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Town planning

Location

The reasons for the foundation of a new settlement could be varied:

security, often combined with economics, as in the case of the southern
fortress towns (Buhen); cultic and administrative needs (Kahun);
political motives seem to have led Akhenaten to found Akhetaten. 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.
Elevations, as long as they were inhabited, kept above the slowly
rising plains, where the river deposited its silt. When old houses
crumbled, new ones were built on top of the debris. This has been going
on until recent times, when the yearly inundations were stopped by the
Aswan dam. 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.
Herodotus noticed the elevated position of Egyptian cities and
explained it as follows
Whenever any man of the Egyptians committed any transgression, he (the
Kushite king Shabaka) would never put him to death, but he gave sentence
upon each man according to the greatness of the wrong-doing, appointing
them to work at throwing up an embankment before that city from whence
each man came of those who committed wrong. Thus the cities were made
higher still than before; for they were embanked first by those who dug the
channels in the reign of Sesostris, and then secondly in the reign of the
Ethiopian, and thus they were made very high: and while other cities in
Egypt also stood high, I think in the town at Bubastis especially the earth
was piled up.

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
Amenemhet I and his son Senusret I. It was probably erected at the site
of an existing trading post and its purpose was to house the troops who
controlled the traffic from Nubia into Egypt. The ramparts surrounding
it may have been built before the fortress at the centre was constructed.
The planned town covered an area of 6.3 ha, including the fort and was
surrounded on three sides by a 712 metre long, 4 metre thick brick wall
with thirty-two round bastions. Only a single gate opening towards the
western desert has been found. The eastern side by the Nile was not
fortified. It may have held 1500 to 2000 inhabitants. The town was
expanded under Senusret III and further 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 rational
planning seem to have
been made.
The town serving the
pyramid temple
complex Hotepsenusret
(Kahun; Ha-Usertesen-
hotep as Petrie called it) in the Fayum was founded by Senusret II and
remained inhabited for about a century. The outlay of the city itself was
rectangular, covering an area of 350 by 400 metres. 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.
This part had also a wide street leading to the palace. The streets all
over the city were laid out in approximately straight lines. The alleys
leading to the workers' dwellings ended in culs-de-sac. The main street
was nine metres wide, as opposed to the alleys and streets in the
residential districts which were sometimes as narrow as 1½ 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 one-storeyed mud-brick buildings.
 In this Hotepsenusret was very different from
Akhenaten's specially created capital Akhetaten - or at
least some parts of it. There the planners included
public open spaces where trees were planted and
inhabitants often had their own private garden plots.
Actually, 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
south-west of them.

Akhenaten's workmen on the other

hand had to live in crowded flats of 60
m², or 100 m² if there was a second floor,
which were not very different from those
of Senusret's workmen at Kahun or 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 affluents 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.
Residential areas

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
Akhetaten were at times a jumble of houses, alleys and courtyards in
what looks like a case of build-as-build-can.
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.
I make an undertaking that when I build my
house, which is the western (border) of your
house and which lies in the northern district of
Thebes, in The House of the Cow and the
borders of which are as follows: in the south the
courtyard of Padineferhotep's house, in the
north the house of Mrs. Tadineferhotep,
between them the King's Road, in the east your
house, touched in the south and north by walls of
my house and serving as a retaining wall as
long as I shall not lay any beams on top of it. In the west the house of
Pabimut and the house of Djedhor... that is two houses with the King's
Road lying between them.
I shall build my house from my southern wall to my northern wall to your
wall, and I shall not insert any wood (beams) into your wall, apart from
the wood of the building which had stood there previously. And I shall use
it as a retaining wall as long as I do not insert any wood into it.
I shall lay my beams from south to north, covering the ground floor. If I
want to build on top of it I shall build my walls mentioned above up to the
wall of your house which will serve as a retaining wall. I shall leave the
light-shaft opposite your two windows at a distance of one mud brick of
the mud bricks which have been laid in the front of your house opposite
your windows.
I shall build north and south of them (the windows) up to your wall and
cover them with a roof from south to north....
If I do not act according to what has been said above, then I shall pay you
5 pieces of silver, that is 25 stater .... If you hinder my building, then I will
act according to what has been said above without leaving a light-shaft -
without punishment.
Even if they liked living on ground level, Egyptian city dwellers had
little choice about adding further storeys. 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. At Akhetaten where
there was no lack of suitable land, some private homes were still built in
the same warren-like fashion.

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.
The temenos [2] wall, the temple enclosure, could also have strategic
value. At el-Kab the temple was built at the centre of the town, and its
ramparts could 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.
Bigger towns like Memphis or Thebes had a number of temples which
at first were separate, but were interconnected by sphinx avenues from
the 18th dynasty onwards.

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 façade, 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. Ay's palace on the other hand - if we are to believe a wall
painting in a tomb - was strictly symmetrical, and looked as much like a
castle as like a palace.
Building in ancient Egypt
Most of the ancient Egyptian buildings have disappeared leaving no trace. Built of sun
baked bricks made of Nile mud and straw, houses, palaces and city walls crumbled when
they stopped being looked after. Stone structures like temples and tombs fared better, but
even they fell victim to the ravages of time, the greed of men, to earthquakes and
subsidence. One shouldn't be surprised by what has disappeared but by how much is left.

