DEVELOPING CITIES
Cities in Ancient Egypt grew out of the development of agriculture and the emergence of the state as the unifying and predominant (to rule the government)form of political organization. However, even as early as 3500 B.C, towns and cities (if they can be called such), consisted of regional capitals linked to the population centers of smaller administrative districts. The term we most frequently apply to these districts is home, which was actually not used to describe a province until the Greek period. During the New Kingdom, the Egyptian word for "city" was niwt, a term which in the earliest texts of the first Dynasty refers to "settlement". As early as the fifth Dynasty, the term for a "town" or large village was dmi. The term for "village", which was apparently linked to the word for "household", was whyt. Unfortunately, our knowledge about Egyptian cities, and settlements in general is limited. Every aspect of of Ancient Egyptian cities conspires to limit our understanding. Settlements and cities were located on the floodplain, with a preference for proximity to the Nile, in order to receive goods by boat and for its source of water. Unlike temples and tombs, most housing and public buildings in these cities and settlements were made of mud brick throughout pharaonic times and shifts in the course of the Nile, the build-up of the floodplain by the annual deposition of silt and the impact of high Nile floods have all led to their destruction, which has sometimes been complete. Many cities, such as Thebes, have been built over by modern settlements, and even when some remains have survived, the mud brick has been harvested by farmers to use as fertilizer. Finally, archaeological investigations since the nineteenth century have focused on temples and tombs, with their rich and spectacular art, sculpture and architecture, rather than the few less thrilling Ancient Egyptian towns.
This is a picture of a tomb for a preserved king.
