Ancient Egyptian Houses Part 3/3

Ancient Egyptian Houses

Turing the remains of Medinet Habu, we find the plan of the ancient Egyptian houses basically similar to those at Amarna : Square of almost square with an antechamber leading into the main living room with columns and dais . Although it is perhaps dangerous to generalize from so few examples, it is not unreasonable to suppose that this 'villa' type of housing was common is unplanned Egyptian settlements. There is , however, one interesting example which points to another type of housing which may have existed in the residential districts of old,  established cities such as Thebes. This is found in a scene from the tomb of Djehuty Nefer at Thebes and shows a multi-story type of "town house".

Medinet Habu

The right hand part of he scene missing. this may have shown the main door and entrance loggia of the ancient Egyptian house . Above where the entrance should be are the fragmentary remains of two rooms with servants at work .These may be the bedrooms, or possibly servant's quarters or workrooms. A staircase runs the full height of the house and further servants are shown carrying food and vessels up to the roof. At the top of the staircase is a canopied area which could well be a kitchen, for a servant is shown preparing good and to locate the kitchen on the open roof would ensure that cooking smells open were carried away over the rooftops. Also on the roof are a number of storage bins and grain silos.

The basement of the ancient Egyptian houses is given over to other domestic activities such as spinning and weaving , the grinding of corn and sieving of grain. The ceiling is supported by very solid, but plain, columns. The first floor of the house contains the main apartments. Servants are shown carrying food through an antechamber to their master, Djehuty-nefer , who is seated on a chair placed on the ubiquitous dais. Servants proffer him flowers and food. The doorway into this chamber is elaborately decorated with a lattice-work pattern. The roof of the chamber of characteristically high and the rafters are decorated in a block design. The columns supporting the roof are also decorated and all these features would have been brightly painted . The living room is lit by clerestory windows near the ceiling.

On the top floor of the house Djehuty-nefer is shown working in his office . Servants carry produce into his presence to be inspected and recorded by scribes. The bearers have to ascend a short flight off steps to enter the office. Its height above the other rooms on this floor is a  result of its position above the living room, which is taller than the other rooms of the ancient Egyptian house . This added height carries in to the roof and a flight of steps can be seen leading to a group of five storage bins.

An impression of the exterior of such a 'town house' may be gained from a limestone model. This depicts a tall, thin house, with a narrow doorway raised above ground level. Widows set at different levels indicate the floors. The lower set have simple cross bars, the upper ones are latticed. The tops of the walls form a parapet around the roof, creating a courtyard, The brickwork or decorated plaster is shown by horizontal bands running round the building and the small rectangles which appear in courses may be timber supports. Another , much simpler, house model reveals a common type of doorway found in ancient Egyptian houses, which imitates the entrance to a temple. the jambs and lintels would probably have been made of wood covered with plaster and in this case they are painted with red and black stripes. Set into the side wall of the model are windows and on the roof is a small court with a shelter to one side.

Not all Egyptians lived in cramped urban or village conditions. On the outskirts of towns and in the open countryside there was room for more expensive building. Indeed it seems to have been the dream of most urban dwellers to escape into these more pleasant surroundings. Some of the country estates shown in tomb paintings, therefore, represent an ideal aspired to for the afterlife rather than a property which the tomb-owner possessed during his lifetime. This wish for an idyllic rural retreat is also expressed in writing,  for example in this description by Ra'ia, the chief overseer of the cattle of the god Amun :

Ra'ia has built a godly villa which is opposite Edjo. He built it on the verge(of the river ) as a work of eternity and planted trees on every side of it. A channel is dug in front of it , and sleep us broken (only) by the sight of it ; one is gay at its portal and drunk in its hall. Fine doorposts hewn anew, and walls inlaid with lapis lazuli. Its granaries are supplied a fowl-yard and an aviary with ro-geese; byres full of oxen : a breeding pond with geese; horses in the stable ; (boats) are moored at its quay . The poor, old and young m come to live in its neighborhood. Your sustenance is assured ...Joy dwells within it .

The architectural reality of this type villa estate can be found in the great mansions of El- Amarna, eve if here the setting is less idyllic. The great villas lie at the heart of estates surrounded by mud-brick enclosure walls. Around each house are a number of outbuildings servant's quarters, including a house for the steward , kitchens stables , workrooms, and a number of circular granaries. The purpose of these was probably to store the grain which was paid as subsistence to the dependents who lived outside the walls of the estate.

A major feature of the Amarna walled mansions is the open space which formed the garden. Gardens were the delight of the ancient Egyptians. There they grew multitudes of brilliant flowers and trees for shade and nurtured fruits and vegetables which required constant watering . A central feature of these gardens were pools , which were both decorative and provided the water for irrigation .The remains of such pols, or possibly wells, are shown as dotted lines on the plan of Amarna houses. Wells are in fact more likely in this case as the city was built beyond the limit of cultivation and the water table was too deep for pools to be viable.

