, crossing the street.
In the neighborhood we also find military and police barracks, clerical
offices, and a minor Aton temple. South of this district were huge rubbish
heaps from the palace, lying in an open space. Their odors were carried, if
the normal north wind blew, towards the south into the desert and would
122 Manfred Bietak Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem " 123

\ not have offended the royal household and administrative quarters,

To Stela X
possibly affecting only the subjects living to the south. Even such details
reflect the original planning of the town .
North, and especially south, of this central area lay the living quarters,
with the state officials' homes nearest the palace. It seems that the areas
bordering the three main streets were first divided generously among the
citizens who accompanied the king to the new city. The settlers were
obviously free to do their own planning within their spacious parcels of
land and did not even keep a strict orientation towards the streets. Some
buildings projected into the traffic areas, others were a little retracted.
Later settlers built their smaller homes in between, wherever space was free,
even in the major roads. Some situations look as if the habitations of
subjects clustered around the buildings of their employers. The town
pattern gradually became somewhat irregular (see Fig. 9).
In the southern part of the city, detached from the town proper, were the
gardens of Meru Aton. In the very north of the town, two other palaces have
been unearthed, one belonging to Queen Nefertiti. There is also a special
workmen's camp, s'lrrounded by a wall and similar in its character to the
Kahun settlement with its uniform buildings, but lacking the huge houses of
the supervisors who, at Amarna, had probably their own buildings within the
town.
A typical Amarna house unit was surrounded by a wall, and the house
proper built in the center of the lot, or to one side. The servant's quarters
were generally built along a part of the surrounding wall, and the rest ofthe
area was used as a garden or for grain stores and stables; some even had a
detached chapel installed. The original use of such spacious land parcels
within the city project resembles the situation at Tell al-Dabca at the
beginning of the Second Intermediate Period (strate F, E!3), but at Amarna,
houses and land parcels were sometimes larger.
The domestic architecture of Amarna,50 with columned central halls,
vestibules, loggias, stores, bathrooms, bedchambers, all on the ground
floor only, except for occasional roof loggias, derives from nobles'
country mansions and not from the multistor architecture of the
usually cramped towns. The central hall, supported by wooden columns,
was higher than the remainder of the house and allowed air and light to
enter. If Amarna had been occupied longer, the spacious land parcels
would eventually have been filled with domestic architecture, as we observe
on a smaller scale at Tell al-Dabca. Even at Amarna this kind of develop-
FIGURE 8. The layout of the town of Amarna. From W. S. Smith, The Art and Archi- ment was beginning.51
tecture of Ancient Egypt. It should also be mentioned that Amarna was provided with fertile land
on the west bank, for the town boundaries were extended with stelas on both
banks, thus establishing the economic hinterland for this town.
 124 Manfred Bietak Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" 125

The largest town in Egypt was, of course, Thebes,,52 which developed

from a huge levee-settlement and expanded to at least eight square kilo-
meters, if not more, during the New Kingdom. It must have been the
greatest capital of its time, the "mistress of every city," Excavations have
concentrated mainly on the sacred areas. Only recent investigations by the
Department of Antiquities near the Luxor Temple and near the land route

C=J ~~
> from the town to Karnak have uncovered bigger areas with domestic archi-
>
tecture of rather late date, showing cramped house structures. Priests'
.~ houses of the Late Period have been unearthed near the Sacred Lake at Kar-
ltl, -'
~ xx nak, and Second Intermediate period and Early New Kingdom domestic
architecture in the area of the Monthu Temple show that compact settle-
0. ment quarters had spread up to that site and had to give way to the expanding
or)
"'1"
sacral areas during the ISth Dynasty, These give us just restricted views
~
N
into the domestic quarters, but do not allow a reconstruction of the layout
~
'-"
of the city, which unfortunately is covered by the modern town of Luxor.
OYOtJ lS\I"] <n
Further research in the neighborhood outside the Karnak area, on a larger
-<
W scale, may yield some conclusions. At present, we know well only huge
-,
t sacred areas of Karnak with their canals to the river Nile, their processional
<2 streets flanked by alleys of sphinxes and trees to the Luxor Temple, some
::>[
"''"" rather small areas with house remains, and the remote mortuary temples,
::>1 w:" necropoleis, and the palace of Amenhotep IlIon the west bank, with its
i E
0
w: gigantic artificial lake, also connected to the Nile,
d For the time being, the town proper remains for us the "Hundred-
;l:
.8 Gated Thebes" of Homer, and it is hoped that future research will give us
"'..." some more concrete ideas about the structure and the outlines of the town,
'"
E with its walls, city gates, harbors, and different quarters (especially admin-
-<
'-
istrative installations) before modern life covers it completely. It is not
0
improbable that suburbs and estate buildings linked the city with Medamud.
-'---I
LFj~ '''" ",. '" The oldest capital of historical Egypt, Memphis, today visible as mounds
f~·J "€
Z
. , . f,
~ ~
~ 0
within an area of 2.5 x 1.5 kilometers, is, from the point of view of urban
~~1flJ;!1" ,n
L 0 Il..
:r '>-
« 0-: archaeology, terra incognita. This is with the exception of the excavations
e::_ ~.l
,f) z
a: '"::>

:f~
f-
I « t- O(
within the huge sacred area of the Ptah Temple in the center"4 (see Fig. 10),
v

~I
~
« w::: with an extent of about 1150 x SOO meters, and excavations within another
u.
huge enclosure wall of about the same size revealing, in its northwestern
-======:J 0
z
0 corner, the palace remains of Apries. 55 Perhaps the north is where we have
;::
a: to search for the administrative center of the town and the royal residence.
I 0
"-
Both enclosures are separated by a depression, which is now cultivated, but
i I ill
. --"'----- t--
OJ OJ !!l which Petrie mentions as a lake and which was filled, possibly later on, by
sebakh from the tell for cultivation.56 Observations from contour maps
make it not improbable that an ancient branch of the Nile or an artificial
canal passed west of the site of Memphis and was connected to that lake's
depression, which was near the center of the city and may have been
126 Manfred Bietak Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem " 127

important for traffic connections and transports from the northern enclosure
MEMPHIS . SIC;ETCH MAP.
area with the palace and the southern sacred area.
saaM

G ~
I234
I Older remains, like a palace of Merneptah southeast of the Ptah Temple,
and a Middle Kingdom cemetery west of the temple area,57show that earlier
t T "
e: MPLE"
remains of that city would still be above ground-water level in some places
and fieldwork at that site should be rewarding.
0' "
" Finally, a few remarks on the frontier fortresses and towns, which have
been especially well studied in the area of Nubia.57a Very interesting details
NE IT 1 "

(;:. -:.. = ,--r====:;]".......

