Cities and Urbanism in Ancient Egypt

The present volume is a collection of papers given at a workshop on urban development in Ancient Egypt which was held at the AAS in November 2006. The articles cover a wide variety of themes within the frame of this general topic, and aspects of urban development are dealt with from very different points of view. The structure of specific building types (F. Doyen, S. Hendrickx), as well as the spacial (E. Czerny, I. Forstner-Müller, M. Lehner) and social (M. Bietak, K. Spence) organisation of settlements are dealt with, including questions of settlement geography (A. Graham). Specific problems are given consideration, such as entrance protection in Nubian fortresses (C. Vogel) or the question of external supply versus self-sufficiency at a remote place like Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham on the Libyan border (S. Snape). One can find both the analysis of the diachronic development of a specific site throughout history (C. v. Pilgrim) and a general study on urbanism during a given period, Graeco-Roman Egypt (W. Müller). J. Kahl’s analysis of texts shows that cities in Ancient Egypt were allegorized as females with human properties. Within a chronological frame from the Old Kingdom through the Roman Empire, many different aspects of sites such as Tell el-Dabca, Giza, Kahun, Amarna, Karnak, El-Kab, Elephantine, Aswan and Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham are discussed.