Gates Charles. Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome
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112 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
Gem Aten (“Aten has been found”), a series of six open-air courts, each one smaller than the pre-
ceding. This building was surrounded by 365 offering tables on both the north and the south sides,
tied to the days in the solar year. Offerings were not strictly vegetarian, as the discovery of a butch-
er’s yard in the vicinity of the temple has made clear. Since much of the yard was open to the sky,
and since Egypt gets very hot, especially during the summer, performing ceremonies outdoors must
have been a strenuous task, the food offerings on the countless tables quick to spoil and smell.
The main temple lay in the east sector of the enclosure. In contrast with usual Egyptian prac-
tice, the main temple was not roofed but open air, because the Aten did not inhabit a statue in a
dark room, unlike other Egyptian gods, but manifested itself in the direct rays of the sun.
Houses
Amarna has given us fine examples of private free-standing houses of the well-to-do, in districts
to the north (North suburb) and south of the Central City (Figures 6.13 and 6.14). Their fea-
tures are fairly constant. Generally raised slightly on a
low platform, the typical house had a small entrance
room, followed by a larger two-storied loggia (“North
Room” on Figure 6.13) whose roof was supported
by wooden columns. A square hall lay in the center
of the house, insulated against extremes of tempera-
ture by surrounding rooms. Its ceiling, held up by
columns, rose above that of the adjacent rooms (with
the exception of the loggia), allowing for high win-
dows or clerestories immediately below the roof line.
The room might contain a low brick platform where
the owner and his wife would sit, a plastered stone
washing place for water jars, and a shrine to the Aten
and the royal family. Decoration was simple: plas-
tered walls, perhaps with painted geometric designs.
Off this main room lay smaller rooms, bedrooms,
toilets and bathrooms, storage rooms and stairs up
to the flat roof. Houses of the well-to-do were set
in a walled yard. Such compounds would contain a
well for water; a garden with trees, food plants, and
flowers; storage for grain and other food stuffs; ser-
vants quarters; kitchens (with circular clay ovens for
baking bread, open fires for the rest); a shelter for animals; and frequently a chapel to the Aten.
Sanitation remained primitive. There was no public drainage system at Amarna. Although bath-
rooms could be lined with stone, liquid wastes simply drained into the closest ground.
The end of Amarna
Upon Akhenaten’s death, the dynastic succession entered a period of turbulence. As tradi-
tional interests reasserted themselves, Amarna was abandoned in favor of Thebes, and the Aten
gave way to Amun. Eventually the state was salvaged by the general Horemheb and his vizier,
later Ramses I, the first of the family that would rule as the Nineteenth Dynasty. But between
Akhenaten and Horemheb briefly ruled a young king who would have been a mere footnote in
Figure 6.13 Plan, House, Amarna
EGYPTIAN CITIES, TEMPLES, AND TOMBS 113
the long list of Egyptian monarchs were it not for the almost miraculous survival of his tomb
virtually intact into the twentieth century: Tutankhamun.
THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS AND DEIR EL-MEDINA
Akhenaten was buried at Amarna, his now empty tomb identified by archaeologists. Virtually all
other New Kingdom monarchs were buried at Thebes, in a remote desert valley known as the
Valley of the Kings. This valley is but one part of the extensive Theban necropolis that lies on
the west bank of the Nile beyond the zone of cultivation.
The Valley of the Kings lies over the cliffs to the west of the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut
at Deir el-Bahri. Beginning with Thutmose I, most kings of the Eighteenth to Twentieth Dynas-
ties were buried here. Sixty-two tombs have been located, including some belonging to high offi-
cials. Many are decorated with wall paintings, but some are plain and some were never finished.
By the New Kingdom, the incidence of tomb robbery was high enough that kings were no
longer interested in visible signs that marked their graves, such as pyramids. Mortuary temples,
placed in the Nile Valley proper, would fulfill the desire for prestige as well as offering a setting
for the necessary ritual. The tomb itself had to be hidden, to ensure the survival of the pharaoh’s
body and his possessions. The workmen who carved out these tombs and decorated them lived
in a small, walled village, isolated from the rest of Thebes in order to keep their projects secret.