I
1,,_-_- _ "OR ~AT£ for the study of domestic architecture have been gained there, especially
during the last campaigns,58 and there is hope that good plans will appear in
CAMP the near future. It is extremely difficult, however, to make a distinction
between the bigger fortresses and frontier towns. During the New Kingdom,
Aniba59 and Amara-West60 were the seats of the "deputies of Wawat and
Kush." They were real centers of administration of districts. Although the
settlement pattern of the former site is not well explored, we can see that
during the Eighteenth Dynasty, or perhaps even during the Middle King-
LAKE " dom, the fortress of Aniba expanded to an enormous extent (400 x 200
meters). The military building pattern became differentiated by bigger sa-
OF cred installations (the Temple of Horus of Miam under Thutmosis I or III),
administrative buildings, and by big civil suburbs outside the fortified area.
Cemetries in the area show a heterogeneous population.
The development of Amara (Nineteenth Dynasty) from a fortress with a
regular building pattern into a frontier town with a large sacred area and
irregular suburbs was similar. Traffic routes to the Selima Oasis and
possibly to gold mines gave the town a specific economic function.
The development of Buhen at the beginning of the New Kingdom may
have been similar.61 But were Buhen and Aniba, or huge fortresses like
Mirgissa,62 already towns during the Middle Kingdom? The sites, especially
Buhen, reveal very interesting details in the Egyptian architecture of
streets and buildings. Roads were paved with burnt-clay tiles63 and had
an open-built drain running down their center. Similar observations have
also been made at Amara West. The floors of houses also were paved with
mud bricks, faced with gypsum plaster, tiles, or stone slabs. A commander's
headquarters, which was re-used during the New Kingdom, shows a large
columned central hall, another columned hall leading to the private quarters
and baths, and a staircase to the upper storey. The columns, jambs, and
lintels were of painted wood. The whole layout shows a high standard of
living. 54
ACCORDING TO W.M . FLINDERS PETRIE'S " MEMPHIS I. .. All three of the above-mentioned sites were originally rectangular harbor
fortresses. Buhen and Mirgissa (the interior of Aniba is not well explored)
FIG URE 10. Memphis: Sketch map according to W . M. Flinders Petrie's " Memphis L" show a very uniform military layout with very little differentiation except
for the storerooms and the commander's headquarters. From this it may be
concluded that the inhabitants were nearly all soldiers, perhaps with their
128 Manfred Bietak
families, giving the settlement the appearance of a castellum. There is little
evidence of the partition of professions, industries, or shops within the
enclosure wall.
We have, however, evidence and many hints that all these elements of
towns that ate lacking within Middle Kingdom fortresses can be found, in
one way or another, outside. We have several reasons, including written
evidence, for assuming that Mirgissa (Iken), Buhen, and Aniba were centers
of trade during the Middle Kingdom and that their harbors provided a good
means of exchange between Egypt and the Sudan. Buhen and Aniba were
situated in the most populous regions of Lower Nubia, and 'besides the
strategic aim of controlling the Nubians, the Egyptians also had the
economic aim of establishing centers of trade in those districts. At Buhen,
we have evidence of industrial installations from the Old Kingdom onward,
and, most probably, the function of collecting and possibly smelting copper
and gold ores gave this place an industrial background during the Middle
Kingdom.
With some reservations, we may call Aniba and Buhen garrison towns,
with craftsmen and professionals other than the occupation forces and
officials living outside the walls. With Mirgissa this may be difficult to
prove, since, in spite of its trading function, it lacked the agricultural
district (hinterland) and the differentiation of its population. Even the
excavators called it a fortress.
This short survey, although incomplete, should show in general the position
of research in urban archaeology. Within these limits, it is impossible to
mention the results of every excavation in town areas. Graeco- Roman town-
sites have intentionally been omitted here. While they may show traditional
Egyptian town features, we must first obtain a comprehensive knowledge of
older sites, which are free from foreign influence. The evaluation of the
administrative sources on towns and districts in ancient Egypt has also
been avoided here, because they are not primarily a subject of archaeology.
This survey should illustrate that, on the one hand, we have many detailed
examples of domestic architecture while, on the other hand, we are lacking
any complete picture of a town. In many instances, it would have been rela-
tively easy to go on with the excavations at a site, if international crises or
the other interests of the excavators had not stopped the enterprises. Town
excavations require time and patience to be rewarding.
Synthesis and Remarks about Some Peculiarities in
Ancient Egyptian Urbanism
As demonstrated by the archaeological evidence at numerous sites, and
even at such specialized settlements as temple towns, ancient Egyptian
Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" 129
civilization had towns in our sense from the Old Kingdom, perhaps from the
Early Dynastic Period, onward, although with distinct characteristics.
There seems to be a contradiction between the results of philological and
archaeological studies, but it can be explained: the Egyptians felt no need
to make their distinctions between towns, villages, hamlets, etc. Rather,
through tradition, they had arrived at another mode of classification,65
and only in the New Kingdom did a distinction appear that was even vaguely
similar to ours. Archaeology, on the other hand, does not have its methods
limited by the language of the carrier of civilization. If we classify pottery
or derive other typologies or label chronological phases, it is irrelevant
whether the carrier of civilization had the same pattern of arrangement or
not. The archaeologist can work with his own designations, can make com-
parisons, and can draw conclusions. In the same sense, we may recognize
towns and urban life in ancient Egypt, we may explore the characteristics in
greater detail, and we may make comparisons with other civilizations or
between the ancient Egyptian towns themselves in order to investigate the
individual features of civilization.
In theory, we have to expect that at the dawn of historic Egypt, when
the country had not yet been centralized under a single monarch, there
were several nuclei of power, located in places favored by their overseas
trading possibilities and by their economic hinterlands, which made it
possible to accumulate a surplus and a staff of people free from labor who
could be invested in other exercises of economic or bureaucratic power.
The simultaneous development in several places of such economic and
political constellations, such as west Delta towns and Coptos-Naqada
(Wadi Hammamat-Red Sea connection) created in a short period the most
favorable conditions for urban development in Egypt.66
This development was cut short after Egypt had been unified under
a single monarch and a stable, centralized government had been estab-
lished by the kings of the first two dynasties. Foreign trade became the
monopoly of the crown and was organized from the royal residence, a
change that deprived the oldest towns, which had already been stripped of
their political strength, of their economic role as well. Because of this
cutting-off of former resources, the old centers, especially those in the
Delta, vanished and impetus to settle certain other areas in the Delta was
reduced. For example, in the eastern Delta and along the land routes to
Syria and Palestine, we have relatively good evidence of settlement at the
very end of the Predynastic Period and at the beginning ofthe First Dynasty.
But there is almost no evidence from the early Old Kingdom.67 The new, sole
power came at that time to be the king's residence, the palace.
A powerful stimulus for the later development of urban life in ancient
Egypt was the construction of the huge pyramids at the beginning of the
130 Manfred Bietak
Third Dynasty, and the economic steps necessary to permit this building
activity and the later supply of the royal funerary establishment. The after-
life of every court member, every servant, practically everyone, was guaran-
teed by the enormous food supplies from the royal tombs and by the
preservation of the royal body, the royal tombs, and their stores. The
experiences of the first two dynasties, especially toward the end of the
