Patterns in the Population Distribution of Lower Egypt from the Predynastic to the Ptolemaic Period as Estimated from Archaeological Evidence

What is it about?

When studying ancient population distributions, archaeologists are hampered by a lack of the kind of census records that are available today. As a result, multiple methods and sources of evidence (text and/or archaeology) have been used to glimpse the changing sizes and distributions of populations present across single sites and whole regions. _x000D_ In the 1970s Karl Butzer developed a method for calculating the population of the individual provinces (nomes) of Ancient Egypt. He applied it to the Upper Egyptian nomes but not to those of the Delta. Since his publication there has been a wealth of new archaeological information unearthed for settlement sites in the Delta dating from the Predynastic and Pharaonic eras. Using this evidence, we apply Butzer’s method to the nomes of the Delta in order to analyse changes in ancient population distributions across the Nile Delta from 5300–30BC and interpret them in light of what is currently known about the changing societal and environmental landscape of the time.

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