>Photo: Sennedjem and His Wife
Credit: Photo courtesy of Archaeology News

Archaeology News has an interesting article, “What Happened To Pharaoh’s Workers? The article describes the lives of the workers who built the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

According to the article, “It appears that the workers, or should we say workmen and artisans, the people who built the rock-cut tombs of the Pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings from about 1500 BC onwards, may have later been employed on a project aimed at “emptying” and “recycling” their contents.”

The article reports “that an impressive number of texts on papyri, ostraca and graffiti had provided researchers with extensive information on the workers’ community at Deir Al-Medina, especially from the Ramasside Period and the second half of the New Kingdom, but that in spite of all our knowledge we did not know what happened at the end of this period when the Ramasside line of kings was no longer in power and no more royal tombs were built. Now, thanks to a largely unpublished dossier of texts, we are gradually beginning to understand what happened to them.”

Below is an excerpt from the article:

The settlement was founded some time in the early 18th Dynasty, in the reign of Tuthmosis I (1550–1525 BC), the first Pharaoh definitely to be buried in the Valley of the Kings, and that in its earliest stage there was no resident community — just a village of some 40 houses to accommodate itinerant workmen hired for short periods of time. Later the settlement was expanded to accommodate a special group of artisans — “expert artists” might be a better word — and, from literary evidence recovered from the village, it appears that more than 100 people, including children, lived in the village, off and on, for several centuries.

“The situation changed after the Amarna period, in the 19th and 20th dynasties (1307–1070 BC) when the workers who plied their trade in the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens lived, worked and died at Deir Al-Medina, and built large and finely-decorated tombs for themselves,” Demaree said. He went on to explain that texts had survived which told us about their lives and the organisation of their work.

During their weekly labour, the workers stayed in a small camp built on a ridge above the royal valley. The work force was divided into two — one working on the left side of the tomb, the other the right side, the numbers varying according to the size of the tomb. Each work force was under a foreman, and several scribes reported the progress of work, worker absence, and payments.

Gradually the workers formed an elite class, as is evident from the contents of their homes and their tombs at Deir Al-Medina. The extant tomb of Sennedjem, for example, which was discovered early in the 20th century, clearly reveals the high quality of life expected in the afterlife, a lifestyle similar to that on earth. He and his wife are shown dressed in white linen, ploughing and reaping in a fertile hereafter; with protective deities guarding his sarcophagus; while other wall paintings show the deceased and his wife returning from a ritual journey to Abydos. These paintings are some of the finest on the necropolis.

The article is very informative with some paintings illustrating the article. To read the article in its entirety, visit Archaeology News.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Deir Al-Medina, Egypt, Sennedjem

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