Planned settlements of Egypt

1

Planned settlements of Egypt

A look into the town plans of Ancient Egypt

Jesper Mønster Jørgensen

21-09-2014

2

Table of contents

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 3

Considering the Egyptian town .................................................................................................................... 3

Giza Pyramid town ........................................................................................................................................... 5

Discovery and location ................................................................................................................................. 6

The enclosure wall ........................................................................................................................................ 6

The western compound ............................................................................................................................... 7

Standing Wall Island ..................................................................................................................................... 8

The settlement ............................................................................................................................................. 8

The galleries ................................................................................................................................................. 9

The royal administrative building ............................................................................................................... 10

The eastern town ....................................................................................................................................... 10

The western town ...................................................................................................................................... 11

Population and lifespan .............................................................................................................................. 11

The Settlement of Lahun ................................................................................................................................ 13

Discovery and location ............................................................................................................................... 13

Function of the settlement ......................................................................................................................... 14

The enclosure walls .................................................................................................................................... 14

The settlement proper ............................................................................................................................... 15

The palatial houses ................................................................................................................................. 15

Non-palatial houses ................................................................................................................................ 17

Middle-sized houses in the main section................................................................................................ 17

Small houses in the main section ........................................................................................................... 18

The western section ................................................................................................................................... 18

Medium houses in the western district .................................................................................................. 18

Small houses in the western district ....................................................................................................... 19

Lifespan and population size ...................................................................................................................... 19

Comparison of Hetep-Senwosret and Heit el-Ghurab .................................................................................... 20

Sizes of population and settlements .......................................................................................................... 20

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................................... 21

Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................... 23

3

Introduction We can all relate to the idea of a town. We all know what is meant by the word and

some may even have a personal, semi-nostalgic childhood-based idea of what a real town is; be it

the one we grew up in, the one our grandparents lived in, one we visited with our parents or perhaps

something we have seen in some childhood cartoon which still in our adult lives stand as our

personal idea of a town. It is only natural for us then to conjure this image, this understanding, to

our minds even when we read of towns in ancient cultures. This mental image will most likely

apply a wrong understanding of such ancient sites as the term “town” has changed over the

centuries and even more so during the millennia. Were we to ask a modern Egyptian and an ancient

Egyptian to define a town, it is not likely that they would give us the same answer. Were we again

to ask this question to an American and a Chinese the cultural differences could give different

answers as well. With this in mind, we should not automatically assume that any site in Egypt is a

town when in truth it might be a village or an actual city.

This essay will focus on the Egyptian settlements of the Giza pyramid town and the

site of Lahun and how they were planned, what their purpose was and if they changed purpose

during their time. Furthermore the essay will also give a comparison of the town layouts and focus

on differences compared to purpose.

To find information on these matters, I will look into archaeological reports and

research done on both settlements. At the time of writing, Mark Lehner has a team digging at Giza

and this essay will work towards bringing the findings into a coherent description of the site in

order to further the understanding of the site and in order to increase awareness of the Giza Plateau

Mapping Project.

Considering the Egyptian town

First a rather important note; as with most sites in Egypt the towns located have all

been in what is now the desert as the Nile and the yearly floods, the agricultural work and modern

settlements have all but destroyed what was built close to the Nile. (Fairman, 1949 p33-34)

It must also be remembered that houses, like all other “unimportant” things, were built

from sun-dried mud-brick and probably had a semi-constant need to be repaired. This need for

repair probably meant that towns slowly rose from the original level and became tells (mounds) and

this was probably even truer in the delta with the limited space on the “islands” between the

4

branches of the Nile. According to Fairman (Fairman, 1949 p33-34) space was limited in Egyptian

towns and for the towns in permanent use, the surrounding wall probably defined the town limits

and added safety, meaning that the inside of the town slowly rose when a new building was erected

on top of the remains of the old one. One could speculate that this was also done with the wall

when/if it had sections replaced. It may have been unnoticed by a single generation or two but

slowly the town would rise up from the ground, again as seen in the case of towns in the Middle

East.

When considering the “town”, it would be best to look into the modern definition of a

town first, before taking further steps:

According to The Concise Oxford English dictionary 11th edition; A built-up area with a name, defined

boundaries, and local government, that is larger than a village and generally smaller than a city.

If taking this to the level of ancient Egypt, a town would require a wall or boundary

stelae for it to have a defined boundary. When focusing on the boundary stelae, the city of Amarna

is an ideal site to begin with, as the surrounding desert has revealed several boundary stelae, which

defined the area as chosen by Akhenaten after guidance from Aten (Badawi; 1967 p107).

Returning to the wall as a potential requirement, Kemp writes in his “Anatomy of a

Civilization” that walls were common but not a requirement and that, in the Old Kingdom (Lehner;

2006 p194), the wall could have a curved section instead of sharp corners or angled walls, like one

might imagine the towns and castles of medieval Europe.

The enclosure wall of a settlement also had another role; it defined how the streets and

houses were aligned. If straight walls, the houses closest to the walls would be aligned in straight

lines with roads going off at right angles and the houses occasionally would attach themselves to the

enclosure wall. If the wall was curved, the houses would align themselves angular to the curve.

Another important angle is the Egyptians’ own vocabulary. The word niwt, when

translated, can be read as village, town or city without taking consideration to the size of the place.

A better translation would then be “settlement”. One can venture a guess as to why the more

modern terminology is used instead.

