The Nile Delta during the Early Dynastic and the Old Kingdom periods. Preliminary remarks on the evolution of settlement landscape
The Nile Delta during the Early Dynastic and the Old Kingdom periods. Preliminary remarks on the evolution of settlement landscape

Summary/Abstract: The 3rd millennium BC appears to be a key period of development of the historical settlement landscape in ancient Egypt. The unification of the country speeded up significantly processes of transformation of the predynastic socio-political structures and the associated settlement patterns. Old chiefdoms declined and vanished along with their centers and elites. New settlement emerging in various parts of the country was often strictly related to central authorities and the formation of a new territorial administration. Neither was the climatic change, which resulted in a shifting ecumene, negligible. Although these changes were evolutionary in their nature, some important stages may be recognized. Data from surveys and excavations have demonstrated a number of considerably impoverished and/or abandoned sites from before the Old Kingdom and its very beginning, while some important Egyptian settlements emerged in the sources and began to build their prosperity during the Third and Fourth Dynasties. The written sources as well as recorded architectural remains indicate a growing interest on the part of the state in the hierarchy of landscape elements and the territorial structure of the country.

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