Egyptian houses
Mud-brick houses as they stood along the Nile 3000 years ago: the narrow house of a tomb builder from Deir el-Medina, a whole workers' village, a villa from Amarna with a garden and pool, round granaries, a farmhouse with a yard and a palace hall full of painted columns. Choose the size, the number of rooms and the finish, and build it room by room and layer by layer.
Floor plan
The numbers match the table of spaces below. Click a space for the section at that spot.
Elevation and section
The arrow on a stair points to the high side. Click a block once you have placed it.
Build breakdown
Spaces
Sizes are inside sizes in blocks. Click a row to see the space in the floor plan.
| No. | Space | Size | m² | What |
|---|
Parts
| Part | Blocks | Stacks + single | Note |
|---|
Layer 1, row by row
| Row | Start | Pattern | Blocks |
|---|
Build tips
- Lay out the floor plan on the ground first: outer walls, dividing walls and doors. Use the numbers in the floor plan to find the rooms.
- Thick mud walls keep the inside cool. Choose 2 blocks thick for a truly Egyptian feel, with small windows high in the wall.
- In summer the flat roof was the bedroom. Put a few beds, jars (flower pots) and a leafy shade roof on it.
- Mix mud bricks with some packed mud and terracotta for a wall that looks handmade.
- Build a beehive granary from the bottom up, layer by layer like a dome. Put a ladder against it to reach the filling hole.
- Give columns a green or blue capital and a few red bands. That is how palace columns looked like bundles of papyrus.
3D and layer-by-layer build plan
To Minecraft
Download the design as a schematic file and paste it into your world with WorldEdit, or build it with a hologram in Litematica. Mud, plaster, paint, columns, roof, water, trees and grain get a fixed block; the chosen block becomes the trim.
Shopping list
Put the counts of this design on your list. There you see everything together, converted to stacks and shulker boxes.
How it is calculated
History and fun facts
The pyramids and temples of Egypt were made of stone, built for eternity. But ordinary people, nobles and even the pharaoh lived in houses of mud brick. Most of these have vanished, but in a few places in the desert whole villages and districts have survived.
Mud brick and flat roofs
Mud bricks were made of Nile mud mixed with straw or sand. The mixture went into a wooden mould and then dried in the sun. A roof was made of palm trunks covered with reeds or palm leaves and a layer of mud. The walls were often plastered white and painted inside.
- Thick mud walls keep the heat out during the day and give off warmth at night. That is why the windows are small and high up.
- On hot summer nights people slept on the flat roof, where it was cooler.
- A picture of the house of the scribe Nakht, in his Book of the Dead, shows vents on the roof that catch the wind and lead it inside.
- Mud bricks are still made this way in Egypt today.
Deir el-Medina, the village of the tomb builders
Deir el-Medina lies near Luxor, on the west bank of the Nile. In the New Kingdom (about 1550 to 1070 BC) the craftsmen who carved and painted the tombs in the Valley of the Kings lived here. The village had an enclosure wall and a main street with some seventy narrow row houses. A house usually had a front room, a larger living room with a column and a bench, small back rooms and a kitchen without a roof at the back, with stairs to the roof.
- The front room often had a raised, walled platform. Researchers still debate whether it was a bed or a house altar.
- The workers were paid in grain. When it came late under Ramesses III, they stopped working: the oldest strike we know of.
- Thousands of ostraca were found in and around the village: shards and limestone flakes with notes, lists and drawings. Thanks to them we know a lot about daily life.
Amarna and the villas of the nobles
Pharaoh Akhenaten had a new capital built around 1346 BC: Akhetaten, now Amarna. After his death the city was soon abandoned, which is why its plans are well preserved. Wealthy families lived on walled estates. In the middle stood the house with a tall central hall; its roof was higher than the rest, with small windows that let in light and air. Around the house lay a garden, a well, granaries, stables and often a small shrine.
- A famous wall painting from the tomb of Nebamun shows a garden with a pool full of fish and ducks, surrounded by trees.
