ARC 1010 - Urbanism

What do we expect a city to have/be?

• Houses 
• Markets/shops/trade/commerce
• Religious buildings
• Production centre
• Administrative centre
• Legal centre
• Political centre
• Education
• Entertainment (theatres etc)
• Public facilities/meeting places
• Walls/fortifications
• Transport/communication
• Agricultural hinterland
• Defence once you have wealth

• Geography & topography: where it is FX what it looks like, e.g. hot country FX housing and layout

• Function: military, trade, etc. 
• Society: structure of society has effect on urban centres

• Egypt : John Wilson - 'Egypt in the New Kingdom: Civilisation without cities' (controversial)
• old - abandoned

deifned as communities of: 

• Non-food producers
• Minimum 5,000
• Population density 386 per sq kilometre
• Specialised features in relation to broad hinterland
• Require provisioning and waste disposal; water supply

Now we know differently:

• Capitals of city states
• ‘capitals’ and provincial administrative centres of territorial states
• Towns and villages with more restricted number of specialised functions for smaller hinterlands
• Size and function to some extent an arbitrary distinction
• Residence of elites
• Most people who were nonfood producers
• Political
• Administrative
• Specialised craft production
• Long-distance trade
• Education
• Artistic/cultural production
• Conspicuous display
• Religious ritual
• Court life

• 1st city states = Mesopotamia, the land between two rivers', and Sumer, Babylonia, Syria, Canaan (modern Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria)
• Usually one main centre (‘capital’)
• Few thousand > 50,000 residents
• Early Dynastic Mesopotamia (ca. 3000 BC) 70-80% of entire population in city and 75% urban dwellers were farmers
• Jericho: building up on previous settlements, Tell on hill (Tell es-Sultan)

• Larger than city states, more divided up
• Hierarchies of administrative centres: Local, Provincial, National
• Urban populations can be small
• Mostly elite, administrators, craft specialists, state and private workers – non - agricultural
• needed admin points to organise the territory
• No surviving agricultural housing in Egypt but huge religious monuments

• 12th Dynasty ca 1870 BCE
• planned, adjacent to pyramid (thought to be ppl who built the pyramid)
• now where king and court lived +of time, 1/2 in desert, 1/2 destroyed now
• hierarchic in housing -> 3 stages: sml terraced, lrg terraced, then big houses (austere places to live)
• big house can have >70 rooms, + ppl living there: storage, service rooms, possible 2nd floor
• production centres in house for bread, beer, and womens apartments

• 'Horizon of the sun-disc'
• constructed in 5yrs 
• built by Akhenaten in late 18th dynasty
• North and central cities
• modern course of river
• + cultivation --> all cultivation feeds city, covers parts of ancient site

• huge city w temples, admin, ceremonial road tombs in surrounding hills, royal tomb @ centre
• is state planned (Tell el-Amarna)
• officials held business at home
• layout  ‘atypical’ because elite houses were built within enclosed compounds and are of a ‘villa’ type
• assumed that houses in older cities such as Thebes and Memphis were not arranged in this way.
• Ramesside city laid out  like Akhetaten, may have been more common than we assume.
• house layout: a compound with main gate, garden with T-shaped lake surrounded by trees; second gate, house with porch. 
• shanty-towns on outskirts of city, rich ppl pay workers in food
• shanty-towns not state-planned 
• workers' villages/houses all have same layout but you could build upwards
• evidence 4 regularly laid out then people built own houses with X direct state involvement and less organised houses/roads

• 18th dynasty, reign of Akhenaten ca. 1350 BCE
• huge temple complex
• Provincial administrative centre: Planned hierarchic settlement, later breaks down into organic development when Sesebi ceases to be an adminstrative centre w houses, storage, and temple all sep in line
• all state planned, w hierarchical buildings
• houses: 3 sizes, planned; later 'organic' development
• when no longer admin centre, agricultural workers took better houses

• Village for royal artisans at Thebes
• ca. 1470-1100 BCE
• The village of Deir elMedina was enlarged from a simple plan of a single street lined with almost identical houses
• Some of the later houses were slightly larger, and the plan varied – but the main elements remained the same.
• no elites but paid by palace, grew over 500 years

NB: dots in illustrations of village plans are houses 

• military installation, shows state planning
• worked well w rectagular settlements
• The archaeological evidence for the appearance of the fortresses can be supplemented with schematic depictions 
• They had hieroglyphic text telling the name of the fort
• Rounded battlements.

