![]() : This small palace (marked by the box) built as part of the mortuary temple complex of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu may or may not have acted as a real royal residence during the king’s lifetime, but it was certainly used as such in the Third Intermediate Period. : The palace of King Merenptah at Memphis, which appears to have essentially been a building designed for royal audience, with relatively modest living quarters attached. A variation on the movable royal residence is to be found in the fact that towns attached to individual royal pyramids of the Old Kingdom served as multiple important centres of royal administration. It should be noted, however, that these provisions were not just for the king but also for the ‘army and chariotry’ who were with him. An example of the preparations required for the imminent arrival of a Ramesside king is found in Papyrus Anastasi IV, which demands, among many other things, nearly 30,000 loaves of bread, 60 sacks of pomegranates, 50 bowls of honey and 100 stands for floral bouquets. In this model of royal residence the major requirement is a relatively large number of relatively small residences that could be equipped at short notice. Egyptian sources refer to the ‘Mooring Places of Pharaoh’, giving the impression of riverside stopping-places for a king who travelled – unsurprisingly – by river. Part of the reason that palaces were so much more than just a residence was that the king was an active, mobile ruler, not just on foreign campaigns (although for a significant number of rulers they seem to have been a regular event), but throughout Egypt. In the Egyptian context (as with others) a fourth major function can be added: the location for production of rare or important goods of intrinsic value or requiring specialist skills. Perhaps the best way of thinking about palaces is to consider their different potential functions: as a private dwelling for the ruler and the ruler’s family, a place for royal administration and the bureaucracy that supports it, as a venue for ceremonial activity (both public and private). The ‘North Palace’ at Amarna has been the subject of many years of excavation. The pattern of royal residence in dynastic Egypt was quite different to that of the 18th- or 19th-century European monarch. ![]() a great architectural confection built in or near the capital city of a centralized state, where external appearance reflects the power and dignity of the person or office it houses. ![]() There was no direct ancient equivalent of Versailles, Schönbrunn or Buckingham Palace – i.e. The great royal palace, built on the same scale of temples and tombs, was simply not to be seen. However, these early visitors were to a very limited extent right in identifying major temples as palaces: Karnak and Medinet Habu did indeed contain royal residences, but only as a comparatively tiny adjunct to what was, overwhelmingly, a residence for gods. The urban dwellings of king and subjects were and are harder to identify because of continued building work on top of ancient sites (sometimes through to the present day) and because, contrary to expectation, the highly stratified hierarchy of ancient Egyptian society was often not evident in its urban landscape: the grandeur Europeans had come to expect in royal building programmes seems to have been reserved for sacred space and funerary complexes. Since the decipherment of the hieroglyphs that adorn their walls, and the archaeological investigations within their precincts, we now know that the major monumental architectural features that so impressed these early visitors were in fact massive temple and mortuary complexes. Model and photo by Eastwood Cook concept by Mallinson Architects and Kate Spence. The model shows how it may have appeared when complete. In particular – and perhaps with the elaborate residences of Ottoman Istanbul in mind – it was easy to think of Egyptian kings creating huge and impressive royal palaces, and in the seminal publication produced after Napoleon’s expedition to the country, Description de L’Egypte, each of the New Kingdom Theban complexes at Karnak, Luxor and Medinet Habu was described as a ‘palais’. The grandeur that early European explorers had come to expect in royal building programs seems to have been reserved for sacred space and funerary complexes.įor early European explorers in Egypt, it was inconceivable that the massive monumental structures they saw were not obvious evidence of ‘oriental despotism’ at work creating ego-affirming monuments designed to liken the king with the gods. Illustration of the ancient palace of Malkata ![]()
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