| Article ID: | iaor2009100 |
| Country: | United States |
| Volume: | 78 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Start Page Number: | 701 |
| End Page Number: | 714 |
| Publication Date: | Oct 1988 |
| Journal: | Annals of the Association of American Geographers |
| Authors: | Church Richard L., Bell Thomas L. |
| Keywords: | history |
Location–allocation models may be used to focus upon a multiplicity of factors potentially underlying settlement pattern development. We describe several such maximal covering models and their applicability in understanding the degree of political centralization in the Nile Valley during the Ramessid period (ca. 1317–1070 B.C.). The results of the covering models support the contention that the main objective of the Ramessid bureaucracy in choosing sites for administrative centers was to maximize control of the Nile Valley population and the agricultural labor power they provided, to supply much needed land rent-taxes to the royal coffers.