Egypt

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EGYPT MAP
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EGYPT : Egypt is situated in the Nile Valley, in the
north east of Africa. Its origins lay in several
chiefdoms in Upper Egypt, at Abydos and
Hierakonpolis, which then spread northwards towards
Memphis and the Mediterranean. By 3000 BC, the
unified kingdom of Egypt occupied the entire Nile
Valley north of a series of rapids called the 1st
Cataract.
LOCATION

 LOWER EGYPT
• Lower Egypt was known as Ta-Mehu which
means "land of papyrus."
• It was divided into twenty districts called
nomes.
• Because Lower Egypt was mostly undeveloped
scrubland, undeveloped for human life and
filled with all types of plant life such as grasses
and herbs, the organization of the nomes
underwent several changes.
• The capital of Lower Egypt was Memphis.
 UPPER EGYPT
• Upper Egypt is the strip of land, on both sides of
the Nile valley, that extends between Nubia, and
downriver (northwards) to Lower Egypt.
• In the Pharaonic times, Upper Egypt was known as
Ta Shemau which means "the land of reeds.“
• It was divided into twenty-two districts called
nomes.
LOCATION

LOCATION
 NILE RIVER
• The life of Ancient Egypt centered around the
river Nile and the fertile land along its banks.
• The farmers in the long, narrow Nile Valley
developed irrigation methods to control the
flow of the water, so that crops could grow
through both its rainy and dry seasons.
• The Nile Delta's features translated into many
invaluable uses as a source of hunting, fishing
and fertile land for crops.
• The clay deposited by the Nile over the
centuries was used as a raw material for pottery.

Historical/evolutionbackground
PREHISTORY ANCIENT EGYPT
PTOLEMAIC AND
ROMAN EGYPT
ARAB AND OTTOMAN
EGYPT
BRITISH
PROTECTORATE
REPUBLICAN
EGYPT
PTOLEMY I SOTER-305 BC
HUNTERS AND
FISHERMEN PHAROS
PERSIAN INVASION
-7TH AD IN 1936, THE ANGLO-
EGYPTIAN TREATY
WAS CONCLUDED
DISSOLUTION OF THE
PARLIAMENT IN A
MILITARY COUP
D'ÉTAT KNOWN AS
THE 1952
REVOLUTION
BRITISH MILITARY
PRESENCE IN EGYPT
LASTED UNTIL 1954.
BRITISH RULE-
1882–1953 AD MUHAMMAD NAGUIB
1953- 54
CLEOPATRA- 30BC
ROMANS RULED 395 AD
PYRAMIDS AND
TEMPLES
GAMAL ABDEL NASSER
1956.-1970
ANWAR SADAT.
1970-1981
HOSNI MUBARAK
1982-2003
MOHAMED
MORSI 2012-
2014

Geography/naturalresources
• At its greatest extent, in c. 1250 BC, Ancient Egypt occupied the land in all directions from the Syrian coast in the north,
to the Red Sea in the east, down the Nile Valley to Nubia in the south, and spreading west inland into the Lybian Desert.
• The ancient Egyptians thought of Egypt as being divided into two types of land, the 'black land' and the 'red land'.
 RED SOIL
• The 'red land' was the barren desert that protected Egypt
on two sides.
• These deserts separated ancient Egypt from neighbouring
countries and invading armies.
• They also provided the ancient Egyptians with a source
for precious metals and semi-precious stones.
 BLACK SOIL
• The 'black land' was the fertile land on the banks of the
Nile.
• The ancient Egyptians used this land for growing their
crops.
• This was the only land in ancient Egypt that could be
farmed because a layer of rich, black silt was deposited
there every year after the Nile flooded.

• The mines of the eastern desert produced
important natural resources like gold and
semi-precious stones.
• The ancient Egyptians used these materials to
make jewellery and special objects for the
pharaoh and his family, members of the
nobility, and temples.
• The ancient Egyptians quarried many different
types of stone. Limestone, sandstone and granite
were some of the most common stones used in
making statues, and building temples and
pyramids.

 Natural Resources  Archaeological sites

Culture and its impacton Architectureand City Planning
 CLOTHING
• All men wore a wrap-round skirt that was tied at the waist
with a belt.
• The length of the skirt varied depending on the fashion of
the era.
• The sandals worn by the poor were made of woven
papyrus or palm while those worn by the rich were made
of leather.
• Women wore full length straight dresses with one or two
shoulder straps
• They wore jewelry to show their wealth and also because
they believed it made them more attractive to the Gods.
• Egyptian men and women wore make up.
• They used black kohl eyeliner to line their eyes and darken
their eye lashes and eye brows.
• They coloured their eye lids with blue or green eye shadow
made from powdered minerals.

