Ancient Egyptian Dwellings and Temples

The number of rooms varied from one dwelling to another according to the social status of the owner.

The smallest dwelling included an open courtyard, a reception room, a dining room, one or more bedrooms, one or more storerooms, a place for cooking, and a bathroom.

Perhaps among the best remaining dwellings are those located in Tell el-Amarna.

Tell el-Amarna Dwellings

We can discuss two models of houses: one was located far from densely populated areas and included more than one story. As for the suburban or private house, its design was as follows:

The main residence, raised slightly above the ground, took a rectangular shape and was built of mud brick, with its walls coated with a layer of plaster.
The front section of the house consisted of a wide hall whose ceiling rested on two to eight columns, designated for waiting guests.
The reception hall occupied the most important part in the middle section, where the master of the house sat on a small stone platform attached to one of the walls.
In front of this platform was the designated place for guests who—after settling—received scented water on their hands and feet.
A fixed earthenware fireplace stood in the middle of the hall.
There were one to four columns made of painted wood, resting on limestone bases, supporting the ceiling of the middle hall, which was higher than the ceilings of the other rooms.
These columns were painted deep red and topped with colored cornices.
The wooden beams and supports were coated with a pink-colored stucco layer.
Windows with stone bars opened in the upper part of the walls to ensure lighting for the middle hall.
The floor was covered with flat tiles decorated with floral motifs, and doors were decorated with various elements.

From one of the side halls, a staircase rose leading to the roof. The private residence formed the rear section of the house. A group of rooms usually surrounded a middle hall whose ceiling rested on a single column, representing the place where family members gathered. This was followed by the bedroom, perhaps a washing room, a dressing and perfuming room, and finally bathrooms that might be equipped with fixed or movable seats.

The house had annexes including servant rooms, kitchens, ovens, grain silos, provisions stores, cattle and poultry pens, and various craft workshops such as a brewery, a carpentry workshop, a spinning and weaving factory, etc.

Scenes depicted on the walls of some tombs give an idea of the garden that usually stood in front of the house facade. This garden took a regular shape, with a rectangular basin in the middle where brightly colored fish swam, its edges adorned with wide leaves and lotus flowers. The garden was bordered by successive paths where sycamore, palm, and pomegranate trees stood, and the edges of the basin sloped gently. The garden included a kiosk or small shrine, and often grape trellises that added an atmosphere of variety among the rows of trees.

As for the public house, which existed in crowded residential areas, it consisted of a basement and two floors for living, including the ground floor, and often above the roof there were one or two small rooms forming something like a third floor. The upper floor was allocated for private living, containing bedrooms and their annexes. The roof contained small rooms for various household purposes, and some were dedicated to spending evenings and enjoying the pleasant weather. The staircase was at the lowest level in the house and ended at the roof under a slanted shed shaped like an awning.

The house facade was decorated with beautiful decorative elements, and some houses included a small garden with a staircase leading to the slightly raised ground floor.

Then there are the dwellings of the workers' village in Deir el-Medina, west of Luxor, dating to the Ramesside period. The village was surrounded by a thick mud-brick wall and included about 70 houses divided into two roughly equal parts separated by a street extending from north to south. The houses were adjacent so that there were no intervening spaces between one house and another. The houses were quite small, with most comprising two or three rooms.

Through the scenes portrayed on tomb walls, temples, and elsewhere representing the dwellings of ancient Egyptians, it is clear that the Egyptian took great interest in green spaces in and around their houses in many cases. Some dwellings included private gardens, and the Egyptian also showed interest in house ventilation, cleanliness, drainage systems, interior decoration, and furniture.

Because temples represent a prominent landmark on the path of religious architecture, I have chosen to shed light on them.

Central Historical Point: The design of Tell el-Amarna dwellings reveals that ancient Egyptian domestic architecture was carefully planned to separate public reception areas from private family quarters, reflecting the social hierarchy and daily customs of the period.

Temples

After humans achieved stability by discovering fire, taming animals, and learning agriculture, they began to ponder what was happening around them in the universe. The sun rises, sets, and rises anew; the Nile floods, recedes, and floods anew; plants grow, are harvested, and grow anew. Therefore, they believed they would pass through the same cycle: living for a temporary period, dying for a temporary period, and then being resurrected anew for eternity.

They also believed that there are moving forces behind this universe that created and run it and everything within it. These forces—whose true nature humans cannot perceive or locate—bring them good and ward off evil. Therefore, they had to draw close to them and choose symbols to act as a link between themselves and those forces. To achieve this, there had to be houses for these deities where their symbols were placed and worship rituals performed. From this came the idea of the temple.

