Mud brick and wood were the standard materials for houses and palaces throughout the Dynastic period; stone was used occasionally for such architectural elements as doorjambs, lintels, column bases, and windows.

The best-preserved private houses are those of modest size in the workmen’s village of Dayr al-Madīnah. Exceptional in that they were built of stone, they typically had three or four rooms, comprising a master bedroom, a reception room, a cellar for storage, and a kitchen open to the sky; accommodation on the roof, reached by a stair, completed the plan. Similar domestic arrangements are known from the workmen’s village at Kabun.

Villas for important officials in Akhenaton’s city of Tell el-Amarna were large and finely decorated with brightly painted murals. The house of the vizier Nakht had at least 30 rooms, including separate apartments for the master, his family, and his guests. Such houses had bathrooms and lavatories. The ceilings of large rooms were supported by painted wooden pillars, and there may have been further rooms above. Where space was restricted (as in Thebes), houses of several stories were built. Tomb scenes that show such houses also demonstrate that windows were placed high to reduce sunlight and that hooded vents on roofs were used to catch the breeze.

 

Palaces, as far as can be judged from remains at Thebes and Tell el-Amarna, were vast, rambling magnified versions of Nakht’s villa, with broad halls, harem suites, kitchen areas, and wide courts. At Tell el-Amarna some monumental formality was introduced in the form of porticoes, colonnades, and statuary. Lavish use was made of mural and floor decoration in which floral and animal themes predominated.

 

 

This union of skill and genius was achieved in nonroyal statuary as well as in the painted limestone statues of Prince Rahotep and his wife, Nofret, which also display the Egyptians’ unsurpassed skill in inlaying eyes into sculptures, a skill further demonstrated in the wooden figure of Kaʿaper, known as Shaykh al-Balad, the very epitome of the self-important official.

 

 

 

Among additions to the sculptural repertoire during the Old Kingdom was the scribal statue. Examples in the Louvre and in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo express brilliantly the alert vitality of the bureaucrat, who squats on the ground with brush poised over papyrus. The heads of such figures possess striking individuality, even if they are not true portraits.

 Refinements of the Middle Kingdom
Royal sculptures, particularly of Sesostris III and Amenemhet III, achieved a high degree of realism, even of portraiture. The first true royal colossi were produced in the 12th dynasty (if the Great Sphinx of Giza is discounted) for the embellishment of cult temples. Colossi of Amenemhet I and Sesostris I exhibit a hard, uncompromising style said to typify the ruthless drive of the 12th-dynasty kings
n this period, too, the sphinx—the recumbent lion with head or face of the king—became a commonly used image of the king as protector. The great red granite sphinx of Amenemhet IIfrom Tanis expresses the idea most potently

n private sculpture during the Middle Kingdom the subject is in most cases portrayed seated or squatting, occasionally standing, and wearing an all-enveloping cloak. The body was mostly concealed, but its contours

were often subtly suggested in the carving, as in the figure of Khertyhotep. Of female subjects, none is more impressive than that of Sennu, a wonderful example of a figure in repose.

The simplification of the human figure was carried to its ultimate in the block statue, a uniquely Egyptian type that represents the subject squatting on the ground with knees drawn up close to his body. The arms and legs may be wholly contained within the cubic form, hands and feet alone discretely protruding. The 12th-dynasty block statue of Sihathor is the earliest dated example.