Planning

The planning of Egyptian architects and stone-masons was meticulous. It included

ground-plans, sections and contours drawn on surfaces covered with grid lines. Petrie
who investigated the Great Pyramids wrote 168. From several indications it seems that
the masons planned the casing, and some at least of the core masonry also, course by
course on the ground. For on all the casing, and on the core on which the casing fitted,
there are lines drawn on the horizontal surfaces, showing where each stone was to be
placed on those below it. If the stones were merely trimmed to fit each other as the
building went on, there would be no need to have so
carefully marked the place of each block in this particular
way; and it shows that they were probably planned and fitted
together on the ground below. Another indication of very
careful and elaborate planning on the ground is in the
topmost space over the King's Chamber; there the roofing-
beams were numbered, and marked for the north or south
sides; and though it might be thought that it could be of no
consequence in what order they were placed, yet all their
details were evidently schemed before they were delivered to
the builders' hands. This care in arranging all the work
agrees strikingly with the great employment of unskilled
labourers during two or three months at a time, as they
would then raise all the stones which the masons had worked and stored ready for use
since the preceding season.
The planning of Egyptian architects and stone-masons was meticulous. It included
ground-plans, sections and contours drawn on surfaces covered with grid lines. Petrie
who investigated the Great Pyramids wrote
The drawings on the left were found by the French at the quarries of Gebel Abu Feida
in 1789. These pillar capitals, destined for a temple at Denderah being built by Cleopatra,
were sketched with red ochre on the rock face in half the natural size.
The ground-plan of the tomb of Ramses IV is extant. It was drawn on papyrus at a 28:1
scale.
When a Ptolemaic temple at Qalabasha in Nubia was moved block by block from 1961
to 1963 and rebuilt elsewhere, the ground-plan of the building was discovered. The
architect had again used grid lines and the laying of the blocks was accurate to 7 mm
according to K.G.Siegler who checked it out. The foundations were laid down straight
 with the help of strings, then they scratched the ground-plan into the surface
of these foundations according to the grid lines. A list of the required blocks
with their measurements were sent to the quarry where they were trimmed
with great precision.
The administrators had to plan too. While they interfered little in the way
residential districts of towns grew, they were responsible for the erection of
public buildings, among them temples built of stone. Expeditions to the
quarries were complicated enterprises.
I begged the majesty of my lord (to have) brought to (me) a sarcophagus of white stone
from Tura His majesty caused the seal-bearer of the god to cross over together with a
company of sailors under his command in order to bring to (me) this sarcophagus from
Tura it arrived with him in a great barge of the court together with its lid, a false door
lintel, two doorjambs and a libation stone. On no occasion had the like been done for any
servant (before).
Hundreds, at times thousands, of workers, soldiers and scribes had to be fed and housed
in inhospitable areas, the quarried rock moved to the Nile and barges built just before the
beginning of the inundation. Timing was crucial. The rocks had to be loaded onto barges
and shipped downriver. This generally had to happen during inundation, as moving heavy
loads on boats was much easier than dragging them on sledges and one could go farther
by boat when the Nile was covering large tracts of land.
I travelled north with them to the pyramid "Mernere-appears-splendor" in 6 barges,3
tow-boats of 8 ribs in a single expedition on no occasion had Ibhat and Yebu been done
in a single expedition under the time of any king. Everything that his majesty
commanded, happened, entirely as his majesty commanded.
His majesty sent me to Hatnub in order to bring a great altar of Hatnub alabaster. I
brought down this altar for him in 17 days after it was hewn at Hatnub. I caused it to
travel downstream in this barge. (I) had built for it a barge of acacia wood of 60 cubits
in its length, 30 cubits in its width assembled in 17 days in the 3rd month of summer,
when there was no water upon the sandbanks. (it was) moored at the pyramid Mernere-
appears-in-splendor, in safety.

Worker’s settlement at Deir el-Medine

Villages and towns

Not all villages were surrounded by walls and perhaps not even all towns. But with
memories of bad old times when kings were too weak to enforce order, alive at all times,
local nobles would have been foolish to neglect
fortifying their population centres.
City walls were rarely built to withstand the
onslaught of a great, well organised and properly
equipped army; but they could prevent the
penetration of marauding nomads and stave
off attacks by an unruly neighbour.
Nekheb, an Old Kingdom town in Upper Egypt was laid out as a square, with sides of
about 640 metres (40 hectares). The inner walls which formed a square of about 25,000
m² contained the temples.
The walls were straight without towers or other fortifications. They were built of sun-
baked mud bricks laid in horizontal layers, between 11 and 12 metres thick and 9 metres
tall. Sometimes the walls were probably covered with white plaster, as one of the names
of Memphis - jnbw-HD (Anbu-Khedj - White walls, surrounding the palace rather than the
city itself [5]) - seems to imply.

Rectangles as outlines for towns were often preferred in the plains. Hotep Senusret in
the Fayum was a planned town. It's streets ran parallel to the brick ramparts. Its northern
part lay higher than the southern quarters close to the Nile. From what is left it appears
that a square outlay seems to have been implemented.
The southern and most of the eastern part of the town were destroyed by the flooding
Nile, together with any surrounding walls. Nothing can therefore be said about the main
gate. But there was a side gate in the eastern wall near the north-eastern corner of the
town. Anybody entering had to pass by a gate-keeper's lodge and cross a walled-in
courtyard.

At Nebeet (Kom Ombo, near the first cataract) the

walls followed the contour of the hillock on which the
town was built, which made it look as if bastions had been
planned and added.

Moats were at times dug to enhance the effectiveness of

the ramparts and the towns' inhabitants were encouraged
by economic benefits:

Dig a moat against [...] and flood the half of it at the

Bitter Lakes, for see, it is the navel-string of the desert
dwellers; its walls and its soldiers are many and the
partisans in it know how to take up arms, apart from the
freemen of the camp; the region of Djed-
esut totals ten thousand men consisting of
free untaxed commoners, and magnates
have been in it since the time of the
Residence. (its) boundary is established, its
garrison is brave, and many northerners
irrigate it to the limits of the Delta, they
being taxed in corn like freemen; it is... the
face of him who made it, and see, it is the
door of the Delta. They made a moat for
Ninsu, for a populous city is...
The instructions of Merikare
Following their experiences with
Canaanite fortifications during the New
Kingdom the Egyptians began to cover
many of their city walls with stone. They
seem to have improved primarily the
ramparts of exposed towns on the eastern
frontier, but sometimes even of cities deep
inside the country such as Heliopolis and
Memphis.

