Deir el Medina

the village: location and purpose; founders: Amenhotep I and his

mother Ahmose- Nefertari

stages of settlement from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Dynasties

work of modern Egyptologists: Mariette, Maspero, Schiaparelli, Bruyere

and Cerny

village workers:
o

social structure,

occupations and payment: official and unofficial,

commerce and trade,

place of work: the Valley of the Kings,

construction of royal tombs, eg tombs of Thutmose III

and Sety I,

construction of non-royal tombs, eg tombs of

Sennedjem, and Kha and Meryt,

the workers strike and tomb robberies

role of women: wife and mother, rights, work outside the house, the
unmarried woman and the stranger, images of women in the written
and archaeological record

everyday life: housing and furniture, food, leisure, clothing and

jewellery

religious beliefs and practices: gods and goddesses of New

Kingdom Egypt, festivals, magic, amulets, oracles, personal piety

burial beliefs and practices: royal and non-royal tombs: changing

structures and decoration, royal Books of the Netherworld, eg Am
Duat Litany of Ra, Book of the Dead, coffins and other tomb contents.

Overview
-

Location: Small valley in the shadow of the Theban hills on the west
bank of the Nile, across from modern day Luxor in Upper Egypt. The
site was on the deserts edge, chosen because of the proximity to the
royal burial site and also because isolation ensured that the villagers
(who had knowledge of the location and construction of the royal
tombs) could be guarded. Deir el Medina was an enclosed community
that was allowed as little contact as possible with the outside world so
that their knowledge would remain secret. Isolation and security of the
village were considered more important than a readily available water
supply as water had to be carried some distance form the Nile River
and stored in jars at the site
Purpose: The village was inhabited by the community of workmen
involved in the construction and decoration of the royal tombs in both
the Valley of the kings and the Valley of the Queens. Together with
their wives and families the workmen occupied the neatly constructed
houses of mudbrick and stone for some 450 years during Egypts New
Kingdom
Roles each pharaoh played in the village history
o Amenhotep I founder
o Thutmose first king buried there
o Akhenaten had the village abandoned
o Horemheb gave the site its plan based on simple military lines
Phases of Settlement:
o Early 18th Dynasty ( Amenhotep I and Ahmose-Nefertari ); first
phased was destroyed by fire
o Armana period, abandoned
o 19th and 20th Dynasties, village almost doubled in size with
workers drawn from other crews in the Theban area employed on
temple building projects
Dwellings:
o 19th Dynasty: Area 132m long and 50m wide; built in blocks of
terraces with no space left between them and two adjoining
houses shared a wall
o originally, consisted 70 houses divided by a main street. This
street was covered over, making the village one solid roofed
community.

Work of modern Egyptologists

Egyptologi
sts

Country/organisati
on

Achievements

Auguste
Mariette

French; Curator of
the Egyptian dept.
at the Lourve (5458)

Gaston
Maspero

Established French
Institution of
Oriental
Archaeology, Cairo
Curator of Egyptian
Museum in Turin,
Italy

Ernesto
Schiaparell
o
Bernard
Bruyere
Jaroslav
Cerny

Director, French
Institute of Oriental
Archaeology, Cairo
Prof. of Egyptology
at Oxford Uni

Founder of Egyptian Antiquities Service

to safeguard Egypts heritage; father of
Egyptian archaeology; founded Egyptian
National Museum in Cairo, 1863; carried
out excavation at Deir el Medina
Tomb of Sennedjem 1886

(i)

tomb of Queen Nefetari (wife of

Ramesses II) in 1904
(ii)
intact tomb of Kha and Meryt in
1906
In charge of major period of systematic
excavation of village; discovery of large
collection of ostraca
Decipher and publication of the bulk of
Deir el Medina ostraca and papyri

Village Workers
-

workers who were employed to construct the royal tombs worked 8

hours morning or afternoon shifts on a ten day work week with
one day off.
- Outside normal working hours the on habitants of Deir el medina
added to their income by offering their services, skills, labour and
craftwork to each other:
o Scribes charged for letters, drawing up contracts and preparing
spells from the Book of the Dead to be adorned on the walls of
the private tombs
o Carpenters sold coffins, beds, tables and chairs, etc, and
o Sculptors and painter were also involved in tomb prep.
Physical evidence such as the variety, quality and amount of personal
possessions found at Deir el Neduba provides proof of a high standard of
living at the site, many inhabitants would have owned slaves, land, and
livestock.
e.g. Amenakht : royal scribe, 1150 BC, made what is known today as
the Turin Papyrus Map of Ancient Egypt (a topographic map of a quarrying
expedition to the east of Thebes)

