Amarna (anc: Akhet-Aten) and the workmen´s village Deir el-Medina have contributed greatly to our knowledge about housing in the New Kingdom. At Amarna there was also a village for workmen, outside the city, among the hills.

It is not the purpose here to go into detail about Amarna, there are plenty of other sources which do that very well. Here we will only throw a brief glance on what kind of houses people there lived in, during the New Kingdom period.

The City of Amarna
Amarna cannot claim to be an average New Kingdom city. It was built on a site where no buildings had stood before, the construction went very rapidly and it was only inhabited a few years. After that, the city was purposely dismantled and the material used in other buildings.

The city consisted of over 500 houses in varying size, for all kinds of social levels. Mainly there were three of these: upper, middle and lower class. The upper class houses were no more than ca 10 percent of the total number, these being large mansions and villas. All of them were laid out in more or less the same way. The groundplan is rectangular with a square livingroom surrounded by other rooms. The richer the owner, the more rooms there were, it seems. All of them have however a livingroom, one or more sleepingrooms, a kitchen and a staircase outside of the house, leading up to the flat roof where there was a loggia, or sitting-place. The houses were only one storey, between 90 and 185 meters square, and they all faced the main street. A wall surrounded them, the portico was set in the main wall leading out to the street. It led into a gardencourt where the main hall was situated in the center, surrounded by bedrooms. In front of the villa there was a garden with a pool and a private chapel. Behind the house were servants´ quarters, the kitchen, stables and grain silos.

A model of Vizier Nakht´s villa at Akhet-Aten

Amarna Workers´ Village
To the east of the city, among the hills, lies a village constructed for those workers who built the cliff tombs for the nobles in Akhet-Aten. These houses, some 80 all together, were much simpler than the city houses and the villas. Walls were thinner, they were not painted, and the pottery which has been found, was simple and for everyday use. They resemble the houses at the town of Kahun, though the Amarna houses were not as varied in type as at Kahun. There wasn´t much spent for its constructions, with wood only in doors, but hardly in lintels and door jambs. There were no wells inside the village, people would have to fetch it from outside.

The whole village was surrounded by a wall, which was divided into two parts, one of them bigger than the other. All the houses except one, which was larger, were of equal size and groundplan. They measured ca 5 meter wide and 10 meter long. The ground floor was divided into four sections; there was an entrance hall leading to the living room, which had a pillar supporting the roof in its center. Behind the living room were two small rooms and the kitchen. Roofs were flat, with a loggia or sun shield made from reed mats. Staircases were not built outside the houses, but were cramped inside the entrance hall or in the kitchen, taking up most of the space. The larger house apparently was occupied by an overseer.

Deir el-Medina

In the 19th and 20th Dynasties, the workmen who built the royal toms in the Valley of the Kings, lived close together in an isolated village in the Theban mountains. Traditionally, this was once a track, which was chosen by Amenhotep I (1525-1504 bc) as living place for the tombworkers. The modern name is Deir el-Medina, the anicnet one was 'Set Ma´at' = 'The Place of Truth'.

The village is c 50 meter long, with some 70 houses at most. Through the center, a street runs from south to north, from the beginning 80 m long but now 123 m. The houses are crammed together, sharing a common partition wall. Over the years, there were long-established families who owned their houses. New workers could not get at them, so there were some 50 houses built outside the surrounding wall.

Deir el Medina as it looked in the New kingdom

The earliest houses had no foundations and were built of mudbrick. Later, the houses had cellars of stone as well as the lower part of the walls being of stone. All houses were single-storeyed with flat roofs made of beaten earth. Some of the houses are larger than the others, belonging to the "Chief of the gang", while ordinary workers houses were small. The regular house had four parts: a hall or vestbule at the front which led to the living room. Behind this were two smaller rooms, used either as sleeping rooms or storage - or both. The ceiling in the living room was held up by two columns and against one of the walls there was the usual bench made from mudbrick, on which cushions were placed for comfortability. Traditionally, the windows were set high in the walls and were equipped with reed blinds. The walls were whitewashed both on the inside and the outside. In houses of the more affluent, the walls even had painted wall decorations. Lintels, door- and windowframes were of either stone or wood such as acacia, sycamore, and the preferred colors being yellow and blue, while front doors were often painted red.

There were no gardens but at the rear of the house there was a walled yard. Here was an open hearth, an oven and bins for storage. There was also an area set apart for grinding grain. From this little court, a staircase led up to the roof. Sometimes this staircase was placed inside the entrance, making it even more cramped.

As there was no well in Deir el-Medina, water had to be carried 1.5 km from the river. It was kept in a large guarded tank at the northern gate and strictly rationed to the villagers. The water was then kept in big clay pot outside the house, to keep cool. Washing clothes had to be done at the river, so the women had to walk far. The workmen were however provided with washermen from the authorities while they worked at the tomb constructions.

More about Deir el-Medina.

See also:
Housing in Ancient Egypt I: The Early Period - Middle Kingdom.
Housing in Ancient Egypt II: The New Kingdom.