This village is today known as Deir el-Medina. The most important excavations of this site
were carried out by Bernard Bruyère, a French archaeologist, from 1922 to 1940 and, after the
Second World War, from 1945 to 1951. The plan of Deir el-Medina is rectangular, ca. 130m ×
50m, bisected lengthwise by a street with a dogleg plan (Figure 6.15). The house plans are known
from their well-preserved stone foundations. Houses were narrow, with rooms in a line, typi-
cally an entry room, a main room with a higher ceiling held up by one or two wooden columns,
a bedroom, and, behind a staircase leading to the rooftop, a kitchen. Excavations also yielded
thousands of ostraka, limestone flakes on which people wrote (in the cursive hieratic script) and
sketched; these documents have provided an exceptionally rich source of fascinating informa-
tion about the daily life of these workmen and their families.
Figure 6.14 House (reconstruction), Amarna
114 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
Royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings were laid out according to one of two ground plans. In
the first plan, followed in the first half of the Eighteenth Dynasty from Thutmose I to Amenho-
tep III, galleries arranged on a north–south axis descend along a gradual slope to a pit or well and
an offering chamber beyond. But the burial chamber, often a large oval in shape (like the royal
cartouche, the written form of the pharaonic name), lies to the west side, perpendicular to the
main axis of the galleries (Figure 6.16a: Tomb of Thutmose III). Later tombs preferred a second
plan, in which the galleries and burial chamber all lay along a single east–west axis (Figure 6.16b:
Tomb of Ramses VI).
Figure 6.15 Plan, Deir el-Medina
Figure 6.16 Ground plans of three tombs, Valley of the Kings, Thebes: (a) Tomb of Thutmose III;
(b) Tomb of Ramses VI; and (c) Tomb of Tutankhamun
EGYPTIAN CITIES, TEMPLES, AND TOMBS 115
The Tomb of Tutankhamun
The elaborate precautions taken to conceal the royal burials rarely sufficed. Only one tomb in
the Valley of the Kings was found substantially intact in modern times, the burial of the late
Eighteenth Dynasty king Tutankhamun (ruled ca. 1336–1327 BC), the young son-in-law, perhaps
also the son, of Akhenaten. Robbed twice in antiquity, although little was taken, the resealed
tomb was effectively hidden by the later construction of the adjacent tomb of Ramses VI, a king
of the Twentieth Dynasty. The discovery of the tomb in
November 1922 by British Egyptologist Howard Carter
represented the culmination of years of painstaking
examination of the already scrutinized valley. Ten more
years were needed to record the grave goods and remove
them from the chambers, and the scholarly publication
of the objects continues to this very day, long after Cart-
er’s death in 1939.
The Tomb of Tutankhamun differed from the stan-
dard type, but then it was originally destined not for
royalty but for an official. Upon the early death of the
king, it was hurriedly pressed into service. At the foot
of a descending passage lie four small unfinished rooms
(see Figure 6.16c), only one of which has wall paintings.
A tremendous array of objects was packed into this small
space. Included were statues of sentries, both human (in
the image of the king) and of Anubis, the jackal-headed
god who presided in cemeteries; furniture, such as chairs
and beds; hunting equipment, such as chariots, bows
and arrows; personal effects, such as gaming boards;
and food. Most of these are on display in the Egyptian
Museum in Cairo.
The king was only sixteen or seventeen when he died.
The cause of his death is unknown. He was buried inside
an elaborate complex of shrines and coffins that took
up most of the space in the burial chamber proper. Four
shrines covered with gold leaf, one inside the other, con-
tained a rectangular sarcophagus of yellow quartzite.
Inside the sarcophagus were found three anthropomor-
phic coffins, also one inside the other. The innermost
coffin was solid gold, weighing 110kg. Holes were left
for the eyes, however, so that the mummy could look
out. A mask of gold in the likeness of Tutankhamun,
inlaid with glass and lapis lazuli, provided further protec-
tion for the king’s head (Figure 6.17: this miniature cof-
fin for the organs imitates the full-sized middle coffin).
Tucked into the linen strips that wrapped the body was a
magnificent collection of jewelry and amulets. As for the
body itself, it has not fared so well; despite careful mum-
mification, the copiously used embalming fluids proved
corrosive rather than protective.
