Alabastor Household

Here's a view of an Egyptian families house. This particular family makes their living through alabaster. They take the alabaster and create different types of vases, statues and artwork. They gave us a tour of their house and followed up with a demonstration on how they shape the alabaster into different items.

This home was right around the bend from the Temple of Hatshepsut. So our guide made their house and business part of our tour.

Watch the video when I go into the basement. The basement is actually an ancient tomb. This family, along with other families built their homes around old tombs. This is how many archaeologists found significant sites. They asked the native Egyptians whether they had seen anything resembling an ancient hole in the ground. The indigenous people often have lived their daily lives around tombs or archaeological landmarks for thousands of years. So to them, that hole in the ground is their basement, or a landmark on their way to work.

In the case of this family, the tomb is their basement/storeroom. You can see an oven and some of their grandfathers old clothes.