Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1988 - 62

IN

THE

FIELD

ProjectarchitectCharlesEvers surveysthe mud-brickwallsof the NorthPalaceat Dier el-Ballas,northwestofLuxor.
is remarkablethat, despite nearly two
centuries of archaeological work in
It Egypt, almost no ancient towns or villages haveever been excavated:the physical settingin whichthe Egyptianslivedout
their lives still remains largely unknown.
Our lackof knowledgeof ancientEgyptian
settlementshas actuallyled some scholars
to arguethat Egyptwas a "civilization
without cities'- a conceptso patentlyfalse that
it is a wonderit was ever advanced.In fact,
great city moundsor "tells"such as those
familiarto us fromNear Eastern archaeology even todaydot the Egyptianlandscape
fromthe Deltato Edfii;the great metropolitan centers of Thebes and Memphismust
have boasted populations of 50,000 or
more.
Unfortunately,we know almost nothing
about the design and functionof most of
these ancient settlements, whichare rapidlydisappearingbeforethe onrushofmodern urban and agriculturalexpansion.For
generationscollectors,museumsandscholars haveexcavatedtombsand templesthat
have yielded a rich harvest of sculpture,
texts and other beautifulobjects, but ignored the simple mud-brickdwellingsof
the ancientEgyptians.
The only Egyptian settlement to have
been extensivelyexcavatedis the muchcelebratedroyalcity of Tellel-Amarna,or
Akhetaten, the ephemeral capital of the
"heretical"New Kingdom pharaoh Akhnaten (iza. 1350-1334B.C.). Akhnaten's
reignwasa revolutionaryone in whichmost
aspects of Egyptianculture were radically
changed,thoughfor only a brief time. For
this reason, Tell el-Amarnahas generally
been regarded as a unique phenomenon,
one that sheds little light on the architecture of ancientEgyptiancities generally.
In the absence of extensiveexcavations
elsewhere,scholarshaveuntilrecentlyhad
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Archaeology

to resort to surmiseandintelligentspeculationin their attemptsto buildup a clearpicture of the design and functionof these
ancient settlements. But a happy recent
developmentpromisesto giveus a viewof
these settlements that is groundednot in
surmise, but in objectiveevidence.
The story beginsin the late 1970s.While
working in the Egyptian Department at
the Museumof Fine Arts, Boston, I came
across records of a long-forgottenexcavation, conductedin 1900by GeorgeReisner
in southern Egypt at the site of Deir elBallas,whichliesa fewmilesnorth ofLuxor
and Thebes. The Reisner dig was part of
the Hearst Expeditionof the Universityof
California.Reisner was later to become
one of the greatest excavatorsof his day,
but this site was the first on whichhe had
ever worked.
Recordkeepingin this early excavation
was spotty and uneven with some very
good work being done by Reisner's assistants F. W.Green and A. M. Lythgoe.One
of the great tragediesof the expeditionwas
that, believingthe upper layersof the city's
NorthPalacewere Copticadditions,the excavatorsremovedthem withoutrecording
them. It wasonlyafter they hadclearedout
the underlyingcasemates that Reisner's
group realizedthey had removedthe elevated levelto get at the foundations.
More misfortunewas to follow.Objects
recoveredfromthe site were shippedback
to the Universityof Californiaat Berkeley,
unpackedandput on display-just intimeto
be smashed by the San Franciscoearthquake of 1906.Reisner then left California
to work for the Museum of Fine Arts in
Boston, taking the field records of the
Bailasexcavationswith him. In the course
of his later, spectacular discoveries in
Egypt and the Sudan, Reisner appears to
haveforgottenaboutthe Bailassite, andhis

recordsofthe expeditionlanguishedforgotten for 80 years.
Withthe help of a grant fromthe American Research Center in Egypt, I made a
brief reconnaissanceof Deir el-Ballasin
1980.This initialsurvey and four subsequentcampaignsofmapping,clearanceand
limitedexcavationhavebeen undertakento
date. The surveys revealed that a large
portion of the site still remained unexcavated and indicated that there were,
here, a number of important parallelsto
Akhnaten'sTellel-Amarnathat had previouslygone unnoticed.
Althoughthe settlementappearsto have
existed about 300 years beforeAkhnaten's
reign, there are manysimilaritiesbetween
the two sites. LikeTellel-Amarna,it was a
short livedroyalresidencecitybuilton virgin ground and situated in a spectacular
naturalamphitheaterin the limestonecliffs
borderingthe Nile Valley.In the center of
this embaymentand in the middleof the
settlement is a tremendousstructure the
size of a footballfield,stretchingout along
the desert edge of the cultivatedland.This
buildingwas calledthe North Palace.
The North Palaceis builtof massivesunbaked mud bricks, each over 18 inches
long. It is similar in design to the royal
palaces of AmenhotepIII at Malkataand
of Merneptahat Memphis,but unlikethem
it was multistoried.The palace was constructed arounda core builtup on rubblefilledcellsofbrickworkor casemates,some
of whichstillreach a heightof nine feet.
The casematesserved as the foundation
for an elevated second story, and around
them at groundlevelwere groupeda series
of columned courts and halls decorated
with faience tiles and wall paintings.The
palaceitself must have lookedlike a fortified tower, similarto the high gate of the
templeofMedinetHabuat Thebesor a me-
Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1988

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