Since prehistoric times, features of places dedicated to the worship of deities began to appear in the form of simple huts made of tree branches supported by mud, fronted by an open courtyard that perhaps included symbols of the deities. Antiquities of the early period of ancient Egyptian history recorded images of shrines for the goddess Neith, the god Khnum, and the god Sobek, consisting of a rectangular courtyard surrounded by a fence of tree branches, with shrines containing symbols of the deities.

Certain hieroglyphic signs expressed various models of deity shrines in the First and Second Dynasties. With the beginning of the Third Dynasty, temple planning features became clearer than before. We can speak of two types of temples: king temples and deity temples.

King Temples

A king's temple is the one associated with his pyramid complex, comprising two main units: the mortuary temple and the valley temple. The former is usually located on the eastern side of the pyramid at the same level as the pyramid ground, where mortuary rituals preceding burial were performed.

As for the second part (the valley temple), it was located on the low ground in the valley, connected to the mortuary temple by a path known as the causeway. It was named the valley temple due to its location on the low ground, as mentioned earlier. Certain rituals were also performed there, among which were probably purification and incense rituals, and the Opening of the Mouth ritual, etc.

Although discussing the first traditional pyramid complex (of a pyramid, mortuary temple, causeway, and valley temple) is associated with the reign of King Huni (the last king of the Third Dynasty and owner of the stepped mastaba known as the unfinished pyramid), and although Djoser's complex is considered untraditional and of a special nature because it includes structures unrelated to pyramid complexes as we know them in the Old and Middle Kingdoms—such as the Heb-Sed temple, the southern tomb, the House of the North, and the House of the South—some speak of a mortuary temple for King Djoser on the northern side of the pyramid, square in layout, with a sloping corridor near the serdab leading to two courtyards representing the center of the plan. The temple facade is on the southern side of each courtyard, consisting of four fluted wall pilasters with three entrances between them, behind which lies a transverse hall connected to a set of corridors.

Beginning in the Fourth Dynasty, the general layout of the mortuary temple became clearer, although some details differed from one king to another and from one dynasty to another. One of the best models is the mortuary temple of King Khafre.

The Mortuary Temple of King Khafre

It is located to the east of the pyramid and was built of limestone faced with granite, while its internal walls were mostly built of granite.
The temple plan is rectangular, with the entrance located on the southern side, leading to a corridor the width of the temple featuring two rooms to its south and four rooms to its north.
The corridor is centered by a two-columned lobby from which a narrow corridor extends along the temple axis, leading to a pillared hall built of granite.
This hall leads to a wide courtyard whose axis extends from north to south, surrounded by a corridor leading to sixteen entrances.
The courtyard is followed by five niches, each containing a statue.
At the far south of the corridor (overlooked by the five niches), there is an entrance leading to a long vestibule extending from east to west, then from south to north, from which another vestibule emerges leading to the sanctuary at the end of the temple.

Among the good models of valley temples from the Old Kingdom is the valley temple of King Khafre.

The Valley Temple of King Khafre

This temple was discovered by the French scholar Mariette in 1853, and the discovery of its remaining parts continued thereafter. The temple was built of limestone and faced inside and outside with granite. The temple axis runs from east to west, with its facade located on the eastern side, and its outer wall surfaces sloping slightly inward.

The temple has two entrances, one at the northern end and the other at the southern end, leading to a long, narrow lobby where the statues of King Khafre carved from diorite were found. Each was placed in a deep pit, one of them being that wonderful statue in the Egyptian Museum.

The western wall is centered by a door leading to a T-shaped hall comprising 16 columns, each column formed from a single block of pink granite. In the southwest of the pillared hall, we find a vestibule overlooked by two floors, each comprising three rooms that were probably used as storerooms. In the northwest corner, we find a corridor leading to the back door, which in turn leads to the causeway about 500 meters long, extending from southeast to northwest. The temple floor was paved with alabaster.

Middle Kingdom Temples

Among the best examples of the Eleventh Dynasty is the establishment of King Mentuhotep II in the West Bank of Thebes, adjacent to Queen Hatshepsut's Deir el-Bahari temple. It represents a unique style in architecture, combining the tomb and the temple on a single plane where the tomb rises, taking the form of the temple's pyramid.