Housing in a
workers'
village:
Deir el Medine
The village

Deir el Medine was not an ordinary New Kingdom village populated by farmers and
their dependents, but by workers and administrators who had been gathered together in
this remote place for the purpose of building the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
They were a community of craftsmen, painters, masons, scribes, and sculptors, together
with their families. As such they were probably better educated and more affluent than
most Egyptians.
The village was about 50 metres wide by 130 metres long when it reached its final
extent at the beginning of the 19th dynasty [4], and completely enclosed by a wall . Its
main street was two to three metres wide. The houses, most of them roughly the same
size, were chiefly built of stone. This was unusual in pharaonic Egypt and due to the
settlements distance from the banks of the Nile, where mud was available for the
production of bricks.
The average house size was about 4m by 20m, the smallest houses measured 13m by
4m, while the largest, probably belonging to foremen, were up to 6 metres wide and 27
metres long [3]. The height of the roofs was between 3 and 5 metres. The thinness of the
walls suggests that there were no upper stories, though the flat roofs were accessible by
stairs.
During the latter part of the New Kingdom about 30 to 40 workers lived in the village,
exceptionally their numbers could grow: under Ramses IV to 129 and 62 under
Ramses IX.

Cities in ancient Egypt grew out of

the development of agriculture and
the emergence of the state as the
unifying and predominant form of
political organization. However,
even as early as 3500 BC, towns
and cities (if they can be called
such), consisted of regional
capitals linked to the population
centers of smaller administrative
districts. The term we most
frequently apply to these districts
is nome, which was actually not
used to describe a province until
the Greek Period. During the New Kingdom, the Egyptian word for "city" was niwt, a
term which in the earliest texts of the 1st Dynasty refers to "settlement". As early as the
5th Dynasty, the term for a "town" or large village was dmi. The term for "village",
which was apparently linked to the word for "household", was whyt Unfortunately, our
knowledge about Egyptian cities, and settlements in general is limited. Every aspect of of
ancient Egyptian cities conspires to limit our understanding. Settlements and cities were
located on the floodplain, with a preference for proximity to the Nile, in order to receive
goods by boat and for its source of water. Unlike temples and tombs, most housing and
public buildings in these cities and settlements were made of mudbrick throughout
pharaonic times and shifts in the course of the Nile, the build-up of the floodplain by the
annual deposition of silt and the impact of high Nile floods have all led to their
destruction, which has sometimes been complete. Many cities, such as Thebes, have been
built over by modern settlements, and even when some remains have survived, the
mudbrick has been harvested by farmers to use as fertilizer. Finally, archaeological
investigations since the nineteenth century have focused on temples and tombs, with their
rich and spectacular art, sculpture and architecture, rather than the few less thrilling
ancient Egyptian towns.
Early prehistoric settlement sites in the Nile Valley vary in size from as little as about 16
meters. The largest sites probably represent repeated occupations, with lateral
displacement through time. By contrast, the Predynastic villages were the result of
permanent occupation with a vertical build-up of deposits.

Prior to about 5000 BC, the inhabitants of the Nile Valley were mostly foragers who
practiced fishing, fowling, hunting and collecting wild plants. The first known farming
community then occupied a site at the edge of the floodplain of the Nile Delta at
Merimda Beni Salama, about twenty-five kilometers to the northwest of Cairo. This was
a large village, consisting of about 180,000 square meters and it remained populated for
about 1,000 (one thousand) years, until about 4000 BC. At the end of this period, the
dwellings consisted of clusters of semi-subterranean huts made from mud with mud-
plastered walls and floors. The village had residential areas interspersed with workshops
and public areas. Even though the orientation of huts in rows seems to suggest some
organizational order, there is really no indication of elite areas or any pronounced
hierarchical organization. Initial estimates
of the village population were around
16,000, but more recent investigations
suggest that it more likely had between
1,300 and 2,000 inhabitants, provided the
whole of the area was simultaneously
occupied.

Around 3500 BC, the village of Maadi

was established about fifteen kilometers south of present day Cairo, probably as a trade
center. The site shows evidence of huts, storage magazines, silos and cellars. We believe
that Maadi was at the end of an overland trade route to Palestine, and was probably
inhabited by middlemen from the Levant at that time, as evidenced by house and grave
patterns. In fact, trade items including copper and bitumen from southwest Asia have
been unearthed in this location. There were also artifacts discovered that associate the site
with Upper Egypt, suggesting that Maadi was a trade link between the south and the
Levant. Maadi seems to have been about the same size as Merimda Beni Salama.

At about the same time in the Nile Valley, the two towns of Hierakonpolis and Naqada
became much more important, growing in relationship to neighboring villages.
Hierakonpolis was contained in an area of about 50,000 to 100,000 square meters, which
is comparable in area to the area known as South Town in the Naqada region.
Excavations at Hierakonpolis reveal that over time, the village shifted to the northeast,
suggesting that older areas were abandoned and used for disposal. At any one time, there
were probably between 1,500 and 2,000 inhabitants.
Prior to the emergence of South town in the Naqada region, the area was dotted with
small villages and hamlets between the edge of the floodplain and the desert margin.
Dating to around 3800 BC, these villages, often spaced about two kilometers apart,
consisted mostly of flimsy huts. However, by about 3600 BC, one of those villages began
to build up into a true town. No other villages at the edge of the desert are known from
that time. Of course, as the town grew, some of the rural population was incorporated into
the emerging urban center, and a low Nile flood level caused some shifting of village
communities closer to the river. South Town possibly developed into an urban settlement
because of its association with a religious cult and shrine, which became a center for
solidarity among the villages, which were probably organized by kin-related lineages and
clans. It probably developed into an early administrative center, where food exchanges
and trade transactions among the villages and even nearby nomads of the Eastern Desert
were overseen. The villages of Naqada seem to also have established trade with
Hierakonpolis, where the development of an urban center was possibly most related to its
trade with Nubia and the Near East by way of Maadi.

