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How Ancient Egyptians Cooled Their Homes

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How Ancient Egyptians Cooled Their Homes

Introduction

Today, the way humans cool or heat their homes is very different across regions, even the United States. People are trying to cool down their homes with air conditioning without understanding, knowing, or caring that air conditioning is only heating up our planet. The overall question of this paper is How did the ancient Egyptians cool their homes without the modern advancements and technology we have today?

Ancient Egyptians used different types of architecture and cooling methods to naturally cool down their homes. The homes built were purposely made to help with the weather and climate during the time. Ancient Egyptians were very smart and designed their homes with thick walls so heat would not get into the home in the summer and to keep heat in the winter. Homes were built from mud because they kept homes cool on hot summer days. Middle rooms always had cool water, which later evaporated into the room, cooling the space. Even walls were usually lighter in color, like white, to not attract heat. Interestingly, doors and their shapes played a role in the heating and cooling in homes. Doors were positioned to keep heat within the home and to allow sunlight into the living space.

Today, people aren’t following the lifestyle of ancient Egyptians. Even Egyptians today fail to continue their customs of using naturalness to cool down their homes. Sales in air conditioning units are increasing in countries outside the United States. As more people depend on air conditioning units, the planet is slowly becoming warmer due to the increase in electricity use, which means more fossil fuels are used, and more carbon dioxide is released into the planet. As our indoors become cooler, the outdoors become warmer, making us more dependable on air conditioning units in the future.

Problems with Modern Air Conditioning

According to Pierre-Louis (2018), increased use of electrical air- conditioners in modern houses is likely to overload electrical grids and lead to an increase in planet-warming emissions. As of 2018, the International Energy Agency estimated that the average number of air-conditioners globally was around 1.6 billion, and it predicted that the number would increase to about 5.6 billion units by midcentury (Pierre-Louis, 2018). Air conditioners are currently concentrated in a few countries, which include China, Japan, and the USA. About only 8 percent of homes in Africa, the Middle East, Latin American, and Asia have air conditioners, despite these regions being very hot. According to the same agency above, more people have air conditioners installed in their homes in these developing countries as their incomes continue to rise (Pierre-Louis, 2018).

Air conditioners have the potential to make surrounding areas warmer because they work by expelling hot or warm air outside.  The International Energy Agency argues that the use of these devices raises temperatures by about one degree Celsius. This means that the use of air conditioning in our homes has the potential to worsen global warming. Pierre-Louis’s sentiments are also shared by Davis and Gertler (2015), who argue that as incomes continue to rise, more people or families are likely to use air conditioners. They argue that the use of air conditioners is likely to increase in middle-income countries in the coming decades, and this will, in the process, increase global warming. Davis and Gertler (2015) state that the use of air conditioners has enormous impacts on the environment and climate change.            Increased use of electricity – which is the main source of power for air conditioners – leads to a lot of heating in the environment. Davis and Gertler (2015) find that the consumption of electricity on hot days is very high. They also observe that the use of air conditioners increases with increasing global incomes.

To prevent situations from worsening, governments around the world need to set efficiency standards for the manufacture and the use of air conditioners. This needs to be done urgently because a number of countries have surpassed the energy efficiency standards. There is also a need to turn towards the use of renewable energy, such as solar power. Air conditioners will be the main obstacle in the global battle against climate change. Mourad et al. (2014) also propose the use of wind catchers, natural ventilation systems that can minimize harmful emissions and the use of non-renewable energy. Mourad et al. (2014) further suggest that passive solar techniques should be incorporated into building designs so as to reduce loads on conventional systems of lighting, heating, ventilation, and cooling. They argue that these passive systems use sources of natural energy (internal gains, solar radiations, vegetation, the sky, etc.) to provide visual and thermal comfort.         Instead of using air conditioners, passive or natural cooling systems can be used instead to cool or warm houses.

Cooling and Air Conditioning in Ancient Egyptian Homes

Most Egyptian houses had central rooms surrounded by other small rooms. Central rooms were the most used, and kitchens were usually nearby. While the houses owned by noblemen had many rooms, central rooms were always present in all houses. For noblemen or rich people, furniture was decorative, their floors were covered with plaster-like materials, and they had mud tiles while floors of houses belonging to the poor were made of earth. The rich and the noble had bigger houses that could contain up to about ten rooms or more, and their walls were painted with a mixture of water and lime. The walls were mostly painted in yellow or blue, and the ceilings were also colorfully painted. Before they started making houses out of bricks, their houses were temporary, and they could crumble after a short while, especially when the Nile River overflew. With time, however, they started making houses out of bricks.

Ancient Egyptians are remembered for being the pioneers of evaporative cooling methods. Basic air conditioning concepts that were applied in ancient Egypt involved hanging wet clothes or reeds from the windows and in the doorways. Blowing winds would then enter the houses while cooled. In other words, evaporating water cooled down the air that blew through the doors and the windows, a process that also made air humid. Evaporative cooling is a process that has been in use for many ages. The technique developed from ancient Egyptian practices of blowing water from pots. These evaporative techniques can be compared to evaporative coolers used today. They took advantage of winds that blew from the north. Air conditioners and wind vanes were made by diverting winds downwards and combining it with soaked tarps. Their roof air-conditioners were also amazing concepts at the time. They decreased air pressure by use of water, a cooling approach that is environmentally friendly.  Unlike the air conditioners that we use today, the air conditioners used by ancient Egyptians caused no harm or damages to the environment.

