Chapter 5 - Housing

Dear Diary,

Part of my dad's job is to watch over the servants and make sure that they are doing there work, I love helping out my dad and giving him advice on things, they are currently building new houses and last night my dad came to me for advice. I do not know much about building houses so he explained the whole process to me and then I got to go with him to see some other houses and what they are like so I could help him with the ones that the servants are currently building.

The Egyptians lived in houses made of bricks. The bricks were made of mud and chopped straw. They mixed the mud and straw and then poured the mixture into moulds. The moulds were placed in the sun which turned it into hard bricks.

Some of the tools used to make homes were the T-square which was used for measuring angles. They also had a mallet, which is a type of big hammer. Of course, they had the brick moulds to make the bricks. They also had plumb lines which were used to make sure the houses were built straight and level.

The Rich homes usually had 10 rooms and the poor homes only one. The richer homes walls had a mixture of lime and water and some of the richest homes have painted walls, because my dad is so important her in Egypt we have painted walls. Some of our rooms are blue and some yellow, we also have coloured ceilings. Some rich people also have a room that is used for family worship of the friendlier gods. All rich people had gardens with pools to swim in. Most gardens were very peaceful. To get to the gardens they had very neat paths. They had high walls to keep out noise and intruders. At the doors there were guards to protect the gardens.

Townhouses were joined together on either side looked the same. The city has many avenues of very well built buildings. The windows were little small square holes in the wall that were fairly high.

Most people, except for the poor, had furniture. Some of the furniture was a bed to sleep on, a side table to place books and other things on, a toilet seat placed on top of a hole to go to the washroom, and a sideboard so they do not fall in the hole. Their kitchens had some small tables. They had drinking vessels and dishes but they had no cupboards.

The poor slept on the bare floor, the roof or on a mat. Because of the danger of scorpions, they had a head rest to raise their heads. In the houses of the rich there was a guest room and a set of rooms for the owner. There was another room for the woman of the house.

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