Geoffrey & Françoise Summers

The Urban Blocks

At the same time as the city defences were laid out the interior space was divided into urban blocks. This centralised planning was not orthogonal but took cognisance of the terrain: rock out-crops, water courses and the line of the city wall. Clearly the ambition was to create square and rectangular blocks with streets and passageways between, but pragmatism often prevailed and many blocks have marked irregularity where there were sharp changes in ground level. The blocks differ in size, in part because of the dictates imposed by the topography but, clearly, in part because there was a deliberate intention to create different zones within each of which blocks were of roughly the same size. Zones containing larger blocks appear to contain better water sources, which suggests that the size of block may be related to status or function, or a combination of both.

Test trenches seem to confirm that the enclosure walls of the blocks are the earliest structures.

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