A house complete with its garden is depicted in the Book of the Dead Nakhte , a royal scribe of the Eighteenth Dynasty . Nakhte and his wife are shown standing in front of their house , before which are planted a fruit tree and a date palm for ornament and shade. The form of the house i greatly simplified but shows several interesting features. The walls are whitewashed to reflect the heat , Like those of many houses in Egypt today. the elaborate doorway is coloured reddish-brown, as are the windows, probably indicating that they were made of wood , The lattice windows are shown high up on the wall and may and may be clerestory windows for the main room.  On the roof are two triangular vents . These were designed to catch the cooling breezes , greatly desired and prayed for by the Ancient Egyptians.

An idea of a more humble rural home may be gained from a series of models placed in tombs the middle Kingdom ,known as 'soul houses' .

In the evening lamps were lit were lit during the brief interlude following the evening meal before the household went early to bed , to rise again at dawn. These were for the most part simple bowls of of pottery or stone containing oil and a wick . They could be placed on the floor or higher up in wall niches  .Examples of lamp stands have been found , consisting of a column, sometimes in papyrus form , on top of which are three pages supporting a bowl which forms the lam proper. Potter torches are also knows ; these were set in bracket on the wall.

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Ancient Egyptian Houses Part 2/3

Ancient Egyptian Houses
Even within the planned residential zones of EL-Amarna a similar pattern can be discerned. These clumps of modest homes tend to be grouped round the mansions of the rich, and their inhabitants were probably the retainers and dependents of the great men.

The village of Deir el-Medina

In marked contrast to these homely, organic settlements are planned, organized communities. Into this category fall the towns built for the workmen who constructed the pyramids and later inhabited by the priests who maintained the funerary cult of the deceased Pharaoh, the fortress towns of Nubia, and villages built for those engaged in the excavation and decoration of New Kingdom royal tombs, such as at Deir el-Medina and El-Amarna. These communicates possessed certain common characteristics.

They were usually in inhospitable, remote areas, without their own water supply, and were surrounded by rectangular of sub-rectangular walls, within which the streets and ancient Egyptian houses were laid out in a grid. Individual dwellings were of uniform size and design, except for one or two larger houses inhabited by the foreman or administrators. The workman's village an El-Marna was a poor, unpleasant place consisting of seventy two housing unities plus a larger overseer's dwelling. The ancient Egyptian houses were small and cramped, measuring approximately five by ten meters. The narrow streets were cluttered with water jars and tethering posts for animals, and animals seem also have been sheltered in the entrance rooms of the dwellings. Beyond the entrance was the main living and sleeping room, which was divided into tiny chambers, one a kitchen, the other a second bedroom or store, in the kitchen area was a stairway to the roof.

The village of Deir el-Medina, although similar in concept, was far more prosperous and the individual houses were somewhat larger - about five by fifteen meters- and better appointed, especially later in its history. The original Eighteenth Dynasty settlement was sub-rectangular in shape and consisted of one street, off which the workman's dwellings opened. Unlike El-Amarna, which only survived a few years, Deir el-Medina existed for over four centuries and during that tine interesting developments took place. The community expanded until there were seventy units within the walls and about fifty outside. The main street was lengthened, but it developed a dog-leg and new subsidiary alleyways appeared. The interiors of the ancient Egyptian houses were modified or amalgamated to suit the needs of individual families, and rooms were converted for private enterprise into shops, workshops and bars. In short, it came to resemble the normal, haphazard kind of Egyptian village.

El-Amarna

Instead of being used as a stable, the entrance room of a typical house at Deir el-Medina was set up as a household chapel with niches for offerings, stele busts. On the wall was painted an image of the God Bes, one of the family deities associated with childbirth, and a brick construction found in these chapels may have served as birthing bed. The antechamber led into the main room of the house, the ceiling of which was quite lofty and supported by one or more columns. Against one wall was raised dais, plastered and whitewashed, which served as an eating area by day and a bed at night. Beneath this platform was often a cellar. Leading from this principal room were one or storage. At the rear of the house was a small walled court which served as the kitchen. Here there was an oven, a grain silo and grinding equipment. In some houses there was another cellar sunk beneath the yard. The roof of the house was reached by a staircase ascending from the kitchen court.

How does this compare with the houses in less organized settlements? In both Medinet Habu and the main city at El-Amarna, the one - or two - roomed houses of the very poor are dwellings of the artisan class .The main feature was a central living room, its roof supported by one or more columns and with dais to one side. This room was preceded by an antechamber and entrance loggia. This form applied to houses of all classless, differences in status being reflected in the size and number of the rooms and the quality of materials used. Cooking facilities were outside the main dwelling, either in outbuildings or in communal courtyards. Many houses had staircases to the roof, or perhaps a second story.

