Daughters of Isis(26)

To expel fleas in a house: sprinkle it throughout with natron water until they pass away.

To prevent mice from approaching: fat of cat is placed on all things.

To prevent a serpent from coming out of its hole… a bulb of onion is placed in the opening of the hole and it will not come out.

Housekeeping hints from the Ebers Medical Papyrus



Given the heat, the overcrowded conditions, the lack of basic sanitation and the presence of both foodstores and animals within the home, it is not surprising that domestic pests became a constant nuisance almost impossible to control. Many harassed housewives resorted to perfuming every room in the house with a sweet-smelling incense blended from myrrh, frankincense and spices; this had the dual benefit of masking any unpleasant odours while efficiently fumigating both the house and its contents. Flies must have been an ever-present menace and, although the smoke from the cooking fire may have deterred some of the less determined insects, proven repellents such as ‘oriole fat’ were much in demand. The lack of an efficient waste-disposal system unfortunately meant that all types of domestic refuse, including decaying food and human-waste products, had either to be carried to the local dump or tipped in the nearby river or canal; many householders could see no reason to go to all this trouble and simply threw their trash out into the street, causing the level of the ground to rise almost imperceptibly from year to year. Fortunately, the hot climate ensured that the domestic refuse decomposed relatively quickly if rather malodorously. The unsavoury heaps of decaying refuse between the houses were obviously highly attractive to vermin, and many of the homes which have been excavated give evidence of large-scale infestation by mice and rats. Pets may have helped to reduce the numbers of rodents and perhaps have deterred snakes, but those faced with more persistent problems had to use mechanical trapping devices or simply resorted to blocking the holes with stones or cloth plugs.

The washerman launders at the riverbank in the vicinity of the crocodile… His food is mixed with filth, and there is no part of him which is clean. He washes the clothes of a menstruating woman. He weeps when he spends all day with a beating stick and a stone there…

Extract from the Middle Kingdom Satire of the Trades



Despite the lack of concern over hygienic waste disposal, great importance was attached to personal and household cleanliness. The Egyptians were famed throughout the ancient world for their sparkling white clothes, and Herodotus remarked approvingly that their garments were ‘constantly fresh washed and they pay particular attention to this’. Those who were wealthy enough to take advantage of a commercial laundry service enjoyed the luxury of having their dirty linen collected at the door and returned when clean, dry and ironed or re-pleated. In spite of the rather deprecatory quotation given above the professional washer-man was not necessarily a despised or lowly individual, and the chief washerman of the royal household was often a young man of noble birth who was universally recognized as occupying a position of some privilege and who was ranked only slightly lower than the king’s sandal-bearer. It is very unlikely that such an exalted and well-bred officer would ever have stooped to a degrading manual task, and he would instead have confined his duties to supervising the work of others less privileged than himself.

Unfortunately, the professional washermen were mainly employed to undertake the extensive laundry of the large temples and the more wealthy households, and laundries were an undreamed-of luxury for most women. The family washing therefore became an important, time-consuming and physically demanding chore which had to be performed on a very regular basis. On washday, the dirty garments were piled into baskets and carried to the bank of the river or a nearby canal where they were rolled into a ball and wetted. Natron-soap was then applied, and the laundry was either pounded vigorously with a wooden paddle or rubbed repeatedly over smooth stones before rinsing thoroughly in running water. The clean linen was then shaken, wrung out and left to dry and bleach in the sun. When dry the cloth was ironed or smoothed, carefully folded, and taken back to the house where it was replaced in its basket or storage chest. The few laundry scenes which have been preserved in tombs show that washing was a developing science; during the Middle Kingdom the professional washermen used the same simple methods as the housewives but by the end of the New Kingdom the washermen were heating large jars of water at the riverbank. This innovation allowed the washermen to give the clothes a hot wash and presumably remove far more dirt.2

The house itself was cleaned with the aid of a short-handled broom made from stiff vegetable fibres, and several contemporary illustrations show crafty servants first sprinkling drops of water to encourage the dust to settle and then using remarkably modern-looking brushes to sweep the floor clean. Linen rags, the useful remnants of household sheeting and clothing too small to be saved for funeral bandages, were recycled and served as dusters. The houseproud housewife was helped in her dusting by the scarcity of furniture, carpeting and curtains to trap dust particles; even the most luxurious homes were somewhat bare by modern western standards, and most of the furniture which has been recovered has come from the excavation of tombs rather than from houses. Although the internal mud-brick walls were often plastered and painted with bright and elaborate scenes, furniture was to a large extent considered both unnecessary and a waste of space, and the concept of decorative but non-functional ornaments and knick-knacks was unknown.