Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt by Gaston Maspero (popular books of all time txt) 📖

32.--Plan of the walled city at El Kab. Fig 32.--Plan of the walled city at El Kab.
The posterns opening at various points facilitated the movements of the garrison, and enabled them to multiply their sorties.

The same system of fortification which was in use for isolated fortresses was also employed for the protection of towns. At Heliopollis, at Sãn, at Sais, at Thebes, everywhere in short, we find long straight walls forming plain squares or parallelograms, without towers or bastions, ditches or outworks. The thickness of the walls, which varied from thirty to eighty feet, made such precautions needless. The gates, or at all events the principal ones, had jambs and lintels of stone, decorated with scenes and inscriptions; as, for instance, that of Ombos, which Champollion beheld yet in situ, and which dated from the reign of Thothmes III. The oldest and best preserved walled city in Egypt, namely, El Kab, belongs probably to the ancient empire (fig. 32). The Nile washed part of it away some years ago; but at the beginning of the present century it formed an irregular quadrilateral enclosure, measuring some 2,100 feet in length, by about a quarter less in breadth. The south front is constructed on the same principles as the wall at Kom es Sultan, the bricks being bedded in alternate horizontal and concave sections. Along the north and west fronts they are laid in undulating layers from end to end. Fig 33.--Plan of walled city at Kom Ombo. Fig 33.--Plan of walled city at Kom Ombo.
The thickness is thirty-eight feet, and the average height thirty feet; and spacious ramps lead up to the walk upon the walls. The gates are placed irregularly, one in each side to north, east, and west, but none in the south face; they are, however, in too ruinous a state to admit of any plan being taken of them. The enclosure contained a considerable population, whose dwellings were unequally distributed, the greater part being concentrated towards the north and west, where excavations have disclosed the remains of a large number of houses. The temples were grouped together in a square enclosure, concentric with the outer wall; and this second enclosure served for a keep, where the garrison could hold out long after the rest of the town had fallen into the hands of the enemy.

The rectangular plan, though excellent in a plain, was not always available in a hilly country. Fig 34.--Plan of fortress of Kùmmeh. Fig 34.--Plan of fortress of Kùmmeh.
When the spot to be fortified was situate upon a height, the Egyptian engineers knew perfectly well how to adapt their lines of defence to the nature of the site. At Kom Ombo (fig. 33) the walls exactly followed the outline of the isolated mound on which the town was perched, and presented towards the east a front bristling with irregular projections, the style of which roughly resembles our modern bastions. At Kûmmeh and Semneh, in Nubia, where the Nile rushes over the rocks of the second cataract, the engineering arrangements are very ingenious, and display much real skill. Ûsertesen III. had fixed on this pass as the frontier of Egypt, and the fortresses which he there constructed were intended to bar the water-way against the vessels of the neighbouring negro tribes. At Kûmmeh, on the right bank, the position was naturally strong (fig. 34). Fig 35.--Plan of fortress of Semneh. Fig 35.--Plan of fortress of Semneh.
Upon a rocky height surrounded by precipices was planned an irregular square measuring about 200 feet each way. Two elongated bastions, one on the north-east and the other on the south-east, guarded respectively the path leading to the gate, and the course of the river. The covering wall stood thirteen feet high, and closely followed the line of the main wall, except at the north and south corners, where it formed two bastion-like projections. At Semneh, on the opposite bank, the site was less favourable. Fig 36.--Section of the platform at A B, of the preceding plan. Fig 36.--Section of the platform at A B, of the preceding plan.
The east side was protected by a belt of cliffs going sheer down to the water's edge; but the three other sides were well-nigh open (fig. 35). A straight wall, about fifty feet in height, carried along the cliffs on the side next the river; but the walls looking towards the plain rose to eighty feet, and bristled with bastion-like projections (A.B.) jutting out for a distance of fifty feet from the curtain wall, measuring thirty feet thick at the base and thirteen feet at the top, and irregularly spaced, according to the requirements of the defence. These spurs, which are not battlemented, served in place of towers. Fig 37.--Syrian fort. Fig 37.--Syrian fort.
They added to the strength of the walls, protected the walk round the top, and enabled the besieged to direct a flank attack against the enemy if any attempt were made upon the wall of circuit. The intervals between these spurs are accurately calculated as to distance, in order that the archers should be able to sweep the intervening ground with their arrows. Curtains and salients are alike built of crude brick, with beams bedded horizontally in the mass. The outer face is in two parts, the lower division being nearly vertical, and the upper one inclined at an angle of about seventy degrees, which made scaling very difficult, if not impossible. The whole of the ground enclosed by the wall of circuit was filled in to nearly the level of the ramparts (fig. 36). Externally, the covering wall of stone was separated from the body of the fortress by a dry ditch, some 100 to 130 feet in width. Fig 38.--The town-walls of Dapür. Fig 38.--The town-walls of Dapür.
This wall closely followed the main outline, and rose to a height which varied according to the situation from six to ten feet above the level of the plain. On the northward side it was cut by the winding road, which led down into the plain. These arrangements, skilful as they were, did not prevent the fall of the place. A large breach in the southward face, between the two salients nearest to the river, marks the point of attack selected by the enemy.