Organisation of the royal necropolis workforce

Construction

Chief workmen x2

Pharaoh
Vizier
Captains of the royal
tombs

Administrative

Royal scribes of the

tomb x2

Deputies x2

(also sat on village royal court

Kenbet)

Workmen and Craftsmen

Tomb Guardians

Medjays x8

Doorkeepers x2
Male Servant
Women Slaves

Roles and responsibilities of the workgroups

o The gang was divided into a right and left side

Social Structure of Workers

work was strictly supervised by foreman and scribe, who noted absentees
any irregularities in the work or its conduct, exact weight of metal tools
issued by the government and numbers of lamp wicks for underground work.
measured progress and sent frequent reports to office of the vizier, who was
ultimately responsible to the Pharaoh for work.
-Disputes among villagers settled by a village tribunal called kenbet, which
was composed of a foremen or scribe and senior villagers.
-Tribunal convicted and sentences, subjects only to the viziers confirmation
in capital cases and to his prerogative of pardon.
Occupations
Foreman and deputy- overseers in charge of gang.
Scribe kept a record of all the work carried out by gang and equipment issued
to them.
Stonemasons cut and chiseled the stone from the cliffs
Carpenters made wooden furniture for the tombs
Plasterers smoothed and prepared walls for painting
Draughtsman set out proposed texts and design on plastered walls
Painters executed the scenes on tomb walls
Sculptors carved texts in relief
Guardians issues tools and lamps
Doorkeepers guarded the door

Wages & Labour Relations in DEM

- Policy of paying:
o Level 1: men who had to support wife and fam higher
o Level 2: bachelor traing
Bribery in form of wood and presnts can get fathers sons their
position
- Wages:
o On the 28th day of each month for next
o Paid in grain, fish water, pottery, veggies, woods, bonus being
clothes, cake, beer, salt
Trade and commerce
- In contact with senior officials and wealthy clients or affluent living
and actively engaged in exchanging goods
- Sold their skills as artists to make statues or coffins or to decorate
each others tombs
- Trade was done through barter

Place of Work: the Valley of the Kings

- Cerny: high vertical rocks all round, lacking vegetation, with
absolute stillness and the pyramid-like peak of the Theban mountain
towering above the valley
- Easily guarded and secured = prevent robbing

Construction of ROYAL TOMBS

- Typical tomb was rock cut, hollowed out of limestone cliffs on the western
banks of the Nile at Thebes
- Sketch plans have been found on ostraca and papyri
- Some royal tombs have been left unfinished (Horemheb, Seti II and
Rameses 9)
- Roughly chipped corridor walls, grid marks to guide the artist brush and
the sculptors chisel
- Clumps of flint rock that had not been removed jutting through the walls
- Cracks in the limestone that have been plastered over
- The cliffs were limestone cut in using stone tools and hammers and
copper or bronze spikes when harder flint rock is encountered
- The walls were checked for straightness by placing a vertical plumb line
on the wall face.
- Once the entrance corridor had been pushed deep enough into the cliff,
other workers smoothed the was by rubbing them with stones
- A rounded chisel was used to prepare the walls for sculpture
- Plasterers filled the cracks and created a thin even skin of plaster over the
walls
- String was used to guide the straight lines needed for the figures of
pharaoh and gods, the hieroglyphs and the strange beings who appeared
in painting of scenes from the books about the world of the dead: the Am
Duat (book of What is in the Netherworld), book of Gates, the book of
Caverns. These were written and illustrated on the walls
over the years there are improvements in presenting these books. In
Thutmose II, Am Duat was painted on the wall to look like a massive
papyrus sheet in black ink. Later tombs had scenes with the Gods painted
in color.

Construction of NON-ROYAL tombs

- Two types of tombs:
o Constructed tombs (made of mud brick and stone, area open to
public were mud brick, a walled court led to a small pyramid of
brick or stone, pyramid decorated with solar cult scenes, the tomb
itself was reached by shaft or stairs, the burial chamber was
generally plastered and painted with bright scenes

Housing

Rock-cut tombs (entrance had two pillars with rock-cut stelae and
statues on either side, chapel was made up of two rooms with
access to burial chamber from the second room