Housing Plan of Ancient Egypt

Houses in Egyptian villages were generally very basic. Although some were larger than others (depending on the wealth and status of the owner), the average house at Deir el Medina, Gurob, and Amarna consisted of four rooms:

• A front room leading from the street, which may have been used as a meeting place for guests.
• A living room where the household shrine was situated. The family would worship their personal gods or ancestors here.
• A living space, probably used as a sleeping area, with a staircase to a flat roof or upper floor.
• A kitchen at the rear of the house, which was open to the sky to prevent the room from filling with smoke.

Cellars underneath the rear rooms were used as storage for foodstuffs.
Houses were small so each room was multi-purpose. The houses of the elite, more appropriately described as mansions, followed a similar layout to the small houses, although they consisted of a number of small suites of rooms joined by interlinking corridors. These gave the elite owners the privilege of separating the public from the private family quarters. Many mansions also contained

• An audience chamber in which to greet visitors.
• An office in which to conduct business.
• A bathroom with built-in shower area (essentially a stone slab and a servant with a jug of water) and toilet (a horseshoe-shaped wooden seat over a bowl of sand). Some homes at Pi-Rameses also had sunken baths open to the sky – to catch some rays while bathing. _ Women’s quarters, for privacy rather than confinement. These quarters provided living, dressing, and sleeping areas from the rest of the household.

All houses in ancient Egypt were nearly bursting at the seams with people. The mansions were run like estates. In addition to the owner and his family, a plethora of employees, administrators, and servants lived in these larger homes.
Small homes were even more crowded. An Egyptian couple may have had up to 15 children, all living in a single four-roomed house. When men married, their wives moved into the home as well; and when the wives had children, the children potentially also lived in the house. It was not unusual for three or four generations – as many as 20 people, mostly children – to be living in these small houses. The Egyptians truly knew the meaning of no privacy and no space.