Figure 6.17 Coffin for the Organs,
Tomb of Tutankhamun. Egyptian
Museum, Cairo
116 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY: RAMSES II AND
ABU SIMBEL
Although Ramses I ruled only two years, his descendants of the Nineteenth Dynasty continued
for another century (ca. 1295–1186 BC). His son, Seti I, and especially his grandson, Ramses II,
presided over a particularly powerful period in Egyptian history.
Ramses II is especially well known. He reigned sixty-seven years (ca. 1279–1213 BC), with
administrative centers at Thebes and at Per-Ramses in the Delta. He built some of the best
surviving and largest of Egyptian monuments, famously clashed with the Hittites, and has been
associated with the biblical story of the Hebrew exodus (this last is controversial). He avidly
promoted his own glory through his building projects, supplemented with wall decorations and
colossal statues of himself. We have already noted his additions to the Temples of Amun at
Luxor and at Karnak. One more monument of his merits our attention: the remarkable temple
at Abu Simbel, located in a remote spot near the southern frontier of modern Egypt.
This temple, and an accompanying smaller temple of his queen, Nefertari, were carved out of
the sandstone cliffs that lined the Nile in Nubia. Like the fort at Buhen, these monuments lay
in the region destined for flooding after the construction of the High Dam in Aswan. But these
temples met a kinder fate than Buhen: an international team under the aegis of UNESCO cut the
temples into blocks and reassembled them on dry land, some 210m inland and 65m higher.
Ostensibly honoring the gods, in actuality this shrine at Abu Simbel glorifies Ramses II – a
monument to royal power exceptional even in a culture in which rulers rarely shrank from public
display of their greatness. The façade of the larger temple overwhelms the visitor with its four
colossal seated statues of Ramses II, each 20.1m high (Figure 6.18). Everyone else is smaller
and subordinate: the wives and children who stand by his lower legs, the prisoners paraded
beneath his chair in front of the entrance, even the god Re-Harakhte placed above the doorway.
Inside, the temple consists of four rooms on axis, a larger hall, a smaller hall, a vestibule, and the
sanctuary. Several side chambers, probably used as storerooms, lie off this axis. The large hall is
Figure 6.18 Exterior, Temple of Ramses II, Abu Simbel
EGYPTIAN CITIES, TEMPLES, AND TOMBS 117
dominated by two rows of columns carved with the standing likeness of the king as Osiris, the
important god of the afterlife. The side walls show reliefs of the king’s military triumphs, includ-
ing the Battle of Qadesh fought in Syria against the Hittites. Scholars believe this battle was actu-
ally a stand-off, but Ramses II had no interest in being objective about the result. The sanctuary
at the rear contains four seated states, Ramses II and three major gods, Re-Harakhte, Amun, and
the supreme god of Memphis, Ptah. The temple was aligned so that twice a year, in February and
October, the sun’s rays would reach the rear of the temple and shine on the three gods and the
pharaoh. The first date may correspond to Ramses II’s coronation day, or perhaps the date of his
first jubilee, since the temple was built to celebrate this event.
AFTERMATH
The Egyptian kingdom prospered through the early twelfth century BC. Two kings, Merneptah
of the later Nineteenth Dynasty, and Ramses III, the greatest ruler of the Twentieth Dynasty,
fought off foreign challengers, the Libyans from the north-west, and the Sea Peoples, an enig-
matic coalition of peoples from south-east Europe and western Asia who had already caused
great destruction in the coastal cities of the eastern Mediterranean. In traditional fashion, the
triumphs against the Sea Peoples are recorded in the relief sculptures on the walls of the massive
mortuary temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu, Thebes. Ramses III was succeeded by eight
more kings of that name. None would match his greatness, and once again the Egyptian kingdom
would feel the weakening of central authority. The New Kingdom was followed by the Third
Intermediate Period and the Late Period, Dynasties Twenty-one to Thirty, the final dynasties of
Manetho’s list. Dynastic Egypt ended with a second brief occupation by Persians, themselves
overcome in 332 BC by a greater conqueror, the Macedonian king Alexander the Great. Egypt
then passed into the world of the Greeks and the Romans, first pagan, later Christian. After 3,000
years, pharaonic culture was slowly extinguished.
