The villa - farm
The villa - farm
| The Egyptian called the Faiyum “the country of the lake”, because the
beautiful land with a luxuriant vegetation and an abundant fauna was around the
lake Moeris (today called Karun). In this region that became “fashionable” during the middle reign there were very big agricultural estates that were both farms and residential villas. The farm part, formed of various courts, included granaries, underground cellars, the barns where there was a butcherign area, the workshops and the beer and vase laboratories, and the carpenters’ workshops. There were, besides, the garden the enclosure for the geese, the washhouses, the oven and the big water cister. The place was supervised by an agronomist scribe from whom depended a series of segretaries specialized in the various services. The actual villa had a rectangular plant and is almost always on one floor, it had a rich area of representation (with a lobby, a hall, a saloon, inner courts) and many smaller rooms that were inhabited (rooms, study, bathroom, toilette, living room). A big garden with threes, terraces and toasins, surrounded the “pubblic” part of the house and was integrated in it, it was here, more than inside, that there was the social life. The Egyptians loved to show off not their waalth but the way thay enjoined it. To live in the vill meant refinement, elegance, tasta and equilibrium.  |