5

According to The Concise Oxford English dictionary 11th edition; a settlement is defined as follows: A place

where people establish a community

A settlement is therefore a place of undefined size and population and could be

anything from a village to a metropolis. To the modern reader the lack of definition might seem

strange and hinder the understanding of either the site’s importance or the size of the settlement in

question.

To the dualistic Egyptian a niwt is compared to a place where no one lives. It is simply

a matter of dualism. Either it is a place where people live or it is a place where people do not live.

Ramses II put it nicely (Badawi; 1967 p108);

I set each man in his security, in their towns.

I equipped the land in the place where it was laid waste

It was the duty of pharaoh to keep his subjects safe and to urbanise Egypt by building

towns in the same way as it was their duty to maintain order (Ma’at) and this was most pronounced

during the Old and Middle Kingdom. During the New Kingdom, the focus was turned from internal

expansion to external expansion and the many conquests in the Levant took priority over

establishing new towns in Egypt (Badawi; 1967 p107). Another angle to the importance of town

construction would be the desire to use every last inch of the Nile floodplains and not let any of

Egypt’s potential wealth go to waste. I will expand on both matters later on in this essay.

Throughout the essay I will strive to use the Egyptian niwt instead of any modern

terminology when describing any of the three settlements as this will give a more neutral

comparison when considering the difference in population of the different settlements.

Giza Pyramid town

For this section, I am solely focusing on the settlement of Heit el-Ghurab close to the

pyramid of Menkaure since several other sites were constructed to hold labourers, were built as

manufactories of bread and beer or were designed to be work camps where stone was cut and

anything else was taken care of. The settlement will from here on be referred to as Giza.

6

Discovery and location

The niwt is built to the southeast of the Sphinx and due east from the pyramid of

Menkaure and was initially excavated in 1988 (Lehner 2002 p29) by the Giza Plateau Mapping

Project and the excavation is still being carried out today with new findings in the area (Lehner

2012 p1). The original area excavated contained the Wall of the Crow (WOC) and was begun due

to suspicions of a settlement or at least based on the findings of two bakeries in the area. The WOC

was also noticed on topographical maps, further adding to the idea that something of importance

was there (Lehner; 1992 p56)

The enclosure wall

The Wall of the Crow is a 200m long wall of limestone with a thickness of 12m and a

height of 10m. It marks the beginning of the niwt and is probably part of the necropolis enclosure

wall (Lehner; 1992 p58-59). The WOC contains a gate leading into the necropolis proper and this

particular gate is 7m tall, making it one of the taller gates of the ancient world.

The rest of the enclosure wall starts at an almost right angle from the WOC and heads

in a south-eastern direction for approximately 175m before breaking more east than south for

approximately 50m. Finally, it breaks off again to go due east for another 50m before breaking due

north to allow room for a large building, referred to as the royal administrative building, about

which I will go into detail later. The wall ends after this building however, it does not surround the

settlement as one might expect. It seems to just stop as if it’s been torn down in antiquity to allow

room for the eastern section of town. It is likely that the wall was torn down to allow room for the

eastern town. It is certain that the niwt was built in several stages, but all this will be explained later

on (Lehner; 2002 p32).

The enclosure wall and the WOC make the settlement of Giza live up to the definition

of a settlement as listed above. Furthermore, the angled walls are a typical trait of the Old Kingdom.

The wall may not necessarily be a requirement, but it was more the rule than the exception that a

settlement contained an enclosure wall (Kemp; 2006 p194).

Finally, the enclosure wall had another function as well. It helped determine the way

the streets were laid out in the settlement itself. However, Giza is a poor example of this, as the

three main streets (will be mentioned further, later on) do not follow the wall. The main street

hardly follows the gate built into the wall. This brings up the question of how the other side of the

wall was built, depending on its existence of course. If the wall opposite what has been found had

been built in a straight northern direction compared to the north-western direction of its opposite, it

7

would certainly explain the streets and the construction of most of the settlement. As is visible on

the maps, only the houses lining the wall curve in the same angle as the wall itself; this area is

known as the western extension (Lehner; 2001 p49). This is most visible around the edge of the

brick wall’s gate leading into the niwt. Here the buildings join up with the wall on either side of it.

On the northern side of the gate, there is a large building, called “the western compound” (Lehner;

2012 p41) aligned perfectly with the wall and fitting perfectly in the space between the limestone

gate and the fieldstone gate (west gate) (Lehner; 1992 p60), indicating that a road ran in between

these two gates.

The fieldstone enclosure wall seems to have been built after the galleries and after the

WOC was begun but built before the western town was built. Had the western town been built

before the wall, it would have been on the inside and not on the outside. The eastern town is another

matter though. Buildings there may have “popped up” when the enclosure wall was still being built

as it stops very close to the outmost building in this section of the settlement. There is also the

possibility that the wall was in place when the eastern town was being built and that it then was torn

down to allow expansion. The latter suggestion seems implausible however, as the outmost building

would most likely have attached itself unto the wall instead of leaving, what seems like, a gap of a

few metres.

The western compound

The western compound is situated on the western side of the fieldstone wall and the

compound begins a short distance from the WOC and ends a short distance from the west gate. It is

surrounded by a wall of fieldstone (Lehner; 2010 p41) with a set of corridors functioning as a gate,

forming what represents a chute, which also explains the name it was given by Lehner et al. There

was also a gate leading into the settlement proper from the western compound, which had been

hacked out (Lehner; 2010 p44). The western compound seems to have been built after the

settlement’s enclosure wall had been built (Lehner; 2010 p41). The reason for this suggestion is

that the western compound lies at a higher ground level than the enclosure wall of the settlement.

