How to Make a Hut
We know a lot about making Egyptian pyramids and palaces, and a bit about where skilled workers lived, but what…
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The Mother Tongue
What languages might the participants of the Exodus spoken and written? This is really a fantasy question because, to answer…
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A Daily Kitchen Schedule
The background calculations for this post comes from The Rhythms of Bread. In my New Kingdom Egyptian village kitchen, for…
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Making Sourdough Bread
The bread of Ancient Egypt isn’t easy to figure out. Though there are models and illustrations of bakeries from that…
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The Heart of the Kitchen
Ovens and stoves. The heart (and hearth) of any kitchen, ancient or modern. Ovens were small and brick or clay…
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How to Make Things Hot
I talk about cooking in How to Eat in Pharaoh Days, but this post is about the fuel. No electricity,…
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Ancient Metalwork Tidbits
I discussed a fair bit of metalwork in Ancient Egypt in the post Goldwork for the Golden Calf. In this…
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Ancient Egyptian Carpentry
Wagons & Carts In addition to using the Nile and its distributaries for transportation over water, the Egyptians created packed…
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Water Everywhere, Except Right Here
I did boatloads (pun intended) of research while writing the first draft of the novel but here and there I…
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Sewing & Other Fabric Arts
Despite their clothing being rather straightforward (mostly lengths of undyed linen tied in various ways or sewn into simple shapes),…
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Soap & Cleaning Materials of Ancient Egypt
Now soap is something I know well, being a soapmaker when I’m not a writer. But using a digital scale…
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The Lights of the Exodus
So what sort of lighting did folks use in Egypt during the New Kingdom? Oddly, most sources say there are…
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Are You Done Yet?
Written Dec 29, 2022Last updated Dec 29, 2022 What are the steps to writing a novel and why the heck…
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Why Was the Golden Calf So Bad?
The story of the Golden Calf is an odd one, in large part because it’s not clear it ever belonged…
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Goldwork for the Golden Calf
Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such great sin upon them?”…
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Waiting for Moses
After the Revelation and the sacrifices for the reading of the Covenant, Moses heads up Mount Sinai. For some commentators,…
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The Rhythms of Bread
Breadmaking is a pretty straightforward thing to learn. There are countless books, classes, blogs, articles, and friends and family eager…
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The Daily Grind
Once you have dehulled grain, the next step is to grind it. In Ancient Egypt, this would be done by…
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The Female God
Before he dies, Jacob blesses each of his sons. In the blessing for Joseph, we have some unusual language. The…
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Threshing & Hulling Emmer
Emmer is an old variety of wheat (and a Farro grain) grown extensively in the ancient world, including by Ancient…
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