CHAPTER 7
Aegean Bronze Age towns and cities
AEGEAN CIVILIZATIONS AND CITIES
In Mediterranean archaeology, the term “Aegean” refers to the Neolithic and Bronze Age cul-
tures of the lands that borders the Aegean Sea, and the Aegean islands, lands now belonging to
modern Greece and Turkey (Figure 7.1). These cultures first came to scholarly attention in the
second half of the nineteenth century, especially with the discoveries of Heinrich Schliemann,
a businessman interested in ancient history. Determined to discover historical truth behind the
Greek legends of the Trojan War, Schliemann excavated some of the important towns participat-
ing in the drama, Troy, Mycenae, and Tiryns (see also Chapter 8). On Crete, large-scale excava-
tion became possible by 1900 when the island was newly freed from the Ottoman Empire; within
a decade the main characteristics of the distinctive Bronze Age culture of Crete were clear. This
culture was dubbed “Minoan” by Arthur Evans, the excavator of Knossos, after Minos, the
Minoan Crete:
Old Palace (Protopalatial) period: ca. 1930–1700
BC (= Middle Minoan IB-II)
New Palace (Neopalatial) period: ca. 1700–1450
BC (= Middle Minoan III,
Late Minoan IA and B)
ca. 1450
BC, most sites destroyed, with
the major exceptions of Knossos
and Khania.
Late Minoan II: ca. 1450–1400
BC
Probable Mycenaean occupation at Knossos and Khania
Post-Palatial: ca. 1425–1050
BC (= Late Minoan IIIA,
B, and C)
Major destructions at Knossos ca. 1375
BC and probably ca. 1200 BC
Thera (Santorini): Volcano erupts ca. 1520 BC
Mycenaean Greece:
Middle Helladic (late) ca. 1650–1500
BC
and Late Helladic I:
Shaft Graves at Mycenae
Late Helladic II: ca. 1500–1400
BC
Late Helladic IIIA: ca. 1400–1340 BC
Late Helladic IIIB: ca. 1340–1185 BC
Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae; Citadels at Mycenae and Tiryns; Palace at Pylos
Late Helladic IIIC: ca. 1185–1050
BC
AEGEAN BRONZE AGE TOWNS AND CITIES 119
legendary king of the island. On mainland Greece, the Late Bronze Age culture that flourished in
its southern and central sections is called “Mycenaean,” after the city of Mycenae. A spectacular
new chapter in Aegean prehistory was opened in 1967 with the first large-scale excavations at
Akrotiri, a settlement on the Aegean island of Thera, well preserved under the volcanic debris
from the eruption of the island that may have taken place around 1520 BC.
Although the names of many Bronze Age cities are well known, thanks to the literature of the
later Greeks, the nature of Aegean urbanism is not well understood. With a few notable excep-
tions, excavations have focused on certain monumental elements of the city, such as palaces,
villas, and citadels, or on tombs, their design and their contents. Moreover, the textual evidence is
limited: the written documents surviving from the Bronze Age Aegean, when they can be clearly
understood, record a limited range of subjects. However, if we consult Childe’s definition of a
city (see Introduction), it seems likely that the main settlements were indeed cities. All criteria
from his list are clearly met, with the one possible exception of the practice of exact and predic-
tive sciences, as yet unconfirmed. Our look at Minoan, Theran, and Mycenaean cities and towns
will follow the lead of traditional research concerns. Nonetheless, we will want to keep in mind
that future investigation has much to reveal about how these striking structures and finds relate
to the overall settlements of which they form a part.
Figure 7.1 Aegean Bronze Age towns, second millennium BC
120 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
CRETE: KNOSSOS AND THE MINOANS
Crete is the largest island of modern Greece, about 200km long and, at its maximum, 58km wide.
It sprawls at the southern end of the Aegean Sea, the last landfall between Greece and Africa. The
Cretan landscape combines rugged mountains with pockets of fertile agricultural land, while its
Mediterranean climate features rainy, chilly winters and long hot, dry summers.