 RELIGION AND GOD
• Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex rituals which were an integral part of
ancient Egyptian society.
• It centered on the Egyptians' interaction with many deities who were
believed to be present in, and in control of, the forces and elements of
nature.
• Although a human, the Pharaoh was believed to be descended from the
gods. He acted as the intermediary between his people and the gods, and
was obligated to sustain the gods through rituals and offerings so that they
could maintain order in the universe.
• The state dedicated enormous resources to Egyptian rituals and to the
construction of the temples.
• The religion had its roots in Egypt's prehistory and lasted for more than 3,000
years. At various times, certain gods became preeminent over the others,
including the sun god Ra, the creator god Amun, and the mother goddess
Isis.
• Popular religious practice included ceremonies marking important transitions
in life. These included birth, because of the danger involved in the process,
and naming, because the name was held to be a crucial part of a person's
identity.

 VALLEY OF KINGS
• The Valley of the Kings in located in Central Egypt on the
western banks of the Nile.
• The royal tombs are decorated with scenes from Egyptian
mythology and give clues to the beliefs and funerary
rituals of the period.
• Almost all of the tombs seem to have been opened and
robbed in antiquity, but they still give an idea of the
opulence and power of the Pharaohs
Location of valley of kings
Ariel view of valley of kings

 PLANNING OF MUMMIFICATION
• The earliest ancient Egyptians buried their
dead in small pits in the desert.
• The heat and dryness of the sand
dehydrated the bodies quickly, creating
lifelike and natural 'mummies‘
• Later, the ancient Egyptians began burying
their dead in coffins to protect them from
wild animals in the desert.
• However, they realized that bodies placed in
coffins decayed when they were not
exposed to the hot, dry sand of the desert.
• The process of embalming the bodies and
wrapping them in strips of linen is called as
mummification.
Burial of Pharaoh Tutmoses.
Pharaoh Khufu’s Burial Boat found
and restored at Giza.

Politicalbackground
Pharaoh- Head Of State
• The Egyptian government was heavily centralized, dominated by a single
man, the Pharaoh, who was considered a living god
• The successor of the Pharaoh was usually his eldest son, who was usually
appointed co-regent during his father rule
Geographical Administration
The land was divided into 42 Nomes. Each Nome had a Noble governor,
who was appointed by the Pharaoh, and responsible to the Vizier.
Official Archives
The most prominent feature of the administrative system was the archives.
Everything was recorded, wills, conscription lists, tax lists, letters, and trial
transcripts.
Taxes
Ancient Egyptians had to contend with heavy taxes, to maintain the
lavish lifestyles of the Pharaohs and nobility

Politicalbackground
The Pre-dynastic Period and the First and Second Dynasties, 6000-2686 B.C.
The most important political event in ancient Egyptian history was the unification of the two lands: the Black Land of the
Delta, so-called because of the darkness of its rich soil, and the Red Land of Upper Egypt, the sun-baked desert. The rulers
of Lower Egypt wore the red crown and had the bee as their symbol. The leaders of Upper Egypt wore the white crown and
took the sedge as their emblem. After the unification of the two kingdoms, the pharaoh wore the double crown
symbolizing the unity of the two lands.
With the emergence of a strong, centralized government under a god-king, the country's nascent economic and political
institutions became subject to royal authority. The central government, either directly or through major officials, became
the employer of soldiers, retainers, bureaucrats, and artisans whose goods and services benefited the upper classes and the
state gods.
The Predynastic
Period and the First
and Second Dynasties,
6000-2686 B.C
The Old Kingdom,
Middle Kingdom, and
Second Intermediate
Period, 2686 to 1552
B.C.
The Late Period, 664-
323 B.C.

Politicalbackground
 The Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and Second Intermediate Period, 2686 to 1552 B.C.
• The Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom together represent an important single phase in Egyptian political and cultural
development
• The political and economic system of Egypt developed around the concept of a god incarnate who was believed through his
magical powers to control the Nile flood for the benefit of the nation. In the form of great religious complexes centered on
the pyramid tombs, the cult of the pharaoh, the godking , was given monumental expression of a grandeur unsurpassed in
the ancient Near East.
• The country was divided into nomes or districts administered by nomarchs or governors.
• The Old Kingdom ended when the central administration collapsed in the late Sixth Dynasty
 The Late Period, 664-323 B.C.
• The Late Period includes the last periods during which ancient Egypt functioned as an independent political entity. During
these years, Egyptian culture was under pressure from major civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. The
socioeconomic system, however, had a vigor, efficiency, and flexibility that ensured the success of the nation during these
years of triumph and disaster.
• The Twenty-sixth Dynasty was founded by Psammethichus I, This dynasty, which ruled from 664 to 525 B.C., represented the
last great age of pharaonic civilization. The dynasty ended when a Persian invasion force under Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the
Great, dethroned the last pharaoh.