• urban cities not regular bc moved around e.g. Memphis
• didn't have marketplaces, theatres, public baths, law courts, or council chambers
• had no political system aside from the king
• Egypt was 1st large territorial state

Nubia/Kush

Kerma 2500-1450 BCE

Meroe 1000BCE-500CE

• prime position in rich agricultural area
• archaeological site under a lot of excavation
• good trade centre 
• extensive centre 
• population of enclosed town ca. 2000
• the 'Great Hut' rebuilt at least 6 times, 13m diameter, conical roof around 10m high, earliest c. 2200 BCE

• 'Royal City' enclosed C3 BCE
• lots of palacial buildings 2/3 stories
• Changing course of river creates new land to east used for temples and processional route
• rebuilding 
• some hellenistic and roman influence
• 'roman bath' or 'nymphaeum'

• ancient city
• + religious importance
• start as city-state then to capital of territorial state
• function changed

• ancient city
• + religious importance
• start as city-state then to capital of territorial state
• function changed

• Middle to Late Bronze Ages
• Minoan and Mycenaean phases named after pottery sequences.
• Large stone buildings and palatial structures
• Wide-ranging trade contacts
• Collapse > Dark Age
• Archaic
• Classical
• find city states: Thebes (greece), Kolossos (crete), Troy (Turkey)
• new city states after dark ages

• Late Helladic (ca 1350)
• 'cyclopean’ masonry
• Contacts in Eastern Mediterranean
• influences from W Asia 

• Important palace and religious centres on Crete, but debates about the nature of society and whether ‘kings’ or different political structures.
• Evans was very keen on the idea of ‘Priest Kings’, but that reflected attitudes of his time, rather than any specific evidence.
• well preserved palatial complexes --> egalitarian kingdom (?)
• Evidence for settlements with multistorey buildings from paintings (on Thera – Santorini) and the ‘Town Mosaic’ from Knossos
• Palaces have large storage and ceremonial areas.

• Athens in the classical period (reconstruction)
• Features: agora, political centres (essential for development)
• Orthogonal planning: Olynthus, northern Greece, area of housing, feature of Hellenistic city grid plan like Alexandria
• Sparta = King, Athens = no King, nearly democracy

• RE = legal distinctions on type of settlement
• grant rights to cities --> emperors change status of city
• Rome started small and got agrandisment --> copied by other towns, e.g. Jerash (jordon) --> little reference to it but nice archaeological site w temple complex and aspired in architecture in modest places

Rights to non-Romans:-

• Municipia: loyal communities rewarded, often for military service > spreads citizenship often through:
• ius Latii Latin Rights > route to Roman citizenship in Italy and republican provinces: may pay tribute: magistrates automatically acquired Roman citizenship;
• Citizenship to military auxiliaries and their families.
• Individuals (Pompey onwards)
• ius Italicum rights granted to communities as if they were in Italy = free from taxes highest privilege for provincial municipium: obsolete with Caracalla’s edict of 212

Sabratha, Libya

• Phoenician foundation, Sbrtn
• Received libertas from Augustus 7-6 BC
• Antonine Itinerary: a Colony
• Colonia and Splendida Colonia

Lepcis, Libya

• Phoenician foundation, Lepqy
• By 77 AD a municipium with Latin rights
• 109 Trajan elevates to Colonia all citizens Roman citizens
• 203 Septimius Severus grants ius Italicum and tax exemptions 11

• Own governments of duoviri, praetores and a council
• Augustus founded many colonies outside Italy, using military veterans
• Capitolium
• Used to enhance status of existing cities
• No newly founded colonies after Hadrian but rank used for most important municipia
• E.g. Augusta Praetoria veteran colony founded by Augustus in 25 BCE

influence of introduction of roman culture to places and provincial towns, e.g.:

• Own governments of duoviri, praetores and a council
• Augustus founded many colonies outside Italy, using military veterans
• Capitolium
• Used to enhance status of existing cities
• No newly founded colonies after Hadrian but rank used for most important municipia

• move from tribes to civitates
• new towns w same functions
• adapt what was there before

• town enclosures, e.g. Porta Nigra (town gate of Augusta Treverorum (trier, germany))
• defensive units, e.g. city wall of Atuatuca Tungrorum (tongren, belgium)
• public buildings, e.g. forum and basilica, market (macellum), baths (thermae), theatre/amphitheatre, temple (all at Augusta Raurica (augst, germany)), provincial forum, lots of churches

lots of building and general tidying up, so towns changed over time and gifted the town something of significance 

served many purposes and very nice, some in Rome and England

Bathing:

• cold water plunge frigidarium
• swimming pool natatio
• warm water pool tepidarium
• hot water pool caldarium

Additional rooms:

• dressing room (apodyterium)
• latrines (latrina)
• exercises hall (palestra)
• etc.

• how can we distinguish which settlements had higher populations?
• some were larger scale
• settlements served different functions
• estimated populations: Rome: 1 million; Carthage 250,000; Cologne, Lyon: 25,000

Settlements without urban status but with urban function (functions are not restricted to farming/ agriculture and are relevant to a range of settlements in the vicinity)

Possible functions:

• market, fair
• religious centre
• centre for local administration (pagus?)
• stopping place on cursus publicus (= imperial post)
• imperial estate centre
• governor’s representative resident
• industry, mining, craftworking

Sabratha

• great coastal road
• development of system of Phoenecian puning centres along the coast of N Africa
• changes over time --> gradual development Romans built on settlement then primped it
• Gods: Tanit – Juno Caelestis, Baal-Hammon Saturn, El, Melqart – Herakles, Isis, Serapis

Lepcis Magna

• enormous city owing size to productive emperor
• same as Sabratha on larger scale
• harbour with Wadis 
• original settlement = Phoenecian and market
• when part of RE = part of new African province
• donated a market and changed the forum and layout etc. 
• then everyone died in a flood