New methods of fortification were revealed to the Egyptians in the course of the great Asiatic wars undertaken by the Pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Fig 39.--City of Kadesh, Ramesseum. Fig 39.--City of Kadesh, Ramesseum.
The nomadic tribes of Syria erected small forts in which they took refuge when threatened with invasion (fig. 37). The Canaanite and Hittite cities, as Ascalon, Dapur, and Merom, were surrounded by strong walls, generally built of stone and flanked with towers (fig. 38). Those which stood in the open country, as, for instance, Qodshû (Kadesh), were enclosed by a double moat (fig. 39). Having proved the efficacy of these new types of defensive architecture in the course of their campaigns, the Pharaohs reproduced them in the valley of the Nile. From the beginning of the Nineteenth Dynasty, the eastern frontier of the Delta (always the weakest) was protected by a line of forts constructed after the Canaanite model. Fig 40.--Plan of the pavilion of Medinet Habu. Fig 40.--Plan of the pavilion of Medinet Habu.
The Egyptians, moreover, not content with appropriating the thing, appropriated also the name, and called these frontier towers by the Semitic name of Magdilû or Migdols. For these purposes, or at all events for cities which were exposed to the incursions of the Asiatic tribes, brick was not deemed to be sufficiently strong; hence the walls of Heliopolis, and even those of Memphis, were faced with stone. Of these new fortresses no ruins remain; and but for a royal caprice which happens to have left us a model Migdol in that most unlikely place, the necropolis of Thebes, we should now be constrained to attempt a restoration of their probable appearance from the representations in certain mural tableaux.
Fig 41.--Elevation of pavilion, Medinet Habû. Fig 41.--Elevation of pavilion, Medinet Habû.
When, however, Rameses III. erected his memorial temple [3] (figs. 40 and 41), he desired, in remembrance of his Syrian victories, to give it an outwardly military aspect. Along the eastward front of the enclosure there accordingly runs a battlemented covering wall of stone, averaging some thirteen feet in height. The gate, protected by a large quadrangular bastion, opened in the middle of this wall. It was three feet four inches in width, and was flanked by two small oblong guard-houses, the flat roofs of which stood about three feet higher than the ramparts. Passing this gate, we stand face to face with a real Migdol. Two blocks of building enclose a succession of court-yards, which narrow as they recede, and are connected at the lower end by a kind of gate-house, consisting of one massive gateway surmounted by two storeys of chambers. The eastward faces of the towers rise above an inclined basement, which slopes to a height of from fifteen to sixteen feet from the ground. This answered two purposes. It increased the strength of the wall at the part exposed to sappers; it also caused the rebound of projectiles thrown from above, and so helped to keep assailants at a distance. The whole height is about seventy-two feet, and the width of each tower is thirty-two feet. The buildings situate at the back, to right and left of the gate, were destroyed in ancient times. The details of the decoration are partly religious, partly triumphal, as befits the character of the structure. It is unlikely, however, that actual fortresses were adorned with brackets and bas-relief sculptures, such as we here see on either side of the fore-court. Such as it is, the so-called "pavilion" of Medinet Habu offers an unique example of the high degree of perfection to which the victorious Pharaohs of this period had carried their military architecture.

Material evidence fails us almost entirely, after the reign of Rameses III. Towards the close of the eleventh century B.C., the high-priests of Amen repaired the walls of Thebes, of Gebeleyn, and of El Hibeh opposite Feshn. The territorial subdivision of the country, which took place under the successors of Sheshonk, compelled the provincial princes to multiply their strongholds. The campaign of Piankhi on the banks of the Nile is a series of successful sieges. Nothing, however, leads us to suppose that the art of fortification had at that time made any distinct progress; and when the Greek rulers succeeded the native Pharaohs, they most probably found it at much the same stage as it was left by the engineers of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties.

3.--PUBLIC WORKS.

A permanent network of roads would be useless in a country like Egypt. The Nile here is the natural highway for purposes of commerce, and the pathways which intersect the fields suffice for foot-passengers, for cattle, and for the transport of goods from village to village. Ferry-boats for crossing the river, fords wherever the canals were shallow enough, and embanked dams thrown up here and there where the water was too deep for fordings, completed the system of internal communication. Bridges were rare. Up to the present time, we know of but one in the whole territory of ancient Egypt; and whether that one was long or short, built of stone or of wood, supported on arches or boldly flung across the stream from bank to bank,