Technologicalachievement
USE OF ROPES
- Ropes were made up of water reed fibres
- Ropes were used in the process of mummification
- The use of ropes pulled by thousands of workers allowed
the Egyptians to move the heavy stones required to build their
monuments.
PAPYRUS
- A thin paper material made from the papyrus plant
- Egyptians used hieroglyphics (formal writing system used by Egyptians)
for their literature on papyrus.
- Ancient Egyptians are thought to have used papyrus as a writing
material, as well as employing it commonly in the construction of other
artifacts such as reed boats, mats, rope, sandals, and baskets.

Technologicalachievement
DENDERA LIGHT
- Some drawings identifies showing light
was discovered in the ancient egyptian
period
SHADUF
- To lift the water from the canal
they used a shaduf.
- A shaduf is a large pole
balanced on a crossbeam, a
rope and bucket on one end and
a heavy counter weight at the
other.
- By pulling the rope it lowered
the bucket into the canal.
- The farmer then raised the
bucket of water by pulling down
on the weight.
SHIP BUILDING
- The Ancient Egyptians had knowledge to some extent
of sail construction.
- The earliest Egyptian sails were simply placed to
catch the wind and push a vessel.
WOODEN HAMMER AND METAL CHISEL
- Use to dig tombs in the mountain
PLUMB AND BOB
- Used for alignment of structures

Evolutionof planning
• First Egyptian settlements, neolithic culture around 6000-5500
Be.
• - flimsy reed shelters.
• The sites are divided into three periods, set within the
framework of Upper and Lower Egypt to allow for regional
differences.
 UPPER EGYPT :
Earliest type sites – the modern Arabic place name of Badari.
Before 5000 BC :
• At Matmar, five small settlements or hamlets made up a larger
community.
• These consisted of circular pits sunk into the ground.
• generally smaller and normally lined with basketry or mud.
BEFORE 3600 B :
• Naqada I, some actual hut remains at Hemamiya.
• Built of wattle and daub.
• The mud walls formed little more than a skirting for a thatched
superstructure, indicated by the imprint of reed stalks pressed
into the moist wall clay.
3600 BC :
• El Mahasna, the hut plans being neither round nor oval but
rectangular.
• The building technique was the same, but the buildings were
more substantial.
3700-3600 BC :
• At Hierakonpolis, the first rectangular Predynastic Egyptian
house to be systematically excavated, still semi-subterranean.
 LOWER EGYPT :
• Followed a similar pattern but with certain planning differences
due to other customs and needs.
• The Fayum A settlements are of approx- imately the same age
as Badarian.
• In that no house remains were recovered by the excavators,
only the hearths and sunken granaries indicating the position of
the lightly built huts.
BEFORE THE SECOND WORLD WAR , 4880 BC :
• A community which was certainly much better organised and
has provided far more evidence of house building and
communal planning is Merimda-Beni Salame.
• The site is on the south-west desert edge of the delta.
• Rebuilt three times before being abandoned after a long
period, when Iitwas engulfed in the desert sand.
4570 BC :
• El Omari is a similar type site on the east bank of the Nilesouth
of Cairo.
• It spread over a large area and contained two types of dwelling:
oval huts with wooden walls resting on stone bases and round
ones half dug into the earth and surmounted by a light
superstructure.

Evolutionof planning
After 3600 BC :
• Two different cultural areas of Egypt began to grow closer together. Known as Naqada II in the south and
Gerzean in the north.
• Saw the widespread use of metals, stone working, the introduction of writing and a vast Increase In irrigation
and agriculture.
• As a result the population must have expanded rapidly and much larger settlements, the first real towns, came
into existence.
• The stage was now set for the totally planned urban growth of the Pharaohs.
HOUSES

Planning Principles
• Ancient Egyptians were the first builders ever known to man; they taught humanity how to design and erect buildings; thus laying
grounds for human civilization, urbanization and man's settlement in a specific homeland of his own for the first time in history.
• The earliest villages were clusters of dwellings with no walls or palisades, and these probably were circular in shape. mud huts were
built on mounds.
• Towns were either unplanned or planned. Unplanned settlements arose over long periods, in random fashion, according to the
immediate needs of the inhabitants.
• Such a town might have narrow, oddly twisting alleys, passages, squares and courts, with little open space. Houses might grow
upwards in two or possibly three stories.
• Planned towns tended to be more orderly in general design.
 PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
• There are some short stretches of
streets and roads which have survived,
having laid above the level of
the Nile floods, generally causeways
and streets which were part of temple
complexes, some paved with mud-
bricks or even with stone.
• At Dimai in the Fayum the temple was
reached over a stone paved road , a
mortuary temple at Abydos near the
tomb of Senusret III was surrounded by a
street paved with mud-bricks, or
the Mentuhotep II temple complex at
Deir el Bahri had a mud-brick paved ramp
almost a kilometer long.
• The streets in the Middle Kingdom
town of Hat-Senusret-Hotep were
paved with baked clay tiles. The
surface sloped towards the middle
of the street, where a drain made
of stone ran down the street.

