TRAVEL   EGYPT   TOURS 

Deir el Medina is a small settlement 2 km west of the Nile. It was home to workers of the royal necropolis and might be viewed as a microcosm of life in Ancient Egypt even though although the workers were at the 'top' of their profession.

 

Village

The settlement was founded sometime early in the 18th dynasty, though by which monarch is uncertain. Many bricks in the enclosing wall are stamped with the name of Tuthmosis I - the first pharaoh definitely to be buried in the Valley of the Kings. It is known that the previous king, Amenhotep I, and his mother Ahmose--Nofretiri, were regarded as patron deities by the workmen. The first village was destroyed by fire during the 18th Dynasty.

 

The village grew under Tuthmosis III as building expanded on the west bank at Thebes. Under Akhenaten the inhabitants were moved to Amarna - some of the names found at Amarna are similar to those found at Deir el Medina (but it is not certain if these were the same people).At the beginning of the 19th dynasty activity in the Valley of the Queens started, resulting in tombs for the chief royal wives and children.

 

The village was finally abandoned at the end of the New Kingdom when royal burials in the Valley of the Kings ended. The villagers removed the valuable wooden doors and supporting columns from their houses when they left, causing the eventual collapse of the houses.

 

Houses 

The houses were huddled closely together much like modern villages. Forty rooms made up the core of the first 18th Dynasty workshops, the village comprising of twenty houses and maybe 100 people.Villagers: The workmen who lived at Deir el Medina included the quarrymen or stonecutters who excavated the royal tombs in the limestone hills and cliffs of the Valley of the Kings and Queens, and also the sculptors, draftsmen and painters who decorated the tombs. Although limestone is generally soft, the extent of the excavations and the fine finish of the delicate carving show the high quality of the work.

 

Inhabitants and their work organization

The workers and artists who lived in Deir El Medina were divided into two squads and each team used to work for 8 hours a day and had the right to take two days off every eight days of working.

Supervised by a headman, each squad used to consist of 15 to 30 individuals who worked in the same time on both sides of the tomb digging with the use of hammers made out of wood and bronze gravers.

As the builders start working their way into the mountain, the other workers would trim and smooth out the walls. They would add a layer of a mixture of calcareous sand, clay, and straw and then another layer of plaster mixed water.

After the preparation of the walls is completed, the artists would begin their work drawing on the walls with red ocher and then afterwards they would make the corrections needed using black chalk.

After the drawing is done, it would be the time for the sculptures that would carve the mixture used in the first phase into bas reliefs. Then it would be the turn of the decorators who would color the bas reliefs with different paints

Some of these paints and colors were natural, like the ones derived from ground rocks from the mountains, while others were artificially made like the popular ancient Egyptian blue color which was manufactured by heating copper with sand and alkali.

This means that while the diggers were still working in the innermost part of the tomb, other sections of the tomb located close to the mountains were already completed and finished by other workers.

Following this approach, the ancient Egyptian builders and workers succeeded in constructing tombs, rather small, but they were able to complete a tomb only in few months time.

 

The tombs of Deir El Medina

Behind the town of Deir El Medina, situated on the slopes of the mountains, the workers and artists who once lived in the town constructed their own tombs were they were buried near their greatest achievements.

These tombs, much smaller than these of the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, were never less elegant. They consisted of a cult chapel with the entrance ornamented with a mud brick pyramid and a burial chamber which was decorated with charming paintings.

 

Ramesside Period (19th and 20th Dynasty, 1295-1069 BC)

The period is named after the eleven kings with the name Ramses, who ruled in the 19th and 20th Dynasties. Ramesses II (1279-1213 BC) faced the armies of the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh and became a role model for his successors. He founded a capital in the Nile Delta, known as Pi-Ramesse.Ramses II left more monuments than any other king was the model for the Ramesside Period.

 

Documents

The literature of the time found in Deir el Medina includes accounts of great battles, but also letters and documents relating to everyday life, including the trial of the Ramesses III assassins, trials of tomb robbers and records of strikes by tomb workers at Deir el Medina.

 

The Papyrus Salt 124 (also known as the British Museum Papyrus 10055) is an ancient Egyptian papyrus dating to the beginning of the 20th Dynasty. This papyrus is a copy of a letter addressed to the vizier of the time, most likely Hori.

 

The author of the papyrus, Amennakht, describes himself as a workman and the son of the former chief-workman Nebnefer. His brother, Neferhotep, took over as chief-workman at the death of his father, and was killed by an “enemy”. This enemy is interpreted as either foreign enemies or a domestic army during Amenmesse’s usurpation of Thebes. Though Amennakht felt entitled to become the chief-workman, the vizier, Preemhab, gave the role to Paneb. Though he believes that the role is not Paneb’s to begin with, he proceeds to list accusations of varying severity so as to better justify his contention that Paneb should be removed from the role of chief-workman.