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The Complete Cities of Ancient Egypt
From early towns to booming metropolises, The Complete Cities of Ancient Egypt explores every facet of urban life in ancient Egypt with a leading authority in the field as a guide Ancient Egyptian cities and towns have until recently been one of the least-studied and least-published aspects of this great ancient civilization. Now, new research and excavation are transforming our knowledge. This is the first book to bring these latest discoveries to a wide audience and to provide a comprehensive overview of what we know about ancient settlement during the dynastic period. The cities range in date from early urban centers to large metropolises. From houses to palaces to temples, the different parts of Egyptian cities and towns are examined in detail, giving a clear picture of the urban world. The inhabitants, from servants to Pharaoh, are vividly brought to life, placed in the context of the civil administration that organized every detail of their lives. Famous cities with extraordinary buildings and fascinating histories are also examined here through detailed individual treatments, Memphis, home of the pyramid–building kings of the Old Kingdom; Thebes, containing the greatest concentration of monumental buildings from the ancient world; and Amarna, intimately associated with the pharaoh Akhenaten. An analysis of information from modern excavations and ancient texts recreates vibrant ancient communities, providing range and depth beyond any other publication on the subject.
242 illustrations, 193 in color
242 illustrations, 193 in color
240 pages, Hardcover
First published August 18, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 2, 2018
This book is a good reference guide to major ancient Egyptian cities, or if you simply want to find out more specifically about how their cities worked without reading an overview book about the entire civilisation from religion to literature. Broadly speaking the book can be said to be a book of two halves; a more readable first half which broadly discusses the topic and provides a brief rundown of Egyptian cities across time, from the Old Kingdom to Roman rule, and a second half which serves as a directory of major cities (though it does not discuss every single one), and goes into more technical detail about each one – probably best used as a reference guide. One of the big pluses of this book is that it is lavish in its use of ground plans and colour photographs to give you a real sense of the layout and the environment of the cities you read about. It should be standard for any text of this type, but far too often I encounter books about ancient settlements that have no or minimal illustrative material, and it can be very difficult to envisage what the text is talking about.
8 out of 10
July 6, 2021
Very thorough. Great photos, maps, and figures. However, I think this will work much better in the future as a reference book, rather than as something I attempt to read straight through.
January 8, 2018
Memphis, Alexandria, Elephantine, Luxor, Karnak, Thebes, Heliopolis, Amarna. Egyptian cities have always been something of a mystery to me as I've read that Egypt was not an urban society, and yet they clearly had quite a number of cities that were large and important. As it turns out, Egyptian cities are something of an enigma even to the scholars of ancient Egypt. Many have disappeared under later cities or sunk below the water. Some have never been found. Few have been excavated because of the allure of tombs to archaeologists. This book discusses all of this and lays Egyptian cities bare.
Through the introduction and first three chapters, Snape discusses urbanism in ancient Egypt and the rise of the city, the function of various kinds of cities within the agricultural landscape, how they worked and who lived there, and compares Middle and New Kingdom settlements and housing. Chapter four focuses on the Graeco-Roman period which saw a real rise in Greek-style urbanism and pays special attention to Alexandria.
Chapter five gives a comprehensive (if dry) survey of Egyptian cities from south to north and into the Sinai, oases, and Mediterranean coast. Most of these I had never heard of and this alone makes it a valuable tool for me. Some, like Shedet, aka Krokodilopolis, will not be forgotten!
The book is lavishly illustrated with ground plans of many of the cities where the layouts are known, and in a few cases we get isometric views for a third dimension. One thing I felt was missing, though, was a summarizing chart that listed the cities with a bar-graph showing their periods of occupation and listing their ancient, classical, and modern names.
Recommended to fans of Egypt and ancient history in general.
Through the introduction and first three chapters, Snape discusses urbanism in ancient Egypt and the rise of the city, the function of various kinds of cities within the agricultural landscape, how they worked and who lived there, and compares Middle and New Kingdom settlements and housing. Chapter four focuses on the Graeco-Roman period which saw a real rise in Greek-style urbanism and pays special attention to Alexandria.
Chapter five gives a comprehensive (if dry) survey of Egyptian cities from south to north and into the Sinai, oases, and Mediterranean coast. Most of these I had never heard of and this alone makes it a valuable tool for me. Some, like Shedet, aka Krokodilopolis, will not be forgotten!
The book is lavishly illustrated with ground plans of many of the cities where the layouts are known, and in a few cases we get isometric views for a third dimension. One thing I felt was missing, though, was a summarizing chart that listed the cities with a bar-graph showing their periods of occupation and listing their ancient, classical, and modern names.
Recommended to fans of Egypt and ancient history in general.