Of especial interest at Amarna is the evidence for sanitary arrangements. Many houses had a suite consisting of a bathroom and lavatory leading from one of the major bedrooms. The bathroom was formed of a low screen wall sheathed slab of stone and poured water over him or had water poured over him. The excess ran out to a vessel which could be removed and emptied. The lavatory was a seat set above a large vessel containing sand. In the many ancient Egyptian houses that no doubt lacked such sophisticated arrangements, portable commode stools ma have been used, again placed over sand-filled vessel.

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Ancient Egyptian Houses Part 1/3

Ancient Egyptian Houses and Homes
Mud-brick is still used as a building material for houses in Egypt and is made in the same way as in antiquity. Chopped straw is mixed with Nile mud and the bricks shaped in a wooden mould. They are then left to dry in the sun.

Houses in Ancient Egypt

The Population of ancient Egypt
The population of ancient Egypt was divided between a number of towns which grew up at regular intervals along the Nile and innumerable small villages which clustered around the facilities offered by there urban cent-res. Most important were the royal cities, chosen by the Pharaohs as their chief sears and cent res of the nation's government. Throughout the course of Egyptian history a number of places held this honour, such as Memphis, Thebes, Itjtawy, El-Amarna, Pi-Ramses and later Tanis, Bubastis, Sais , Next in Importance were the nine capitals, which acted as cent-res for local administration and taxation as well as housing the temples of the major regional deities, Then there were towns of some importance which lacked the political statues of nome capitals, such as Abydos, famous as a cent-re of pilgrimage to the shrine of the god Osiris .

Many towns and villages had a long history of occupation, indeed a good number of ancient sites are inhabited to this day. One of the reasons for this long-term habitation of certain locations was the annual rise of the Nile which, until the 1960s, inundated the whole Vally of Egypt. To escape the waters, dwellings had to be built either in the desert margins or on the limited amount of elevated ground within the areas of cultivation. Also, the means by which ancient Egyptian building were constructed meant that over the centuries the height of the inhabited mounds grew, making them even safer from the flood. For everything, fro palaces and administrative buildings to ancient Egyptian houses and, until the New Kingdom, even temples, were constructed of unbaked mud-brick. Even in the dry Egyptian climate such a fragile material is fairly short-lived, and as the structures decayed, the inhabitants merely demolished them and built on the remains and on the not cleared heaps of rubbish that surrounded them. AS time passed , villages and towns rose above the surrounding countryside, forming quite considerable hills, now called tells. This phenomenon is common throughout the Near East.

Unfortunately, there occupation has ceased by peasant farmers, who find the decayed mud-brick an excellent fertilize. This has reduced the quantity of ancient dwelling sites available for excavation, and the number is even further reduced because , as has already been mentioned , many ancient towns and villages are still under occupation. Nevertheless, there is still a substantial amount of archaeological evidence available, which supplies ground plans of ancient ancient Egyptian houses and some idea of their decoration and setting. To these bare bones can be added information from artistic and documentary sources as well as objects found in tombs, which help us to visualize a complete dwelling.

The majority of Egyptian towns and villages seem to have developed in a piecemeal, haphazard fashion around a central core of public buildings. Town planning did exist, but, as we shall see, it was limited to specialized types of community created for specific, official purposes. There is also evidence of planning in the central government and palace quarters of the major cities, notably El-Amarna, which has been extensively excavated.

The organic growth of residential areas in large towns and small village can be illustrated both archaeologically and from documentary papyri. A village of the late new Kingdom has been excavated within the walls of the mortuary temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu. It consists of modest homes, which, according to the excavators, were laid out arbitrarily and without planning. Separating the houses are narrow alleyways which wander crookedly up downhill, with steps to negotiate the rubbish heaps on which the village is party built. Group of ancient Egyptian houses are constructed around central courts or blind alleyways, some of which are closed off from the street by gateways. It is evident that houses within these small complexes gradually altered and grew to meet the needs of succeeding generations of occupations. Occupation of housing by extended family groups can also be demonstrated by documentary papyri from several periods of Egyptian history. For instance, the household of Hekanakhte , a mortuary priest of the Twelfth Dynasty from the village of Nebeseyet neat Thebes , consisted of his mother , his concubine , a female dependent relative , five men who may have been his sons' three women probably his daughters , the agent of the estate and his daughters, the agent of the estate and his family , and finally a number of servants.

Ancient Egyptian Houses

Approximately seventeen centuries later, the development of a single property by a large family can be fallowed in a group of legal documents from Thebes. In 343 BC the owner of the house, Djufachi, a carpenter, divided it between five members of his family. Over the next forty years ownership of the divided property passed to other member of the family and to others connected to it by marriage. Eventually, through foreclosure and sale, the properties moved outside the extended family group, but by then the form of the original house had altered and grown into an organic series of dwellings.

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