Second Dynasty, when royal tombs were destroyed and their subjects
deprived of the means of achieving afterlife, made it necessary to construct
gigantic tumuli, the grand pyramids of the Third and more especially the
Fourth Dynasty, with many other precautions taken to secure for the sub-
jects the body of the "king of their time."68
The construction of the huge pyramids led to enormous bodies of organ-
izations and division of labor. In order to supply this body and the funerary
cults after construction of the pyramids and their related installations,
estate domains had to be founded all over the country again and again by
each king. This led to internal colonization and, as the necessary population
was lacking, frequent raids into Nubia were necessary at the beginning ofthe
Fourth Dynasty and later to secure the necessary workmen, peasants, and
flocks. 69
The administration of these new and large economic foundations at
certain centers was undoubtedly an important impetus to urban develop-
ment in Egypt.
These centers became the pyramid towns, planned and constructed near
the pyramid complexes, which had secondary developments to house work-
men, craftsmen, priests, and necessary officials who administered the
land and estates distributed all over the country. They were dedicated by
the king during his lifetime in order to insure his mortuary cult and his
afterlife. As time passed, these pyramid towns belonged no longer to the
reigning king but to the dead kings who had founded them, and they
became, with their assigned lands and estates, more or less independent
of the royal power: they were exempted from taxes and their staff became
nontransferable and free. From the Fifth Dynasty onwards, no real family
relationship existed any longer between the ruling and the deceased
monarchs. The king's last tie of real influence with the pyramid towns was
lost.
A somewhat similar development can be observed with the more im-
portant temples throughout the country. They became exempt from taxes
and endowed with estates in the later Old Kingdom. Around the temples
were clustered the priest's houses, the quarters for the workmen, and the
administrative staff.
These two kinds of settlement became relatively independent economic
Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" 131
nuclei and eventually came into a position where they not only could store
and use their resources for further economic growth but could also later
invest them.
Thus, from the fifth Dynasty onward, the pyramid and temple settlements
provided a favorable constellation for urban development that arose in
addition to the concentrations around the royal residence and the royal
administrative centers in the provinces. From the Sixth Dynasty onward,
the growing independence of the nomarchs may also have contributed to
the urban development in Egypt, as we may conclude from the excavation
results at Elephantine.
Very little is known of towns during the Middle Kingdom. During
the New Kingdom it was again the temple towns that became the character-
istic feature of Egyptian urbanization. The main temples, especially the
temple of Amon, with their enormous dedications in land, quarries, booty,
and prisoners of war, developed into powerful centers of administration
and industry. They became large-scale employers that had to deal with
reinvesting surpluses in new enterprises, leading to the foundation of
new secondary centers with settlements (towns), sometimes in such
remote, unfertile areas as Nubia/o that were largely independent of royal
influence.
The temple towns, so peculiar to ancient Egypt, had all the character-
istics71 of towns:
1. They were highly concentrated settlements.
2. They were based upon more or less compact settlement forms
around a temple.
3. They contained differentiated internal patterns, with religious, admin-
istrative, industrial, and living quarters, the latter distinguished by the
class of the inhabitants (priests, scribes, craftsmen, laborers, serfs).
4. They were even, in a sense, centers of administration, commerce,
and traffic, although the hinterland was generally not a unit surrounding
the center but was split into numerous land plots, estates, mines, etc., dis-
tributed all over the country, often as far away as Nubia.
5. They were not farming communities but represented concentrations
of industries, e.g., weaving, spinning, crafts, goods and stores.
6. There was division of labor and there were many different pro-
fessions.
7. There was a social hierarchy.
8. They were, of course, religious centers.
9. They might be centers of refuge and defense as the evidence at Medinet
Habu shows especially clearly.
132 Manfred Bietak
Special stress must be given to a peculiarity ofthe geographical situations
of many Egyptian towns which again has some connection to the develop-
ment of temple town s. We find a number of town sites, some of them
with great traditional importance, in unfavorable topographic situations,
for example, on the desert edge and not, as at Amarna, near the Nile,
but far from the river, cut off from agricultural areas by depressions.
This kind of settlement or town generally derives from funerary or religious
foundations, not from economic reasons. We have already mentioned that
Abydos was such a town, whose importance grew with the cult of the
archaic kings' tombs, the local god Khenty Imentiu, and especially with
the enormous rise in popularity of the Osiris cult. Building activity on ceno-
taphs, trade in cult goods, pilgrims, and especially the temples with their
endowments gave this remote spot so strong an economic background
that Abydos could outdo even the far-beuer-situated town of Thinis in im-
portance.
In this connection, the argument of John A. Wilson concerning the old
sites of Hierakonpolis and Buto must be noted .72 He showed how un-
favorable the geographic situation of these two towns was for their function
as predynastic capitals of Upper and Lower Egypt. It was possibly their
splendid isolation, in fact , that originally enabled them to develop as nuclei
of power, and it was the acquisition of religious position that kept the sites
important long after their political functions had vanished.
The result s this far also show that the founding of new, planned settle-
ments with the resettling of citizens there played an important part in the
urbanization of Egypt from the beginning of its history. This development
is well known from administrative and funerary sources, and the existence
of planning can be seen at a number of sites. Generally, planned to":ns
appeared in a very compact style, often with a rectangular layout, with
walls built around them (pyramid towns, the Lahun settlement, fortresses).
Sometimes, however, they appear in a loose, detached style with ample
space (Tell al-Dab ca, strata F, E!3; Amarna). The former type represents
a specialized settlement for administrative staff, priests, workmen, and
soldiers, on town sites which needed protection. The latter type displays
a rather grand style in the original design , with a generous distribution
of lots to the first settlers and an organic development within the town's
preplanned limits. . .
My previous remarks have shown that our picture of anCIent Egypttan
towns is still largely theoretical, and that archaeological evidence already
provides some surprises and requires that we revise some of t~e conclu-
sions drawn from philological sources. But we need far more data m order to
gain comprehensive knowledge of the very important part that settlements
and town life played in Egyptian civilization. Substantial work is still neces-
Urban Archaeology and the " Town Problem" 133
sary to gain those data, especially where the rapid expansion of modern
settlements and the intrusion of technical projects threaten to destroy the
largely unexplored remains of ancient Egyptian towns.
Aims of Urban Archaeology
The initial aim of urban archaeology should be to excavate large areas of
town sites of all periods, especially of the Old Kingdom, in order to study
the layout and the social pattern of the town. The relationships between the
cult areas, living quarters of the leaders and of the general population, the
architecture of the houses in the different zones, the size of the poputation
and their living conditions are all matters requiring study. It is also necessary
to understand the relationship of the townsite to its cemeteries and its
chronological interrelationships. In this case, cemetery excavations can
provide important demographic data (popUlation size, percentage of the
sexes, average life span, pathological observations) for the townsite. Other
aims of study are knowledge of sacred and secular architecture and the
identification of workshops, industrial quarters (potteries, ~mithies, etc.),
general storage areas, along with their meaning within the context of the
