UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Ancient Civilizations of Africa
houses. When they were rich, their gardens rivalled their residences in
size and luxury. Under the third dynasty (c. —2800), a high official
would expect to possess a garden of more than two-and-a-half acres which
always contained a pool, which was a distinctive feature of Egyptian
gardens. The garden was arranged around the pool or pools, for there could
be several of them. They served as fish ponds, as reservoirs for watering
and as a source of cooling fresh air for the house nearby. Frequently, the
master of the house had a light wooden pavilion built near the pool where
he could come for a breath of fresh air in the evening and receive friends
for cold drinks.
These artificial pools were occasionally quite large. Snefru's palace lake
was large enough for him to sail upon it accompanied by young, lightly
clad girls plying the oars, and Amenhotep III had a vast pool built in
his Theban palace. This very Egyptian taste for garden parks later passed
to Rome.
There are earlier examples of town planning than those attributed to Greek
genius. As early as —1895, under the reign of Sesostris II, the city of
Kahun was built inside a rectangular wall. The city had both administrative
and residential buildings. The workers' houses, nearly 250 of which have
been excavated, were built in blocks along streets 4 metres wide which
ran into a central thoroughfare 8 metres wide. Each house occupied a
ground area of 100 to 125 square metres and contained a dozen rooms on a
single level. Located in another quarter of the city were the houses of
the leading citizens - town houses which sometimes had as many as seventy
rooms, or more modest homes which were, nevertheless, considerably
larger than those of the workers. These houses were also built along
rectilinear avenues running parallel to the city walls. These avenues had a
drain running down the centre.
The large fortresses in Nubia were patterned on the same lines, and
the same urban plan was adopted, under the New Kingdom, at Tell-el-
Amarna, among other places, where the streets crossed at right angles
though the city itself did not have the geometrical severity of Kahun.
It would, of course, be hazardous to suggest that all Egyptian cities were
laid out like Kahun or Tell-el-Amarna. Those cities were built at one go
under the orders of a sovereign. Cities which grew up over a long period
of time must have had a more haphazard appearance. The fact of the matter
remains, however, that the geometric plans of the city and the standardized
type of houses that were built shed light on the trends of Egyptian town
planning. Were they the forerunners of the town planning of the Hellenes?
The question is worth asking.
While Egypt unquestionably made a major contribution in the field of
architecture, it is nevertheless more difficult to judge the impact it had on
the world as a whole in this sphere. Architects in many cultures, to be
sure, have used, and are still using, colonnades, pyramids and obelisks
which are undeniably of Egyptian origin. But was there not, in addition,
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