Life in Ancient Egypt

Houses and villa of ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptian houses looked different than modern Egyptian houses. The earliest houses were made by tying reeds together in the shape of a beehive. The New Kingdom houses were made out of mud bricks. They were made by tying wood beams together with papyrus rope to make a frame. The frame was covered with white limestone plaster.

Keeping Cool
In order to keep the house cool the Egyptians had to be very careful about what they were doing. They couldn’t cook inside because it was too dangerous to cook over an open fire indoors, and it would just get way too hot inside. Instead, cooking was done outside or on the roof. The Ancient Egyptians kept cool by having small windows at the top of the house.

Annual Nile River Flood
When flooding season came, people who lived by the Nile River had to move away. When the flood was over, the owner of the house would knock the house down and build a new one on top. Eventually the pile would get big enough that the house was safe from the flood.
If every year you had to move because of a flood, why live there? The Egyptians liked to live there because the Nile River gave the Egyptians rich soil that was good for growing crops. So the Egyptian farmers would stay at their villa, which means farm, even though they would have to move and rebuild year after year.
Food To Feed Ancient Egypt
The Egyptians ate many different things. They also ate well. Even the poorest people ate a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables. The rich ate meat of many kinds, mostly cows and sheep. Some priests related pigs with Set, an evil god, and made it so most people did not want to eat pigs. Egyptians ate calves, oxen, and poultry like duck, goose, stork, and pigeon. Meat was expensive because there were very few grazing pastures for the cows and sheep and other animals to eat. Some people salted down fish and duck to try to preserve it. When you salt down meat, the salt sucks up all of the moisture and the meat.
Bread
I’m guessing that most people today would take our bread over Egyptian bread. It had a hard, rough feel to it. This was because when the Egyptians were grinding the grain, sand would mix in with the flour that came from the grain. They couldn’t take it out before they baked it so the bread tasted kind of rough, like you’re eating dirt. Eating this gritty bread caused an Ancient Egyptian’s teeth to wear down to the roots.

Drinks
Drinks were an important part of a meal. The rich drank wine and almost everybody else drank beer. When somebody held a party, it was called a "House of Beer." To make their beer, the Ancient Egyptians would half bake loaves of barley, then crumble it into barley and water. They sealed this mixture and let it settle. They didn’t want to drink all those lumps so they strained the beer before they drank it.
To make wine they picked a bunch of grapes and squeezed all of the juice out by stepping on them in a trough big enough to hold at least six men. This mixture was sealed in a clay pot with the date and vineyard almost exactly like today.

Plates
The rich ate off of plates of gold, silver, faience, and bronze at a low table. People with less money ate off of earthenware plates.