25).
[1] Many of the rooms at Kahun had vaulted ceilings.
[2] Seventeenth to Twentieth Dynasties.
2 .-- FORTRESSES.
Most of the towns, and even most of the larger villages, of ancient Egypt were walled.

This was an almost necessary consequence of the geographical characteristics and the political constitution of the country.

The mouths of the defiles which led into the desert needed to be closed against the Bedawin; while the great feudal nobles fortified their houses, their towns, and the villages upon their domains which commanded either the mountain passes or the narrow parts of the river, against their king or their neighbours.
[Illustration: Fig.

23 .-- Ceiling pattern from tomb of Aimadua, Twentieth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig.

24 .-- Door of a house of the Ancient Empire, from the wall of a tomb of the Sixth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig.