For more than 50 years, archaeologists have debated whether or not Egypt was a “civilization without cities.” The publication of Nadine Moeller’s book, The Archaeology of Urbanism in Ancient Egypt: From the Predynastic Period to the End of the Middle Kingdom, provides the opportunity to reconsider this issue, using a more complete record of the relevant archaeological finds. I present a new, flexible approach to urban definition, and then I examine the ways in which ancient Egyptian urbanism resembled and differed from other early urban traditions. I conclude that Egypt was indeed an urban society, and that Egyptian urban patterns were highly distinctive within the canon of ancient urban systems. I place these points within the context of competing ideas about the nature of global history.

50多年来，考古学家一直在争论埃及是否是“没有城市的文明”。纳丁·穆勒（Nadine Moeller）的著作《古埃及的城市主义考古学：从王朝时代到中朝末期》，提供了使用有关考古发现的更完整记录来重新考虑这一问题的机会。我提出了一种新的灵活的城市定义方法，然后研究了古埃及城市主义与其他早期城市传统的相似之处和与之不同的方式。我得出的结论是，埃及确实是一个城市社会，并且埃及的城市模式在古代城市系统的规范内具有鲜明的特色。我将这些观点放在关于全球历史本质的相互竞争的思想中。