Post on 15-Jan-2016
description
Lucía Jiménez Bazán A01213326
Camila Saavedra Lozano A01210873
René Jesús Flores Vega A01127853
Urban Theory
Prof. Silvia Mejía
Group: 1
28 – January – 2015
ANCIENT EGYPT: AMARNA
INTRODUCTION
Among all the cultures of ancient times, one of the most important and relevant ones
was Ancient Egypt. This is mainly due the great amount of mathematical, architectural
and cultural advances that were develop by the Egyptians in almost 3000 years of
civilization. The Egyptian Empire rose along the coast of the Nile River in northern
Africa, which gave them a great growth opportunity as the Nile every year, floods its
coasts irrigating and creating fertile lands. The Nile also worked as a transport axis,
which helped to communicate all cities of the Empire.
Egyptian cities are not conserved in good conditions, mainly because they were built
with mud bricks and other organic material, and most parts of the cities had little to none
urban planning. The reason for this was that most construction materials and handwork
were used in the construction of religious buildings like the temples and tombs that are
known worldwide. Another important factor that shaped Egyptian cities was their lack of
enemies on the area, which translated into the lack of any protection walls or
architectures. Also the geographical conditions of their location surrounded by the
dessert or mountains helped as a natural barrier against any possible threats.
One of the most important characteristics of Ancient Egypt civilization was its culture,
which was developed around their polytheistic religion. Egyptians believed in many
gods that represented different concepts of life and nature, however there was a main
cult to the god of life and fertility Amun. Most festivities were related to religious events
with ceremonies taking part inside the restricted access temples.
The capital of the empire was Thebes, where all the main economical and political
activities were held. The religious capital was Karnak, a temples settlement near
Thebes were priest had their ceremonies. Thebes was the home of the Pharaoh,
Egypt’s ruler of sacred origins.
Among all the rulers of Ancient Egypt, one of the most relevant ones was Amenhotep
IV, who later changed his name to Akhenaten due to his religious believes. Akhenaten
decided as he rose to power to change Egyptian religion to a monotheist believe in
Aten, the sun god, often represented as a sun disk. The controversy created by his
political and religious reforms caused that after his death he was referred as the heretic
king and erased from most records.
Of the many changes that Akhenaten’s period meant for the Egyptian society, one of
the most important ones was the capital relocation from Thebes on the southern (or
upper) part of the empire to a newborn city on the western bound of the Nile called
Amarna during his reign from 1353 B.C. to 1336 B.C.
CITY ORIGINS
The Ancient Egypt had its capital in Thebes, now Luxor. This ancient capital used to be
ruled by the pharaoh, the priest and above all of them, the Gods. This place was a
polytheist place, which means that they used to believe in more than one God, but the
most important one was Amon, the God of fertility and creation. Akhenaten wasn’t
actually a “true believer” of this polytheism, he instead believed in a main God above all
of the other ones, Aten or “Sun Disc”. The problem came, as this great religious
changes demanded too much of the same place were all the other Gods had their
temples. The capital was conceived as an unholy and unpractical place for this new
kingdom of his, so Akhenaten decided to move the capital to a new location, a virgin
land for Aten. He decided to do it in what nowadays would be halfway between Luxor
and Cairo, on the eastside of the Nile River. This place was baptized as Akhet-Aten, or
also known as Tell el-Amarna. This way he saw his new city be born and prosper for the
short time of his reign. However, after his death and forty years after it’s foundation the
capital was moved back to Thebes and Tell el-Amarna was ravished and deleted from
most official records.
THE CITY AND ITS URBAN PLANNING
The new city of Amarna was rapidly built with the used of sundried mud brick
techniques instead of the regular stone construction method used in temples and
palaces.
The new capital was located at the exact middle point between Cairo and Luxor, at 250
miles away from both on the eastern shores of the Nile. The new location was chosen
because of the topography of the land, near the Nile River and mostly because of the
surrounding cliffs, which had an opening at the exact point where the sun would rise
every morning, this had an incredible resemblance to the sun god birth hieroglyphic and
was interpreted as a holly place for Sun Disc God. The city had a boundary stelae
carved in the cliffs that surround it, attributing the choice of this site.
Photo taken from: civilization.org.uk
Photo taken from: Christine Hobson, The World of the Pharaos, New
York: Thames and Hudson, 1987, 0.108.
The city had a linear urban development following the Nile, with three main streets,
parallel to the river. Its maximum length was about eight kilometers and had a width of
around 1 km making it a relatively small but dense city, as the urban layout and housing
suggests. The city was built without an actual urban plan. This meant that the citizens
erected buildings where they felt it was convenient, and it started to grow in an irregular
haphazard way. There is even some evidence that suggest that Pharaoh Akhenaten
didn’t have all the resources or time to control and project the rapid urban growth or its
population.