town. The pattern of daily life evidenced by street systems with shops and
small workshops is also of interest. Remains of the flora and fauna may
give details about the food and also about climatic conditions and the
environment of the town in antiquity (e.g., whether it lay in relation to
lakes, swamps, arid areas, etc.).
It is also within the aims of urban archaeology to study the ancient geo-
graphic position of townsites in order to identify their traffic routes, their
hinterland with its economic resources, and their interrelationships with
other towns. Very often, some of the main functions of an ancient town can
be perceived in this way. This kind of research requires close cooperation
with the geographer and geologist in order to reconstruct ancient land
features.
All these details of size, pattern, architecture, techniques, living con-
ditions, typology, etc., have to be coded into descriptive units. This division
of the entire archaeological complex of a townsite and its cemeteries into
its many individual features, patterns, and products (typology), the coding
of these descriptive units and the comparison of its individual and general
features with those of other sites and finally with other civilizations of the
same chronological period is called Archaeological Cultural Analysis
(Archaologische Kulturanalyse).
Only in this way can an overall definition of the civilization and its de-
velopment be achieved from the archaeological point of view.
134 Manfred Bietak
Methodological Excursus I: Stratigraphy
Generally, favorable town sites were used again and again, and the
disintegration of their mud brick buildings resulted in a slow but steady
rise in the height of a mound (tell), while the elevation of the surrounding
land by annual mud deposits of the inundation remained relatively un-
changed. Stratigraphy makes avaj.lable to us another dimension of com-
parison in urban archaeology, namely time. Changes in architecture, in
artifact typology, and in technology from stratum to stratum can be solid
foundations for establishing the relative chronology of a civilization.
Changes in plant remains, food remains, etc., may provide details of the
change or constancy in economy and climate.
The correlation of stratigraphic data from one tell with that of another
may help to consolidate the relative chronology or reveal local variations
of the civilization.
The comparison and correlation of the stratigraphy from tell to tell
may also be a most important historical source. Similarities in a stratigraphic
pattern may help the archaeologist to interpret tell sections more safely.
Decline in population, in building activity, and in economy as revealed in
tells of a certain area, or in destruction layers on all the tells within a certain
area (provided the mounds were occupied during the same periods), are his-
torical sources. Indeed, if written records are lacking, they are the only
historical sources.
This kind of research is more or less theory in Egypt today, for we lack
tell excavations with comparable stratigraphy.
The stratigraphy and chronology of levee-townsites or of gezira tells
situated on the banks of an ancient Nile branch in the Delta are of special
interest since the economy and traffic of a town was more closely connected
with the section of a waterway than in our days of vehicles and railways.
The periods of occupation may help to date the periods of river action,
especially when the town grows in the same direction as the river.73 Ancient
Nile branches can therefore be dated by their levee and bank settlements.
This is useful for the reconstruction of the water system and geography
in antiquity and is the kind of study that should be promoted.
Methodological Excursus II: Excavation Techniques
The excavation of a stratified townsite (tell), if done correctly, may
be considered one of the most difficult tasks in archaeology. It would be
unwise to adopt strict rules as to how an excavation should proceed, and
this paper is not the place to lay down principles of townsite excavation.
But some main problems have to be demonstrated which are relevant
Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" 135
for historical interpretation and for the future policy of Egyptology as a dis-
cipline.
The technique of "tell surgery" should be appropriate to the site. The
original situation should be reconstructable as far as possible from three-
dimensional records (sections and plans). The square grid-system with
section baulks has great merit but cannot be used at all sites, as, for example,
at Elephantine, where walls of houses are preserved several stories above
the mean tell surface, and even the fill of the construction below has been
disturbed and reshifted before and is not solid enough to form a section
wall. Similar problems arose at Tell al-Dabca, where huge pits made by
sebakheen caused the collapse of nearly all section walls in the higher levels
of the tell. This problem was met by a combined excavation technique,
where the upper strata were excavated in a chessboard-like manner that
permitted rapid work. After reinstalling the comer points of the grid sys-
tem, further excavation proceeded in the square-and-baulk technique
of Wheeler. One of the main problems, which implies contradictory strat-
egies on town excavations and turns nearly every dig into a large-scale
operation, is the fact that architecture in the Near East is generally large.
In order to uncover areas of architecture, excavations must be carried out
on a large scale. This axiom has multiple effects on tell excavations, where
one must also dig deep to uncover strata below. It is the general rule at
tells in Egypt that the further you go down, the more interesting the strata
and architecture will be. One relatively small excavation area on a tell
needs much work, produces enormous quantities of dump material and
objects (generally potsherds), and will give only an inconclusive view of
parts of the architecture and their position.
If one wants to see what kinds of buildings have been reached, one is
compelled to enlarge the size of the excavation. In this case, the expedition
is soon overwhelmed by sherds, bones, etc. In this situation excavations
encounter the problem of too much material, and there is the constant
danger of being unable to digest the finds. Yet if the dig were kept small
and modest, the archaeologist would remain unaware of what buildings
he had cut into.
In addition to problems of quantity, the archaeologist is townsite ex-
cavations is confronted also with problems of quality, which have to be
dealt with in many aspects. The correct interpretation of the stratigraphy in
tell excavations can be a most difficult task, especially if the strata intersect
each other frequently, if the foundations of one building have been cut into
the foundations of a demolished building, or if the walls of one building
rest on the remains of a preceding building (a frequent feature in undisturbed
longer periods of settlement). The lack of accurate stratigraphic control
leads to immediate confusion. Walls of different strata are recorded as one
136 Manfred Bielak Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" 137
building and the finds are mixed together as well. Incorrect reconstructions
and the wrong compositions of strata, find assemblies, and find combi-
nations appear in the publications. These are the most frequent faults and
sins of Middle Eastern archaeology caused by lack of time and trained o
staff, both of which are necessary for townsite excavation.
We lack even exact stratigraphic definitions when we speak of the strata
in a tell. What is a stratum in a tell's stratigraphy when buildings have been z
0
constantly renewed during uninterrupted settlement, not once but many
different times? For example, one building might be demolished and on its
3: a
f- f-
old foundations and debris a new house built, while neighboring structures <t:
Q..
remain intact until they are renewed much later. How can one give a def- 0 ::)
inition of a tell's stratum or keep records in order, or obtain comparative Z U
units, when parts of the townsite stratigraphy do not consist of occupation ::) u
strata which can be followed up in bigger areas of the mound, but consist
a a
L
rather of a complex of individual house stratigraphies? z w0
The only way to establish order in such contexts is either to identify the 3: ::)
waves of restoration or rebuilding that went through the town areas, orto 0 Z
connect the stratigraphy of individual houses to prominent buildings in f-
f-
the site (see Fig. 11). Sometimes one may discover that both methods can <t: Z
be linked together. Waves of rebuilding or restoration can be followed up, 0
Z
for example, by tracing the introduction of a new kind of brick (Tell al- U -
u.:
DabCa), by new features in architecture or by the introduction of new LL
<t: '"0

