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In the bettor class of houses in modern Egypt, the above ground-floor room is generally the aiiarlnient for male visitors, called mandar<ih, having a portion of the floor sunk below the rest, called durM'ah. 'I'his is often paved with marble or colored tiles, and has in the cen- tre a fountain. The rest of the floor is a raised jilatform called Ihcdn, with a mattress and cushions at the back on each of the three sides. This seat or sofa is called diKun. Every person, on entrance, takes off his shoos on the durku\ih before steiiping on the Uvdn (Exod. iii, 5; Josh. V, 15; Luke vii, 38). The ceilings over the liwdn and durkuah are often richly panelled and orna- mented (Jer. xxii, 14). See Uivan,
Bearing in mind that the reception-room is raised above the level of the court (Chardin, iv, 118; Vieus in Si/ria, i, 5G), we may, m explaining the circumstances of the miracle of the'paralytic (Mark ii, 3 ; Luke v, 18), suppose, 1. either that our Lord was standing under the veranda, and the people in front in the court. The bearers of the sick man ascended the stairs to the roof of the house, and, taking off a portion of the boarded covering of the veranda, or removing the awning over the impluvium, -o //fo-nv, in the former case let do\m the bed through the veranda roof^, or in the latter, down hii vatj o/'the roof, lia nlv Kinapwr, and deposited it before tlie Saviour (Shaw, p, 212). 2. Another expla- nation presents itself in considering tlie room where the company were assembled as the i>rfp(.joi', and the roof opened for the bed to be the true roof of the house (Trench, Miracles, p, VJ'J , Lane, Modem Eg. i, 39), 3.
HOUSE
372
HOUSE
And one still more simple is found in regarding the house as one of the rude dwellings now to be seen near the Sea of Galilee, a mere room " ten or twelve feet high, and as many or more square," with no opening except the door. The roof, used as a sleeping-place, is reached by a ladder from the outside, and the bearers of the paralytic, unable to approach the door, would thus have ascended the roof, and, having uncovered it (t^opvKavTec), let him down into the room where our Lord was (jMalan, I. c). See below.
Besides the mandcvah some houses in Cairo have an apartment called makkul, open in front to the court, with two or more arches, and a railing; and a pillar to support the wall above (Lane, i, 38). It was in a chamber of this kind, probably one of the largest size to be found in a i^alace, that our Lord was arraigned before the high-priest at the time when the denial of him by I'etcr took place. He " turned and looked" on Peter as he stood by the fire in the court (Luke xxii, 5(), Gl ; John xviii, 24), while he himself was in the "hall of judgment," the mak'ad. Such was the "porch of judgment" built by Solomon (1 Kings vii, 7), which finds a parallel in the golden alcove of Mohammed Uz- bek (Ibn Batata, 1 , uUh, p. 7b, ed Lcc) See Pr cto- I
mus feminanim) is noticed in the book of Esther (ii, 3). See Woman.
Pal t of the Couit of allouse mCa lo, with J/(/ ad (Liue
RiiTM. The circumstance of Samson's pulling down the house by means of the pillars, may be explained by the fact of the company being assembled on tiers of balco- nies above each other, supported by central piOars on the basement ; when these were pulled down, the whole of the upper floors would fall also (Judg. xvi, 26 ; see Shaw, p. 211). See Pillar.
When there is no second floor, but more than one court, the women's apartments (Arabic harem or haram, secluded or proldbited, with which may be compared the Hebrew Armon, "|i'2"'!!<, Stanley, S. and P. App. § 82), are usually in the second court ; othei-wise they form a separate building within the general inclosure, or are above on the first floor {Views in Syria, i, 56). The entrance to the harem, as observed above, is crossed by no one but the master of the house and the domestics belonging to the female establishment. Though this remark would not apyily in the same degree to Je\vish habits, the privacy of the women's apartments may pos- sibly be indicated by the "inner chamber" ("I'ln, Tctfii- ilov; cuhimluvi), resorted to as a hiding-place (1 Kings XX, 30 ; xxii, 25 ; see Judg. xv, 1). Solomon, in his mar- riage with a foreigner, introduced also foreign usage in this respect, which was carried furtlier in subsequent times (1 Kings vii, 8; 2 Kings xxiv, 15). The harem of the Persian monarch (C^'^S '^■"'5; ** yvvaiKUJv ; do-
Inteuoi of a House {Hat cm) in Damascus. Sometimes the diwun is raised sufHcicntly to alloAV of cellars underneath for stores of all kinds (rai-uua, INIatt. xxiv, 26 ; Russell, i, 32). Tliis basement is occu- pied by various offices, stores of corn and fuel, places for the \\ater-jari5 to stand in, places for grinding corn, baths, kitchens, etc. In Turkish Arabia most of the houses have underground cel- lars or vaults, to which the inhabitants T' treat during the midday heat of sum- mer, and there enjoy a refreshing cool- ness. We do not discover any notice of this usage in Scrijiture. But at Acre the substructions of very ancient houses M ere some years ago discovered, having such cellars, which were very probably '-ubscrvient to this use. In the rest of the year, these cellars, or sei-daiibs, as they are called, are abandoned to the , ;vhich swarm in them in scarcely credible numbers (Isa. ii, 20).