It has been established in the preceding sections that settlement walls were by no means uncommon in ancient Egypt, and it is from this tradition that the late Roman and early Islamic urban configuration developed. With the incorporation of the country into the Roman empire, it was inevitable that changes would be made to its defensive situation, and the continuing Hellenization of the upper classes would alter perceptions of the urban ideal. This section will consider to what extent these forces brought Egypt into line with other eastern Roman provinces, and how the urban enceinte developed after the Arab conquest of the country in 642.

City walls invite functionalist explanations. It is at first sight easy to deduce why they were built. Where contemporary written and pictorial evidence survives, however, the subject begins to take on a cognitive dimension. Did people at the time really perceive them as we are apt to imagine? The subject has been extensively discussed in the context of medieval Europe where contemporary pictures and contemporary accounts can be set against the architectural remains themselves. City walls were built for status and symbolism as much as for protection. The following collective discussion of the subject in the context of Egyptian history, both ancient and medieval, seeks to follow the same approach: to confront the documentation of the changing practice of urban walling with evidence that represents the mindset of the day. For the time of the Pharaohs the subject is complicated — and made more rewarding as a consequence — by the immense effort which the Egyptians also devoted to walled enclosures around prominent religious buildings. Here the temptation for us is to create a separate category from walled settlements, but on a basis that could be quite misleading. Although the dichotomy between the sacred and the profane is apparent in the construction of walls, meanings change and the distinction is far less apparent in the subsequent use of these enclosures. In medieval Egypt the massive walls of Cairo, parts of which are still an impressive sight, also turn out to be a poor guide to how urban defence was generally perceived at that time. As is ever the case in archaeology, the relationship between the minds of the present, the minds of the past and the objects of reflection forms a subtle and complex triangle.

A tradition of enclosure walls developed in Egypt very early on. Until recently the evidence was primarily artistic, in the shape of depictions on several late prehistoric palettes of symbols representing enclosed areas of square layout with rounded corners and numerous external buttresses. These images seem to depict walled inhabited settlements, and they belong to artistic compositions that also portray fighting and other violence; and together such scenes are often seen as reflecting local struggles along the road of state formation.

How people have classified things is one of the defining aspects of cognitive archaeology. Here we have been looking at the most obvious physical manifestations of protection, namely large enclosure walls.

The majority of large-scale enclosure walls constructed in Egypt in the second millennium bc were built around temples rather than towns. These walls were high and massive, sometimes with multiple enceintes, while details such as buttresses and crenellations appear to have related the design to contemporary defensive architecture. A libation basin from Memphis demonstrates clearly that a temple could be viewed as equivalent to a fortress by local inhabitants while the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu was closely modelled on contemporary fortress construction. These enclosure walls often represent a very significant investment of resources but are difficult to explain as defensive. Unlike town walls, temple enclosures were not optional extras but were an essential part of the architecture of the shrine.

The first millennium bc brought warfare to the interior of Egypt on a significant scale. We have two vivid records, one written and the other pictorial. The former is a first-person narrative of the Napatan (Sudanese) king Piankhy who, having gained control of the south of Egypt, embarked in 730 bc on a methodical subjugation of the rest of the country, then under the rule of several local families. During the seemingly irresistible northward progress of his army Piankhy makes frequent reference to walls with battlements and gates which could be countered with siege towers/battering rams and the erection of earthen ramps, although Piankhy himself preferred the tactic of direct storming. Within the circuit of these walls lay treasuries and granaries and, in the case of the city of Hermopolis in Middle Egypt, the palace of the local king Nemlut together with its stables for horses.