I
::;J
0
kinds of fabric in pottery (from the stratigraphic point of view only an auxi- f-
I.i:
liary method). <t: (f)

The definition of the stratigraphy of an ordinary house can be made

a::: 0
f- a
with the help of the stratigraphy of a prominent building, as illustrated in (f)
a:::
Figure 12. It is accomplished, of course, not as an immediate result on
the site but rather as the end product of stratigraphic-interpretation analy-
LL
0
w
Q..
f
sis (SIA). Therefore the stratigraphic designations on the site at first re-
(f) w (.!)
.1
quire only relative validity in each separate excavation unit. The final f- L z ~
designation is done during the SIA and, if possible, is valid for the entire tell -z w a:::
area. ::) ::::r: ::)
It is impossible to discuss here all the difficulties in stratigraphy and the u
(.!) (f) 0
methods devised to meet them, but it is generally clear that SIA can be suc- z
cessful only when excavation records are accurate. All section walls (each z
0 (f)
of the four sides of each square) should be drawn in large scale (1 :20) --.J 0 W
according to a fixed grid (absolute heights), with the utmost care. Only in ::) f-
--.J

this way can the drawings be linked together with each other and the exact co - Q..
Z L
relationships between building units be fixed with several records (from the <t:
rim of a foundation p it to the rim of another foundation pit, from one side
of a street to another). Only in this way, too, can we see whether the building
rests in a foundation trench or a foundation pit, or from which level oc-
01 LL
w
0
X
W
 Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" 139
138 Manfred Bielak
x
Building complex III ~ C)
0.
If)
(strata D/ 3-2) Z
0
Z
.>t.
Temple complex IV Building complex '-' --l
0/3
"
~ (stratum 0/3) Mudbricks (stratum 0/3) 0!3 tl! r-
":J Red sand layer Building complex III Red sand layer =>
0 r-
~ (strata E/ 1, 0 / 3) :r W
not occupied? IJ)
ffi:r
E! 1
Temple IV stratum E! l
..... ----------
Building complex
E/l
I-
0 r-
(strata E! 2-1)
..y Z
-? Complex IV? ill
Building complex III I---
I-- with restoration Z
Stratum E! 2 (stratum E! 2) «
~
If)
.>t.
E/2
E/2 .~
Building complex III
I-- .0 (stratum E!3) Building complex IV E/3 l.!.J
>- Temple complex IV
E/3 Red layer (stratum E/ 3) CL..
I--
"c
co
If)
(stratu m E! 3)
lL
Cemetery stratum F No occupation? l-
F w
w
0
F (Complex IV) Building complex IV Building complex VI ~

~
l-
(stratum F) (stratum F) V>

«
0:::
FIGURE 12. Time overlap of buildings linked to each other by sections.
r-

cupation layers of a house start. Without such a record, the finds cannot
1 IJ)

T
C)
z
~
I-
00(
'-' ,..;
u.
be collected or attributed correctly. ~ l-
w
e.:
As an illustration of how much time and care excavations require: the 0 00(
ex:
::>
0
0::: I-
a:
drawing of a section wall 9 x 2 metres which discloses the exact stratigraphic :r: I/l

relations of buildings and all possible details (which may be considered r- I/l
~
m
0 00(
unimportant at first and only later prove to be important) needs as much x
Z Z N

as a week for an experienced draftsman. Six 10 x 10 meter squares need W

.J
0 u: z
C>

twenty-four weeks for one man, even more when the site is difficult.
C.
z r- W
...J
0
Ll
W
0 U co Il::
During the SIA, the section drawings are joined together and compared U
ill
11l I../) ....« l-
.J
with drawings of the archaeological features in order to identify the ar- => => u=>
0 III
chitectural elements that belong to one specific building and to identify the :r 0 u.
u. ~ ~
contemporary neighboring buildings. Links between buildings should show 0 ill I-
.... 0
cr: N 00(
agreement from section to section. This comparison should continue with w
z --l >-
....:r
all possible solutions checked through until all contradictions in the inter- Il::
0
u
«
ill
...J
Vi
~
I/l
pretation of the different stratigraphic links are resolved. 00(
0
0 W Z
This process should result in stratum plans of the whole excavation :J: u:
I-
area. Before the final drawing, in the second part of the SIA, one should
re-examine the stratigraphic context, starting from the plan, in order to
check the composition of the plan, to identify the contemporaneous exis-
tence of other buildings or, within a building, to check if all the walls and
1
t
I-
U
r-
«
:E
ill
~ u.