A decline in the Nile flood discharge and an increase in demands for trade goods by
expanding urban dwellers, beginning from around 3500 to 3300 BC, led to the integration
of neighboring communities into larger political units, with territorial chiefdoms and
petty kingdoms. This also led to some sporadic warfare and therefore, fortified walled
cities. Each of these became associated with a territorial standard representing the tribal
or ethnic groups. In Mesopotamia, this evolution led to the emergence of city states, but
perhaps because of the linear arrangement and limitations of the Nile Valley, this did not
happen in Egypt. Instead, the course of the Nile Valley urbanization followed a political
transformation that we believe, around 3200 BC, led to the emergence of some sub-
national unity.

Abydos, north of Naqada and Hierakonpolis, existed as a locus of proto-national power

that even controlled parts of the Delta some two centuries before the emergence of the 1st
Dynasty. The royal necropolis of Abydos continued as a significant religious
establishment well after the emergence of Memphis.

By 3000 BC, the unification of all the administrative districts under a single theocratic
dynasty was accomplished, we are told, by Menes. Memphis was a result of this
unification. The fist kings of Egypt's 1st Dynasty, by consolidating their power at
Memphis, diminished the possibility of the rise of rival urban centers. These early kings
display considerable brilliance in their consolidation of power at Memphis, developing a
royal ideology that bonded all the districts to the person of the ruler, rather than to any
given territory. Furthermore, some of the most powerful local deities were included in a
cosmogony at Memphis that removed them from their local political districts.
Unfortunately, we know very little about ancient Memphis itself. Though it remained an
important population center throughout pharaonic history, Memphis remains mostly a
mystery, though recent investigations using new technologies are beginning to provide
some enlightenment. For example we now know that the city, over its vast history of
some three millenniums, shifted eastward in response to the invasion of sand dunes and a
shift in the course of the Nile.
Later, other royal cities
emerged to become royal
capitals, though Memphis
always seems to have been an
administrative center. Tell el-
Dab'a, located in the
northeastern Nile Delta, was
the residential site of
Egyptianized Canaanites and
elite Delta administrators. This
town was possibly established
on the site of an earlier estate,
established at the beginning of
the 12th Dynasty, as a royal palace of Amenemhet I. The town became the capital city of
Egypt during the Hyksos dynasty from about 1585 to 1532, probably because of its
favorable location for trade with the coastal Levant and the administration of mining
activities in the Sinai. Then, this city's name was probably Avaris. Later, during the
Ramessid era, the new capital of Piramesses was located nearby.

Obviously, during the New Kingdom, Thebes became very important, certainly rivaling
Memphis. However, the city of Thebes is now completely covered by modern Luxor, and
remains almost completely unknown except for the information derived from its temples
and monuments, and from some rare excavations. We do know that the Middle Kingdom
town consisted of an area of about 3,200 by 1,600 feet, made up on a grid plan and
surrounded by a wall measuring some twenty feet thick. That city appears to have been
almost completely leveled at the beginning of the New Kingdom, to accommodate the
creation of the Great Temple complex of Karnak with a new residential area and suburbs
that perhaps spread as far as eight kilometers from the city center.

During the Third Intermediate Period, Tanis, which is located about twenty kilometers
north of Piramesses became an important royal city, and during the Late Period, Sais,
which is situated on one of the western branches of the Nile and which is one of the
earliest prominent settlements of the Delta, became a powerful capital. Of course, during
the Ptolemaic (Greek) Period, Alexandria, located northwest of Sais, became Egypt's
capital until the Arab invasion.

The town of Illahun (Kahun) is also representative of various settlements that existed
where priests and others were responsible for the rituals and observances related to the
mortuary cult of the king, as well as the foundation estate created to finance such cults.
Some of these also became administrative centers, in addition to their responsibilities for
maintaining the cult.
Another clear example of specialized Egyptian towns were the fortress towns, of which
some of the best known were in Nubia and date to the Middle Kingdom. However, there
were other similar towns in the northeast and probably even the northwest, particularly
later, that protected the borders from Asian and other invaders, as well as from massive
immigration. The Egyptian state had also assumed a strategy to control the exploitation
and flow of goods from Nubia, where these fortresses were built on either flat land or
hills. One of the largest was the fortress excavated at Buhen, abut 250 kilometers south of
Aswan. It consisted of a fortress built on an Old Kingdom site that consisted of an inner
citadel, surrounded by a mud-brick enclosure wall some five meters thick and eight to
nine meters high, all overlooking the Nile. These fortresses in Nubia were developed into
towns, with temples and residential areas. Residential areas surrounded the citadel and
were adjacent to a temple.
As Egyptian civilization progressed, there appears to have been some seventeen cities
and twenty-four towns in an administrative network that linked them to the national
capital. Though of course the population varied over time, it has been estimated at
between 100,000 and 200,000 people. The populations of provincial capitals and towns
were perhaps fairly small, ranging from 1,400 to 3,000 inhabitants. We believe that
Illahun, Edfu, Hierakonpolis and Abydos would have been populated by 2,200, 1,800,
1,400 and 900 people, respectively. Tell el-Amarna, on the other hand, as a royal capital
would have had a population of between 20,000 and 30,000. Older capitals, such as
Memphis and Thebes, may have reached a level of between 30,000 and 40,000
inhabitants at the peaks of their occupation.

The population of these cities and towns were not urban in a modern sense, but perhaps
more similar to today's provincial Egyptian towns, which have unmistakable rural aspects
to them. The residents consisted not only of urban dwellers, but also of rural people, such
as farmers and herdsmen who went out to the countryside each day. Urban inhabitants
included artisans, scribes, priests, tax-collectors, servants, guards and soldiers,
entertainers and shopkeepers. The kings, nobles and the temples possessed estates that
employed a variety of personnel, many of whom were rural workers on the agricultural
land. These cities and towns certainly had a hierarchical organization, which included not
only palaces, mansions and temples, but also the humble dwellings for the functionaries
and peasants, along with workshops, granaries, storage magazines, shops and local
markets, all the institutions of residential urban life.

