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Egyptian pharaohs first put houses on a grid


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Egyptian pharaohs, who are remembered for their pyramids and temples, were also the world’s first urban planners.

New research offers additional insights into how the pharaohs invested in town planning. Their innovations included the development of the first grid system as part of communities they established around their kingdom, according to Nadine Moeller, associate professor of Egyptian archaeology at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute.

“People had thought that the Greeks were responsible for the invention of the grid system and urban planning, but we actually have evidence of urban planning going back to the end of the Fourth Dynasty in the Old Kingdom, about 2500 [BCE],” she says.

http://www.futurity.org/egypt-urban-planning-1186372-2/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds

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3 hours ago, shadowsot said:

Does this predate the Indus Valley urban planning?

Indus Valley ranged from roughly 3300-1700 BCE. My guess is that Egyptian Urban planning probably arrived contemporous to their city planning. On a side note, I question the inference that the grid system is what really shows a pre set urban plan. 

Edited by Jarocal
typo
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Didn't the Assyrians or Sumerians plan the layout of housing. I think the idea that Egypt was first to plan the position of housing to make best use of land ridiculous

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1 hour ago, Zinc12 said:

Didn't the Assyrians or Sumerians plan the layout of housing. I think the idea that Egypt was first to plan the position of housing to make best use of land ridiculous

Yep

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Mesopotamia

http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/40375993/Childe_Urban_Revolution.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ56TQJRTWSMTNPEA&Expires=1466806497&Signature=BYMhQX4OTX2HQ2Ojy7dPPMFYipU%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B filename%3DChilde_Urban_Revolution.pdf

http://www.barrington220.org/cms/lib2/IL01001296/Centricity/ModuleInstance/10134/Sumerian City Planning.PDF

 

There is always a contest to ID a 'first' and sometimes it ends up being of shaky foundations...pun intended

Edited by Hanslune
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I don't have enough knowledge about the Indus Valley civilization to comment on it. I always mean to study the Indus Valley to a greater degree but never seem to get around to it. The interest isn't there enough for me, yet.

The Assyrians are a later people of Mesopotamia and the Egyptians considerably predate them. Sumer, on the other hand, is the first civilization. But by city planning, more is required than building walls. That is certainly a form of city planning, but also a necessity to nearly all Mesopotamian kingdoms given their inherent instability and threat from neighbors.

By city planning we would look for a deliberate layout for streets and houses: planned that way from the founding of the city, in other words. The earliest Egyptian cities, such as Nekhen (Hierakonpolis) in late prehistory, do not really evidence city planning. As was the case for cities in all Near Eastern kingdoms, most in the Nile Valley grew organically. But we do see limited examples of city planning in Egypt, to one degree or another, beginning in the Old Kingdom. As is the case for pretty much all of ancient Egypt's preplanned settlements, these were places where government workers lived who built royal monuments. We see the first at Giza, in Dynasty 4, at the south end of the Plateau—the famous Workmen's Village whose residents oversaw the building of the three Giza pyramids. This one would date to before 2500 BCE.

We see a couple more in Dynasty 12, Middle Kingdom: first at Lahun in the Meidum region, where the workmen lived who built Senusret II's pyramid at nearby Kahun; then at Abydos, deep in the south, where the workmen lived who built the pyramid of Senusret III in that necropolis. The most famous example comes from the New Kingdom, at Deir el Medina, across the river from Thebes. Here is where the workmen lived who carved out the tombs in the Valley of the Kings for almost 500 years of Egypt's most powerful pharaohs. But there is also the small workmen's village at Amarna, which was short-lived but is where the workers lived who built the city of Akhetaten and the nearby royal and noble tombs during the 17-year reign of the odd-duck pharaoh Akhenaten.

Well, probably the earliest preplanned city is of course Atlantis, which had lasers and nuclear technology and astral projection. The residents of that great city who survived its awesome destruction ended up in the Nile Valley and founded pharaonic Egypt. They brought the tradition of city planning to the Nile Valley. However, it might just be possible that I made up this final paragraph and it's actually a bunch of steaming bull-flop.

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On June 24, 2016 at 4:14 PM, Hanslune said:

...

There is always a contest to ID a 'first' and sometimes it ends up being of shaky foundations...pun intended

Ha! You're a card. You should be dealt with.:lol:

A little boy told us a funny joke at the museum today. It was a little kid, so the joke is more or less G-rated.

Why can't you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom?...Because the "P" is silent!

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On 6/24/2016 at 7:46 PM, kmt_sesh said:

  By city planning we would look for a deliberate layout for streets and houses: planned that way from the founding of the city, in other words. The earliest Egyptian cities, such as Nekhen (Hierakonpolis) in late prehistory, do not really evidence city planning. As was the case for cities in all Near Eastern kingdoms, most in the Nile Valley grew organically. But we do see limited examples of city planning in Egypt, to one degree or another, beginning in the Old Kingdom. As is the case for pretty much all of ancient Egypt's preplanned settlements, these were places where government workers lived who built royal monuments. We see the first at Giza, in Dynasty 4, at the south end of the Plateau—the famous Workmen's Village whose residents oversaw the building of the three Giza pyramids. This one would date to before 2500 BCE.

 

It seems that "deliberate planning" is skewed to closer resemble what we modernly think of as planned or efficient. One could argue that earlier sites where the growth appears organic engenders a deeper understanding of that particular environment and how best to manage water runoff, erosion, even speed with which citizen's/visitors traverse the city.

If I plan the city, I don't want fast moving grids that open to a market square with preference given to packing as many people in that bazaar as possible. I want long curving streets leading to a medium sized center square or circle with market stalls lining the streets leading to it. This spreads things out slowing traffic to give the vendors (who pay me taxes for selling in the city) better traffic to hawk their wares and more stalls that buyers need pass to get to their original stall of choice.

This same geometry allows for slowing of water movement allowing insoak on semipermeable surfaces and improving site hydrology. More available/active wells in the city keep the populace a bit more spread out and leads to less issues at these vital resource areas (presumably we are still talking long before aquaducts and running sewers).

 

Aesthetically it would also enjoin a more bucolic image of the landscape I originally encountered when founding my city unless I was unfortunate enough to be cursed into birth located somewhere like an Egyptian Savannah rather than rolling hills such as those in the area around Visoko (or better yet anywhere in Appalachia).

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