Amarna (Part 4): Raising a City in Haste.
When Akhenaten demanded a new royal residence (Akhet-Aten), it fell to countless labourers, overseers and donkeys to gather the material needed for the city. Archaeologists scouring the landscape of Akhet-Aten and its neighbourhood have found a great deal of evidence for stone quarrying, ancient road networks, and even the rudimentary concrete used to strengthen buildings…
The landscape of the Amarna hills (Photo: Chris Ward 2019).
The gypsite pits, in the hills north-east of the city (Harrell 2017).
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Select Bibliography
Barry Kemp, The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Amarna and Its People, 2012.
W.M. Flinders Petrie, Tell el Amarna, 1894.
James A. Harrell, “Amarna gypsite: A new source of gypsum for ancient Egypt,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (2016). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.12.031
