Egypt’s nome capitals changed location and differed broadly in their size and wealth in comparison to the various national capitals throughout the Pharaonic period (Butzer 1976: 57-80; Baines and Malek 2000: 14-15). These urban centers often contained one or more major cult complex. An early palatial structure appears at Hierakonpolis during the Early Dynastic Period (Kemp 2006: 82; Weeks 1972: 29-33). It contained a large buttressed and niched gateway and facade, reflecting contemporary domestic and mortuary architecture. For instance, the mastaba of Hesyre at North Saqqara bore a detailed painting of a timber frame and matting imitating contemporary housing. A First Dynasty model of an estate from the Saqqara necropolis suggests that wealthy landowners had magazines, grain silos, and courtyards associated with their estates. An Early Dynastic structure at Buto measured at least 35 by 40 m and bore multi-colored, geometric decoration on its niched walls (Kemp 2006: 87; von der Way 1999: 183).
During the late Old Kingdom and subsequent periods nomarchs moved their residence from Memphis to the provinces. The nome capitals often contain a palatial residence and associated family cemetery. For instance, Old Kingdom provincial capitals, such as Edfu and Elephantine, display an outer enclosure wall, interior winding streets, workshops, domestic quarters, a governor’s residence, and shrines and temples (Hendrickx 1999b: 284; Kaiser 1999: 283-9). Other administrative districts also existed outside the Nile Valley, including Ain Asil in Dakhla Oasis (Giddy 1987). This fortified town yielded a governor’s palace, intramural mortuary chapels for the governors, and an extramural cemetery to the west (Soukiassian 1997: 15-17).
The immense size and richness of some early Middle Kingdom nomarch tombs, such as at Elephantine, Beni Hasan, and Qau, imply a corresponding lavish residence in the adjacent provincial capital (Seidlmayer 1999: 153). The graves and tombs for their retainers and lesser officials often lie nearby. At Elephantine, in addition to a temple to Satet, the town also contained a shrine dedicated to a former nomarch Heqaib (Kaiser 1999: 285). In the Twelfth Dynasty Bubastis had a massive palace complex measuring at least 100 by 125 m. It contained a wide enclosure wall, multiple pillared halls, colonnaded courtyards, offices, storerooms, domestic quarters, and statues for at least three mayors, possibly reflecting a domestic ancestor cult (also attested in residential contexts at Ain Asil, Askut, and Deir el-Medina) (Kemp 2006: 340-1). The mayors of Bubastis had an adjacent, walled burial complex containing multiple chambers for family interments.
Avaris yielded a similar Thirteenth Dynasty palace with several buildings, colonnaded courtyards, pillared reception halls, offices, storerooms, workrooms, and dwelling quarters (Bietak 1996). A walled garden with trellises for grape vines lay behind the palace, while an adjacent enclosure contained several mud-brick chapels above burial chambers. These interments exhibited Asiatic influence in both their mortuary customs (flexed bodies, donkey burials) and funerary products (Asiatic weaponry and jewelery). At both Bubastis and Avaris the family interments lay within the city, above the surrounding Delta flood plain and water table. In contrast, Nile Valley provincial capitals, such as Hermopolis (with a cemetery at Deir el-Bersha) and Elephantine, normally had extramural and individual tombs for the governors and their families (Seidlmayer 1999: 155; Spencer 1993a; Willems 1999: 246-7).
Despite the long-term reduction of the nomarchs’ power and associated trappings in the mid Twelfth Dynasty, New Kingdom provinces received much royal patronage and construction. For example, New Kingdom rulers augmented existing temples and added new structures at Elephantine: the Temples of Khnum and Satet (Hatshepsut and Thutmose III), a way-station for Khnum (Amenhotep III), and an extramural shrine (Ramesses II) (Kaiser 1999: 285). The prominence of cultic installations at Elephantine is underscored by their expansion into almost one third of the area of the walled city (Kaiser 1999: 285-7). In contrast, the former prestigious tombs of provincial governors are now conspicuous by their virtual absence (Eigner 1999: 433; Seidlmayer 1999: 155).
Figure 18.3 Early Dynastic-Old Kingdom settlement at Hierakonpolis (adapted from Kemp 2006: 196, fig. 68).
Some significant Third Intermediate Period centers contain ornate tomb chapels and burials. Medinet Habu has yielded a few elaborate tomb chapels and burial chambers for the ‘‘God’s Wives of Amun’’ (hmt-ntr n ’Imn) (Murnane 1999: 484). Otherwise, the extant provincial centers exhibit the expected inclusion of private housing of varying sizes and wealth, workshops, communal and state installations, shrines, and temple complexes (e. g., Bubastis).
During the Late Period, provincial centers display much diversity and prosperity. Mendes, a city sacred to the ram god Banebdjed, contains a series of massive temple enclosures, a ram hypogeum, an elaborate shrine dedicated to Shu, Geb, Osiris, and Re, shrines built by Nectanebo I-II, private and royal burials (e. g., Nepherites), and other structures (Hansen 1999: 497; Redford and Redford 2005: 170-94). Exploration outside the temple precincts at Mendes suggests the residential area lay to the east and south, with a harbor to the east (Redford 2005: 8). In addition, geophysical surveys have been used at Buto and Tell el-Balamun to reveal much of the Saite settlement (Herbich and Hartung 2004: 16; Herbich and Spencer 2006: 17).
World History
