The oldest settlement of man in town fashion which has yet been explored in any land near Greece is that of Kahun, in Egypt, dating from about 2500 B.C.

Here Professor Flinders Petrie unearthed many four-roomed cottages packed close in parallel oblong blocks and a few larger rectangular houses: they are (it seems) the dwellings of the workmen and managers busy with the neighbouring Illahun pyramid.[6] But the settlement is very small, covering less than 20 acres; it is not in itself a real town and its plan has not the scheme or symmetry of a town-plan.

For that we must turn to western Asia, to Babylonia and Assyria.
[6] W.F.Petrie, _Illahun, Kahun, and Gurob_ (London, 1891), ch.
ii, plate xiv.

The plan is reproduced in Breasted's _History of Egypt_, p.

87, R.Unwin's _Town planning_, fig.