School of Engineering

New Giza University

Kahun City

AHCS.1.1 Arts, history, culture, and society

Submitted to:

Dr. Ayman Ismail

T/A. Esraa / Omar

Assignment 2

Kahun City

Submitted By:

Group 2- Section 2
 In 1889, the English archaeologist F. Petrie,
founder of scientific archaeology in Egypt, made a
remarkable discovery by locating the remains of the
Egyptian city of Kahun, also known as Lahun. They
city was located at Lahun, known as the city of
Fayoum nowadays, one kilometer from the Valley
Temple of Seniority ll’s Pyramid Complex. It was built
during the time of Senusret II, for the purpose of
inhibiting the workmen working on the pyramid of Al-
Lahun. They pictorials and wall drawings illustrate the Figure 1 – Location of Kahun City

city’s name to be Hotep-Senworest which translates to

‘Senwosret is Satisfies’. The discovery of this city
raised many questions regarding its magnificent history
and urban planning.

The town was built in 1895 B.C during the

middle kingdom, under the rule of Senusret II, the first
king of Egypt’s 12 Dynasty. (Reigned 1844–37 BCE).
The sun last shined on this city with the end of the
construction of the Al-Lahun pyramid. Unlike other
Egyptian cities, this city was primarily built for the
priests, administrative personnel, and workers who
Figure 2 – Fragments of Kahun City
supervised and worked who built the great pyramid of
Senusret II.
 When compared to surrounding cities, Kahun was larger in size and more
sophisticated. Covering about 14 hectares (14,0000 m2), the walled town took a
rectangular shape and was rather overpopulated, with around five thousand
inhabitants, according to an estimate of ancient urban population densities. It was
enclosed by a brick wall that stretched along the north, west and partially along
the east sides. It was divided into sectors for each social class. One for the
workmen and another for the royals. There were approximately 220 workmen
houses, and 9 Royal mansions through the city. The houses of the rich residential
area were about fifty times as big as the houses of the poor part of the town. The
mansions were the size of 2,700 m² and contained up to 70 rooms. The workers
houses were between 44 and 60 m² and contained 2 to 4 rooms.

The streets were built parallelly in straight lines. In cases of heavy rain, the
streets were designed with stone channels running down to remove surplus water from
the buildings. The houses have a maximum of two floors. The All the house units here
followed a basic design pattern, rooms being grouped together in sets of six with only
one outer door to the street. The smaller houses had a small and minimal open court
with two back spaces connected with each other, while at the side there was a bigger
room with a stairway leading to the roof. A bigger house had larger and more various
rooms, while still larger houses with varied layouts sometimes had a caretaker's office
beside the entrance, with a passage to a central court or light well and may thus have
been for officials. The largest houses have an entrance leading to an open space with
three rooms connected to a smaller open court extending to two more rooms. These
open spaces were half roofed. Some rooms were topped with brick roofs or barrels.
 Not only did this discovery of this city
permit us into accessing the knowledge of the
fact that Kahun is a worker’s village is proved by
the types of excavated artefacts which include
tools such as fishing nets, combs, hoes, hammers,
flints, copper chisels with wooden handles and knives.

There were some major components that were highlighted in Kahun including
the Acropolis, which is the highest point in the town that was mainly protected by a
guard house. It was presented as a very significant building derived from the
column bases in the structure itself. It was the official residence of the king during
his visits. Moving on is the Temple area, which was built from stones. Some say
that the temple was deconstructed by Ramses ll. The storage area was located south
of the southern Gate House and was always guarded due to its minimal entrances.
The town was mainly divided into two quarters, the west quarter (Worker’s
dwellings) and the east quarter (the great houses).
Housing of Workmen Vs. Royals
Submitted By:

• Donia Bakir-202101990
• Farida Khalifa-202100813
• Farah Ebeid-202102392
• Omar Mohamed-202101794
• Ezzat Ezzat-202102709
• Salah Bedweihy-202101627
• Jumana Ahmed -202101846
• Malak Amr -202102992
• Jumana Hesham-202101776