One of the most important things of the city is that it was divided into suburbs attributing
the first urban sprawling to be discovered according to BBC documentary Amarna:
Egypt's Other Lost City.
The main city is to be known as Central City, which contains the housing for the Royal
Place, the Great Temple Per-Aten, middle class housing, taxes and political offices and
other services; while the rest of the citizens lived south to Central City. Among the main
aspects that ruled the urban planning of Amarna were that the wealthier the person, the
better spot he could choose to build it property, this meant to be close to the river or
Central City and is a clear example of the notion of division of property that was already
present in the society.
Diagram of the construction of the city. Rich people started building on their chosen lands, followed by the middle
classes and finally the lower classes, who built inside the gaps that were left.
ARCHITECTURE: HOUSING
The housing areas were built without an actual plan for their location. There were no
blocks, parcels or lot land size established. Most of the middle class families built their
houses under subsides given by Akhenaten to lure the population of the new city.
A neighborhood was conformed by all type of houses: the high class people, who could
choose their land so they built in the main streets, the medium class took the vacant
spaces, that were left from the high class houses, and the low class lived in the gaps
between the rest of the other houses. However, there was a very distinctive division
between the classes, which meant for the lower class people and workers to be
segregated and secluded to selected parts of the city.
A typical high class house was composed of three main sections:
1. The living quarters were the bedrooms where. The master bedroom had its own
bathroom while the other bedrooms would have to share a common one.
2. The garden, a main and important status element and well, which was a central
part of the house as it supplied drinking water and helped in the maintenance of
the garden and house.
3. The workers and servants quarters, this part was secluded and hidden from the
rest of the house behind a wall on the southern part of the building.
THIS IS THE REPLICA OF A GRAND HOUSE. WHICH WERE MADE OF SUN-BAKED BRICK AND SURROUNDED BY A HIGH WALL. GARDENS WITH LOTTUS FLOWERS ARE SET OFF AT THE UPPER RIGHT, COW-PENS AT THE EAST REAR OF THE HOUSE. WORKERS ROOM (SUCH AS SCRIBES,CARPENTERS,VINTNERS AND HERDSMEN), KITCHENS, SERVANT’S QUARTERS AND STABLE ARE LOCATED IN THE REAR SOUTH PART OF THE HOUSE.
http://mitchtestone.blogspot.mx/2012/02/egyptian-nobleman.html
ARCHITECTURE: PALACES
There were four palaces in the city. These were also oriented in the same direction as
the temple and had very specific locations. None of them had the same form. The
program contained the palace, the administrative facilities, storage and workshops, all
of this in order to support the royal family, the court and the temple cults.
Taken!from!www.egipto.host22.com
4 PALACES IN THE CITY WHICH VARY CONSIDERABLY IN FORM, PLUS ALL THE ADMINISTRATIVE FACILITIES, STORAGE AND WORKSHOPS NECESSARY TO SUPPORT THE ROYAL FAMILY, COURT AND THE TEMPLE CULTS.!!!
THE WORKMENS VILLAGE
It’s believed it was used as a housing development for the workers of the rock tombs
and temples; it was settlement on the east side of the city. Its main characteristic is that
it was a walled enclosure of regular houses along parallel streets with defined axis, and
only one exit. The architecture of this neighborhood was known for having uniform style
houses, with no gardens and an outdoor patio. The main reason for this being the only
part of the city with a defined pattern was that it was built for functionality, trying to
house as many workers in a secluded space as possible and control them. This shows
the hard segregation and division of labor that was present during ancient Egypt and
that was reflected upon their architecture.
Source: http://ib205.tripod.com/workmen_village.html
ART
The Ancient Egyptian art was generally formal, and presented an idealized version of
the subject matter which often encompassed many layers of meaning. When depicting
people, traditional art stuck closely to strict guidelines and formal poses. With
Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV), a new form of art with more fluent motives evolved, also
known as "naturalistic”. The use of strangely and characteristic elongated skulls, wide
feminine hips, spindly legs, a pendent breast and a rounded or sagged belly
characterized this new style.
In the Amarna period existed 3 art phases:
− First phase: The kings’ family was depicted with standard body sizes and
shapes.
− Second phase: During the commands of sculptor Bek, they started to
depict with feminine curves, heavy thights and belly, half-closed eyes, full
lips, and a long face and neck.