The ground shows signs of trampling beneath the wall and in the surrounding sands, indicating that

the enclosure wall of the western compound was built later than the rest, if not the entire western

compound (Lehner; 2010 p44-45). The trampled ground is further evidence of animal presence

and, adding the large piles of animal remains found as well, indicates that the western compound

served, initially, as a slaughterhouse and the meat was then likely taken into the settlement to be

prepared at the rooms mentioned below.

8

Inside the compound, a few buildings were found. They had ashen floors and showed

all the signs of being bakeries, adding several more to the few dozen already located within the

excavated area (Lehner; 2010 p43-44).

Standing Wall Island The area referred to as Standing Wall Island is suggested by faunal analyst Richard

Redding (Lehner; 2012 p52-53) to be a corral, as the low walls would work as an animal pen, the

chute could be used to guide the cattle in and finally, it is said that cattle will freeze at a corner but

follow a curve in a wall. The large, open court would certainly fit as grazing for a herd of cattle and

the nearby buildings. Sadly, the 2011-12 expedition had to stop excavating here due to the pumping

system shut down and the water rose back up, preventing further excavation. Lehner et al plans to

return to the site soon (Lehner; 2012 p53)

The settlement

There is enough evidence to suggest that the settlement had a focus on food

production, given the many bakeries found as well as a facility for smoking, salting and drying fish

in general (Lehner; 1996 p59). Lehner and his team also found several seals bearing inscriptions

for the site calling it the “wabt of Menkaure”, usually a name given to mortuary cults and places

with focus on funerary preparation. The food could then have been for the workforce, mainly for

ceremonial purposes or a combination of the two. Furthermore, they found a sherd with the word

“pr-Sna” written on it. “pr-Sna” is the Egyptian word for a combination of a bakery and brewery

(Lehner; 1992 p65) and would help explain the large building next to the two bakeries. This

building could very well be a brewery or a storehouse for beer, bread and fish. I am deliberately

avoiding the use of the word “granary”, to avoid confusion with grain silos and storehouses to

which the name normally refers as the building in question does not appear to have contained silos

or containers for efficient grain storage. Additionally, the overall site does not have evidence of

milling activity needed for flour-making at such a massive scale as the bakeries seem to indicate.

The bakeries probably had flour imported from a nearby estate or settlement, if not from the

government granaries of Memphis and the rest of Egypt. Other than the fish, bread and beer

production, there was found rooms containing evidence of meat production in 1997 (Lehner; 1999

p67), increasing the potential food production of the settlement and increasing the potential

population size as well. Only thing not located at the time of writing, would be storage areas able to

contain water; either wells or similar constructions. It would seem unlikely that people received

9

water at random from water carriers/suppliers as this would have meant that workers could not

spend their working days working but had to take time off to gather water and thereby reducing the

production efficiency of the site, making production somewhat random instead of scheduled.

The food production capabilities of Giza seems to be sufficient enough to maintain the

funerary cults of Menkaure, Khafre and Khufu and a working population of some size, as the centre

of the planned settlement; the galleries, also contained small bakeries within some of them. This

will be explained in detail in the next section.

The galleries

At the core of the niwt, four sets of galleries have been built. Each of these sets are

rectangular in shape and measure 34.5m North-South by 52m East-West. Gallery set 1 is too

damaged to say much about and it may or may not have been the same size as the three others.

However, when looking at the excavated plan, it seems plausible to say that gallery set 1 also had

the same measurements as the rest of the planned niwt. Each set contains eight blocks, typically

referred to as galleries (Lehner; 2000 p38). The galleries are between 4.5 to 4.8m wide, have

chambers in the southern end and in the northern end, ash and clay have been found on the floor,

indicating bakeries or kitchens (Lehner; 2000 p39). Some of the southern chambers functioned as

bakeries as well, turning some of the galleries into food-producing units instead of housing units

(Lehner; 2000 p39) and fish bones further support the idea of food production taking place in some

of the galleries (Lehner; 2000 p40).

Set 1 and 2 are separated by a road 5.2m wide called, by Lehner et al, the North Street

(Lehner; 2002 p35). Between set 2 and 3 there is another street, the Main Street. The Main Street is

also the only paved road in the niwt and may have been part of the road towards the necropolis.

Lastly, a third street, called South Street, begins at the curve of the enclosure wall and runs in a

straight line up to the royal administrative building, making a small pocket for expansion, and past

the administration building. In the pocket between South Street and the enclosure wall, a corridor of

magazines was built. These magazines could be storage or bakeries, as they share dimensions with

the bakeries found elsewhere (2.6m by 5.2m) (Lehner; 2002 p59). These three streets ran east-west

through the niwt.

As noted, the three east-west streets had a width of 5.2m or 10 cubits. The galleries

are 34.5m x 52m or 66 by 100 cubits. With the measurements of the galleries and of the streets, it

seems safe to say that the galleries were planned and that the niwt itself then was planned by either

10

an overseer on behalf of the pharaoh, who might be Khufu or by pharaoh himself. The planned

section of the settlement however, seems to have been the galleries

The royal administrative building

In May 2001, a corner of a curious building, dubbed “the Buttress building” was

located on the other side of the enclosure wall. It had thick walls in front of it and seemed to have

been very solid, potentially even built from fieldstone instead of mudbrick (Lehner; 2001 p75).