Irregardless of their size, towns and cities became centers of power. In these urban
centers, both priests and nobles provided the fabric of the state ideology, as well as the
administration of major economic and legal affairs. It was the cities of ancient Egypt that
allowed the country to grow into an empire and assume the sophistications of a world
power.

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Messageby Jimmy Dunn
What we call Amarna, or
el-Amarna today was the
city of Akhetaten (The
Horizon of the Aten). It
was created by Egypt's
heretic king, Akhenaten for
his revolutionary religion
that worshiped Aten during
the Amarna Period.

The ancient capital of

Akhetaten lies some 365
miles south of Cairo in a
natural amphitheater
between inhospitable cliffs.
This narrow opening exists
for some twelve kilometers along the Nile River and has a half rounded depth of about
five kilometers.

This is the place where, in about the fifth year of the king's reign, we are told that by
divine inspiration, Akhenaten build his capital.

The History of Discovery

The site was unknown to the European travelers other than its name, which was a village
called Et Til el-Amarna. Early visitors misunderstood its name, so it became to be known
as Tell el-Amarna, though there are not a single tell, or great mound marking the ancient
site.

Even though John Gardner Wilkinson initially investigated the site in 1824, and soon
returned with James Burton to further examine the tombs located at el-Amarna, they had
at that time no idea of the its significance. It was only during this general time frame that
Champollion made his initial discoveries on Egyptian writing, and so the two early
explorers were unable to read the names and inscriptions they encountered on this
expedition. In fact, they identified the site as Roman Alabastronopolis from a nearby
alabaster quarry.
 Later, Robert Hay investigated the site
not only examining all the open tombs,
but clearing others from beneath
extensive drifts of sand. However, as
was the work of Wilkinson and Burton
before him, was never published.
Others would also come to el-Amarna,
and would also fell to publish their
work, though most of their efforts are
available in various museums today.

Nevertheless, due to the unique

decorations in the tombs at el-Amarna,
many showing the activities of the
royal family not in the formal attitudes
of worship repeated so often in other
tombs, but in intimate and vivid detail
as human beings engaged in everyday
domestic affairs, scholars continued to
visit the site. There was also a
prevailing mystery. In fact, because of
the depictions that we know understand
represent Akhenaten and Nefertiti,
these early explorers wondered
whether this was not the home of two queens, because of the almost feminine physique of
the king.

Even as the ability to read hieroglyphics spread amongst the early Egyptologists,
discovering the nature of this site remained elusive. So thoroughly had the ancient
Egyptians, aided afterwards by the early Christians, destroyed this place that it was not
easy to find an intact cartouche bearing the name of the king or queen for whom it was
built. Even when they did find cartouches, they were larger then those of other pharaohs,
and surrounded by a double border. Furthermore, the signs within these were complex and
difficult to interpret, but were evidently the same as those which accompanied a
representation of the Sun god, Re-Horakhty found on a few monuments elsewhere.

It was finally Richard Lepsius, a disciple of Champollion and doubtless the foremost
Egyptologists of his day, who came to el-Amarna to record inscriptions and take paper
squeezes of the reliefs and afterwards, publish his work. This work allowed scholars to
finally make advances in their understanding of the city and its king, who they initially
read as Khuenaten. Now, more than a century of study has given us this king's correct
name, Akhenaten, as well as revealing many of the mysteries that once surrounded the
site.
 The General Area

The plan of the area of el-Amarna

Located on the eastern side of the Nile River, El-Amarna, like all other ancient Egyptian
capitals, was made up of temples, government establishments, utilitarian facilities such as
grain silos and bakeries, palaces and common mudbrick homes, several necropolises, as
well as a number of zoos, gardens and other public buildings. In fact, the scope of this city
is somewhat amazing if one considers that it was founded in about 1350 BC and
abandoned only some twenty years later. The population of the city has been estimated to
have been between twenty and fifty thousand inhabitants.

The area of the city and its surrounding property was fixed by copies of decrees carved on
fourteen tablets embedded in the cliffs on either side of the river. Hence, these stone slabs
are known by Egyptologists as boundary stelae. They not only encompass the city itself,
but also fields and villages on the west
bank. The most impressive of these today is
Stela U, which measures about 7.6 meters
from top to bottom and occupies almost the
entire height of the cliff in a little bay to the
north of the entrance to the Royal Wadi. At
the base of this Stela on both sides are the
remains of a group of carved statues of the
Royal Family.

These stelae give a vivid account of the

king's selection and dedication of the site
for his capital, following instructions from
his father Aten when he illuminated a
certain spot on the desert at sunrise.

Much of the western side of the area,

including houses, harbors and the main
palace of the king, was obscured under the
modern cultivation. However, there are a
large number of structures that have been
preserved in the desert to the east, and in
general, most of the layout is discernable
from foundations.

The area is divided into suburbs, with the so-called "central city" housing the Royal
Palace and The Great Temple (The Per-Aten), as well as various buildings archaeologists
have labeled official (police, taxes...). It is here in one such building, the 'records office',
that the Amarna Letters were found by a peasant woman. This area of Amarna was
completely excavated in the 1930s. The other residential areas consist of the North City or
Suburb, the Main or South City, and the worker's village.

The central City was apparently carefully planned, while the other residential zones where
not. In these other areas, the spaces between the earliest large houses was gradually filled
up with smaller clusters of homes.
 The Central City

There was an ancient road that

led in from the north to the
Central City, which took an
identical path to the modern road
of today. It is the central city that
the scenes in the North Tombs
depict, though the layout of this
part of the area requires time and
patience to follow now due to
decay. Within a generation of
Akhenaten's reign, most of the
building material was removed,
leaving mud brickwork that is
now mostly gone.

The chronology of the buildings

here can be fairly well
determined. The Chapel in the
Great Temple and the royal estate
were built first, followed closely
between year six and nine by the
temenos wall of the Great Temple and its sanctuary, replacing the earlier chapel. The
palace was begun but never completed.

