Model of Amarna Houses

Tell El Amarna:

In the 14th century B.C Akhenaton and his wife Queen Nefertiti abandoned the ancient capital Thebes with its gods, temples and priests in order to establish a new capital for adoring another god. There the first known form of monotheism was developed through their worshipping for sun disk god Aton.

Tell El Amarna was built on the east bank of the Nile, 12k south of Mallawi, having the shape of a crescent. It was called Axt itn meaning “the horizon of god Aton”. Akhenaton set up a series of stelae to mark the boundaries of Axt itn. The first thing that was built there was the temple of god Aton after which they began building the palace of Akhenaton and his royal family followed by the housed of the nobles. All the buildings were built of mud brick except for the columns and door sills were built of stones and wood. Tell El Amarna remained as a capital for about eleven years after which it was completely abandoned by the death of its founder Akhenaton in 1362 B.C when the priests of Amen were able to regain their strength by persuading Tutankhamen, Akhenaton’s successor, to reestablish the cult of Amen at Thebes. According to that Axt itn fell into ruins and the stones of its buildings were used for other buildings in Hermopolis and other cities. Finally it should be mentioned that the modern name Tell El Amarna is according to a tribe living there called Beni Amran.

The development of building houses:

The design of dwelling places is always connected with two factors; the climatic factor and the building material which are available. In ancient Egypt a small amount of shelter was required for protection of sun heat and the cool air of night. The nomadic farmers who inhabited Egypt at that time used to build portable shelters of reed and timber which could be moved whenever they decided so and also to make it easier for them to rebuild it after the inundation season. After the inundation, the ancient Egyptians discovered a very important thing which is that when the water receded the mud which remains behind the water of the Nile dried when it is exposed to the sun and it became like bricks and was easily cut into pieces, so they decided to use them in building but they found that these mud bricks became stronger when they were mixed with straw and animal droppings and also they lasted for longer time. This mixture was used in the early phases of dwellings roofed with palm logs and straw.

The strange thing here is that the ancient Egyptians had left for us larger number of temples, tombs and pyramids that were either built with rocks or hard stones, but rarely did they leave us ancient Egyptian private houses and the reason for that was due to a very important fact which is that temples and tombs ere built to remain as much as possible to serve them in their after life and houses were built to serve them only in their ordinary life which was considered for them as an intermediate stage, so they used weak stones for houses and strong ones for temples and tombs.

Our main concern here is for noblemen’s houses as in Tell El Amarna we had three types of houses

<!--Royal houses

<!--Noblemen houses     

<!--Ordinary houses for ordinary people

We were able to know the design of these houses especially those of noblemen as they were inscribed on the walls of the tombs of Amarna period. The plan of houses which are given in the tombs of Tell El Amarna are in fact quite different from the other houses from the New Kingdom, instead of single building with several stories we here find a number of buildings with one storied rooms and halls grouped around small courts. This character is common to all of them, though the plan may vary according to the wealth of the owner.

The gound plan of the house we are in front now is rectangular and the whole building is surrounded with an enclosure wall which could be entered through the main gate which leads to the garden of the house which is planted with different kinds of trees; palm trees, coconut trees and Ficus trees. In front of the door in the middle we have a grape arbor as a sign of richness and symbol of realism and naturalism, on either side of which we have two lakes for the refreshment of the air and inside them we can see the lotus and the papyrus plant. On either side of the lakes there are two irrigational equipment in order to collect water from a deep well which is supposed to be dug in the garden for the supply of water. Beside the main gate there is a small house consisting of two rooms most probably for the guards. In front of the lakes there are some servants. Just in front of the house we can see the owner of the house sitting with his family while being amused by the musicians and dancers. The front part of the house which was approached by a door in the side wall led to a transverse hall which led to a reception with wooden pillar. The middle part resembles the hypostyle hall of the temple of Aton full of columns with no roof to allow the rays of the sun into the house. Around the roofless middle court are different small rooms, for the Harim, servants or for the purpose of grainery. We have the kitchen outside the house, besides store rooms and tables.