However, in the 2001-2002 season, it was discovered to be a royal administrative building, hence

the name. It contains storerooms and several, large silos with a diameter of five cubits, intended for

grain storage (Lehner; 2002 p53). Other items discovered included tokens for accounting and other

administrative equipment. Copper and alabaster was also worked within the area of the facility,

probably to keep them within close proximity and close scrutiny of the royal administration to

prevent the likelihood of theft (Lehner; 2002 p54). Finally, weaving seems to have taken place

here as well, as several items relating to loom-work have been found in the ruins.

The royal administrative building was built after the eastern town as it was built upon

the remains of several houses (Lehner; 2002 p56).

The eastern town

The area east of the galleries was excavated in 2001 in the hopes of finding the rest of

the enclosure wall. Instead, however, the team found a large group of buildings in its place. The

eastern town was most likely built after construction of the enclosure wall had begun due to the wall

stopping close to the site. It is possible that the wall had already taken the course past the royal

administrative building, or at least close to it, as the houses of the eastern town do not attach

themselves to the wall. There is a sizeable gap between the end of the wall and the nearest house.

The area was not carefully laid out with streets and buildings in a specific pattern, like the galleries;

instead they were more “natural” and somewhat randomly built. The houses had varying sizes,

shapes and number of rooms (Lehner; 2002 p56). Within the group of houses, two circular

domestic granaries, with an internal diameter of two cubits, were found alongside several grinding

stones. This was also the case of the excavation done in 2002 (Lehner; 2004 p69) where two silos

were found and more grinding stones. The purpose of the eastern town may have been flour

production or houses for permanent workers with their families. The houses are simple, with a

foyer, a common room and a sleeping niche (Lehner; 2004 p68), like the southern ends of most of

11

the galleries and contained a bench very much resembling the beds found in other houses

throughout the Old, Middle and New Kingdom.

The overall purpose of the eastern town seems most likely to have been homes for

permanent workers at the site, be they pyramid builders or cultic workers.

The western town

This section of the settlement was excavated in 2003-2004 (Lehner; 2004 p73-74)

and contains three large buildings with several smaller ones behind it, several of them probably

small-scale bakeries and the like, needed to maintain life in the three large buildings. The large

buildings may have been for overseers, for the caretakers of the royal cults or for royal scribes

attached to the royal administrative building.

The western town is built outside the enclosure wall, making it a later extension and it

is not a planned area either, exactly like the eastern town. The function of this area was probably

housing for the elite and buildings in charge of their care. With the addition of the western town, the

settlement seems to have changed focus from a primarily “workmen’s village” to a place where

members of the elite were stationed or freely chose to move. It is far more likely that the three

houses belong to people employed by the state due to the remoteness of the site and the proximity to

the necropolis. Surely, the elite would have stayed close to Memphis and the king?

Population and lifespan

According to the archaeological findings, the settlement of Giza could easily have had

a population of 1,600 to 2,000. During an expedition to the site, Ashraf Abd al-Aziz counted

“sleeping” staff members inside one of the galleries and noted that 40 to 50 people could easily fit

inside each gallery and there was even room to spare (Lehner; 2002 p69-70). Add to this, the

amount of animal bones found at the site and an estimate of about 3,000 people is not unimaginable.

Lehner wrote that “… accompanied by quantities of cattle, sheep and goat bone sufficient, on the

basis of New Kingdom meat rations, to feed several thousand people daily” (Lehner; 2002 p73).

According to Kemp, this would give a population density of 640 – 800 per hectare (Kemp; 2006

p189) based on findings at the time. See the comparison of the sites for more information.

The settlement probably began to decrease in population around the time that

Menkaure’s pyramid was half-way through. His pyramid is smaller than those of Khufu and Khafre

but probably still needed the same amount of workers for the early stages and could easily maintain

12

several thousand workers, but only up until a certain stage. It is unlikely that 3,000 people would

have been needed to finish the pyramid and to dress the face, as only so many people can approach

the increasingly smaller and smaller pyramid plateau without crowding each other or without

increased risk of injury. Shortly after the pyramid of Menkaure had been built, the settlement of

Heit el-Ghurab was largely abandoned due to the royal cemetery of Giza being abandoned in favour

of the royal cemetery of Saqqara (Lehner; 2008 p55). Lastly, the settlement seems to have been

intentionally levelled when abandoned (Lehner; 1996 p57-58) since there are no signs of the walls

collapsing or falling over. They seem to have been destroyed intentionally. During the reign of

Userkaf and Shepsekaf, the settlement was little more than a village (Lehner; 1999 p75)

There is a historical reason for the sudden breakdown of the settlement. The pharaohs

of the 5th

dynasty moved their burials away from Giza to Saqqara and probably had a greater need

for workmen at Saqqara and saw no need to maintain the many settlements on the Giza plateau.

With the removal of the workmen, several of the workshops would have been shut down, leaving

just enough to maintain the cults. However, the various pyramid temples had some sort of

settlement attached to them and probably did not need the extra workshops for long, if at all. Most

of the bakeries were probably shut down as well and the workforce sent where they were needed; at

the sun-temples and pyramid complexes of the 5th

dynasty.