As for the Twelfth Dynasty temples, they suffered heavy destruction, making it difficult to determine their architectural elements. Perhaps the most famous is that belonging to King Amenemhat III in Hawara, known as the Labyrinth Palace, named after the ruler's palace in the city of Cnossos in the island of Crete, which was famous for its massiveness and luxury. It is also known as the Maze Palace, meaning one gets lost in it due to the huge number of rooms, which—as the Greek historian Herodotus mentions—reached about 3,000 rooms, some above ground and others underground. Unfortunately, of this strange structure in its layout compared to known pyramid temples from before, nothing remains except a few scattered stones here and there.

New Kingdom Royal Temples

The royal temples in the New Kingdom adopted a layout different from that of royal temples in previous eras. Their general layout consists of a mud-brick wall, a harbor (port) to receive ships carrying temple requirements, an avenue of sphinxes, two obelisks to the right and left of the entrance, standing and sitting statues to the right and left of the pylon entrance, and then the pylon, which takes the shape of a massive wide facade at the bottom, narrowing as it rises, composed of two towers with the entrance in the middle.

The pylon facade includes a number of recesses ranging between two and eight, which were designated for securing temple flags. The pylon is followed by the open courtyard, then the pillared hall, and the temple ends with the sanctuary.

New Kingdom royal temples—known as mortuary temples—continue the name of the royal temples in the Old and Middle Kingdoms, and are also known as memorial temples, meaning immortalizing the memory of the god Amun's visit to his temples in the west and to his ancestors represented in the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, whose creation journey ended near the Medinet Habu temple (Amun being one of the members of this ogdoad).

For reasons we will mention when discussing New Kingdom royal tombs, it was necessary to separate the tomb from the temple. Therefore, the temples of these kings came to be built on the edge of agricultural land in the West Bank of Thebes, extending from northeast to southwest, far from the royal tombs carved in the necropolis of the Valley of the Kings.

It is assumed that every New Kingdom king had a mortuary temple. Because the recovered temples are few, some kings perhaps sufficed with making an addition bearing their names in the deity temples in eastern Luxor (Luxor and Karnak), or the features of some kings' temples were lost.

Among the most famous temples still remaining in western Luxor are Queen Hatshepsut's Deir el-Bahari temple, ruins of Thutmose III's temple, Seti I's temple in Qurna, Ramesses II's temple (the Ramesseum), Merenptah's temple, and Ramesses III's temple in Medinet Habu (we will point to some of them later).

Deir el-Bahari

This name is given to an area comprising two temples built in the embrace of the mountain behind the Valley of the Kings, one dating to the Eleventh Dynasty (reign of King Mentuhotep II) and the second to the Eighteenth Dynasty (reign of Queen Hatshepsut). This area was known as the monastery because Hatshepsut's temple was used as a monastery around the 7th century AD.

Temple of Mentuhotep II

The architect of this temple innovated a new architectural style, choosing for his project a rising mountain embrace among the western hills of Thebes. He deliberately moved away from the old architectural method where Old Kingdom architects used to place the king's pyramid and its mortuary temple adjacent and on the same level without combining them into a single spatial unit. Therefore, Eleventh Dynasty architects headed toward combining the pyramid and its temple for the first time on a single plane where each part follows the other.

The architect wanted the pyramid to match the mountain and surrounding environment, preparing for it two wide platforms, one above the other, all reached via a long, wide path with a wide entrance at the edge of the valley. The architect added many other elements of trees, high columns, and royal statues to his design, wishing to complete the aspects of luxury and beauty for his project. Once completed, visitors looked at it from cultivated lands, finding successive tiered levels where the pyramid dominates the highest parts and the mountain rises behind it.

The entrance is at the beginning of the path, followed by a wide path planted with tall trees shading the king's statues below. Visitors ascend after this forest of trees via a rising path to face the second platform—a forest of stone rather than trees, comprising dozens of octagonal pillars, from the heart of which rises the king's pyramid.

Mentuhotep's tomb included a number of tombs for his female family members and attendants, while the tombs of senior officials and soldiers who assisted him and died in the battle he waged against the Herakleopolitans to unify the country spread beside it.

Temple of Queen Hatshepsut (Deir el-Bahari)

Queen Hatshepsut, as we noted earlier, is one of the most famous rulers of Egypt in the Eighteenth Dynasty, taking a tomb for herself in the Valley of the Kings. The competition among members of this dynasty for rule caused her to fear losing the throne after Thutmose II's death. This explains what we see in the inscriptions on her temple walls, where she claimed she was the true daughter of the god Amun himself (divine birth) to support her position under those circumstances.