0
0
til
z
i= j::
Vi Vi
0
z
0

0
other details in fact belong together and not to different strata. w
w :r: c- o.
/! u
The result will be accurate architectural and town plans, from which VI I../) ex
town development can be studied from stratum to stratum, and which will
140 Manfred Bietak
also provide controlled find units (See Fig. 13.) Only such results can be
used for comparison and cultural analysis.
These remarks illustrate the enormous amount of work that townsites
require (and we have not even mentioned pottery analysis). The staff of
modern archaeological enterprises, especially for work on townsites,
therefore needs long experience and good training in field work and in the
methods of archaeological analysis. The interpretation of a complicated
section can be considered as difficult as the interpretation of a difficult text.
In our present situation, where archaeology has a growing importance
within Egyptology, universities should comply with these needs of training.
If they do not, Egyptologists will have to give away this type of research more
and more to experts from other fields.74 In doing so, Egyptology will remain
an incomplete discipline.
Notes
I. See, for example, R. McC. Adams, The Evolution of Urban Society (Chicago, 1966);
R. 1. Braidwood, The Near East and the Foundations for Civilization (Eugene, Oregon, 1952);
R. 1. Braidwood and G. R. Willey, Courses toward Urban Life Viking Fund Publ. in Anthro-
pology 32 (New York, 1962); V. G. Childe, New Light on the Most Ancient East (London,
1952); H. Frankfort, The Birth of Civilization in the Near East (London, 1951); R. Haaland,
"A Consideration of Gordon Childe's Evolutionary Theory," Ethnographic Museum of Oslo,
Yearbook (Oslo, 1972); K. M. Kenyon, Digging up Jericho (London, 1957); idem, Archaeology
in the Holy Land (London, 1960); 1. Mellaart, "The Beginnings of Village and Urban Life,"
in The Dawn of Civilization, edited by S. Piggott (London, 1962): W. Nagel, Die Bauern-und
Stadtkulturen im vordynastischen Vorderasien (Berlin, 1964); P. 1. Ucko, R. Tringham, G. W.
Dimbleby, eds. Man, Settlement, and Urbanism (London, 1972).
2. M. Atzler, "Einige Bemerkungen zu Qund@im Alten Agypten," CdE 47 (1972): 17-
44; idem, Erwiigungen zur Stadt im Alten Reich (thesis, Leipzig, 1968); A. Badawy, A History of
Egyptian Architecture, 3 vols. (Cairo, Berkeley, and Los Angeles, 1954-68); idem, Ancient
Egyptian Architectural Design: A Study of the Harmonic System (Berkeley and Los Angeles,
1965); idem, "Orthogonal and Axial Town Planning in Egypt," ZAS 85 (1960): 1-12; idem,
"The Civic Sense of Pharaoh and Urban Development in Ancient Egypt," JARCE 6 (1967):
103-109; E. Egli, Geschichte des Stiidtebaues, I: Die Alte Welt (Zurich and Stuttgart, 1959) is
not to be recommended; H. W. Fairman, "Town Planning in Pharaonic Egypt," The Town
Planning Review 20, I (1949): 32-51; M. Hammond, The City in the Ancient World(Cambridge,
Mass., 1972); W. Heick, "Bemerkungen zu den Pyramidenstadten im Alten Reich," MDAIK
15 (1957): 91-111; P. Lampl, Cities and Planning in the Ancient Near East (London, 1968); 1.
Monnet-Saleh, "Fortresses ou villes-protegees Thinites?" BIFAO 67 (1967): 173ff.; H. Kees,
Das Alte Agypten (Berlin, 1958); F. Pirenne, "Les villes et leur role economique au cours
des premiers siecles de I'histoire de l'Egypte," in Melanges d'histoire econom. et sociale en
hommage au Professeur Antony Babel (Geneva, 1963): 3-16; idem, "Les villes dans I'ancienne
Egypte," Institutions economiques et sociales. Rec. de la Soc. Jean Bodin, VII: La ville, deuxieme
partie: Institutions fro et soc. Burxelles, Les editions de l'Encylopedique (1956): 19-48;
W. M. F. Petrie, Egyptian Architecture (London, 1938); G. See (avec 1a collaboration de
1. P. Baux), Grandes villes de l'Egypte antique (Paris, 1974): idem, Naissance de l'urbanisme
dans la vallee du Nil (Paris, 1973); E. B. Smith, Egyptian Architecture as Cultural Expression
New York, 1938); W. S. Smith, Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt (London, 1965).
Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" 141
3. I am indebted to Dr. Gerhard Haeny for a fruitful discussion and stimulating remarks
on this topic.
4. M. Atzler, Erwiigungen, op. cit.; "Bemerkungen", op. cit.; see also W. Heick, Wirt-
schaftsgeschichte des Alten Agypten im 3. und 2. Jahrtausend vor Chr. (Leiden/Koln, 1975):
107-10.
5. Cf. A. H. Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica (Oxford, 1947): I, 31, no. 101; 11,1,
no. 313; II, 205, no. 421; N. de G. Davies, Rock Tombs of al-Amarna Arch. Survey of Egypt
Mem. 13-18 (London, 1903-1908): VI, 27, II.
6. 1. A. Wilson, "Egypt through the New Kingdom: Civilization without Cities," in
City Invincible, edited by C. H. Kraeling and R. McC. Adams (Chicago, 1960): 124-36; W.
Heick, Wirtschaftsgeschichte, loc. cit.
7. I am indebted to Professor C. F. Nims for discussions on this subject.
8. Cf. K. W. Butzer, Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt (Chicago 1976): 13,28; M. Bietak,
Tell el-Dabca, II: Der Fundort 1m Rahmen einer archaologisch-geographischen Untersuchung
uber das agyptische Ostdelta (Vienna, 1975): 60 ff.
9. See below.
10. B. 1. Kemp in CdE XLIII, 85 (1968): 22-33. Ch. Lilyquist, JARCE 11 (1974): 27-30.
11. Herodotus II, 137, 138.
12. J. Ball, Egypt in the Classical Geographers (Cairo, 1942): 129; M. Bietak, op. cit., pp. 52,
65, 83, 86, 92f.
13. It would have been possible for the settlement of Elephantine to extend northward
during the Old Kingdom, but the settlers preferred to cluster within the area surrounded by
a fortification wall.
14. For definitions of towns and urban functions see H. Bobek, "Uber einige funktionelle
Stadttypen und ihre Beziehungen zum Lande," C.-R. Congres Intern. de Geogr. Amsterdam,
1938, II, sect. IlIa (Leiden, 1938): 88-102; idem, "Grundfragen der Stadtgeographie," Geogra-
phischer Anzeiger (1927): 2\3-24; G. Chabot, Les villes (Paris, 1948); H. Dorries, "Der gegen-
wartige Stand der Stadtgeographie," Pet. Mitteil. Ergh. 209 (Gotha, 1930): 310-25; G.
Enequist, "Vaol ar en Taton?" Meddelfran Uppsala Universitets Geograf Instit., Ser. A., No. 76
(Uppsala, 1951); R. Klopper, "Der geographische Stadtbegriff," Geogr. Taschenbuch(l956-57):
453-61; O. Lavedan, Geographie de villes (Paris, 1936): R. Mayer, "De geographische
Stadtbegriff," Zeitschr.fur Erdkunde (1943): 446-57; P. Scholler, "Aufgaben und Probleme der
Stadtgeographie." Erdkunde (1950): 161-85; G. Schwarz, "Allgemeine Siedlungsgeographie,"
Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Geographie VI (Berlin, 1961): 311-473; A. E. Smailes, The Geography
of Towns (London, 1953); M. Sorre, Les fondements de la Geographie Humaine, III, {'Habitat
(Paris, 1952); G. Taylor, Urban Geography (London, 1949).
15. A. Badawy, JARCE 7 (1967): 103-109, estimates from an area of 70 x 70 meters in
Amarna there was an average density of 15.65 square meters per inhabitant. Assuming a
family unit of 4.18 (the modern rural average in Egypt), this would be an average of 63,898
per square kilometer. This figure, uncertain as it is, shows that in ancient Near Eastern towns
the population density could be estimated far higher than in European small-town communi-
ties. Taking the same figure, Badawy estimates 8,747 inhabitants for Lahun and 5,750 for
Abu Gurob. If the family index were higher, Badawy says that it would fit the idealized figure
of 10,000 men as citizens in a Heracieopolitan town foundation mentioned in the Instructions
of Merikare c .
16. K. W. Butzer, "Die Naturlandschaft Agyptens wahrend der Vorgeschichte und in der
Dynastischen Zeit," Akad. d. Wiss. u. d. Lit. Abh. d. Math.-naturwiss. Kl. (Mainz, 1959),34;