- Near Amarna there is also a walled workers' village with straight streets and almost identical houses.
- Sycamore figs and date palms were favourite garden trees: they gave shade and fruit.
Granaries
In Egypt grain was food, wages and tax at the same time. It was kept in round mud-brick granaries with a dome, as you can see in tomb paintings and wooden tomb models. Grain was poured in through a hole at the top and taken out through a hatch at the bottom. Scribes kept exact records of how much was in each granary.
- A wooden model of a granary was found in the tomb of Meketre, with little scribes and porters inside.
- A dome needs no wooden beams. That was handy in a country with few trees.
Palaces of the pharaoh
Palaces too were mostly built of mud brick, with stone door frames and column bases. Well known are the palace of Amenhotep III at Malkata near Luxor and the palaces of Amarna. The halls had rows of wooden or stone columns, painted walls and even painted floors with marsh scenes.
- The pharaoh showed himself to the people from the window of appearances. Reliefs at Amarna show Akhenaten throwing gold collars from it to loyal servants.
- Columns often had the shape of a bundle of papyrus or a palm tree, as a reminder of the first buildings of reeds and wood.
The Nile and the nilometer
Every year the Nile flooded and left fertile silt on the fields. A nilometer measured how high the water rose. From that people predicted the harvest, and so also how much tax the farmers had to pay. A nilometer is a staircase or shaft down to the river with measuring marks on the wall or on a column.
- On Elephantine Island near Aswan there is a nilometer with stairs along the river.
- The nilometer on Roda Island in Cairo was built much later, in 861 AD, and has a measuring column in the middle of a shaft.
- A flood that was too low meant hunger; a flood that was too high washed villages away.
About this tool
With this tool you can build an Egyptian house in Minecraft the way people lived along the Nile 3000 years ago. Not a pyramid or temple, but everyday life: a narrow worker's house from Deir el-Medina, a whole workers' village, a villa with a garden and pond from Amarna, beehive silos for grain, a farm with a yard and a palace hall full of columns.
Start with a preset, such as the House in Deir el-Medina or the Villa in Amarna, and then change the size, the number of rooms and the height. You choose the wall thickness, the roof terrace (with a parapet, a wind catcher or a palm-leaf sunshade), the finish from bare mud to colourful bands, the windows, and a quay with steps or a nilometer by the river. With the seed number, a village looks a little different each time.
The floor plan has numbers that match the table of rooms. You also see the front, the side, a cross-section and a 3D view. The layer-by-layer build plan shows every block. Click a block when you have placed it, so you never lose your place.
The materials calculator counts the blocks and converts them to stacks and shulker boxes. With the block palette you give parts their own block. You can download the whole design as a .schem file for WorldEdit or Litematica.
Do you want big monuments too? Use Pyramids or Temples for a complete Egyptian city.
Frequently asked questions
Which blocks should I use for an Egyptian mud-brick house?
Mud bricks look the most like real Egyptian mud brick. Mix them with some packed mud and terracotta, so the wall looks handmade. For white plaster, calcite or sandstone work well.
Why do the houses have thick walls and small windows?
Thick mud walls keep the heat out during the day and give off warmth at night. Small windows high in the wall let in little sun. In the tool, choose walls of 2 blocks and windows high under the roof for a real Egyptian look.
How do I build a round grain silo?
Choose the type Beehive silos and a shape: beehive, round dome or pointed cone. Build the silo from the bottom up, layer by layer, just like a dome. Put a ladder against it to reach the filling hole at the top.
What is a nilometer?
A nilometer is a staircase or well down to the river with measuring marks. People used it to measure how high the Nile flooded and to predict the harvest. In the tool, choose a quay with a nilometer under River at the front.
How many blocks do I need?
The total is shown at the top, also in stacks. A worker's house is small; a village or palace hall needs many more. The Parts table shows how many blocks each part needs.
Does this work in Bedrock Edition?
The layer-by-layer build plan works in every edition, including Bedrock, console and mobile. The .schem file is for Java Edition with WorldEdit or Litematica.