October 21, 2023
Like all of the Thames & Hudson "Complete X of Ancient Egypt" series, this book aims to cover every aspect of its topic. In some books in the series that leads to a lack of depth, but I don't think it does so here. Snape's book may not have the ruminating depth of works like Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilisation, but it incorporates insights from books like those while remaining more accessible to a general readership.
Part One examines general traits of cities, the emergence of urbanization in Egypt, and efforts to estimate the ancient populations of Egyptian cities and of the nation as a whole. Part Two discusses the state institutions that shaped cities: temples, palaces, and the fortified towns in frontier regions. Part Three is about nearly every aspect of urban life, many of which are rarely treated in popular books about ancient Egypt, such as housing, sanitation, schooling, crime, and tourism. Perhaps most unusually, this section discusses public buildings and community leisure activities—or, rather, the apparent lack thereof. Part Four describes how the arrival of Hellenistic culture, with its dramatically different ideas of what a city should be, transformed urban life during the Greco-Roman period.
Part Five is a gazetteer of virtually all the ancient city sites in Egypt. Rather than following the arrangement familiar from other sources, going north to south from Alexandria to Aswan, this book runs through sites the way the Egyptians thought of them, starting at Aswan and moving downriver. Moreover, the chapter on the Delta is divided into sections based on the four major branches of the Nile in that region. Snape covers the Delta cities surprisingly well, given the space limitations of the book and the dearth of evidence from most sites. Given how underrepresented the Delta is in popular perceptions of Egypt, this chapter is one of the book's great strengths; perhaps now I'll be able to memorize the branches of the Delta and which cities went where. At the end comes the coverage of Egyptian-built cities in Nubia, the Sinai, and the Western Desert oases.
Part One examines general traits of cities, the emergence of urbanization in Egypt, and efforts to estimate the ancient populations of Egyptian cities and of the nation as a whole. Part Two discusses the state institutions that shaped cities: temples, palaces, and the fortified towns in frontier regions. Part Three is about nearly every aspect of urban life, many of which are rarely treated in popular books about ancient Egypt, such as housing, sanitation, schooling, crime, and tourism. Perhaps most unusually, this section discusses public buildings and community leisure activities—or, rather, the apparent lack thereof. Part Four describes how the arrival of Hellenistic culture, with its dramatically different ideas of what a city should be, transformed urban life during the Greco-Roman period.
Part Five is a gazetteer of virtually all the ancient city sites in Egypt. Rather than following the arrangement familiar from other sources, going north to south from Alexandria to Aswan, this book runs through sites the way the Egyptians thought of them, starting at Aswan and moving downriver. Moreover, the chapter on the Delta is divided into sections based on the four major branches of the Nile in that region. Snape covers the Delta cities surprisingly well, given the space limitations of the book and the dearth of evidence from most sites. Given how underrepresented the Delta is in popular perceptions of Egypt, this chapter is one of the book's great strengths; perhaps now I'll be able to memorize the branches of the Delta and which cities went where. At the end comes the coverage of Egyptian-built cities in Nubia, the Sinai, and the Western Desert oases.
March 9, 2020
I actually feel bad giving this 3 stars, and it is arguably worth 4 or 5 stars.
On the positive side, the information is high-quality and there's a lot of it. It comes as close as practicable to a "complete" source on Ancient Egyptian cities.
Now for the bad. The author teases a lot of info, but while that adds breadth, it leaves a frustrating lack of depth. Discussions of how cities were laid out, how houses were designed/built, and so on were touched on, but it left me wanting a lot more.
Also, the narrative is not particularly engaging. It was easy to fall into "skimming" the text at times, and the way the information was laid out/presented was not the most engaging or effective for learning and retention.
The core of a great book is there, but as is, it's just not that for me.
On the positive side, the information is high-quality and there's a lot of it. It comes as close as practicable to a "complete" source on Ancient Egyptian cities.
Now for the bad. The author teases a lot of info, but while that adds breadth, it leaves a frustrating lack of depth. Discussions of how cities were laid out, how houses were designed/built, and so on were touched on, but it left me wanting a lot more.
Also, the narrative is not particularly engaging. It was easy to fall into "skimming" the text at times, and the way the information was laid out/presented was not the most engaging or effective for learning and retention.
The core of a great book is there, but as is, it's just not that for me.
April 18, 2021
I was hoping to learn more about how the general population of these ancient cities may have lived, and sadly it seems there is just not much evidence around this. There are some snippets of that here in this book though, and I have to say that was presented well enough along with the explanations of why there isn't more of it. It is pretty high level, without a lot of detail into any one city, but that's what I expected based on the title, so I didn't mind that so much.
October 12, 2022
A 2.5
After a decent start, this started to drag in the second half. But it was still an ok complement to the previous book on Egypt I read.
After a decent start, this started to drag in the second half. But it was still an ok complement to the previous book on Egypt I read.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews