The Great Aten Temple at Amarna

Tell el-Amarna, the sister of the old Manhattan, such an anomaly. It deliberately destroyed (building materials used in other places) at the end of the Amarna period by the ancient Egyptians, because of the heresy of Akhenaten, but due to its location and characteristics of other elements, certain lucky the city are some of the best preserved of the age of the modern state in Egypt. Thus, instead of obliterating Akhenaten in memory because they want to do, and the ancient Egyptians helped it to stay alive. On the other hand, is somewhat of a curse to Egyptologists, and can be of many elements of the city can not be called typical. Not only from the temples unique, but because of the need to expedite the construction, and many other aspects of the city differ from those ancient Egyptian as well.
Residential, though perhaps provide us with evidence of the general elements included in ancient Egyptian homes, was at the same time also atypical. Specifically, the type of Beit el-Amarna is remarkably uniform, even in the upper and middle class housing. Here, we have hundreds of houses that have been dug In view of the unification, we may derive some characteristics that were common to all the residents of Tel el-Amarna.
Outside the village of workers, the characteristic Amarna house was essentially a home on the basis of extensive, and includes a courtyard surrounded by a garden and a kitchen and servants, quarters and stables or silos, all within the wall of the fence. In fact, a typical home in Tel el-Amarna was more of a town house apartment. In general, the walls were made of brick and stone are complemented by the rules of the columns and even for the doors. Columns and ceilings, and supports the stairs were wooden, while the floors made of mud or brick, the whitewashed and painted.
Most of the houses in the Tel el-Amarna to some extent has a plan box, oriented parallel to the river, and consists of two well-defined areas of private and public life.
In the public domain, there was what might have been considered in the living room, which has evolved into a large hall, sometimes called the seat, and a deep central square room or hall, which at the entrance of the vestibule was added occasionally. Sometimes there were simply two rooms and a large scale. Basically, the housing is different for the rich, middle class and poor in that they are two, one, or any rooms and wide, respectively.
A slope or stairway would also climb to the North Lobby, which has been described, although any good reason, porters lodge. Adjacent to the ramp or stairway is a large hall or room, sometimes called the seat on the assumption that it might open the large windows the steps above and facing in the north. We know from ancient texts, and studies on the climatic conditions prevailing in the later times, and the present, as well as, a cool breeze that blew from the north or the west, and arrange a reception room open to the north and west was to take advantage of these conditions.
Central room was usually square, and open on the bench. It constitutes the nucleus of a house plan can also be used as a living. This room were higher than those walls in any other place in the home, and possibly allow for Clerestory lighting just below the ceiling that was supported on wooden poles, usually painted brown. Other rooms surrounded a central room to provide additional insulation against heat in summer and cold in the winter evenings. Open the doors of many out of this central room, according to a strict pattern of similarities and niches. This consists of niches in the form of entries in September symmetrical with existing entries, or vice versa. Niches will be most likely to include Stella represent the royal family, and another with a prayer on the disk Aten. This would work as domestic shrines.
Featured in the permanent and the room was raised on a platform along the back wall of the middle of furniture, which served as the Cabinet. Pillows and chairs placed on the platform for visitors their respective owners. A container sank in the chest plastered floor, and waved cleansing are also present, which demonstrate its use as a living room. On the tops of the walls, this room was decorated with a frieze of plants such as water lilies, or perhaps lolling, ducks, flowers, or garlands of fruit. Entrances and was often painted horizontal stripes of different colors, while the maximum can be a blue-rich as is the case in the house Nakht.
In one of the rooms lead out of the central room, a staircase is composed of two or more flights would lead to the surface, despite the shortcomings in the largest seat with columns was built over the large hall, and perhaps more than other rooms as well.
Special areas within the houses in the Tel el-Amarna and usually consists of a square room, master bedroom, and a few small rooms, bathroom and toilet. Square room, and it was probably the quarters of the women, are usually similar to the central hall, but smaller, and processed, but with the same type of furniture. Usually the lighting would be provided by the open windows high in the south wall.
In the master bedroom and the private sector was more than all the rooms, and was often located in the southwest corner of the house. Was accessed either through a box or lobby lounge. Bedroom and could be distinguished from the alcove bed, which was somewhat narrower than the room and put in the back on the floor raised. There were small, and blocks in the form of truncated pyramid that is placed under the feet of the bed. Niche was not just the mother of aesthetics. Because of the increased thickness of the walls of scientists believe it may be carried out basement with a roof high above the roof and opening to the porch for ventilation. Representation of the royal palace every show like this device to a cold northern breeze.
Near the bedroom and a set of rooms as a bathroom, toilet and cloak room or closet. The bathroom is equipped with the stone is slightly inclined floor tile and walls lined with the Wii usually at a certain altitude (about half a meter) with the plates hit the stone to protect it from moisture and spray. Sewage, and presented through a basin under the faucet from the laboratory floor in the bathroom, or in some cases by drainage channels running through the outer wall of the vessel or directly in the sands of the desert. Devoid of any water pipes, you must have a primitive bathroom shower system where the water was poured over the bather by the attendant behind the wall part. In many cases, only partial wall some 1.25 meters in length separated the bathroom from the toilet.
Earth and the toilets were simple rectangular room is equipped with a ship removable and placed under a hole in a brick or a wooden bench. Should such devices can be considered in all parts of Egypt at this time. Similarly, in the side rooms have been processed and low cross against the walls adjacent the main wall with windows, wooden racks used for storage of linen, just as in the temples and palaces at Thebes.
Tell el-Amarna and many of the houses that are attached to the buildings in accordance with a specific layout. In many cases, there was the main entrance to the entrance put an end to the wall of the fence, which opened on the path, bordered by trees growing in the mud of the Nile River, which led to a small church. When present, these churches which have been high on a hill in a rectangular shape and can be accessed by stairs. Typically, the chapel has a very small balcony and an open shrine with an altar to the Aten. Of the church, would make the road turn right toward the house.
Behind the house there was usually granaries, warehouses, and a room for a cart and stables and employees' quarters and kitchens. The granaries in the form of a silo truncated circular plan, covered with domes (dome). These silos have been paired, with the winding staircase up to the hole through which the grain was poured. There was the entrance to box at the bottom to disperse the grains. Rooms, stores, and adjacent deep rectangular.
The stalls and stables for horses, in some cases was a very innovative. Were the cradle of stone horses where I stood, with a built-manger, connectivity and stones that were bordered by feeding corridor running behind the manger and can be accessed from outside.
Custodian of the general housing emerged a large room with pillars. And kitchens, which was well equipped with a set of simple pottery kilns, in some cases it may be attached living quarters for cooking. These ovens were cylindrical jars, about one meter high and open on both the top and bottom. Were thickly coated with mud or brick. There was a small hole in the set on fire at the bottom. Flat loaves made from above. An adjacent room was equipped with racks for drying and storing loaves of bread, coated dough mixing cement board.
As well as the most basic shortcomings. Was that of Ra'nefer shaft of the circular stairway in any decline at the two flights to the ring platform around the well itself. But some scientists believe that there are a few ponds found in the palaces, which suggests that the location of the ponds have been recorded were merely cover up the wells.
Although many aspects of Amarna was unique of its kind in Egypt, most of the elements must be residential in this location, though more uniform and then in another place, at least for the most part a model of housing in other places in Egypt, and the number continues to do in fact provides us with a rich source of local organisms not usually found anywhere else in Egypt.