The settlement appears to have been intended as either a combination of “workmen’s

village” and a settlement for the necropolis cults (Lehner; 1992 p65-66). The reason for this belief

is that the WOC is a solid limestone wall and the rest of the enclosure wall is made of fieldstone

(Lehner; 2001 p46). The WOC is likely to be part of the necropolis wall and the gate in it is likely

to have been the entrance to the necropolis proper. The placement of the niwt then makes it likely

that Giza was intended as more than just a workmen’s village and the size of the population, as well

as the amount of workshops and bakeries, seem only to add to this suggestion.

This also leads me to suspect that Giza had a decline in population around the time of

Khufu’s death, as his successor Djedefre constructed his pyramid at Abu Rawash, 8km north of

Giza and most likely he needed the workers present at his new site instead of his father’s site. All of

this would then also indicate that the settlement received an influx of people when Khafre moved

the royal cemetery back to Giza and had his pyramid built there.

If the settlement had been intended as a cultic settlement, it would certainly explain

the “random” growth of both the Eastern and Western town seeing as more people would be needed

13

for each new funerary cult added to the necropolis and it would also explain why the niwt still had

some occupants after the royal cemetery moved back to Saqqara. Furthermore, it would also explain

the location of the settlement and the fact that it had the galleries so centrally placed. They would be

the perfect accommodation for the priestly phyles as well as the workmen. Perhaps further study of

the archaeological discoveries will increase our understanding of Giza’s purpose. Was it a pure

workmen’s village or was it a combination?

My honest opinion on this matter is that it was a mix of both. There is enough

evidence to support the workmen’s village. It is primarily the close proximity to the necropolis and

the placement right outside the necropolis wall that makes it a likely candidate for a cultic town as

well. On the Giza plateau itself, we have evidence of such cultic towns built up against the temple’s

enclosure wall; the monument of Khentkawes had a cultic settlement built up against the enclosure

wall, again right next to the enclosure wall, exactly like Heit el-Ghurab is built against the WOC.

Furthermore, Lehner’s expedition found evidence of royal institutions connected with mortuary

services (Lehner; 1992 p65-66) at the site, giving a bit more support to the “cultic town” and

“workmen’s village” combination.

The Settlement of Lahun

For this section I will mainly use Stephen Quirke’s 2005 edition of “Lahun” as I have

seen it cited in several books written on the matter and it seems to give a good explanation of the

history of the site and of the archaeological data of the site, which will be needed to write this

section of the essay. I will again refrain from modern terminology and refer to Lahun only as a

settlement or as a niwt.

Discovery and location

The site of Lahun, ancient Egyptian Hetep-Senwosret (Quirke; 2005 p38), was

discovered by Flinders Petrie in 1887 (Quirke; 2005 p1). The settlement is attached to the valley

temple of the pyramid of Senwosret II and lies at the entrance to the Fayum. Lahun itself lays a

good 800 meters away from the pyramid of Senwosret II (Quirke; 2005 p40). A few things need to

be said about the excavation though. Petrie did not focus much on historicity and focused more on

excavating the site and draw plans of the settlement (Quirke; 2005 p41). This has left reports of a

more anthropological nature and reads somewhat like what you would see if an anthropologist

walked into a village in 1887 instead of what an archaeologist would record today.

14

Function of the settlement

Lahun seems to have been built originally to house workers for Senwosret IIs pyramid

(Quirke; 2005 p42). The evidence supports this claim, as the settlement of Lahun did not exist

before this time. We have here another clear example of a niwt built to house workers, at least in the

beginning.

The enclosure walls

When taking a first glance at the layout of the settlement, it is clear that Lahun is a

planned settlement. The settlement is divided into two sections by a wall that may have been a low

wall to separate the town into sections or perhaps an actual town wall. It does not seem to have been

for military matters (Quirke; 2005 p43) and besides, Lahun was built in the centre of a very stable

country and far from enemy territory, so defensive walls would have been a waste of material.

Instead, it is plausible - again it is not possible to say for certain due to the excavation work - that

the walls were built purely to define a town limit, as discussed earlier.

Only the northern wall has been found intact (Quirke; 2005 p43), however, due to the

layout of the streets in the settlement, it is a fair assumption that the walls surrounded the entirety of

Lahun and with the same measurements as well. The wall runs north-south for 260m or 500 cubits

from the corner to the separating wall (Quirke; 2005 p44). There is no gate into the other section of

town and no determinable road leading into the areas with no remains of the wall found. In effect,

the two sections of the niwt seem to be isolated from each other, indicating that they probably

served different purposes or even served two different communities. It is a fair assumption that the

entirety of Lahun was surrounded by walls spanning 260m by 260m. The size is an easy indicator of

Lahun being planned; the fact that the walls are 500 cubits from end to end hardly seems a

coincidence. Had it been 482 or some similar number, it could have been argued that Lahun was not

planned but with the current evidence of 500 x 500 cubit and the way the houses have been built -

which will be explained in the next chapter – support the claim that Lahun is a planned settlement

of the Middle Kingdom.

The northern wall continues for 90 meters after the separation wall and the end wall

goes for a good 290 meters from where it meets the northern wall to where it ends. This section of

town links up with the valley temple and the people living with the section may have been cultic

workers instead of construction workers (Quirke; 2005 p43).

