AcrossBorders

This is the blog of the ERC starting grant project AcrossBorders.

The so-called temple towns of Nubia in

the New Kingdom
Posted on October 28, 2013 by Jördis Vieth

Temple towns, also known as fortified towns, are a special phenomenon according to studies
dealing with settlement patterns and urbanism in ancient Nubia during the New Kingdom. In most
cases the published works in question are general overviews, introductions or entries in
encyclopediae concerning the archaeology of ancient Egypt. Following these studies, Egyptian
stone temples as well as enclosure walls were major features of New Kingdom settlements in
Nubia, like Sai Island. Because of these two major elements such sites are typically called temple
towns or fortified towns (e.g. Heidorn 1999; Welsby 2001; Bard 2007; for actual fortresses and
military bases in New Kingdom Egypt see Morris 2005).

— Presumed layout of the New

Kingdom town of Sai after
Azim 1975.

Kemp was one of the very first scholars, who dealt with these special settlement structures and
presented the then almost generally accepted model of how a fortified town in Nubia has to look
like (Kemp 1972a). The design of the towns is assumed to have been fairly uniform and they were
enclosed with a mud brick wall as a rule. The internal structure was basically dominated by three
types of building: a stone temple of characteristic Egyptian design as well as domestic and
administrative mud brick buildings, including the civil government residence (Kemp 1972a: 653).
As references Kemp cited only the settlements at Amara West and Sesebi, reflecting the restricted
state of knowledge and publication back in the 1970ties.

At present, we know much more about settlements and towns founded or being reoccupied in
the New Kingdom in Nubia – all of which received the designation of a temple town. Most
probably the labelling is solely based on the existence of a temple. None of the authors seem to
respect the other features postulated by Kemp. Furthermore, from the published works, it is
impossible to say how many of these sites have been labelled as a temple town, as the opinions
range from only three temple towns (Welsby 2001, Bard 2007) to 28 (Zibelius-Chen 2013)!
Another contentious issue is the motivation for its development: was this due to political and
religious factors (as proposed, e.g. by Morkot 1993, 2001; Spence 2004; Bard 2007 and
Zibelius-Chen 2013) or to purely economical ones (Trigger 1965; Kemp 1972a, 1972b; Heidorn
1999)?

As one can see there is much potential for a new consideration of the topic of the so-called
temple towns starting with a fresh evaluation of Kemps model from 1972 considering the current
state of research to the general question how a city or town has to look like for the Egyptians in
Egypt and in turn in Nubia (the so-called town problem, e.g. Bietak 1979). Special attention has
also to be given to the question whether some or even all of the refurbished and reoccupied
Middle Kingdom-fortresses have been taken into account speaking about New Kingdom temple
towns, like obviously Zibelius-Chen is doing (Zibelius-Chen 2013).

— View of part of the New Kingdom

Town SAV1 at Sai.

Especially Sai Island is one of the most interesting settlements among the potential temple towns
or fortified towns as it was the first newly established town founded most probably by Ahmose.
With all of its strategic advantages, Sai served as a bridgehead during the further expansion into
Nubia (Davies 2005). As recent fieldwork has clearly illustrated, we are far away from
understanding the complete layout and development of the New Kingdom town of Sai. How did
the very early town founded by the Egyptians look like? Was there a predecessor for the Egyptian
Amun temple built by Thutmose III? All of these questions are currently investigated by
AcrossBorders.

Thus Sai fits perfectly into my envisaged PhD-Thesis at Humboldt-University Berlin briefly
summarized here and I am very happy and grateful to Julia Budka, not only for her supervision of
my PhD, but also for giving me the great opportunity to work as a PhD-researcher in her fantastic
project. I am very pleased to have joined the AcrossBorders team!

References

Bard, Kathryn A. 2007. An introduction to the archaeology of Ancient Egypt. Malden, Mass:
Blackwell Publ.

Bietak, Manfred 1979. Urban archaeology and the ‘town problem’ in ancient Egypt, in: Kent
R. Weeks (eds.), Egyptology and the social sciences. 5 studies. Cairo: American Univ. in
Cairo Press. 97–144.

Davies, Vivian W. 2005. Egypt and Nubia. Conflict with the Kingdom of Kush, in: Catharine
H. Roehrig (ed.), Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh. New York, 49-56
 Heidorn, Lisa A. 1999. Nubian towns and temples, in: Kathryn A. Bard & Steven Blake
Shubert (eds.), Encyclopedia of the archaeology of ancient Egypt. London, New York:
Routledge. 579–583.

Kemp, Barry J. 1972a. Fortified towns in Nubia, in: Peter J. Ucko & Ruth Tringham, et al.
(eds.), Man, settlement and urbanism. Proceedings of a meeting of the Research Seminar in
Archaeology and Related Subjects held at the Institute of Archaeology, London University.
Gloucester. 651–656.

