Urban planning in ancient Egypt

The use of urban planning in ancient Egypt is a matter of continuous debate. Because ancient sites usually survive only in fragments, and many ancient Egyptian cities have been continuously inhabited since their original forms, relatively little is actually understood about the general designs of Egyptian towns for any given period.

The Egyptians referred to most cities as either nwt or dmi.Nwt usually refers to unplanned cities that grew naturally, such as Memphis and Thebes, while dmi can be translated as "settlement" and usually refers to towns that were laid out along a plan. The archaeological evidence of such cities is best preserved, and has been most thoroughly excavated, at el-Lahun, Deir el-Medina, and Amarna, though some evidence of urban planning exists at other sites as well.

Almost no traces of Egyptian settlements exist before the development of neolithic culture around 6000 BC, as settlements were certainly very small, and buildings were made of perishable materials such as reeds and were not meant to be permanent structures. Sites that do survive do not show much evidence of urban planning. The earliest known predynastic settlement is at Merimda-Beni Salame at the southwest desert edge of the Nile Delta and covers about 44 acres (180,000 m²), a very large area for the predynastic period. The city was rebuilt three times during its inhabited life, and in at least one of its incarnations, its houses were placed very regularly along a main street. Almost all the houses follow a plan which faces their doorways to the northwest, to avoid the prevailing northerly wind.

Other known pre-dynastic settlements, such as those of the Badarian and Naqada cultures, are laid out arbitrarily and lack a defining plan. These villages mostly consisting of small huts situated around circular storage pits.

The workmen's village at el-Lahun was built and inhabited during the reign of Senusret II of the Twelfth Dynasty. Located near the entrance to the channel of the Nile that leads to the Faiyum Oasis, it housed the workers who constructed Senusret's pyramid as well as the priests who maintained the royal funerary cult, and possibly even the king himself. The village was apparently only fully inhabited during the king's reign.

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