The Cities And Towns Of Ancient Egypt In The Middle Kingdom

In 2000 BC,the Theban family of the eleventh Dynasty reunified Upper and Lower Egypt.Egypt entered the Middle Kingdom period and experienced a long period of stability.During this period,a series of measures implemented by Egyptian rulers deeply affected the towns in the Middle Kingdom.In terms of religion,politics,the rulers of the Middle Kingdom strengthened the royal power internally,carried out administrative reform,weakened the power of the local nobles,and strengthened the inspection and supervision of the local areas.And constantly trying to expand the territory,pushing the southern border of Egypt southward to the Second Cataract.In the aspect of economy,in the Middle Kingdom,large-scale reclamation of domestic agricultural land was carried out to develop economy.In terms of religion,temples were built in cities and towns during the Middle Kingdom,and local temples were officially brought under the control of the state.The central government consolidated its control over the local area by controlling the temples.In the process,the Middle Kingdom rulers built a series of new towns.The first is the domestic towns,such as the pyramid town used to build the pyramid,maintain the royal worship,and the inner colonial towns responsible for the reclamation of the virgin land with economic potential.The other is the fortress in Nubian area,which is mainly to consolidate the achievements of border expansion.This paper focus on the development and functions of towns in the Middle Kingdom,starting from the types of towns and the process of their internal spatial structure.The article is divided into four parts.Chapter one reviews the e Volution of Egyptian towns before the Middle Kingdom,and specifically introduces that Egyptian towns sprouted in the Predynastic and Early Dynastic,and got further development in the Old Kingdom.Chapter two expounds the types of Egyptian cities and towns in the Middle Kingdom,which are divided into four sections: capital,provincial capital,planned settlements and fortresses.It discusses the classification of Egyptian cities and towns in the Middle Kingdom from the causes of the formation of settlements and their internal spatial characteristics.Chapter three analyzes the residential layout of Egyptian towns in the Middle Kingdom.The first section introduces the types of residence,and discusses the spatial layout of noble residence and civilian residence respectively;the second section introduces the changes of urban residence in the process of use,and discusses from the perspective of transformation and expansion;the third section demonstrates the class differences within the town from the architectural differences such as building scale and internal facilities.Chapter four discusses the function of Egyptian towns.Due to the unbalanced development of natural,social and economic resources among cities and towns,the functions of cities and towns are also different.This chapter mainly discusses the different functions of Chinese and Korean cities and towns from the political,economic,cultural and military aspects.To sum up,this paper takes Egyptian towns in the Middle Kingdom as the research object.This paper selects some sites that can provide enough information for in-depth analysis of the data,and focuses on the development of Egyptian towns in the Middle Kingdom.This not only enriches the research on the urban system of the Middle Kingdom,but also has a positive significance for understanding the society of the Middle Kingdom.