idem, Bull. Soc. Geogr. egyptienne 32 (\959): 48-49; idem, Early Hydraulic Civilization in
Egypt: A Study in Cultural Ecology (Chicago, 1976): 12-25.
17. H. Junker, Anzeiger d. Akad. d. Wiss. Wien. Phil.-hist. KI. (1953): no. 16-27, p.
59.
142 Manfred Bietak
18. O. Menghin and M. Amer, "The Excavations of the Egyptian University at the Neo-
lithic Site at Maadi," Egyptian Univ., Fac. of Arts, Publ. 19 (Cairo, 1932): pI. 11; O. Menghin,
MDAIK 5 (1934): 111-18, Figure I.
19. J. Garstang, Mahasna and Bet Khallaf(London, 1902): pI. 4.
20. D. Randall-MacIver and A. C. Mace. El Amrah and Abydos, ]899-]90] (London,
1902): pI. 10.
21. See note I.
22. Porter-Moss, Top. Bibl. V. p. 173; Somers Clarke, "EI Kab and the Great Wall,"
JEA 7 (1921): 54-62, but with no real proof for dating. The new Belgian excavations directed
by H. de Meulenaere may lead to new results.
23. J. E. Quibell and F. W. Green, Hierakonpolis II (London, 1902): pis. 70-73a; G.
Brunton, "The Predynastic Townsite at Hierakonpolis," Studies Griffith (London, 1932):
272-26; see also B. Adams, Ancient Hierakonpolis (Warminster, 1974); for the function of this
town see J . A. Wilson, JNES 14 (1955): 209-36.
24. J. Garstang, ASAE 8 (1907): pI. 2/1.
25. Op. cit., pp. 15-16.
26. This may have been the normal development of towns in ancient Egypt. See H. W.
Fairman, "Town Planning," op. cit.
27. K. Weeks, Newsletter Amer. Res. Center in Egypt 70 (1969): 1 ff.; W. A. Fairservis,
M. Hoffman, K. Weeks, JARCE 9 (1971-72): 7-68.
28. J. E. Quibell and F. W. Green, op. cit., pI. 68.
29. Fairservis et. aI., op. cit.
30. W. Kaiser, G. Dreyer, P. Grossmann, G. Haeny, H. Jaritz et aI., MDAIK 26 (1970):
87-131; 27 (1971): 181-201; 28 (1972): 157-200; 30(1974): 65-90; 31 (1975): 31-84; ASAE61
(1973): 87-91. For previous investigations see Porter-Moss V, pp. 224-29.
31. MDAIK 28 (1972): 158-64, pI. 40.
32. Op. cit., and personal communication from Prof. Kaiser. Inside the Satet Temple a
shaft was kept open to the cult remains of the Old Kingdom temple.
33. Porter/Moss, Top. Bibl. V, p. 200-205; M. Alliot, Rapport sur les foui/les de Tell Edfou
]933 (Cairo, 1935); B. Bruyere et. aI., Tell Edfou ]937 (Cairo, 1937); K. Michalowski et. aI.,
Tell Edfou (Cairo, 1938); Idem, Tell Edfou ]939 (Cairo, 1950). For an Aramaic community at
Edfou see W. Kornfeld, "Jiidisch-aramaische Grabinschriften aus Edfou," Anz. phil.-hist.
KI. Osterr. Ak. d. Wiss. 110/4 (Vienna 1973):123-137.
The author conducted a stratigraphic investigation in March 1975 in order to locate occu-
pation during the Persian Period. In 1966 another stratigraphic investigation was done by
Barry J. Kemp (personal communication and Antiquity, 51, [1977]: 185-200).
34. Porter-Moss, V, pp. 38-105 and VI, p. 1 ff. See especially W. M. F. Petrie, Abydos II
Egypt Explor. Fund Mem. 24 (London, 1903); D. O'Connor, Expedition 10 (1967): 10-23;
11 (1968): 27ff; 12 (1969): 28-39; B. 1. Kemp, MDAIK 23 (1968): 1138 idem, Lexikon derAgypt-
ologie: I, pp. 28-41.
34a. The remains of an ancient channel may be seen today, part of it still in use as an
agricultural area. It leads directly to the front of the Temple of Seti I.
35. K. Kromer, "Osterreichische Ausgrabungen in Giseh (VAR): Vorbericht uber die
Friihjahrskampagne 1971," Osterr. Akad. d. Wiss. Sb. 279/5 (Wien, 1972) has dated the
pottery, flints, etc. within those debris to the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods. Mean-
while, a cylinder seal with the name of Chephren has been found there: idem, Antike Welt
5/2 (1974): 53 ff. For the excavations of Cairo University see A.-A. Saleh, MDAIK (1974):
131-54.
36. G. Goyon, Revue d'Egyptologie 23 (1971): 137-51.
37. In the debris (see above, footnote 35) the presence of good-quality plaster fragments
with simple, ornamental painting suggests houses of higher social status.
Urban Archaeology and the "Town Problem" 143
38. W. M. F. Petrie, IIIahun, Kahun and Gurob, ]889-90 (London, 1891): 5-8, pI. xiv;
idem, Kahun, Gurob and Hawara (London, 1890): 21-32, pI. 15. For the function and economic
background see B. Kemp in Ucko, Tringham, and Dimbleby, op. cit., p. 667.
39. Porter-Moss I, 2: 685-749, especially pp. 702-706; Ch. Bonnet and D. Valbelle,
BIFAO 75 (1975): 429-46. BIFAO 76 (1976): 317-342;forthe social background seeJ. Cerny,
A Community of Workmen at Thebes in the Ramesside Period, BdE 50 (Cairo, 1973).
40. Porter-Moss. IV, p. 35ff; D. P. Hansen, "Mendes 1964," JARCE 4 (1965): 31-37;
D. P. Hansen, C. L. Soghor, E. L. Ochsenschlager, "Mendes 1965 and 1966," JARCE 6
(1967): 5-51; B. V. Bothmer, ed., Mendes I and II, in print.
40a. The mythologizing of the submersion of the cemetery at Sais may be conduded
from Coffin Text spell 571; D. lankuhn in Abstracts of Papers of the First Inter. Congo of
Egyptology, Cairo, October 2-10, 1976 (Munich, 1976): 54.
41. L. Habachi, Tell Basta, Suppl. ASAE 22 (Cairo, 1957). Another Ka temple of King
Teti has been found a short distance to the northeast of the Temple ofPepi I by Chief Inspector
Ahmed Essawy.
42. M. Hamza, ASAE 30 (1930): 31--68: W. C. Hayes, Glazed Tiles from a Palace ofRa-
messes II at Kantir (New York, 1937); L. Habachi, ASAE 52 (1954): 489-559; idem, Tell
el-Dabca I (in preparation): S. Adam. ASAE 56 (1959): 207-26 and 55 (1958): 321-24: M. Bietak,
MDAIK 23 (1968): 79-114; MDAIK 26 (1970): 15-41; Archiv for Orientfor 22 (1969): 182-85
and 23 (1970): 199-203; Bustan 9 (Vienna, 1968): 20-24; idem, Tell e1-Dab ca II (Vienna, 1975).
43. A (Ka) house of Cheti is mentioned on a stela of Sesostris III from the Temple of
Ezbet Rushdi; Sh. Adam, ASAE 56 (1969): 217, pI. 9.
44. G. Roeder, Hermopolis ]929-39 (Hildesheim, 1959); idem, MDAIK 2 (1931): 75-126;
MDAIK 3 (1932): 1-45; K. Bittel and A. Hermann, MDAIK 7 (1937): 1-56; G. Roeder,
MDAIK 9 (1940): 40-92.
45. A. Badawy, Hist. of Eg. Architecture II, op. cit., p. 39; also, the date of the wall at
al-Kab and at Abydos (idem., pp. 42-44) is wrong (ef. H. Ricke, Bibl. Orient. 24, 1-2 (1967):
43f.
46. A. Badawy, op. cit. and History III, op. cit., pp. 70-72; E. Egli, Geschichte des Stiidte-
baues I (Zurich, 1959): 46f.
47. For a bibliography of Montet on Tanis see F. Ie Corsu, Rev. d'Eg. 19 (1967): 15-17.
48. 1. Yoyotte, CRAIBL ]965 (1966): 391-98; (1968): 590-601; (1971): 38; Ann. de l'E.
P. d. H. E. 79 (1971-72): 167-73; BSFE 46 (1966): 6-8 and 57 (1970): 19-30.
49 Porter-Moss IV, 192-209; l. Pratt, Ancient Egypt: Sources of Information in the New
York Public Library (New York, 1925): 147, and in the Supplement to same (New York, 1941):
110-12. Recent investigations by B. J. Kemp, "The Window of Appearance at El-Amarna
and the basic structure of this city," JEA 62 (1976): 81-99; "The city of el-Amarna as a
source for the study of urban society in ancient Egypt," World Archaeology Vol. 9, No.2
(Oct. 1977): 123-39.
49a. B. J. Kemp and D. O'Connor, "An Ancient Nile Harbour: University Museum
Excavations at the 'Birket Habu'," Intern. J. Naut. Archaeol. and Underwater Explor. 3,1
(1974): 101-36.
50. L. Borchardt, "Das Altagyptische Wohnhaus im 14. lahrhundert v. Chr.," Zeit. f
Bauwesen 66 Jg., 10-12 (Berlin, 1916): 510-58: idem, "Einiges iiber das altagyptische Wohn-
haus mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung der Innendekoration," Deutsche Bauzeitung 28. Jg.,
32 (1894): 197: idem, "Das Altagyptische Wohnhaus," Wschr. d. Deutschen Architektenvereins
zu Berlin M. Jg. 16 (1916); A. Badawy, op. cit., pp. 76-119; S. Lloyd, JEA 19 (1933): 1-7; H.
Ricke, "Der Grundriss des Amarna Wohnhauses," Deutsche Orientgesellschaft Wiss. Vero}
fent!. 56 (Leipzig, 1932).
51. JEA 15 (1929): pI. 7, esp. T/35.
52. Porter-Moss, vol. II; I. Pratt, op. cit., pp. 148-50 and Suppl., p. 112; H. E. Winlock,
144 Manfred Bietak

