The land of two kingdoms: the Nile Valley

archaeological certainty is dated to around 75 B.C.26 . The development of the urbanization process was accompanied by the abandonment of the surrounding countryside: this was a first example of migration from rural to urban areas, linked to the social and political context of Sumerian society. There are two probable explanations for this change, both related to the social and political context of the society of the time. Uruk, like other more or less contemporary Sumerian cities, fulfilled not only political and military functions, but also economic and religious ones. These small city-states were centers of handicraft production, and hosted temples in which the population could worship their gods, attracting the mobility of local and regional peoples. These were complex cities for their time, with highly developed support systems and technologies, especially with regard to the management of the precious waters of the Eufrates, diverted and canalized for surprisingly modern port and commercial activities, showing that the intelligence of the city is not an exclusive characteristic of the 21st century.

The land of two kingdoms: the Nile Valley

In Egypt’s Nile Valley, the cultural leap from nomadism to a settled and organised civilisation took place in the predynastic period, most likely coinciding with the period of the so-called Badarian culture27. The first direct evidence

26 Watkins, L. J., Snyder D. A. 2003, The Digital Hammurabi Project, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimora, p. 2. 27 This period of the Egyptian Neolithic is named after an archaeological site, first identified at El-Badari, in the Governorate of Asyut, thanks to

of agriculture in Upper Egypt, between 4400 and 4000 B.C., dates back to this period, again in connection with an extremely advanced system of canals for agricultural use, linked to organised human settlements. For Egyptians too the city is the place of technological innovation, innovation that requires a state structure for the management of hydraulic works. Dams and canals, connected with the seasonal hydraulic regime of the Nile led in 3300 B.C. to the formation of one of the first states in history, in which the main cities were connected to the vital points for the management of river traffic and flood regimes. The Old Kingdom (2680-2134 B.C.) was a period marked by powerful and highly centralised state government28. Archaeological and documentary evidence indicates that the administrative centres in the individual urban centres carried out important state functions despite the country’s low population density. Each settlement included a temple, living quarters for the priests, scribes and state officials and advisors who assisted the Pharaoh in controlling the vast territory along the Nile River. The walls surrounding the cities had no real defensive function such as they had in the Mesopotamian settlements, but rather a symbolic one, with the aim of delimiting the boundaries of the urban area29 . Further characteristic aspects of Egyptian civilisation are connected to the construction techniques of palaces

excavations carried out by the British School of Archaeology during three campaigns in 1922-3, 1923-4 and 1924-5. Brunton G., Caton-Thompson G. 1928, The Badarian Civilisation and predynastic remains near Badari, British School of Archaeology in Egypt, London. 28 Smith, The Earliest, Op. cit. 29 Ibidem.

and temples. While the poorest dwellings were built of unbaked clay bricks or crumbly stone, temples and funerary monuments used more resistant cut and dressed stone, almost completely excluding the use of wood, which was difficult to find in ancient Egypt30 . The construction technique was essentially based on pillars onto which lintels made of blocks or slabs of local limestone were placed. This technique, undoubtedly innovative for the time, required well-trained workers both for cutting the stones and for transporting and assembling them. The pharaohs, regarded as sons of Ra, the Sun God, were buried in large tombs, which in time evolved into the pyramids for which the Old Kingdom is famous. The pyramids of the kings of the 4th Dynasty, built between 2650 and 2500 B.C., are some of the greatest monuments of the ancient world, testifying to the power and grandeur of their inhabitants31 . The pharaohs controlled a vast territory along the Nile River, administered with the help of state councillors who recorded all sorts of economic and social information for the king (Fig. 8). Compared to other ancient civilisations,

30 Blakemore R. G. 1996, History of Interior Design and Furniture: From Ancient Egypt to Nineteenth-Century Europe, John Wiley and Sons, London, p.107. 31 The most famous and largest pyramid dating back to 2585 B.C. is the 147-metre-high pyramid of Cheops, next to which were the pyramids of Chephren (143.5 metres) and Mycerinus (70 metres). With their smooth faces at an angle of 52°, oriented according to the cardinal points, they constitute the architectural evolution of the step pyramids, which were in turn the result of the superimposition of several màstabas, the monumental tombs of the pharaohs and dignitaries. The geometric perfection of these structures is linked to their symbolic function as a link between earth and sky.

Fig. 8 Map of Ancient Egypt, evidencing Lower Egypt (Ægyptus inferior) and Upper Egypt (Ægyptus superior). Middle Egypt (Heptapolis) was substantially part of the Upper Egypt. Drawn by J. B. B. D'Anville in 1762 and published in 1794 by Laurie and Whittle, D'Anville, J. B. B., Complete Body of Ancient Geography, Laurie and Whittle, London, 1795. (Source: Wikimedia Commons ®, and Geographicus Rare & Antique Maps was founded in New York, New York, by Kevin James Brown in 1999).