Deir el-Medina: the Secret Village of the Pharaohs' Artisans
Deir el-Medina is one of the most fascinating and revealing archaeological sites of the entire Egypt. Hidden in a small valley on the west bank of Luxor, between the Valley of the Queens and the Theban hills, this ancient village housed for almost five centuries the artisans, sculptors, painters and workers who built and decorated the most magnificent tombs of the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens. Unlike the great temples and the royal tombs, which recount the history of the powerful, Deir el-Medina offers a unique and intimate look at the daily life of common people in ancient Egypt.
Founded at the beginning of the 18th dynasty, probably under the reign of Thutmose I around 1500 BC, the village was inhabited uninterruptedly until the end of the 20th dynasty, around 1080 BC. For almost four hundred years, generations of specialised artisans lived, worked, loved, quarrelled and prayed in this isolated settlement, leaving behind them an exceptional documentation of their existence.
Life in the Village
The Structure of the Settlement
The village was constituted of about sixty-eight houses aligned along a central road, enclosed by a perimeter wall. The dwellings, built in raw brick on stone foundations, followed a standardised plan with four main rooms: an entrance vestibule with a small domestic sanctuary, a central hall with columns that served as living room and work area, one or more rear rooms used as bedrooms, and a kitchen open at the back with an oven for bread and a staircase that led to the roof, used as additional living space on warm nights.
The dimensions of the houses varied between 40 and 120 square metres, depending on the status and the seniority of the artisan. The internal walls were plastered and often decorated with paintings, and the floors could be covered with stone slabs. Niches in the walls served as shelves, and small domestic altars attest to an intense and personal religious life. The archaeological remains of the houses are still clearly visible and permit the visitor to walk literally among the dwellings of people who lived over three thousand years ago.
The Royal Artisans
The inhabitants of Deir el-Medina were not simple workers but highly specialised artisans: sculptors, painters, draughtsmen, stonecutters and plasterers who mastered techniques handed down from father to son. They were organised into two teams, called "left" and "right" like the sides of a ship, each led by a foreman. They worked in the Valley of the Kings for eight consecutive days, sleeping in a temporary camp on the top of the hill, and returned to the village for two days of rest, a working calendar that anticipated by millennia the modern week.
Their compensation consisted of monthly rations of grain, fish, vegetables, oil and beer, supplemented by special supplies on the occasion of festivities. The standard of living was relatively high for the epoch: many families possessed servants, had access to medical care and could afford tombs decorated with the same skill that they employed for the pharaohs.
The First Strike in History
One of the most celebrated episodes of the history of Deir el-Medina is the first documented strike of human history, which occurred during the twenty-ninth year of the reign of Ramesses III, around 1157 BC. The monthly rations of grain were late by over twenty days due to the economic crisis that afflicted Egypt. The workers, exasperated, abandoned the work and marched towards the funerary temples of the west bank, where they sat in protest, refusing to return to work until the payment of what was owed.
The papyrus of the strike, conserved at the Egyptian Museum of Turin, documents in detail this event: the complaints of the workers, the responses of the officials, the negotiations and finally the delivery of the arrears rations. This extraordinary document reveals a level of social consciousness and of collective organisation surprising for the epoch, demonstrating that the rights of workers were a felt theme even three thousand years ago.
The Ostraca: Archive of a Community
Fragments of Daily Life
The most significant discovery of Deir el-Medina has been the enormous quantity of ostraca, fragments of limestone and shards of terracotta used as a surface to write and draw. Tens of thousands of them have been found, constituting the richest archive of private documents of ancient Egypt. Since papyrus was costly, the inhabitants of the village used these easily available materials for every type of written communication.
The ostraca of Deir el-Medina comprise personal letters, shopping lists, medical recipes, school texts, work contracts, legal complaints, love poems, religious hymns and even preparatory sketches for the decorations of the royal tombs. Through these documents, we know the names of the inhabitants, their family relationships, their quarrels with the neighbours, their illnesses, their dreams and their fears. No other site of ancient Egypt has returned a documentation so rich and varied on the life of common people.
Graphic Masterpieces
Many ostraca are veritable artistic masterpieces, with drawings of extraordinary vivacity that represent animals, human figures, scenes of daily life and satirical subjects. Particularly celebrated are the ostraca that show animals in human situations — cats that serve mice, foxes that play musical instruments — anticipating by millennia the medieval illustrated fables. These sketches reveal the talent and the humour of the artisans, offering an unexpected and delightful side of Egyptian art.
The Tombs of the Artisans
The Tomb of Sennedjem (TT1)
The tomb of Sennedjem, servant of the Place of Truth who lived during the 19th dynasty, is one of the jewels of Deir el-Medina. Discovered intact in 1886 by Gaston Maspero, the burial chamber conserves mural decorations of extraordinary beauty and freshness. The scenes show Sennedjem and his wife Iyneferti in the Fields of Iaru, the Egyptian paradise, where they plough, sow and harvest in a lush and ideal landscape. The colours are incredibly vivid and the pictorial style is of a refinement that rivals the best tombs of the Valley of the Kings.
The Tomb of Inherkhau (TT359)
The tomb of Inherkhau, foreman during the reigns of Ramesses III and Ramesses IV, is celebrated for its decorations of the highest artistic quality. Particularly notable are the ritual scenes that decorate the burial chamber, with elegant figures and brilliant colours that stand out on luminous yellow backgrounds. The representations of the deceased in adoration before the divinities and the scenes from the Book of the Dead are executed with a skill that testifies to the artistic talent of the inhabitants of the village.
The Ptolemaic Temple of Hathor
At the northern extremity of the site is found a small but elegant temple dedicated to the goddess Hathor, built during the Ptolemaic epoch (3rd-1st century BC) on the remains of preceding sanctuaries. This temple, with its richly decorated Hathoric columns and the reliefs that show scenes of offerings to the divinities, is one of the best conserved Ptolemaic buildings of the Theban region. The decorations combine elements of the Egyptian tradition with Hellenistic influences, creating an interesting document of the encounter between the two cultures.
Tips for the Visit
How to Arrive
Deir el-Medina is found in a small valley between the Valley of the Queens and the Theban hills, reachable by taxi or minibus from the west bank of Luxor. The site is less frequented by the large tourist groups, offering an intimate and recollected atmosphere ideal for an in-depth visit.
Tickets and Access
The entrance ticket allows access to the village, the Ptolemaic temple and three selected tombs. The tombs open to visitors vary periodically, but generally include that of Sennedjem and that of Inherkhau. The tickets are purchased at the local ticket office.
Visit Time
Dedicate at least two hours to Deir el-Medina to explore adequately the village, the tombs and the temple. Walk along the central road of the village, observing the plans of the houses and imagining the daily life of their inhabitants. The tombs, although small, require time to appreciate the details of the decorations.
Practical Suggestions
A good guide is essential to fully appreciate Deir el-Medina, since the site reveals its secrets above all through the knowledge of its social history and its documents. Bring a torch to illuminate the details of the paintings in the tombs. Photographs are forbidden inside the tombs but are permitted in the village and in the temple.
Deir el-Medina is a place that speaks to the heart of the visitor in a way different from the great temples and the royal tombs. Here one is not impressed by the grandiosity but touched by the humanity: the stories of real families, with their joys and their sorrows, their ambitions and their fears, emerge from the walls of the houses and the walls of the tombs with a freshness that annuls the distance of three thousand years.
