The earliest hieroglyphic sign for “province”, or nome, was a rectangle divided into four by intersecting
lines; the sign for “town” showed a circular enclosure around an orthogonal street system or a dominant
cross-axis. Even a seemingly random arrangement like the capital of King Akhenaten, Amarna, reflects its
sensitivity toward the river axis by having three main arteries that run in line with the bank curve.
The linear stretch of the land is perhaps evoked in one other aspect of the built environment. Egyptian
design conceived of major architectural programs as a series of episodes along a predeterminate
path. The pyramid of Giza appear today like three splendid objects in mid-space at the desert edge. In fact,
they were the culmination of an architectural sequence that began at the west bank. New Kingdom temples
were themselves channels of passage like the river along which they stood.
In one sense, everything along the banks was linked to everything else by the Nile axis. That was the
major highway of the country.