Her temple is considered unique in its style, with no other temple resembling it, as it consists of three terraces succeeding one another in clear gradation. It appears that its construction method in this form was borrowed from the Eleventh Dynasty temple we discussed earlier. One of the queen's close associates and prominent figures of her reign, the architect Senenmut, built this temple. Like others, this temple was dedicated to performing rituals and offering sacrifices to Queen Hatshepsut, but it was also dedicated to other purposes, most importantly the "Garden of Amun".

It is the bad luck of this temple that it bore many consequences of the disagreement between Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, as well as the religious revolution that occurred during Akhenaten's reign. The queen's images and names were defaced, seemingly due to the conflict between the queen and Thutmose III, and the images of the god Amun were erased during Akhenaten's reign, who banned his worship and asked everyone to worship his new god "Aten".

On the walls of this temple are inscribed many scenes of historical importance:

Among these scenes is the transport of the two obelisks from the quarries of Aswan to Thebes. The scene depicts two obelisks placed on a large ship towed by other ships, and below that a scene of a troop of soldiers participating in the celebration of dedicating these obelisks, carrying weapons and tree branches, meeting another troop of archers led by a soldier with his musical instrument blowing into it with happiness on his face.
Among the important scenes is also the divine birth scene of Queen Hatshepsut. We see the gods in the presence of Amun consulting him regarding the queen's birth, then Amun following the god Thoth, god of wisdom, heading toward the chamber of Queen Ahmose, mother of Queen Hatshepsut. The scene then depicts the god and Queen Ahmose sitting alone on a bed raised on the palms of two goddesses. Then Amun gives his orders to "Khnum"—creator of humans—to create the child and her double. We see the god Khnum before the potter's wheel shaping the child and her double from clay, then his wife the goddess Heqet arrives to give life to the child and her double, raising the symbol of life to her nose. We then find the god Thoth giving glad tidings to the queen of a beautiful girl, and the god Khnum and goddess Heqet leading the queen mother to a seat prepared for childbirth, with pregnancy signs clear on the queen. The scenes continue narrating the story, showing the queen sitting on the childbirth seat, then seeing the midwife helping her during labor, then the child coming into existence, and Hathor presenting her to the god Amun. The goddesses care for the child, some designated to nurse her, and the goddess Seshat, goddess of writing, records the child's birth date. The birth story ends with a scene representing Hatshepsut—who became queen of Egypt—offering sacrifices to the gods, then being crowned queen of the country.
A third important scene relates to the maritime expedition sent by Hatshepsut to the Land of Punt (perhaps Somalia and Yemen near the Bab el-Mandeb strait) to bring treasures of those lands, especially rare trees to be planted in Amun's garden. Punt was known to the Egyptians since ancient times, and Old and Middle Kingdom kings used to send expeditions to those lands to bring myrrh, gum, spices, precious perfumes, and other items needed for their religious rituals and mummification. The scenes depict the nature of these lands—their dwellings, trees, and animals—then Hatshepsut's envoy and the prince of Punt, where the prince pays allegiance and obedience. They also depicted products obtained by the expedition, gifts presented to the queen and the god Amun, and the ships moored once again in their berth in Thebes and another in their berth in Punt. The scenes end with scenes of Hatshepsut in the presence of Amun praising him for the expedition's success in achieving its goals.

Central Historical Point: The evolution of Egyptian temple architecture from the Old Kingdom's pyramid-attached structures to the New Kingdom's monumental mortuary temples demonstrates how religious beliefs and political needs shaped architectural innovation over millennia.

Temple of Amenhotep III

The ruins of this temple express the traditional layout of the Egyptian New Kingdom temple, but nothing remains of this temple except some inscribed stones, statues, parts of statues, and some architectural elements. However, the most important remains of this temple are the Colossi of Memnon.

Module Key Takeaways

Ancient Egyptian dwellings varied by social class, with Tell el-Amarna providing the best-preserved examples of both private suburban houses and crowded public residences, while the workers' village at Deir el-Medina reveals the modest living conditions of craftsmen.
Temple architecture evolved significantly across the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms, transitioning from pyramid-attached mortuary temples to separate monumental structures like Deir el-Bahari, with each era introducing distinct architectural innovations.
Temple walls served as historical records, preserving vital information about royal legitimacy, religious rituals, and international expeditions through detailed inscriptions and scenes, as exemplified by Queen Hatshepsut's temple reliefs.