Ancient Egyptian architecture also used passive cooling systems and natural ventilation, such as wind catchers. Wind catchers or the malqaf were constructed to trap winds into buildings. These were placed directly over roof openings and without shafts so as to channel the flow of air into the buildings. The function of the malqaf was to trap wind from above the building of the house, where it is stronger and cooler. The benefit of the malqaf can be equated to the modern windows used in modern houses. The wind catchers served three main purposes in ancient Egyptian houses:

  1. They facilitated air replacement and circulation
  2. They provided convective cooling
  • They provided evaporative cooling

Houses that were excavated in Amarna some hundreds of years ago also revealed interesting details about ancient Egyptian houses. The excavated houses shed light on how ancient Egyptians controlled houses within their buildings. One interesting detail discovered was that ancient Egyptians made their houses out of bricks. The ancient Egyptians must have discovered that wall thickness had beneficial effects on climates inside buildings. The bricks were made from sun-dried mud. One quality of bricks is that they can receive and maintain warmth for long. In the morning, when the sun begins to shine, the bricks tarp warmth, which flows towards the inside of the house, thus making the houses warm. In the evening, when it begins to get cool, the heat begins to flow outwards. The following morning, the whole process begins again. Brick colors were also used by ancient Egyptians to control the climate inside their houses. To store more warmth inside the bricks, they used dark colors. Because bright colors such as white reflect sunlight, the Egyptians avoided painting the outside of their houses with white colors or bright colors.

Middle rooms were the central chambers and were surrounded by several other rooms. The only part of the middle rooms that received sunlight was the roof, meaning that these rooms were mainly cool. Additionally, the middle rooms had higher roofs compared to the other rooms, and their extending parts had small but long windows. During night time, cool air entered the middle room through the small open windows, and it could repulse warm air in the room to the ceiling, where it would vanish through the windows. Water evaporation was also another strategy used to cool the houses. Most of the houses – especially the bigger ones – had porous water jugs placed in the middle rooms. The water from these jugs would evaporate quickly due to the humid air in Egypt. This water evaporation process abstracted warmth from its environment and, in the process, lowered the temperature in the middle rooms. Bedrooms were adjoined to outer walls, which were mostly thicker than other walls. While the thick walls provided a cooling effect, they also served another function. Upon the thick, Egyptians built dormer windows that extended above the flat roofs. Most of the windows were constructed using wood, and they faced the north. This made it possible for northern winds to blow through the dormer windows into the bedrooms.

The houses were also found to have been of different sizes. According to Strijbos (n.d.), the size of the houses depending on the prosperity of their owners and the social function of their builders. In other words, the excavated houses in Amarna revealed some social inequalities within the ancient Egyptian societies.  While renowned people in society such as chief officials were allowed to build big houses with as many rooms as they wanted, lower classes built smaller houses with few rooms, and the thickness of their walls was smaller. Social inequalities were also evidenced by the way houses were arranged. Large villas were surrounded by tall walls, and they stood alone. Smaller houses, on the other hand, stood close together.

Modern Designs for Cooling and Airflow

 

A number of strategies are used today to minimize air conditioning needs in houses or buildings. House orientation is one such strategy that involves having windows face the south instead of the west or east. During summer, sunlight enters houses through windows that face the west of east than windows facing the north or the south. Modern houses are also oriented so as to benefit from breezes in the summer. Insulation is a design technique used for cooling effects.  Heat enters the house not just through the windows; it can also enter through the roof or the walls. Installing insulations in buildings enables buildings not to trap unwanted heat.

Reflective roofs are also used to prevent unwanted heat from entering the house. These roofs are not only reflective; their emissivity is also very high. Thermal mass is also used to minimize air-conditioning needs in houses in some climates. The thermal mass, which includes slate floors, plaster walls, or brick chimneys, helps homeowners to keep their houses cool in the day. During the day, the high mass materials trap heat, which gets released at night. Moisture control is another strategy used to keep houses cool because humidity can raise air conditioning needs. Moisture control is achieved by designing houses in such a way that moisture does not seep into the basements, installing bathroom fans to get rid of moisture and having proper flashing to prevent rain entry. Modern houses are also designed with proper ventilation, which allows homeowners to ventilate their houses when temperatures are humid. Ceiling fans are also used to cool houses.

Conclusion

The focus of this paper was to discuss the cooling and air conditioning designs and strategies used in ancient Egypt and to compare them to modern air conditioning strategies. As explained, a study of excavated houses in Amarna revealed that ancient Egyptians used environmentally friendly techniques to cool their houses. These techniques include water evaporation processes water placed in pots could evaporate and cool any warm air entering their houses. Wet clothes could also be hung in the windows and in doorways, which could also cool warm air, thus creating a cooling effect in their houses. The design of ancient Egyptian houses was also meant to keep their houses cool, as explained above. Modern cooling strategies, on the other hand, have been found to be very detrimental to the environment. The use of air conditioners is anticipated to worsen global warming. Experts predict that as income around the world continues to improve or increase, the number of people that will acquire air conditioners will also increase. This poses a great challenge to the climate because it will lead to increased emission of global warming gases. There is a need for the government to intervene and set standards for air conditioning emissions.  There is also a need for people to embrace the use of renewable energy, such as solar power. Perhaps modern societies should borrow a leaf from the ancient Egyptian people who used natural means to achieve cooling in their houses.

References

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