There were also artifacts discovered that associate the site with Upper Egypt, suggesting that Maadi was a trade link between the south and the Levant. In fact, trade items including copper and bitumen from southwest Asia have been unearthed in this location. We believe that Maadi was at the end of an overland trade route to Palestine, and was probably inhabited by middlemen from the Levant at that time, as evidenced by house and grave patterns. The site shows evidence of huts, storage magazines, silos and cellars. Initial estimates of the village population were around 16,000, but more recent investigations suggest that it more likely had between 1,300 and 2,000 inhabitants, provided the whole of the area was simultaneously occupied.Īround 3500 BC, the village of Maadi was established about fifteen kilometers south of present day Cairo, probably as a trade center. Even though the orientation of huts in rows seems to suggest some organizational order, there is really no indication of elite areas or any pronounced hierarchical organization. The village had residential areas interspersed with workshops and public areas. At the end of this period, the dwellings consisted of clusters of semi-subterranean huts made from mud with mud-plastered walls and floors. This was a large village, consisting of about 180,000 square meters and it remained populated for about 1,000 (one thousand) years, until about 4000 BC. The first known farming community then occupied a site at the edge of the floodplain of the Nile Delta at Merimda Beni Salama, about twenty-five kilometers to the northwest of Cairo. Prior to about 5000 BC, the inhabitants of the Nile Valley were mostly foragers who practiced fishing, fowling, hunting and collecting wild plants. By contrast, the Predynastic villages were the result of permanent occupation with a vertical build-up of deposits. The largest sites probably represent repeated occupations, with lateral displacement through time. 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.Įarly prehistoric settlement sites in the Nile Valley vary in size from as little as about 16 meters. Many cities, such as Thebes, have been built over by modern settlements, and even when some remains have survived, the mudbrick has been harvested by farmers to use as fertilizer. Unlike temples and tombs, most housing and public buildings in these cities and settlements were made of mudbrick 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. 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.
Every aspect of of ancient Egyptian cities conspires to limit our understanding. Unfortunately, our knowledge about Egyptian cities, and settlements in general is limited.
The term for "village", which was apparently linked to the word for "household", was whyt. As early as the 5th Dynasty, the term for a "town" or large village was dmi. During the New Kingdom, the Egyptian word for "city" was niwt, a term which in the earliest texts of the 1st Dynasty refers to "settlement". The term we most frequently apply to these districts is nome, which was actually not used to describe a province until the Greek Period.
However, even as early as 3500 BC, towns and cities (if they can be called such), consisted of regional capitals linked to the population centers of smaller administrative districts. Cities in ancient Egypt grew out of the development of agriculture and the emergence of the state as the unifying and predominant form of political organization.
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