Minoan history
In the absence of legible records – the “hieroglyphic” and Linear A scripts used by the Minoans
are imperfectly understood – the history of the Minoans still has many mysteries. During the
New Palace period, the high point of Minoan civilization, the Minoans seem to have controlled
the southern Aegean, including the coastal regions of south-east Greece and south-west Anatolia
(Turkey). The New Palace period ended ca. 1450
BC in a wave of destruction, the cause of which
is uncertain. The Mycenaeans of mainland Greece either contributed to or profited from the col-
lapse. They were on the ascendant, and apparently occupied Knossos and Khania (the important
town in as yet little explored western Crete) at this time. They took control of the Minoan ter-
ritories in the southern Aegean, and probably continued their occupation of Crete through the
Late Bronze Age, imposing their own language (the earliest known form of Greek) and writing
system (the Linear B script) as the medium of administration. The remains of this period, the
fourteenth and thirteenth centuries BC, are poorly known, with the history of Knossos being
particularly controversial.
Knossos: The Palace of Minos
The palace is the hallmark of Minoan architecture. The term “palace” is misleading, it must be
stressed. “Palace” suggests a royal residence. For Minoan Crete, we are unsure who the rulers
were. The later Greeks wrote of a King Minos (see below), but from the Bronze Age itself,
evidence for the rulers – pictorial, textual, or other – is absent. Nonetheless, the term “palace”
is entrenched in the archaeological literature; it is best to divorce the palace from royalty and,
instead, to consider it a large architectural complex housing a variety of functions.
Four large palace complexes are known from Bronze Age Crete: Knossos, Mallia, Phaistos,
and Kato Zakro. Smaller structures, comparable in design and built of the same ashlar masonry
technique, have been discovered at Galatas, Gournia, and Petras. Of these, Knossos is the largest
and most important, and has yielded examples of most characteristic features of Minoan civili-
zation. Indeed, so dominant was its position in Cretan culture from the Neolithic through the
Bronze Age that archaeologist Jeffrey Soles has persuasively identified it as a cosmological center:
a focus of cultural origins, a wellspring of human and divine energy and cultural creativity.
A sustained campaign of excavation began in 1900. Arthur Evans, then fifty years old, had
the good fortune to live another forty-one. He was able to present his findings in a magisterial
four-volume publication, The Palace of Minos. Not only did he expose the palace and several of
the outlying buildings, he also restored portions of the architecture and numerous objects so the
public could have a better understanding of the remains. These restorations, virtually impossible
to dismantle, are now viewed by scholars as a handicap, for they make it difficult to imagine
the evidence in its original state at the time of discovery – important for any re-evaluation of its
significance.
AEGEAN BRONZE AGE TOWNS AND CITIES 121
Although occupation began at Knossos during the Neolithic period and continued through
the Bronze Age and indeed well beyond, the ruins one sees today are largely from the heyday of
the palace in the New Palace Period and the ensuing seventy-five years, ca. 1700–1375 BC. The
terminology for the different phases of Minoan civilization can be confusing, because two sys-
tems are used, each serving a useful purpose. The original framework designed by Evans divided
Minoan culture into three periods: Early, Middle, and Late Minoan, with further subdivisions
(I, II, and III; A and B). Although it continues to serve well the study of pottery development,
this system does not correlate with the major breaks in the architectural sequence. To highlight
these events, a second system was devised: the Pre-Palatial (= Early Bronze Age), Protopalatial
(= Old, or First, Palace), Neopalatial (= New, or Second, Palace), and Post-Palatial periods. The
correspondences between the two systems are given in the introductory chart on page 118.
The palace occupies an area of 1.3ha on a low hilltop in a well-watered valley some 10km from
the sea, not far from the modern city of Heraklion (Figure 7.2). The site is unfortified; indeed,
the lack of fortification walls is a striking feature of Minoan towns and palaces during the New
Palace period. Only Mallia has yielded a hint of a city wall, nothing more. This absence of fortifi-
cations suggests an age of political harmony throughout the island, perhaps under the leadership
of Knossos.
The palace complex served many functions, such as residence (although we are not sure who
resided here), seat of administration, treasury, depot for agricultural and manufactured products,
Figure 7.2 Plan, The Palace of Minos, Knossos