shrines for the local governors, and workshops supplying the
populace with nonagricultural products. Local centers also
featured marketplaces, which are as yet known to archaeolo-
gists only from depictions in tomb chapels. Th ese markets
were most likely located close to the Nile and to the town
harbors, where incoming goods arrived. Despite such ready
means of trade, scholars assume that even provincial capitals
and larger towns had high proportions of the population di-
rectly involved in farming and producing food. Very close to
the settlements, most oft en just beyond the town walls, were
the town cemeteries.
Almost nothing is known about farming villages in an-
cient Egypt. Th e architecture and structure of houses and
their arrangements within the villages might have been simi-
lar to those in the towns; villages may or may not have been
enclosed by walls or other fortifi cations.
In the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2040–ca. 1640 b.c.e.) planned
towns and settlements were built throughout Egypt. Th ese
towns follow rigid layouts, with the poorer populations living
in small standardized houses in one section and the wealthier
classes in larger houses in another section. Th e houses were
arranged in rectangular blocks. In the larger houses the
ruling elite used granaries to store grain and food, allow-
ing them to supply the working population when needed.
Many of these planned towns were erected around or next to
temples; almost no other public buildings were constructed.
However, in Elephantine, at least, an administrative building
complex with many seal impressions could be found. Here,
seemingly, food was collected and given to the populace, per-
haps exclusively to those involved in locally organized state
projects. In general, the settlements of the Middle Kingdom
provide the impression of a highly organized and regulated
society. Among the known pyramid towns from the Middle
Kingdom, Lahun, located next to the pyramid of Sesostris II
(r. ca. 1897–ca. 1878 b.c.e.), was quite expansive, with several
thousand people living there. Lahun fl ourished under that
king and then became a regional center.
From the New Kingdom not many towns have been
excavated, and these few examples seem to be exceptional
cases rather than regular settlements. Akhet-Aton, better
known as Tell el-‘Amârna, was built by Akhenaten (r. ca.
1353–ca. 1335 b.c.e.) to be the capital city. Deir el-Medineh
was a workmen’s village, built near the desert on the way to
the royal tombs at Th ebes, where the people of this village
worked. Th ese settlements do not show the tight planning
of the Middle Kingdom towns. In Deir el-Medina, houses
were arranged side by side along two narrow streets, with
the village surrounded by a wall. Directly outside were the
tombs of the workmen and several chapels and small tem-
ples. On Elephantine, a New Kingdom town featured tightly
packed houses and several temples within the settlement,
with no real planning in evidence. At Tell el-‘Amârna, on
the other hand, another workmen’s village featuring rect-
angular blocks of houses was found, similar to the Middle
Kingdom towns.Th e New Kingdom town of Sesebi, in the Nubian prov-
ince, is another example of a planned Egyptian town, with
rows of house arranged in a checkerboard pattern, a town
wall, and large temples. Next to the temple were large stor-
age installations, indicating that the temples had strong eco-
nomic functions. At the sites of several New Kingdom towns,
no town walls are in evidence; in this period, perhaps, people
simply felt safe. Th e situation changed in the Th ird Interme-
diate (ca. 1070–ca. 712 b.c.e.), during which time town walls
are well known to have existed from both the archaeological
record and from descriptions in texts. With the population
rising, towns became densely populated places. During the
Roman period, Hermopolis, in Middle Egypt, had houses
seven stories high.
Especially in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, the
general picture of provincial towns changed drastically,
with the appearances of new types of public buildings such
as bathhouses, theaters, and other Greco-Roman-style
public institutions. Th ese buildings were in fair evidence in
severa l provincia l capita ls but were less common in villages
such as Karanis and other well-known villages in El Fai-
yûm. Many Egyptian villages from the Roman period were
on the scale of medium-sized towns from other parts of the
Roman Empire, by virtue of the high population density of
the region.THE MIDDLE EAST
BY AMY HACKNEY BLACKWELL
Towns and villages arose in the ancient Near East when peo-
ple built homes near permanent sources of water and food.
People kept living in towns and villages because agriculture
required large amounts of communal labor and water sup-
plies were limited, forcing people to share the same sources.
Th e earliest towns appeared in the ancient Near East around
12,000 to 10,000 b.c.e., as people settled near reliable sources
of wild foods such as natural stands of wild wheat and barley.
Th ese fi rst settlements were small communities of about 100
to 200 people living in simple huts.
One of the fi rst towns was Abu Hureyra in modern-day
Syria. Abu Hureyra was established around 11,500 b.c.e. by
hunter-gatherers who settled there to take advantage of ed-
ible plants growing near the banks of the Euphrates River.
At the time the area had forests of oak, pistachio, and plum
trees and was close to grasslands that provided edible seeds.
Gazelles migrated through the area regularly, providing a re-
liable source of meat. Th e people who settled in the area built
houses by digging shallow depressions into the ground and
then sheltering them with branches and reeds placed atop
wooden posts. Th ey built additional shelters to store extra
plant foods, keeping the surplus in reserve in case of drought
or a poor year for nut cultivation. Th e women of the com-
munity used stone mills to grind grain into meal, a labor-in-
tensive task that forced the entire group to stay in one place
year aft er year.1088 towns and villages: The Middle East0895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1088 1088 10/10/07 2:31:01 PM