− Third phase: Thutmose, the chief sculptor, depicted with more natural
conventions but kept the elongated skull. His work is a clear example of
the actual knowledge Egyptians had of the human form and its
proportions.
One of the most important representations of this art is the famous bust of Nefertiti.
Thutmose was the sculptor who made it, highlighting her features in a distinct and
individual way and giving one of the few actual and realistic representations of the
Egyptians physique.
Image taken from:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/amarnaperiod
.htm
Image taken from:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/ama
rnaperiod.htm
POLITICS
The main political relevance of Amarna was on its reason to be created as a new
capital. This meant for it to be a symbol of Akhenaten’s period and intentions of
seclusion so he could start his new religious policies. A clear example of this can be
found in the Amarna Letters, which were a diplomatic written on stone. They were the
most important 'records' founded in the city. These letters were sent to Akhenaten from
the kings of Babylonia, Assyria, Hatti and Mitanni, minor kings and rulers of the Near
East, and vassals of the Egyptian Empire. In this letters, written in a cuneiform
language, they request for help (money and military troops), and complaints about the
moving of the capital. The lack of response from Akhenaten to this requests shows the
level of seclusion and religious devotion that composed his ruling period and some of
the reasons why, after he died, actions were made to erase what he had done.
DAWN OF AMARNA
Once Akhenaten died Neferneferuaten followed him. A female ruler who is thought to be
Nefertiti. Neferneferuaten continued to rule Egypt from Amarna but only until her dead
two years later. The next ruler, Tutankhamen, was the son of Akhenaten and one of his
other wifes, he decided to take the capital back to Thebes along with reinstalling the old
religion. This caused the abandonment of Amarna after just 40 years of being built. As a
way of deleting this part of Egyptian history, all evidence of Akhenaten along with most
of Amarna was deleted, hence the lack of information that remains of the city.
FINAL REMARKS
The Amarna period is one of the most iconic moments of the Ancient Egyptian Empire
as it was a breakpoint both political and religiously. The reforms promoted by
Akhenaten during his period that gave place to the birth of Amarna were a radical
change which meant that the city, as a new place for the reforms to take place, had to
be built under extremely fast conditions and had little to non planning. This caused the
urban sprawl of the city with the workmen’s village being the only part of it with an
standardized house type and defined axis due to the functionality required to house as
many workers as they could on a limited secluded space. Another effect of the fast pace
that Akhenaten required for Amarna started some political and urban actions like
housing subsides that were necessary in order to populate the city and lure wealthy
people to the new capital.
In conclusion Amarna was a very short period in the long line time of the Egyptian
history, nevertheless it is a very important part of it’s history, this is because it meant the
institution of monotheism in Egypt, leaving behind the polytheism and dedicating the city
to Aten. It also meant a new beginning in the urban development because it started out
with a city plan based on axis, and then the city was left to grow in a more disorganized
way, leaving the city to the urban sprawl. In Amarna clear examples of the segregations,
labor divisions that that were made for the lower classes are present. Also the way the
city grew by the location of houses depending on the wealth of their owners shows the
way property was divided and built. Amarna was a period, which not only imposed a
new religious way and life style, but also created different politics and arts. Overall it
was too much to take for the general population and religious members of Ancient
Egypt, so it ended up in the worst way, with hatred to the dynasty, and the wish to left
behind the city erasing almost entirely 40 years of Egyptian history.
Bibliography:
A.E.J. MORRIS. (1984). History of Urban Form. Before the Industrial Revolutions..
Barcelona: Gustavo Gili.
http://www.bergerfoundation.ch/Akhenaton/en/table.html
http://www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-maps-conquest-amarna-tablets-letters-
akhenaten-habiru-abiru-hebrews-1404-1340bc.htm
http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/index.html Ancient Egypt Online, by Jenny Hill.
Biblical Archeology,
http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/arc/amarna01/amarna.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/akhenaten_01.shtml
http://katherinestange.com/egypt/citycentremap.htm
by Kate Stange Copyright © 1996-2000. Last updated March 1, 2000.
http://www.egipto.host22.com/mapas/mapa_tell_el_amarna3.html
http://discoveringegypt.com/ancient-egyptian-kings-queens/akhenaten/
http://www.tau.ac.il/humanities/semitic/amarna.html
Pharaohs of the Sun, p 14.
1. Ancient Egypt: The Great Discoveries.
2. Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization by Barry Kemp (Routledge, 1989)
3. Nicolas Grimal, A History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994,
p. 236, Figure 13.
4. http://www.civilization.org.uk/miscellaneous/amarna-and-pompeii-the-towns