The main street here is the Royal Road which is a modern name. It comes from the south
and passes through the old South City moving into the Central City between the official
palace and the royal estate, where it is spanned by a bridge and broadens into a square in
front of the entrance facade of the Great Temple. To the east runs the West Road,
continuing the High Priest Street of the South City and passing by the Records Office and
stopping at the temple magazines.
 Layout of the Central City

The city was dissected by two east-west streets that met the West road. The southern one
stretches between the king's house and the small temple and then the records office and
the clerks' houses to the south and reaches the army headquarters. The second street
passes to the north of the royal estate along the southern side of the magazines.

This entire district was deserted in the third year of Tutankhamun's reign.

The Temples

Here, we find the Great Aten Temple as well the Small Aten Temple. Temples at Amarna
are considerably different then most cult temples of ancient Egypt. They were, of course,
solar temples, with the essential elements consisting of a small obelisk on a high base and
an altar. Though solar temples had been built during the Old Kingdom, the worship of the
Aten did not require the equipment and architectural elements found in these older
establishments, with the exception of the altar. There was no need for a naos because
there is no deity to be sheltered.

However, some temple elements are essential. These attributes include a general
rectangular plan enclosed within a tremenos wall which is symmetrically about a
longitudinal axis and orientation with the facade facing the west. There are also the pylons
as entrance fronts to courts together with a circuitous entrance to conceal the interior from
the eyes of the uninitiated. There must also be a slaughter court, the altar and trees
flanking the entrance approach. Most of these features, which had been characteristic of
Egyptian Temples since Archaic Period, could not easily be absent even at Amarna.

The most basic element of an Aten temple is the altar, to which a ramp or stairway
ascends from the west in the middle of the court, surrounded by a temenos wall. The altar
platform could occasionally be surrounded by a wall and fronted with a porch. Some also
could be abutted by four ramps oriented toward the cardinal points. The altar was usually
surrounded by rows of offering tables. The court housing the altar could also be preceded
by another court or more.

The Great Temple of the

Aten

The Great Aten Temple is on

the northern edge of the
Central City. It is partly
covered over by the modern
cemetery of el-Till. The
enclosure wall for this temple
extended back from the
modern road for some 750
meters, and is now
represented by a low, straight
ridge. Within, the sanctuary
was very similar to that in the
Small Aten Temple and is
marked by a group of isolated
rubble heaps near the back.

Bakeries

There is a long, low mound to the south of the temple running east-west with visible
broken pottery. This pottery is actually broken bread moulds, and the line marks the site
of the central bakeries.

The Bridge
At the end of this ridge is the massive foundations for a bridge that crossed the so called
Royal Road in front of the King's House by means of brick piers. There remains some
ancient timbers that once bound the brickwork together. On the far side of the road was
the Great Palace, consisting of a complex of courts and halls of which only foundations
remain.

The Small Temple of the Aten

In recent years, some consolidation and restoration has been carried out at the Small Aten
Temple. This included the erection of a replica column. A prominent brick enclosure wall
also remains, which was once strengthened by towers on the outside. There are brick
pylons at the entrance, and others which subdivided the interior of this building. In the
back of the temple stood the sanctuary originally built of limestone and sandstone.

This temple had a foundation layer of gypsum that is now covered over by sand.
However, modern stone blocks have been laid atop the sand in order to provide the basic
outlines of this temple.

A circular walk beginning at the middle of the north side of this small temple's enclosure
wall reveals other parts of the Central City. There is a tall ridge of sand and some rubble
that runs northward from across the street through the middle of a small palace built of
mud brick. Known as the King's House, it probably accommodated the Royal Family on
their visits from their North Palace.

Behind the King's House and the Small Aten Temple (further from the Nile River) were a
group of government buildings built of mud brick. This is actually where the famous
Amarna Letters were discovered by a peasant lady in 1888.

The Main City Sometimes Known as the South Suburb

Southwards from the Small

Aten Temple is The Main
City, which was the principal
residential area of the ancient
city that ran south to the
vicinity of the modern village
of el-Hagg Qandil. It was the
part of the city occupied by
the most important people
(other than the king),
including the vizier Nakht,
the high priest Panehsy, the
priest Pawah, General
Ramose, the architect Manekhtawitf and the sculptor Tuthmosis (Thutmose). Probably
connected to this quarter was a river temple, still in use under Ramesses III and even later
through perhaps the 26th Dynasty.

It was probably laid out just after the Central City. There is a platform here built in order
to allow visitors to view the interior of one of the private houses which has been cleared
and repaired in recent years. Though probably a senior official, the owner of the house is
unknown. Here, there are also the ruins of grain silos.

Further south, roughly half way between el-Hagg Qandil and the desert edge of the site on
the edge of the Main City, the famous bust of Nefertiti was discovered in Thutmose's
workshop.

Elsewhere the city has grown up, as cities will, in an irregular haphazard way, as citizens
erected buildings where they felt it was convenient. Some suggest Akhenaten lacked the
resources to control the rapid growth of his new city and regulate its plan (other Egyptian
cities are much more carefully laid out).

North Suburb

The North Suburb is separated from the Central City by a depression. It was apparently
dominantly inhabited by essentially a middle-class including a strong mercantile
component. It was not begun until the middle of Akhenaten's reign and was abruptly
abandoned, apparently at the end of his reign. Afterwards, apparently the houses were re-
inhabited by those who could not afford to travel back to Thebes after the end of the
Amarna Period.

There were large estates built here initially between the West and East roads, and
subsequently middle class houses and slums which apparently even blocked the streets
were added.

The North Palace (Palace of Nefertiti)

Still further north is the North Palace that the locals call "The Palace of Nefertiti" (Kasr
Nefertiti). This was a self contained residence built along three sides of a long open space,
which itself was divided by a wall and pylon. The residential part had gardens and
reception rooms with columns along its rear. In the northeast corner is the most famous
part of this residence, consisting of a garden court. A central chamber on the north side,
known as the "Green Room", was painted with a continuous frieze representing the
natural life of the marshes. Each room has a window from which the sunk central garden
could be viewed. In recent years, the walls have been somewhat restored and some of the
missing column bases have been replaced with modern replicas. There were animal pens
further to the west on the north side and also a court containing three solar altars, of which
nothing now exits but their foundations. This palace was probably originally built for one
of Akhenaten's major queens, but was later converted for use by Princess Meritaten.