15

The settlement proper

As explained in the previous chapter, Lahun is 500 by 500 cubits and the

houses/buildings within it are all very structured in their construction and their planning. They are

by no means random houses as they are identical down to the grouping of rooms (Quirke; 2005

p43). The settlement is divided up in two sections within the 500 by 500 cubits square; a northern

part and a southern part. It would be easy to just call it a rich-poor division but the houses in the

“poor” section various in size from 40 to 170 square meters, indicating a difference in income or

social standing (Quirke; 2005 p47). This is further attested in the “rich” class. The houses are of

equal size but one of them lies at a higher level than the others. Petrie originally called this the

“acropolis” (Quirke; 2005 p47) but digs at Wah-Sut at Abydos South makes a precedent for the

type of house; it most likely belonged to the mayor and any findings there could have been among

the many items misplaced by Petrie’s crew.

The roads of the settlement begin with the primary road leading from the gate to the

north-east. It then goes past the top six palatial houses, including the mayor’s house/acropolis, and

stops at a large plaza due west from the gate. There are five north-south streets crossing the street

and from the plaza, another street runs south with several streets branching off of it. Throughout the

settlement, there are long lines of stone measuring 55cm or roughly a cubit in width, in the streets.

This is believed to be an early drainage system and the streets probably sloped down, like roads do

today, to allow waste and occasional rainfall to drain away. Sadly, Petrie did not observe this. He

merely deduced the sloping (Quirke; 2005 p48). The main streets measure about 5 meters in width,

so maybe 10 cubits and the smaller streets are about three to four meters wide, making them slightly

narrower than the main streets.

The palatial houses

In the northern part of the settlement lie two rows of palatial houses, totalling nine

houses in all, separated by the street leading from the gate to the open plaza. The houses are 2,700

square meters (Quirke; 2005 p55). These houses probably belonged to officials living in Lahun as

opposed to regular nobles just moving in. It may also have been housing for the very elite; the vizier

and fellow high-ranking officials (Quirke; 2005 p69). This theory is based on the fact that the

houses are identical of design and probably were built at the same time, leaving little room for

“individual” or “random” design. The houses are believed to have belonged to nobles due to the

columns found in them. Columns are a mark of high social standing (Quirke; 2005 p53) and these

16

buildings/houses contain several of them. As the houses are identical, they will be explained in

detail but will be referred by singular definition.

At the heart of the main suite of the house a four-columned hall just shy of eight by

eight meters appears. In the second suite, a 12-columned hall eight by eight meters with a central

ablution tank has been found and finally, a 15 by seven meter front room/entrance fronts the main

suite and the façade of the building has a single row of columns. Additionally the third suite

contains an ablution tank or pool with three columns on one side, bringing each palatial house to a

total of 19 columns plus the amount on the façade (Quirke; 2005 p53).

Each of the nine houses measure 60 by 45 meters (Quirke; 2005 p56) and the

northernmost six are built so the cool northern wind easily can enter the house. The three built

opposite have been adjusted accordingly. The houses contained three suites, as mentioned above.

The following is based on an earlier study by Elke Roik (Quirke; 2005 p56) in which the focus was

put on housing, it was speculated that the palatial houses found at Lahun and similar sites were

divided into three sections;

1. The Master’s suite

2. The wife and children’s suite

3. Administration and storage

Thanks to the excavation at Wah-Sut at Abydos south and the objects discovered

there, this division received striking confirmation (Quirke; 2005 p57). Manfred Bietak applied his

work from Tell el-Daba to a Lahun palatial house and Quirke adopted the same description in his

book (Quirke; 2005 p57-66).

Unit one (Quirke; 2005 p59-61) contains the residential rooms for the main occupant

and it was here that select guests would visit the master/mistress of the house. Visits would take

place in the main chamber and the owner would use the rooms behind as personal living quarters

and the overall unit was served by a triple economic unit entered from the single-pillared hall. This

was most likely the kitchen and storerooms.

Unit two (Quirke; 2005 p61-62) is in the south-eastern corner of the house and seems

to have been more leisurely. This was probably the rooms where the wife and children lived. It

included a great-hall with a pool surrounded by ten columns and it might have served as either

formal reception or as a place of relaxation within the house. Connection between section one and

two was through either a common joining room in front of the two sections or via a side-passage.

17

The third unit (Quirke; 2005 p62-63) served as housing for the administrator and the

servants. It was located in the south-western corner of the house. There was a corridor connecting

this section to the granary and storage rooms inside the house. This entire unit had a separate

entrance.

Unit four (Quirke; 2005 p63-65) may have been the living quarters of the oldest son,

the house-owner’s mother or may have been for important guests.

The fifth unit (Quirke; 2005 p65-66) may have served as guest rooms, due to the

proximity to the front door and the columns in them would make it very unlikely for the rooms to

be servant quarters.

Finally, the sixth unit (Quirke; 2005 p) served as additional servant quarters.

Non-palatial houses

The essay would not be complete without a run-down of the non-palatial houses as

well and their development throughout the history of the site. Petrie divided the houses into four

categories (Quirke; 2005 p74).

1. Dwelling houses joining the west wall.

2. South of the south palatial houses.

3. East of the south palatial houses.

4. The eleven streets in the separate western sector

Categories 2-4 are workmen’s houses and category 1 appears to be regular dwellings. Again, it is

difficult to say when one progress within a section began and another ended, as Petrie noted the

changes over time of only a few houses and not the overall site.

In this essay, focus will be put on houses in the main part of town and the western

section will be briefly described in a separate section as it appears to be a later expansion.