Kemp, Barry J. 1978. Imperialism and Empire in the New Kingdom Egypt (c. 1575-1087
B.C.), in: Peter Garnsey & C. R. Whittaker (eds.), Imperialism in the ancient world. The
Cambridge University research seminar in ancient history. Cambridge classical studies.
Cambridge [Eng.], New York: Cambridge University Press. 7–57.

Morkot, Robert G. 1993. Economic and cultural exchange between Kush and Egypt.
London. Unpublished PhD thesis.

Morkot, Robert G. 2001. Egypt and Nubia, in: Susan E. Alcock (eds.), Empires. Perspectives
from archaeology and history. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. 227–251

Morris, Ellen F. 2005. The architecture of imperialism: military bases and the evolution of
foreign policy in Egypt’s New Kingdom. Probleme der Ägyptologie 22. Leiden: Brill.

Trigger, Bruce 1965. History and settlement in lower Nubia. Yale University publications in
anthropology 69. New Haven: Dept. of Anthropology.

Welsby, Derek A. 2001. Nubia, in: Donald B. Redford (eds.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of
Ancient Egypt 2. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. 551–557.

Zibelius-Chen, Karola 2013. Nubien wird ägyptische Kolonie, in: Steffen Wenig & Karola
Zibelius-Chen (eds.), Die Kulturen Nubiens – ein afrikanisches Vermächtnis. Dettelbach: Röll.
135–155.

This entry was posted in 18th Dynasty, Archaeology, New Kingdom, Sai Island, Settlement
architecture, Upper Nubia and tagged Sai Island, Temple town, Upper Nubia by Jördis
Vieth. Bookmark the permalink [http://acrossborders.oeaw.ac.at/the-so-called-temple-
towns-of-nubia-in-the-new-kingdom/] .

5 THOUGHTS ON “THE SO-CALLED TEMPLE TOWNS OF NUBIA IN THE NEW KINGDOM”

 Julia Budka
on December 9, 2013 at 7:09 pm said:

Temples, Gold and Border Security – nice post about so-called temple towns in Nubia
from the perspective of one of our neighbouring sites, Sesebi:

Temples, Gold and Border Security: Nubia and Egypt in the New Kingdom
http://t.co/PJqA2FbXBy— Campbell Price (@EgyptMcr) 9. Dezember 2013

Luc GABOLDE
on February 15, 2014 at 4:59 pm said:

Interesting question indeed, that of determining is Sai was a fortified town or a fortress.
Note that though it remains possible that Ahmose, on its way to Kajbar, founded a small
structure at Sai Island during his Nubian expedition, the epigraphical remains which have
survived on the site seem, so far, to only attest a posthumous worshipping of the king,
possibly in memory of some victorious deeds or some initial foundation (Gabolde 2012,
117-126 to be added to the bibliography, as well as all the French Litterature on the
topic)).

Julia Budka
on February 15, 2014 at 7:44 pm said:

Thanks Luc! Of course we are well aware of your paper and the other literature!
And the question of posthumous worship or late in Ahmose’s reign is still not
completly settled :-)! Archaeologically the material compares perfectly to Steven
Harvey’s site at South Abyos = late Ahmose and Amenhotep I. We are currently
working especially on the structure, layout and evolvment of the (temple) town,
and this is also what Jördis will do in the next year – combining the textual and
archaeological evidence; lots of nice new material this season, adds up nicely to
our work in 2013!
 nahla
on February 24, 2014 at 8:33 pm said:

What is the difference between fortress and settlement in the new kingdom in Nubia

Julia Budka
on February 25, 2014 at 9:32 pm said:

A very good question and very hard to answer! Following Kemp 1972, Egyptolo‐
gists and archaeologists working at New Kingdom Pharaonic town sites in Nubia
speak of “fortified towns” and “fortified settlements”, because the well preserved
sites we know have an enclosure wall around the main city area (e.g. Sesebi, Sai
and Amara West). Other than in the Middle Kingdom, these walls do not seem to
have a real defensive character – they are “marking” new foundations and/or re-
installations of the Egyptians, but are not fortresses per se. However, these walls
do have buttresses, towers and are quite substantial in height and width!
The problem is that little research was done on settlements and settlement pat‐
terns OUTSIDE of the walled areas – recent work at Amara West (project directed
by Neal Spencer) has shown an extensive housing area outside the main
city/walled area, and I would assume that there were extramural settlements in
many places in Nubia (see also Kemp 1972), probably also at Sai Island. But diffi‐
cult to locate…
Hope this helps a bit!