Egyptian Civilization

Town Planning

Egyptian Civilization

Egyptian Civilization
Ancient Egyptian Periods:
Old Kingdom (c. 3200 2158 B.C.)
Middle Kingdom (c. 2134 1786 B.C.)
New Kingdom (c. 1570 1085 B.C.)

Landscape
Nile Valley cliffs provided a rich assortment
of building stone
Varieties include sandstone, granite, and
alluvial clay for bricks

Egyptians commonly imitated nature

in their architecture
In a historical sense, nature is a key
element in architecture, no matter the
culture
Only recently has this process been
neglected

Town Planning
The reasons for the foundation of a new settlement could
be varied: security, often combined with economics.
The main consideration where to build was generally
proximity to a waterway and height above the floodplains.
Adobe buildings are very vulnerable when brought in
prolonged contact with water, be it seeping groundwater or
the rising Nile. But even stone edifices are in danger of
collapsing, above all when their foundations are as flimsy
as those the Egyptians built.

 When old houses crumbled, new ones

were built on top of the debris.
The continuity of settlement during the
millennia is one of the reasons for the
scarcity of data about ancient villages and
cities, as excavation is virtually
impossible.

Buhen
By their very nature military
settlements are more
organized than civilian towns
which have grown organically
from villages.
Buhen, a walled frontier town
in Lower Nubia was built during
the joint reign of AmenemhetI
and his son SenusretI. It was
probably erected at the site of
an existing trading post and its
purpose was to house the
troops who controlled the
traffic fromNubia into Egypt.

Therampartssurrounding it may
have been built before the fortress
at the centre was constructed.
The planned town covered an
area of 6.3ha, including the fort
and was surrounded on three
sides by a 712 metre long, 4
metre thick brick wall with thirtytwo round bastions. Only a single
gate opening towards the western
desert has been found.
Only a single gate opening
towards the western desert has
been found. The eastern side by
the Nile was not fortified.

City Quarters
Generally there was little town planning, and what little there was
looked a bit like the hieroglyph for "city" with houses arranged rather
haphazardly around the crossing of two major roads. But in a number
of cases attempts at planning seem to have been made, above all
inwalled cities.
The town serving the pyramid temple complexHotepsenusret(Kahun
or more correctly Lahun) in the Fayum was founded by Senusret II and
remained inhabited for about a century.
It was surrounded by a brick wall
and divided into two parts by
another wall. Generally different
social classes did not live in separate
city quarters. But here there was a
rich residential area, where a handful
of palatial 60 room residences were
fifty times as big as the dwellings in
the poorer half of the city.

 The streets all over the city were laid out in approximately straight
lines. The main street was nine metres wide, as opposed to the
alleys and streets in the residential districts which were
sometimes as narrow as 1 metres. The streets had shallow stone
channels running down the middle for drainage.

Despite the love

Egyptians had for
gardens, there was no
space left for them inside
the walls at
Hotepsenusret. The
whole area was covered
with streets and onestoreyed mud-brick
buildings.

Akhetaten
Within the boundaries of
Akhetaten there was mostly
empty space. The planners
had given the new capital very
generous dimensions; but it
was abandoned after only a
few of the main government
edifices had been erected.
These formed the town centre,
while the residential areas
were north-east and southwest of them.

 Akhenaten's workmen on
the other hand had to live
in crowded flats of 60 m,
or 100 m if there was a
second floor, which were
not very different from
those of Senusret's
workmen atKahunor the
Ramesside artisans of
Deir el Medine. The
parallel streets were
about two metres wide,
and practically the whole
space inside the walls was
occupied by houses.

 It is interesting to note that the workers'

settlement was walled in, while the city as a
whole was not. Some of the more affluent parts of
the city were possibly not surrounded by any
wall, though most were: the temples, the palace
and the royal residences, the barracks, the offices
of the administration, etc.

 The Egyptians rarely planned much further than keeping

a few spaces free for the important roads of access,
setting temple districts apart and erecting an adobe wall
around it all. Even 'planned' cities like much of Akhetaten
were at times a jumble of houses, alleys and courtyards
in what looks like a case of build-as-build-can; [4]and
where originally there had been a street grid the
rebuilding of the houses changed the regular layout over
the centuries.

But plot owners were not free to do as they liked. They

had to take into account their neighbours' rights and
wishes and reach an understanding with them.

 Even if they liked living on ground level, Egyptian city dwellers

had at times little choice about adding furtherstoreys. Land
suitable for building had to be above the floodlevel of the Nile and
still reasonably close to the river, and this was relatively rare.
Many Egyptians either preferred or were forced to live in these
crowded conditions.

Temple districts
Temple districts on the other hand were better planned. The
outlay of individual temples was basically symmetrical. Walls
surrounded them. At Hotep-senusret the brick wall on three sides
of the temple was 12 metres thick and lined with limestone.
Avenues leading through the city to the temple district were wide,
suitable for processions. During recent excavations near the great
pyramids a paved street five metres wide was discovered.
Pavement of streets was rare, generally restricted to the temple
complexes themselves.

 Originally most temples were surrounded by an empty space, but

over time houses were built right up to the outer temple walls.
These houses decayed and were rebuilt many times over the
millennia, with the result that the ground level of the residential
area rose and the temples which, being built of stone, were not
periodically rebuilt, seemingly sank into the ground.
At el-Kab the temple was built at the centre of the town, and its
rampartscould furnish a last shelter for the garrison in case the
town itself were taken by an enemy. At other places (Ombos, Edfu
etc) the whole population lived inside the temple enclosure.

Palaces
Royal palaces housed apart
from the pharaoh's main
family, his secondary wives,
concubines, and their
offspring, also a small army
of servants.
The whole compound was
enclosed and separate from
the rest of the capital, albeit
close to suppliers of
services, temples and the
seat of the administration.

 Unlike the temples which were, at least from the outside,

mainly symmetrical, Egyptian palaces were at times a
conglomeration of functional units not hidden behind a
unifying faade, even when they were built by just one
pharaoh and were not the result of successive builders
adding onto an initial building. Akhenaten's palace at
Akhetaten was of this kind, the residence of the royal family
was separated from the main palace by the main avenue,
but connected to it by a bridge.