ANCIENT EGYPT

The pyramids and temples of Egypt, which still stand as magnificent monuments to ancient Egyptian
civilization, were the result of some of the world’s first urban planners—the ruling pharaohs who invested
in town planning.

THE ORIGIN

- Kahun, Egypt, oldest settlement (near Greece), 2500 BC Babylon

- (Herodotus), planted in an open plain and formed an exact square of great size, 120 stades (14
miles)
- girt with immerse brick wall 340 ft high, 90 ft. thick
- 100 gates, from corner to corner it was cut diagonally by Euphrates
- River banks were fortified by brick defenses.
- full of houses - streets run in right angle lead to the river
- Roads run to a small gate in the river wall.

Location

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 center was constructed.
The planned town covered an area of 6.3 ha, including the fort and was
surrounded on three sides by a 712-meter long, 4-meter 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 planning seem to have been made, above all
in walled cities.

The town serving the pyramid temple complex Hotepsenusret (Ha-

Usertesen-hotep as Petrie called it near modern Kahun or more
correctly Lahun) in the Fayum was founded by Senusret II and
remained inhabited for about a century. The outlay of the city itself
was rectangular with an orthogonal street grid, covering an area of 350
by 400 meters. 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 meters wide, as opposed to the alleys and streets in the residential districts which were
sometimes as narrow as 1½ meters. 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.
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
center, 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 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 much of Akhetaten were at times a jumble of
houses, alleys and courtyards in what looks like a case of build-as-
build-can; 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
consider their neighbors’ 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 further storeys. Land suitable for
building had to be above the flood level 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.

North Street gate house. Settlement Enclosure Wall-Great Pyramid in Background

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.