Kahun

The neatly planned Middle Kingdom town of Kahun (modern name) was built near the entrance to the Faiyum (a large, fertile depression connected to the Nile, south-west of modern Cairo) in order to house the builders of the nearby pyramid of King Senwosret II (ruled ca. 1880—1872 BC) and the priests, soldiers, officials, and other personnel who would maintain the monument and the cult of the deceased king. Kahun is by far the largest of the “pyramid towns.” Its size suggests that it functioned not simply as a specialized center devoted to the pyramid and its mortuary cults, but as a regular town with a variety of activities, such as agriculture, regional economic responsibilities, and construction projects. Lying on the edge of the desert away from farmlands and modern habitation, the town proved accessible to archaeologists; about half the town was excavated in the late nineteenth century by British Egyptologist Sir William Flinders Petrie. Although the mud brick walls had disintegrated, house foundations were well preserved, allowing an appreciation of the town’s layout.

The plan of this specially founded “pyramid town” is regular (Figure 6.1). Inside a nearly square area, 384m x 335m, straight streets cross at right angles, in an orthogonal grid. In the main north/north-east section, approximately twenty large houses were identified, measuring ca. 60m x 42m, each with a plain wall and door onto the street but sharing walls with its neighbors. Inside, houses include reception and residential rooms, a garden with a shaded portico, and large

Granaries for food storage; details of their appearance and decoration are furnished by house models recovered from Middle Kingdom tombs. The smaller section of Kahun, separated from the larger by a wall, contained some 220 small houses, also arranged on straight streets. These house plans varied considerably, but unlike the large houses, they rarely included granaries. The social and economic structure of the town, understood from finds of papyrus documents as well as from the house remains, depended on top bureaucrats who inhabited the large houses, maintained retinues of clients and servants (who lived in the small houses), and controlled the distribution of food from their large granaries. The ruins of Kahun impart the impression of a well-regulated society — which all evidence indicates was indeed the central characteristic of Middle Kingdom Egypt.