Hedvig Győry: Mélanges offerts a Edith Varga „Le lotus qui sort de terre” (Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts Supplément 1. Budapest, 2001)
KATALIN ANNA KÓTHAY: Houses and households at Kahun: Bureaucratic and Domestic Aspects of Social Organization During the Middle Kingdom
the western sector of the settlement. 90 In the remaining part of the domestic quarter several compounds of buildings can be distinguished, individual complexes composed of houses of the same size and showing the same plan. However, the originally uniform dwelling houses of this sector had gone under major transformations during the history of the settlement. 91 It is too unfortunate that the plan made by Petrie is not adequate to detail these changes. There is a possibility to ascribe some of them to New Kingdom occupants. As far as Petrie's excavations can be reconstructed, 18th dynasty finds in the western sector mostly come from the northern rows of houses, 92 from a section that reflects only minor transformations. Major alterations can be observed in the southern part of the western sector, in the same area where the lists of Hori's family and other related documents appear to have been found. Since these compounds seem untouched by later occupants, we can surmise that the transfonnations can be assigned to Middle Kingdom residents. The imyt-pr document of Wah (1.1) bears out that Ankhren built rooms ( c wt) which were occupied by his brother and his conjugal family unit. 93 The older brother Ankhren may be a solitary, which can be concluded from the fact that all his properties, including personnel, were passed onto his younger brother Wah. 94 The two brothers most likely coresided, and following Wah's marriage, if the older brother was still alive, they constituted an extended family household. The plans of the individual houses in Rank A, where the documents appear to have been found, indeed show internal divisions and partitions. Other transformations appear to have resulted in several interconnecting houses suggesting amalgamations of 2, 3 or even 4 of the original dwelling units, which could be a sign of complex coresident units, perhaps even multiple family households. The fact that the surviving papyri of Lot I were found approximately in the same area may imply that the two families concerned lived in the same part of the settlement. They could be housed in the same compound but in different houses, as at Deir el-Medine, where relatives were often neighbors. In such cases co-operative activities of families related by blood or marriage were presumably important. 90 For the plan of the town see Petrie, op. cit. (note 37), pl. XIV. " H. S. Smith, Society and settlement in ancient Egypt, in: Ucko et al., op. cit. (note 54), p. 707; Kemp, op. cit. (note 16), p. 155: Valbelle, op. cit. (note 50), p. 78. 1,2 Petrie, op. cit. (note 16), p. 15; Gallorini, op. cit. (note 68), p. 51. 93 Griffith, op. cit. (note 16). pl. XII. 13. " Griffith, op. cit.. pl. XIII, 9-18 and pl. XII, 1-5.
