National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

courts. Such in general terms is necessarily the explanation of the growth of village
mounds wherever crude bricks have been the materials used in construction.
The mounds examined in Egypt were those around the temples of Esneh, Edfu, Kom-
ombo, Medinet-habu, Luxor, and Karnak. The temple of Knum at Esneh stands buried
to a height of 29 feet above the floor in the mound of a still important town. This temple
was built in the Ptolemaic period and embellished with inscriptions by Roman emperors
down to the time of Decius (249–251 A. D.). Since a part of it was added by Ptolemy VI
Philometor (181–146 B. C.), at least 21 centuries have elapsed since the floor was laid.
Obviously the temple was not built in a hole dug for that purpose into a then existing
mound; it must have started on the then existing general level of the town which has
since then grown up around it. If we assume that the floor was laid 2 feet above the gen-
eral level, we have before us a growth of 31 feet in 21 centuries, a rate of 1.48 feet per
century.
At Edfu the temple of Horus was built 21 centuries ago. Adjoining it a mound rises
to a height of 28 feet above the level of the floor. If we assume that the floor was built
2 feet above the general level, we have a growth of 30 feet in 21 centuries, or 1.43 feet per
century.
At Kom-ombo the temple of Sobk and Haroëris was built by Philometor Euergetes II,
(127–117 B. C.). The temple was built on the edge of a preexisting mound, part of which
seems to have been cut away to secure space for the site. Around part of the temple,
and separated from the older mound by an outer wall, the newer growth has reached a
height of 37 feet. Allowing 2 feet for the elevation of the floor, we have 39 feet of growth
in 20.5 centuries, or 1.9 feet per century.
At Medinet-habu the temple (plate 6) was constructed by Thotmes III (about 1500 B. C.),
and Ramses III (1198–1167 B. C.) towards the foot of an alluvial fan sloping from the hills
towards the flood-plain of the Nile. Near it, on one side, rises a mound, the growth of a
village, occupied till recently, which, considering its distance from the cultivated lands
and its situation near the temples of Medinet-habu and the Ramasseum, as well as to the
important tombs, would seem to have originated in the labor needs of these constructions.
The growth we have especially to do with, lies around the northwest or rear of the temple,
where it rises to a maximum height of 45 feet. Assuming that the founding of the village
was contemporary with that of the temple under Thotmes III, we have a growth of 45
feet in 34 centuries, or 1.35 feet per century.
At Luxor the village mound covers the northern end of the great temple and the
Avenue of Sphinxes beyond. Over this avenue it attains a height of 29 feet above the
floor of Ramses II, while it rises within the precincts of the temple itself to only 25 feet
above the same datum. It is evident that this accumulation could not have begun before
the decree of Theodosius I (379–395 A. D.). The difference in height of growth within
and without the precincts is doubtless due to the fact that a Coptic church existed for some
time in the sanctuary. The 29 feet that have accumulated outside the temple over the
Avenue of Sphinxes in fifteen centuries give a rate of 1.9 feet per century.
At Karnak the village growth extended before the excavation across the Avenue of
Sphinxes, leading from the great pylon on the west towards the Nile. It has attained a
height of 21 to 25 feet above the Avenue. This growth could not begin till after the decree
of Theodosius (379–395 A. D.) abolishing the Egyptian religion. This allows 15 centuries
for the growth, or 1.66 feet per century.
The average of these six instances is 1.6 feet per century, which can not be very far
from the truth for the growth of villages constructed in the Egyptian climate of crude
bricks made of the silt of the Nile.
The only manner in which the growth of the kurgans at Anau differed from that of
Egyptian mounds would seem to be in a somewhat more rapid rate of wear of walls on the
outside and of roofs in Anau, where some rain falls in the spring, and where the clay is a
little less tenacious than that of the Nile.