Architectural character
Definition
Architectural Characters are the unique details and component parts that,
together, form the architectural style of houses, buildings and structures
This terminology does not include:
Terms for buildings as a whole (e.g. church, mansion)
Names for parts of buildings defined by their function
(e.g. kitchen, nave)
The names of styles of buildings or architectural movements
(e.g. gothic, Bauhaus)
Building materials or construction methods (e.g. thatch)
• Definition
• Factors affecting
• Availability of
resources
• Method of
construction
• Function
• Chronology
• Architectural
Characteristics
• Streets
• Mud brick Walls
• Stele

Architectural character of the cities
 Function
• Administrative Capital Town – Memphis,
old kingdom
• Worker Town - Deir el-Medina
• Temple Town - Thebes, Egypt
Image : Workers making Sundried Bricks
Corbel arch (right) and a generic "true" stone arch (left).
 Availability of resources
• Sun-dried and kiln-dried bricks were
used extensively
• Fine sandstone, limestone, and granite
were available for obelisks, sculpture,
and decorative uses.
 Method of construction
• Corbelling/ False arches
• Arches
• Lintels
 Chronology

Streets
Main Street, Deir el-Medina – worker village,
Hat-Senusret-Hotep paved with baked clay tiles.
The surface sloped towards the middle of the street.
builders made a curved mud-brick and fieldstone wall that
narrowed this end of Street to less than a meter

 Mud brick Walls
Deir el-Medina
• The village is surrounded
by a thin mud brick wall
and built around a central
street.
• Houses were connected at
the sides, sharing walls for
building and space
efficiency.
• It is possible that entire
blocks of houses were
covered by a single roof.

 Stele
• These are often
freestanding upright stelae
marked the confines of
Akhetaten slabs of stone
bearing inscriptions and at
times reliefs.
• They may be
commemorative, sometimes
they were erected to
indicate borders or
boundaries.
• For instance, at least
fourteen. Stelae were placed
at the southern border of
Egypt with Nubia, and
Thutmose is said to have left
a border stela, which has
never been found, in Syria. 1 of 14 Stele, placed to indicate
the border of the city of
Akhetaten
Map of Akhetaten

Townplanning:Alexandria
• Alexandria is a port city on the Mediterranean Sea in
northern Egypt founded in 331 BCE by Alexander the Great.
• The city grew from a small port town to become the grandest and
most important metropolis in ancient Egypt.
• It is the second largest city and the second largest metropolitan
area in Egypt after Greater Cairo by size and population, extending
about 32 km (20 mi) along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in
the north central part of the country.
• Alexandria was the second most powerful city of the ancient world
after Rome.
 PLANNING
• Alexandria was built along a quadrilateral grid plan (called the
Hippodomi plan), where two main streets cross at right angles and side
streets are parallel to these two streets.
• This form of street/ town planning was prevalent in Greek cities in the
fifth century B.C.
• Alexandria was divided into five quarters each carrying a letter from the
Greek
• alphabet alpha ( A ), beta (B ) gamma ( T) delta ( )and epsilon ( E).
• These initials represent the first letters of Greek words which when
translated mean: 'Built by King Alexander Son of God'.

Town planning:Alexandria
 Layout of the ancient city
Greek Alexandria was divided into three regions:
Brucheumthe :
• Royal or Greek quarter, forming the most magnificent portion of the
city.
• In Roman times Brucheum was enlarged by the addition of an official
quarter, making four regions in all.
• The city was laid out as a grid of parallel streets, each of which had an
attendant subterranean canal.
The Jewish quarter:
Forming the northeast portion of the city
Rhakotis:
• The old city of Rhakotis that had been absorbed into Alexandria. It
was occupied chiefly by Egyptians.
• Two main streets, lined with colonnades and said to have been each
about 60 meters (200 ft) wide, intersected in the center of the city,
close to the point where the Sema (or Soma) of Alexander
(his Mausoleum) rose.
 Modern city:
• Modern city is divided into 6 districts.
• There are also two cities under the jurisdiction of the Alexandria
governorate forming metropolitan Alexandria

References
• http://www.perankhgroup.com
• http://www.ancientegyptianfacts.com
• http://www.mummies2pyramids.info/geography-cities/lower-
upper-egypt.htm
• http://ancientegypt.wikia.com/wiki/
• http://www.crystalinks.com/egyptscience.html

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