The Rise and Fall of the Middle Kingdom in Thebes (New York, 1947); E. Otto, "Topographie
des Thebanischen Gaues," Unters. z. Gesch. u. Altertumsk. Agyptens. 16, edited by H. Kees
(Berlin-Leipzig, 1952); E. Riefstahl, Thebes in the Time of Amenhotep 1Il (Norman, Okla.,
1964); C. F. Nims, Thebes of the Pharaohs (London, 1965).
53. For the priest's houses beside the Sacred Lake: 1. Lauffray and R. Saad, personal
communication ; for excavations in the area of the Month Temple, see 1. Jacquet, BIFAO
69 (1971): 267-81; 71 (1972): 151-60, plan I , pI. 34; 73 (1973): 28-216. 74 (1974): 171-82 ;
75 (1975): 111-21 ; 76 (1976): 133-142.
54. Porter-Moss Ill, pp. 217-25; Pratt, op. cit., pp. 138f. and Suppl., p. 104 ; R. Anthes
et aI., Mil Rahine 1955, /956 (Philadelphia, 1959, 1965); H. S. Smith, A Visit to Ancient Egypt:
Life aI Memphis and Saqqara Ie. 500- 30 B. C.), (Warminster, 1974). B. 1. Kemp. "A note on
the stratigraphy at Memphis," lAR CE 13 (1976): 25-29; idem, "The early development of
towns in Egypt, " Antiquity 51 (1977): 192-195.
55. W. M. F. Petrie, The Palace of Apries (Memphis Il ) (London, 1909): pI. I.
56. Idem, Memphis I (London, 1909). The depression was not confirm ed by the Pennsyl-
van ia expedition, possibly due to subsequent filling (see above), but th ere is no reaso n to
doubt Petrie' s notes.
57. Middle Kingdom cemetery unearthed by the Dept. of Antiquities, 1954. Cf. C. Lily-
qui st, lARCE II (1974): 27-30; R. Anthes, Mit Rahine /955, op. cit. , p. 83118; for the palace
of Merneptah see Porter-Moss III. p. 223f.
57a. See footnote 70.
58. E.g., W. B. Em ery, Kush 8 (1960): pI. 7.
59. G. Steindorff, Aniba I, II (Gluckstadt, 1935. 1937): T. Save-Soderbergh, Lexikon der
Agyptologie I: 271-78.
60. H. W. Fairman, lEA 24 (1938): 151 - 56; 25 (1939): 139-44; 34 (1948): 3-11; Lexi-
kon der Agyptologie I: 171f.; P. L. Shinn ie, JEA 37 (1951): 5-11.
61. R. MacI ver and C. L. Woolley, Buhen (Philadelphia, 1911); literature in L. Habachi,
Lexikon der Agypt%gie 1: 880-82; W. B. Emery, preliminary reports in Kush 7 (1959)
through 12 (1964) ; W. B. Emery, H. S. Smith, and A. Millard, The Fortress of Buhen: The
Archaeological Report Egypt Explor. Soc. Mem. 48 (Warminster, in press).
62. D. Dunham, Uronarti, Shafalk, Mirgissa: Second Cataract Forls Il (Boston, 1967);
G. A. Reisner, Kush 8 (1960): 17-24 ; J. Vercoutter et aI. , Mirgissa I (Paris, 1970), Mir- j
gissa II (Paris 1975), and Mirgissa III (Paris, 1976); idem, Kush 12 (1964): 57-{i1; 13 (1965):
62- 72; N. F. Wheeler, Kush 9 (1961): 87-179.

I
63. W. B. Emery, Kush 9 (1961): 82.
64. Idem, Kush 8 (1960): pI. 7.
65. Cf. B. Landesberger. "Die Eigenbegrifftichkeit der babylonischen Welt," Is/amica 2
(1926): 355 ff.
66. W. Heick, WirtJcJraftsgeschichte , op. cic., p. 107.
67. M. Bietak, Tell el-Dabca II (Vien na. 1975): 99f, fig. 12; E. Oren, Israel Explor. Jour.
23 ( 1973): 198-205.
68. W. Heick, Stud. zur Altagypt. Kultur 1 (1974): 215-25.
69. Loc. cit.
70. B. J. Kemp, " Temple and Town in Ancient Egypt," in Ucko, Tringham, and Dim-
bleby, op. cit. , pp. 657-80.
71 . See above. p. !O3.
72. J. A. Wilso n. JNES 14 (1955): 209- 36.
73. M. Bietak, op. cil., pp. 72-74 and 99-112.
74. G. Haeny, Gottinger Miszellen 9 (1974): 53-{i2.

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