Middle-sized houses in the main section

This type of house usually was 135 square meters (Quirke; 2005 p76) and followed a

similar plan for several blocks. They were grouped back-to-back and consisted of a three-room unit

and two separate rooms; one small and one large. The three-room unit had a total width of 50

meters. The three-room unit served as living quarters for the nuclear family and the other rooms

may have served as kitchen and storage.

18

Small houses in the main section

Just south of the eastern southern palatial houses there are three blocks of housing, all

of which are comprised of houses of the same size and shape. They only vary internally but the

overall plan remains the same. They consist of three rooms, as seen in the middle-sized houses and

each house consists of three bands of such three rooms, totalling in nine rooms in a 50 square meter

house (Quirke; 2005 p85). This is roughly the size of a modern day 2-bedroom apartment.

Lining the streets between the southern palatial houses and the eastern wall were

houses of a smaller size still and these houses were built back to back. They had a rough size of 40

square meters and consisted of an entrance with three doors leading into three separate rooms; two

larger and one smaller room (Quirke; 2005 p86)

The western section

This part of the settlement is enclosed by a 90 by 290 meter enclosure wall (Quirke;

2005 p43). The district seems to have been added later and is presumably attached to the valley

temple of Senwosret II. The western district breaks the uniformity achieved by the eastern district;

the 500 by 500 cubits enclosure wall, the town planning and separation into house-sizes as

explained above.

The section contains one north-south road and it shares the measurements and

drainage-system as the rest of the niwt (See above).

Medium houses in the western district

These houses are 168 square meters (Quirke; 2005 p75) and take up the northern part

of the district, acting in a way as the palatial houses of the eastern district even down to the pool or

tank inside the house. In the western district, it is placed in the centre of the house.

The houses are built in two rows and back to back unlike the palatial houses of the

eastern district, which stood side by side and opposite each other. These houses clearly did not

belong to the same class of citizens but they were still owned by the important people of the western

district. Due to the lack of a gate in the separating wall, the two sections most likely had no contact

with each other. This may have resulted in the existence of these houses instead of expanding the

eastern district, allowing more palatial houses and more medium sized dwellings as the ones listed

above. Instead, there is the separating wall with no gate and these houses at the very top of the

settlement.

19

If looking more closely at these houses, a familiar pattern will appear. They each have

the typical “three-room” unit as described earlier with rooms leading off of them. They are, in truth,

much like the ones built in the eastern section (Quirke; 2005 p75). The residents of these houses

had a higher standing than the eastern house-owners; they had what appears to be a door-keeper’s or

guard’s room added to the building (Quirke; 2005 p76).

Small houses in the western district

Most of the remaining houses in the western district are of roughly the same size, 50

square meters (Quirke; 2005 p84). They seem to follow a standardised plan with six separate

rooms in each dwelling and with the exception of the orientation, they are roughly internally

identical. The houses had an entrance room with a side-room which often was a corridor and some

still have remains of steps, probably leading up to the roof (Quirke; 2005 p84). The rest of the

house consisted of three rooms, once again giving the “three-room-unit”.

Lifespan and population size

The site of Lahun in general does not seem to have been populated before the reign of

Senwosret II (Quirke; 2005 p). The ground was, however, not unused. The area around Lahun

contains a few Old Kingdom cemeteries but nothing of great importance. Generally the settlement

is considered to have diminished greatly in population at the end of the Middle Kingdom. It

primarily became a large cemetery afterwards (Quirke; 2005 p113) as the population would have

been needed at Ghurob a bit to the south.

Hetep-Senwosret had the capacity to sustain a population of up to 5,000 people

(Shaw; 2002 p177) based on the granaries found at the site. It is unlikely that 5,000 people would

be needed to purely take care of the construction of the pyramid and the cultic practices afterwards.

If the population only had to focus on these matters, there would be no reason to include the palatial

houses and their rather luxurious rooms, pools and columns. I find it likely that Hetep-

Senwosret/Lahun was founded and sustained as an off-site from the newly built capital of

Lisht/Itjtawi, as well as serving as a place of residence for workmen and cultic workers, making it a

combination of “workmen’s village, cultic town and “secondary capital expansion”; the latter has

been added due to the presence of the palatial homes and the potential residents of said homes.

20

Comparison of Hetep-Senwosret and Heit el-Ghurab

After having given a thorough run-down of both sites, as found after examining the

archaeological reports of Mark Lehner and Flinders Petrie and going through Quirke’s “Lahun” for

the exact measurements and descriptions of Hetep-Senwosret, a comparison of the two and their

importance seems appropriate. To begin with, focus will be put on population and settlement size,

followed by the use of the settlements and finally, I will conclude on my findings in a separate

chapter.

Sizes of population and settlements

As listed in previous chapters of this essay, Hetep-Senwosret had a population of up to

5,000 and Heit el-Ghurab had an estimated population of about 3,000 making both settlements

fairly large in terms of population. If then taking their sizes in account as well, the population

density can be found, which in this matter may be a better choice to compare on, as it is easy to say

that one site had a larger population than the other, when it could be due to one site being larger

than the other, thus allowing more people to live there. Heit el-Ghurab is 250m east-west and 215m

north-south (Lehner; 2002 p29) and a further 105-120m in the western extension north-south and

some 75m east-west before disappearing under the football field to the east and the cemeteries to

the west (Lehner; 2004 p73). This brings the size of the area of Heit el-Ghurab somewhere

between 61,625 and 62,750 square meters or 6.1625 to 6.275 hectare. For Hetep-Senwosret the first

section is 260 by 260m and the second is 90 by 290m, giving a total of 93,700 square meters or 9.37

hectares.

