Urbanism in the Nile Delta

Although an enormous knowledge about the site of Tell el-Dabca and Qantr has been assembled in the course of the years by the Austrian expedition and by the Pelizäus Museum Hildesheim, many features of urban development and many topographical features remain to be discovered. Therefore, the aim of this project is to assess the site of Avaris in its complete size to find the connection to the surveys at Qantir, to continue to explore the substructure, the turtlebacks, the rivers and backwater systems of Avaris and Piramesse by coring - a project left unfinished by the pioneer of environmental research in the eastern Delta Josef Dorner. Another aim is to find, in co-operation with specialists of the University of Lyon, the famous harbours of Avaris and Piramesse, which were probably the most important harbours of Egypt during the Hyksos Period and the New Kingdom. Furthermore, the question if Tell el-Dabca had been the major Egyptian naval base Peru-nefer or if this base was situated at Memphis 120 km upstream, should be settled once and forever with geographic investigations. It is also one of the main aims of this project to survey the structure of this town by magnetic surveying, to see how far the position of temples and the processional roads influenced the town structure. It is also desirable to come to demographic estimates in different stages of the development and to compare the structure and size with other Egyptian settlements, especially with Tell el- cAmarna. Other towns which will be objects of comparison are Tanis, Mendes, Buto and Tell el-Balamn, where geomorphological surveys have also been conducted. A question, which should be explored on a bigger scale is the economic background of such a harbour city. Imported ceramic products from the Levant, Cyprus and the Aegean show that international trade was - as expected - not only important in the Hyksos Period but also afterwards in the New Kingdom. Therefore ceramic studies will be continued. There were also imports from the Kerma Culture of the Sudan in strata of the Hyksos Period and the 18th Dynasty. Environmental explorations will be another part of the project. The question of how such a big town influenced the environment and how we may reconstruct the primeval environment will be addressed. The methods of this proposed project will be geomagnetic survey and satellite image survey in order to obtain large survey maps of the town, coring in order to explore the eastern half of the site, based on the methods of Josef Dorner, in order to study the remains of the primeval landscape, covered by agriculture and villages. Sedimentological studies will be conducted partly by the group of the University of Lyon concerning the harbours.

A study of the project showed that the most important ancient towns of Lower Egypt were situated more or less along an east-westerly line across the Delta where in Roman times the so-called Butic River connected all 7 Nile branches. It was most likely the southern edge of a zone which could be reached by waters of the Mediterranean during the dry season in spring, when the Nile branches were nearly empty. This made harbour function all the year round possible. The project concentrated on the ancient harbour town Avaris, capital of the Hyksos, later Peru-nefer, naval base of the Thutmosides, and Pi-Ramesse, Delta residence of the Ramessides. An assessment of the results of ongoing fieldwork since 1966 showed, that strictly planned settlement started there as expression of a vigorous colonisation policy of the 12th Dynasty at both sides of a natural harbour basin. At the end of this dynasty the town was surrounded by settlement of Near Eastern immigrants which later caused the Hyksos rule in Egypt. The indigenous population was able, however, to keep its identity in the core of the town. The harbour basin was enlarged in a rectangular shape at the cost of parts of previous Egyptian settlement. This destruction and the conformity of the building orientation with the basin helped to date the development. Egalitarian patterns of settlement changed into a hierarchy of house sizes which finds precise parallels in Amarna. The continuity in the ceramic production with its hybrid forms of the Hyksos Period showed that the Near Eastern population must have survived the conquest of Avaris by Ahmose. This would explain the continuation of Canaanite cults in Peru-nefer until the Ramsestown when the Syrian storm god became under Egyptian name but in Asiatic outfit the ancestor god of the Ramessides. The still existing harbour basin, the palaces of the 18th Dynasty and the stratigraphy helped, to finally locate the famous naval base Peru-nefer at T. el Daba.