The North City

Farther to the north where

the cultivation ends at the
cliffs there is also a North
City, which was a
separate residential area
that served a major palace
known as the North
Riverside Palace. The
palace itself is located just
north of the residential
area. This was probably
the main residence for
Akhenaten's family. Most
of this is now gone, but
there is a length of a
massive brick enclosure
wall pierced by a huge gateway at the palace.

The Desert Altars

On the road to the North Tombs, one passes a watchmen's house, and a short distance to
the west and north of this lie the remains of three large mud-brick solar altars in the form
of square platforms with ramps that are known as the Desert Altars. The northernmost of
these had four ramps of well-rammed sand and probably an altar in the center.

The Necropolises

The necropolis consists of more than twenty-five tombs facing the base of the cliff front
that is located on the east side of the desert plain, which reaches a height of about eighty-
five meters and south of the Royal Wadi Six tombs are located at the north side near
Darb El-Malik and known as the North Tombs. These were probably tombs owned by
fairly high officials, while nineteen more tombs are located in the south and known as the
South Tombs. These southern tombs were owned by a mix of officials.

These tombs are built to be highly complicated to ensure that they are protected from
thieves. Most of them start with an open court that leads to three chambers. Within these
chambers there are papyrus columns that meet in the rear end. There a statue of the dead
would have been placed looking toward the entrance.

The North Tombs were once encroached upon by an ancient Coptic Christian settlement,
and groups of little stone huts on the hillside below the tombs belong to these people, who
converted tomb number six into a Church. From these tombs, there is an excellent view of
the valley below.

The South Tombs are the larger of the two groups of tombs. They are cut into the flanks
of a low plateau in front of a major break in the cliffs, where the rock is of poor quality.
However, here one finds tomb number 25 which was built for the "God's Father", Ay,
who would later become pharaoh. Though often not as imposing as the tombs in the north,
they do have their charm, as well as more variety. On the other hand, many of the South
Tombs contain little or no decoration and some had barely been started before the city
was abandoned. Some of these tombs were also used for later burials, and amongst them
are pot shards mostly dating from between the 25th and 30th Dynasty.

The Workers (or Eastern) Village

To the east in a little valley on the south side of a low plateau that runs out from the base
of the cliffs between the Royal Wadi and the southern tombs there is an interesting
settlement dubbed "the workmen's village". It is a walled enclosure of very regular houses
along several parallel streets. Archaeologists believed it housed workers working on the
rock tombs nearby (which, incidentally, though built for the royalty and courtiers, were
mostly never occupied). However, this walled town had a guard house at the only exit,
and it seems more likely to have been to keep the workers in than anything out (the main
city was protected by no such wall, for the whole site, including the workmen's village, is
enclosed by high cliffs).

The Royal Tomb

The Royal Tomb built for Akhenaten lies in a narrow side valley leading off of the Royal
Wadi some six kilometers form its mouth. Its basic design and proportions are not unlike
those of the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank at Thebes (modern
Luxor). However, it was intended for several people, including the king, a princes and
probably Queen Tiy so there are additional burial chambers. There is also an unfinished
annex that may have been intended for Nefertiti.

Here, the quality of the rock is poor, and so the decorations of the tomb were cut into a
thin layer of gypsum plaster. Hence, most of the decorations have not survived and most
of what is left is in the chambers of princess Meketaten.

Other Ruins

At Kom el-Nana, south of the main city and east of the modern village of el-Hagg Qandil
is an enclosure thought to have surrounded another of Akhenaten's sun temples. Recent
excavations have revealed brick ceremonial buildings and the foundations of two stone
shrines. The northern side was occupied by a Christian monastery during the 5th and 6th
centuries, AD.

There is also far south of the city an unusual cult center known as the Maru-Aten. While it
has completely disappeared under the cultivated land, this appears to have been a special
function cult structure.

Amarna is unique in Egypt. Even cities built up by foreign rulers did not suffer its fate. It
was established most probably from scratch, and appears to have been completely
abandoned a short time after Akhenaten's death. Today, considerable research continues
at this location that should eventually uncover more of the secrets of the most interesting
pharaoh's reign.

References:

Title Author Date Publisher Reference

Number
Akhenaten: King of Egypt Aldred, Cyril 1988 Thames and Hudson ISBN 0-500-
Ltd 27621-8
Amarna Letters Forbes, 1991 KMT Communications ISBN 1-
Dennis C. 879388-03-0
Art and History of Egypt Carpiceci, 2001 Bonechi ISBN 88-
Alberto Carlo 8029-086-x
Chronicle of the Pharaohs Clayton, Peter 1994 Thames and Hudson ISBN 0-500-
(The Reign-By-Reign Record A. Ltd 05074-0
of the Rulers and Dynasties
of Ancient Egypt)
Conceptions of God in Hornung, Erik 1971 Cornell University ISBN 0-
Ancient Egypt: The One and Press 8014-8384-0
the Many
Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, Shaw, Ian; 1995 Harry N. Abrams, Inc., ISBN 0-
The Nicholson, Publishers 8109-3225-3
Paul
Dictionary of Egyptian Gods Hart, George 1986 Routledge ISBN 0-415-
and Goddesses, A 05909-7
Egyptian Religion Morenz, 1973 Cornell University ISBN 0-
Siegfried Press 8014-8029-9
Egyptian Treasures from the Tiradritti, 1999 Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-
Egyptian Museum in Cairo Francesco, 8109-3276-8
Editor
History of Ancient Egypt, A Grimal, 1988 Blackwell None Stated
 Nicolas
Oxford History of Ancient Shaw, Ian 2000 Oxford University ISBN 0-19-
Egypt, The Press 815034-2
Private Lives of the Pharaohs, Tyldesley, 2000 TV Books, L.L.C. ISBN 1-
The Joyce 57500-154-3
Thebes in Egypt: A Guide to Strudwick, 1999 Cornell University ISBN 0 8014
the Tombs and Temples of Nigel & Press 8616 5
Ancient Luxor Helen
Tutankhamun (His Tomb and Edwards, I. E. 1977 Metropolitan Museum ISBN 0-394-
Its Treasures) S. of Art; Alfred A. 41170-6
Knopf, Inc.