This just leaves the population density. Heit el-Ghurab had a maximum of 3,000

people living on 6.275 hectares giving it a population of 478 people per hectare. Hetep-Senwosret

had a population of 5,000 and a size of 9.37 hectares giving it a population density of 533 people

per hectare. The difference is a mere 55 people per hectare and even less if Heit el-Ghurab was

6.1625 instead. Furthermore, as we are not entirely certain of the populations of either site, the

difference could be even smaller or potentially larger, though that is doubtful considering the

discoveries made across both settlements. There most likely was a difference in population density,

as Egypt probably had a greater population in the Middle Kingdom compared to the Old Kingdom.

However, due to the lack of proper census from any point in pharaonic Egypt, any population of the

entirety of Egypt is nothing more than an educated guess, or as some would say, a hunch.

A final comment on the purposes of the two settlements, as they have been discussed

separately, will be simple. They both have a history of being built for workers and both very

21

quickly in their history became cultic as well. The only difference between them would be the

palatial houses of Hetep-Senwosret. These would, as explained above, indicate an interest from the

highest officials of Egypt and is probably due to the proximity to the new capital and the royal cult.

Conclusion

After having spent several weeks reading through archaeological reports and

examining the various materials, it has become clear to me that there was indeed a drive to settle

new sites in Egypt and a focus on the need of the average worker. The amount of food produced at

both sites, the large tracts of land set aside purely for residential areas and the time spent actually

building the settlements all show a deliberate attempt at making both construction easier and the

lives of the workers easier, relatively speaking that is. Had the overseers spent the time making

people work instead of having them all settled in communities close to the building sites, they could

have been going up and down the Nile constantly, gathering workers and materials and hardly

getting any work done. This too shows the strength of the Egyptian administration given that a

weak administration would be unable to pull together a large force of workers, feed them and house

them.

The archaeological reports from Heit el-Ghurab greatly helped the writing of this

essay and helped with the understanding of the site. There it is easy to see how the settlement

functioned and where the food came from, where the workers lived and to an extent, how they

lived. This information is somewhat lacking in the Hetep-Senwosret settlement due to a number of

things. The two most important reasons for this would be the speed of the excavation by Petrie and

of course the lack of knowledge in the general field of Egyptian archaeology. Had Petrie and his

crew possessed the same archaeological knowledge as Lehner and his crew, the site of Hetep-

Senwosret would be much more detailed in the reports.

Finally, one should not overlook the importance of both sites in the history of Egypt.

Heit el-Ghurab was one of the first major Egyptian planned towns and much can still be learned

from the site and of its relation to the construction of the pyramids of Giza. Hetep-Senwosret is an

important stepping-stone in both the understanding of Egyptian town planning and in the

archaeological methods and theories employed today. Had it not been for Lahun, some theories

could not have been tested, like the ones from Wah-Sut on such a grand scale.

22

When looking at the sites in general trends appear in the plans of houses, in the

planned sections. In Hetep-Senwosret it was the “three-room-unit” and in Heit el-Ghurab it was the

galleries and the bakeries of various sizes found in most sections of the settlement. From what has

been gathered as well, the site at Giza produced large amounts of food and not just one type either.

Fish, meat and bread were made there whereas in Lahun, the evidence does not show the same

amount of food production.

As a last comment for this essay, it should be noted that both sites were short-lived

and therefore give a good impression of how a planned settlement of a given period would have

looked and how it would have been built.

The work of Mark Lehner and his crew at Heit el-Ghurab will be interesting to follow

and they may one day be able to answer the following questions, which this essay has left me with.

How far does the western town stretch and is it linked with the small stretch of

settlement found on the eastern side of the football field?

What was the purpose of the Royal Administrative Building?

What is in the “East of the galleries” section?

Is there more than cemeteries west of the western town?

What lies south of the western compound, outside the enclosure walls?

23

Bibliography Badawi, A

1967 The civic sense of pharaoh and urban development in ancient Egypt, Journal of the

American Research Center in Egypt 6, San Antonio.

Fairman, H. W.

1949 Town planning in pharaonic Egypt, The Town Planning Review, Liverpool, Liverpool

University Press.

Kemp, B. J.

2006 Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization, London, Routledge.

Lehner, M.

1991 “Giza” The Oriental Institute 1990-1991 Annual Report, edited by W. M. Sumner,

p19-27. Chicago: The Oriental Institute.

1992a “Excavations at Giza 1988-91: The Location and Importance of the Pyramid

Settlement.” Oriental Institute News and Notes 135 (Fall); 1-9

1992b “Giza” The Oriental Institute 1991-1992 Annual Report, edited by W. M. Sumner,






1999 “Giza” The Oriental Institute 1998-1999 Annual Report, edited by G. Gragg, p66-76.

Chicago: The Oriental Institute.





2002 “Giza Plateau Mapping Project” The Oriental Institute 2001-2002 Annual Report,

edited by G. J. Stein, p49-61. Chicago: The Oriental Institute.


edited by G. J. Stein. Chicago: The Oriental Institute.

24








edited by G. J. Stein, p40-48. Chicago: The Oriental Institute

2012 “The Giza Plateau Mapping Project” The Oriental Institute 2011-2012 Annual Report,

edited by G. J. Stein, p50-57. Chicago: The Oriental Institute

Planned settlements of Egypt

Documents

Transcript of Planned settlements of Egypt