REGULAR EGYPTIAN HOUSES
On the west side of the Nile beyond the desert is the home of the dead. Most people who live on the west side of the Nile live along the banks of the river. Usually the design of the house is square with a flat roof. Houses are constructed with sun diried bricks. The bricks are made of chopped straw and mud. This mixture is put into a brick mold and left in the sun to dry. After a few years the bricks tend to crumble and have to be replaced. The interior of the average house has earthen floors which are covered with reed mats. The ceiling is made of sticks and palm leaves woven together. The walls inside of the house are spread over with a thin layer of plaster. The rooms are small and dark with narrow windows and have low ceilings. The Egyptians usually have a cellar under their house to store things in.
Egyptian Houses Rural settlements average about five hundred to a thousand people. Houses are one to two stories. The village usually has a mosque or a church, a few shops and maybe a government building. Most inhabitants in the countryside work in agriculture. Animals owned by farmers are buffalos, sheep and goats. Houses are built in clusters along the banks of the Nile River. Village houses are built close together for security as well as for strength. Some villiages are sourrounded by ditches and fields. Many houses are whitewashed so the sun's rays are deflected and makes it cooler inside.

Houses generally have three sparsely furnished rooms; a sleeping room, a living room and an outside kitchen that has a cylindrical, baked clay oven. Poor families have no plumbing or running water. Western chairs are rarely seen in Egyptian homes. There are small tables of wood or wicker. There is also a place to grind grain to make bread or beer. Numerous types of wheel-thrown pottery are made for food storage. Often times you will see the people working on carpentry or in pottery-making in front of their homes. If the people are not Muslim they may have niches on the inside of their house where statues of protective gods and goddesses are kept. Narrow windows are built high on the walls for protection from the sun. Peasants sleep on reed mats covered with course linen. People of better means may sleep on woven mats on a wooden frame with fine linen sheets.

EGYPTIAN POTTERY - Pottery was designed to fulfill man's every need.
The Egyptians say they invented pottery four thousand years ago, but the truth is they learned it from the Sumerian civilization who lived in Mesopotania many thousands of years before them.

Pottery was around before the pyramids were built. Old Hieroglyphics attests to this. There are pictures of earthen vessels in 4th and 6th Dynasties.

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The next day the ship was steaming down the Nile. We were heading to a place called Esna. This is the place where there is a locks. All boats and ships going down the Nile have to go through it. It is where water on the one side of the river is lower then the water on the other side and you have to go through these locks to get to the other side. I opened the curtains over the window and pulled up a chair and watched out the window. There were an abundance of date palm and a variety of other green plants growing all along the banks of the Nile. Every once in a while we would pass a sprinkling of houses and villages. The houses are drab and blend into the landscape. Beyond the river in the background there are the stark mountains that have no trees or any kind of foliage on them. The only green in this country is vegetation along the Nile River. There were boats of all sizes passing along the Nile. Sometimes on the western bank of the river I could see people walking along the banks of the river. Most people were inside out of the scortching heat.

In the afternoon we got closer to the locks. The boat pulled over to the eastern shore and now we had to wait in line to go through the locks since only one ship can go through at a time. Hawkers in row boats came up next to the ships and were selling their wares. They would throw clothes and other merchandise up to the people in the ships and then the people would throw money down to them.

Later it started to get dark. I closed the curtains and watched TV for for awhile and then went to dinner. Later I went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night because I noticed we were moving. I threw the curtains aside and saw that we were going through the locks. I put my head on the pillow and drifted back asleep.

Sumerians