[Illustration:  Fig. 9.—­Box representing a house (British Museum).]

The lower classes lived in mere huts which, though built of bricks, were no better than those of the present fellahin.  At Karnak, in the Pharaonic town; at Kom Ombo, in the Roman town; and at Medinet Habu, in the Coptic town, the houses in the poorer quarters have seldom more than twelve or sixteen feet of frontage.  They consist of a ground floor, with sometimes one or two living-rooms above.  The middle-class folk, as shopkeepers, sub-officials, and foremen, were better housed.  Their houses were brick-built and rather small, yet contained some half-dozen rooms communicating by means of doorways, which were usually arched over, and having vaulted roofs in some cases, and in others flat ones.  Some few of the houses were two or three storeys high, and many were separated from the street by a narrow court, beyond which the rooms were ranged on either side of a long passage (fig. 4).  More frequently, the court was surrounded on three sides by chambers (fig. 5); and yet oftener the house fronted close upon the street.  In the latter case the facade consisted of a high wall, whitewashed or painted, and surmounted by a cornice.  Even in better houses the only ornamentation of their outer walls consisted in angular grooving, the grooves being surmounted by representations of two lotus flowers, each pair with the upper parts of the stalks in contact (see figs. 24, 25).  The door was the only opening, save perhaps a few small windows pierced at irregular intervals (fig. 6).  Even in unpretentious houses, the door was often made of stone.  The doorposts projected slightly beyond the surface of the wall, and the lintel supported a painted or sculptured cornice.  Having crossed the threshold, one passed successively through two dimly-lighted entrance chambers, the second of which opened into the central court (fig. 7).  The best rooms in the houses of wealthier citizens were sometimes lighted through a square opening in the centre of a ceiling supported on wooden columns.  In the Twelfth Dynasty town of Kahun the shafts of these columns rested upon round stone bases; they were octagonal, and about ten inches in diameter (fig. 8).  Notwithstanding the prevalence of enteric disease and ophthalmia, the family crowded together into one or two rooms during the winter, and slept out on the roof under the shelter of mosquito nets in summer.  On the roof also the women gossiped and cooked.  The ground floor included both store-rooms, barns, and stables.  Private granaries were generally in pairs (see fig. 11), brick-built in the same long conical shape as the state granaries, and carefully plastered with mud inside and out.  Neither did the people of a house forget to find or to make hiding places in the walls or floors of their home, where they could secrete their household treasures—­such as nuggets of gold and silver, precious stones, and jewellery for men and women—­from thieves and tax-collectors