Archives

.
 However, the cities of
ancient Egypt,
including their
locations, functions and
organization, were
related to various
dynamics that shaped
the course of Egyptian
civilization based on
both internal and
external forces. There
were many specialized
cities such as those
based on trade. Others,
for example, were
made up of artisans,
craftsmen and workers related to various royal projects. Some of the best preserved of
these are four different workers villages have survived to some extent, all of which were
situated somewhat off of the Nile. The village at Deir el-Medina is perhaps one of the best
known, located on the western bank of the Nile opposite Thebes. It does provide an idea
of the organization of a specialized village, as well as a somewhat distorted view of
village life. Another workers' village is located at Illahun, on the eastern end of the 12th
Dynasty pyramid complex of Senusret II. That town was later occupied by officials of the
king's mortuary cult. A third workers' village was discovered at Tell el-Amarna, the
capital city built by the heretic king Akhenaten. It was build on the edge of the desert to
the east of the Nile, and because the city was abandoned early on, provides one of the
clearest indications of village design and construction, though it may not be completely
reprehensive of other settlements. A final workers' and surprisingly, one of the last to be
excavated, is found at Giza just outside Cairo
The town of Illahun (Kahun) is also representative of various settlements that existed
where priests and others were responsible for the rituals and observances related to the
mortuary cult of the king, as well as the foundation estate created to finance such cults.
Some of these also became administrative centers, in addition to their responsibilities for
maintaining the cult.

Another clear example of specialized Egyptian towns were the fortress towns, of which
some of the best known were in Nubia and date to the Middle Kingdom. However, there
were other similar towns in the northeast and probably even the northwest, particularly
later, that protected the borders from Asian and other invaders, as well as from massive
immigration. The Egyptian state had also assumed a strategy to control the exploitation
and flow of goods from Nubia, where these fortresses were built on either flat land or
hills. One of the largest was the fortress excavated at Buhen, abut 250 kilometers south of
Aswan. It consisted of a fortress built on an Old Kingdom site that consisted of an inner
citadel, surrounded by a mud-brick enclosure wall some five meters thick and eight to
nine meters high, all overlooking the Nile. These fortresses in Nubia were developed into
towns, with temples and residential areas. Residential areas surrounded the citadel and
were adjacent to a temple.

As Egyptian civilization progressed, there appears to have been some seventeen cities and
twenty-four towns in an administrative network that linked them to the national capital.
Though of course the population varied over time, it has been estimated at between
100,000 and 200,000 people. The populations of provincial capitals and towns were
perhaps fairly small, ranging from 1,400 to 3,000 inhabitants. We believe that Illahun,
Edfu, Hierakonpolis and Abydos would have been populated by 2,200, 1,800, 1,400 and
900 people, respectively. Tell el-Amarna, on the other hand, as a royal capital would have
had a population of between 20,000 and 30,000. Older capitals, such as Memphis and
Thebes, may have reached a level of between 30,000 and 40,000 inhabitants at the peaks
of their occupation.

The population of these cities and towns were not urban in a modern sense, but perhaps
more similar to today's provincial Egyptian towns, which have unmistakable rural aspects
to them. The residents consisted not only of urban dwellers, but also of rural people, such
as farmers and herdsmen who went out to the countryside each day. Urban inhabitants
included artisans, scribes, priests, tax-collectors, servants, guards and soldiers,
entertainers and shopkeepers. The kings, nobles and the temples possessed estates that
employed a variety of personnel, many of whom were rural workers on the agricultural
land. These cities and towns certainly had a hierarchical organization, which included not
only palaces, mansions and temples, but also the humble dwellings for the functionaries
and peasants, along with workshops, granaries, storage magazines, shops and local
markets, all the institutions of residential urban life.

Irregardless of their size, towns and cities became centers of power. In these urban
centers, both priests and nobles provided the fabric of the state ideology, as well as the
administration of major economic and legal affairs. It was the cities of ancient Egypt that
allowed the country to grow into an empire and assume the sophistications of a world
power.

Author Date Publisher Reference

Number
Akhenaten: King of Egypt Aldred, Cyril 1988 Thames and Hudson ISBN 0-500-
Ltd 27621-8
Atlas of Ancient Egypt Baines, John; 1980 Les Livres De None Stated
Malek, France
Jaromir
Complete Temples of Ancient Wilkinson, 2000 Thames and Hudson, ISBN 0-500-
Egypt, The Richard H. Ltd 05100-3
Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, Shaw, Ian; 1995 Harry N. Abrams, ISBN 0-
The Nicholson, Inc., Publishers 8109-3225-3
 Paul

Early Dynastic Egypt Wilkinson, 1999 Routledge ISBN 0-415-

Toby A. H. 26011-6
Encyclopedia of Ancient Arnold, 2003 Princeton University ISBN 0-691-
Egyptian Architecture, The Dieter Press 11488-9
History of Ancient Egypt, A Grimal, 1988 Blackwell None Stated
Nicolas
History of Egyptian Badawy, 1968 University of LCCC A5-
Architecture, A (The Empire (the Alexander California Press 4746
New Kingdom) From the
Eighteenth Dynasty to the End of
the Twentieth Dynasty 1580-
1085 B.C.
Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Redford, 2001 American University ISBN 977
Egypt, The Donald B. in Cairo Press, The 424 581 4
(Editor)
Oxford History of Ancient Shaw, Ian 2000 Oxford University ISBN 0-19-
Egypt, The Press 815034-2
Ramesses II James, T. G. 2002 Friedman/Fairfax ISBN 1-
H 58663-719-

Archives