Ancient Egyptian Cities and Towns

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN CITIES AND TOWNS

With few exceptions, villages, towns and cities were set up on the Nile, which was the main transportation route and the main source of water for drinking and agriculture. There were streets in the towns. They generally were not paved.

Cities and large towns had separate districts where glassware was produced, textiles were made, cattle were kept and pigs were slaughtered. The nicest neighborhoods were near the pharaoh's or the governor's palace. Agricultural fields were often mixed in with houses, which tended to clustered together so as not to waste land.

Large cities in the Near East in the third millennium B.C. had only around 20,000 people. Later they got bigger, Memphis, the capital for much of Egypt's ancient history, covered 20 square miles at its largest in about 300 B.C. , with a population of around 250,000. Today most of it lies under the village of MitRahina and fields that surround it.

In towns and cities "granaries, breweries, carpenters and weavers shops were attached modular fashion to households." Smelly fish-processing and smokey bakeries were usually on the northwest, downwind side, of the households.

Memphis

Memphis (18 miles southwest of Cairo) is oldest capital of ancient Egypt. Founded around 3000 B.C. by King Menes on land reclaimed from the Nile, it was selected as a site for the capital because it was located between Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt at a place where the Nile Valley narrows to less than a mile across, and travel between the northern and southern Egypt could be controlled.

Memphis was the capital for much of ancient Egypt's history. For a long time it was the administrative capital of the ancient Egyptian empire while Thebes was the religious center. The Pharaohs spent much of his time in Memphis and visited Thebes only during special religious ceremonies.

When Memphis was at its largest around 300 B.C. it covered 20 square miles and had a population of around 250,000. Today most of it lies under the village of MitRahina and fields that surround it. Memphis was once on the Nile but the now the river is some distance away. Nearly all of the great buildings that once stood in Memphis have been lost to time.

Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Yomiuri Shimbun, The Guardian, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton's Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated January 2012