Food and drink | Images of Deir el-Medina : Past & Present

Food and drink at Deir el-Medina

The diet at Deir el-Medina was varied, balanced and nutritious. We have a wealth of information about food and drink from depictions of food processing and consumption in funerary art, and from actual food remains from funerary, religious and domestic finds.

Villagers received their food in the form of regular rations as wages (coinage did not exist in Egypt before the 26th Dynasty). The rations consisted mainly of grain, water, beer and oils, but also firewood, sandals, pottery, ointments, clothing and other items.

Grain

The vizier and the superintendent of the royal treasury were responsible for distributing grain to families in Deir el-Medina. Careful records of the allocations were kept by the village scribe. Wages were paid on the last working day of each month.
Monthly rations of emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum) were recorded in dry units: 1 khar was 76.89 litres.
A foreman received 5 1/2 khar of wheat, a craftsman 4 khar, but a scribe only 2 3/4 khar.
Jac Janssen points out that the scribe worked for both "sides" of the "crew", so he received the payment twice and thus earned the same as a foreman. Similarly, a doctor was paid 1 khar of wheat, but Jac Janssen believes that this was a supplement to the regular craftsman's wage that he also received.
Emmer wheat was ground on an arrangement of stones known as a saddle quern. Stone-ground flour contained fragments of stone and grains of sand, which, according to the skeletal remains found in the village graves, were harmful to teeth. The flour was used to make bread and cakes.
Although yeast was known at the time, bread was generally unleavened. It was baked either in an oven or in the embers of a fire. Many different types of bread were made. Some were formed by hand, others in moulds. Bread moulds are a common type of pottery found at Deir el-Medina. The ancient Egyptian language had many different words for bread and cakes.

Barley (Hordeum vulgare) was used to make bread and beer, the two staples of the Egyptian diet.
A workman received 1 1/2 khar of barley, and captains received 2 khar of barley per month.
The basic ingredients for making beer were water and partially baked barley bread. Sieved together, the resulting mixture was left to ferment. It could be sweetened with honey to speed up the fermentation process. The final product could have been enhanced with various flavours, including fruit and herbs. Beer would have been a thick, soupy liquid, not always highly alcoholic, but nutritious, which is why it was given to children.

Ostrakon Cairo 25608

The rations distributed for the second month of summer /a:

The chief workman     2 sacks (barley)           5 ½ sacks (emmer)
The scribe               2                            5 ½
17 men, each makes   1 ½                         4                       that is 25 ½ + 68
2 young men, each amounts to ½                   1 ½                    that is 1 + 3
The guardian            1 ½                          3 ¼
The maidservants /b    1 ½                          1 ¼
The doorkeeper         ½                            1
The doctor /c           ¼                            1

Total /d                 32 ½                        84 ¾

(Translation from McDowell, 1999, p. 233)
Notes:
a/ Deliveries for the Left side only
b/ This is the total for all slave women
c/ The doctor was also a regular member of the crew, so this is likely an extra pay he received
for healing
d/ In reality, the total is: 34 ¼ and 88 ½ . To be considered: Was this scribe bad at maths? Or
did he cheat on purpose and keep the rest of the grain for himself? (There are other instances
where the total written is lower than the real sum.)

Water

Water was delivered daily to Deir el-Medina by the water carriers. It was measured in khar like grain. It was used for drinking, cooking and personal hygiene (laundry was done by "laundry men" in the river).
Consumption: 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 khar per day per household (about 6 people) = 16-19 litres per day per person.

To read more about the Great Pit click here.

Ostracon DeM 60 (in the French Institute in Cairo)

What Neferhotep said, in the 3rd winter month, day 22
(Note: this is the 19th Dynasty):

Water deficit for the Left side:
Prehotep   1 ½ sack
Nebamente   1 ½ sack
Khabekhent   1 sack
The watchman   ¼ sack
The servant woman Saroy ½ sack

Total of the Left side    4 ¾ sack

Vegetables

Beans and lentils, garlic, lettuce, leek and cucumber were among the most regular supplies of vegetables.

Fruits

Various fruits, such as dates, figs, grapes, pomegranates, melons, dom-palm nuts, more rarely apples, olives and almonds,
were available to the inhabitants of Deir el-Medina. As well as being eaten raw, grapes were also used to make wine, a prestigious drink. After harvesting, the grapes were pressed, either in a cloth twisted between poles or by trampling them with the feet. The juice was poured into vats to ferment and then poured into earthenware jars to age. The shoulder of a jar was usually inscribed with details of the liquid inside, sometimes including the variety, vineyard, date, production manager or owner.
Other alcoholic drinks were made from fermented dates, figs and pomegranates.
Dates and figs are an excellent source of energy. They were used in many desserts. The villagers
consumed fruit from a regular date palm and also from sycamore trees, which produced smaller and yellower dates. The Dom palm (Hyphaene thebaica) produces a fruit that looks like a small pomegranate.
The nut inside contains sweet oil.

Fish

Fish was an important part of the villagers' diet. It was served as a substitute for more expensive meat. Fish were plentiful in the Nile. The most common species were mullet and tilapia. In Deir el-Medina, fishermen were employed to provide some of the villagers' rations. Each crew received about 250 kg of fish per month. The fish was salted for preservation, baked or roasted.

Meat

In Deir el-Medina, meat was not eaten every day. It was considered a treat. It was usually provided in the form of whole animals from the temple stockyards, or simply as individual portions. Oxen, hares, gazelles and other wild animals would have been eaten and used as a source of fat.
Cows, goats, sheep and donkeys were kept to provide milk. Ducks and chickens were kept for eggs and meat.

Honey

Honey was made from both wild and domestic bees. It was used to turn bread into cakes and to sweeten beer. In Deir el-Medina, confectioners were employed to prepare honey cakes for the workmen.

Seasonings

Salt, cinnamon, celeriac herb, juniper berries, cumin.

Ostrakon Cairo 25504

Year 8 of Merenptah. On day 20 of the second month of the inundation season someone came to the workmen to reward the crew.

He gave them as reward:
9000 loaves of bread
20 menet-jars of sesame oil
9000 [...] fish
20 sacks of salt and 600 blocks of natron
6 sacks of malt [...]
3 sacks of beans
[...] of kdy-beer

(Translation from McDowell, 1999, p. 225)

Ostrakon DeM 46 (in the French Institute in Cairo)

Mentions the delivery of the following articles on a particular day:

11 oxen
9 more received a few days later, which are said to be shared out
The next month there came
5 head of cattle: 4 for the crew and 1 for the three leaders, the chief workmen and the scribe
That day also
280 fish received

Ostrakon Stockholm MM 14126

(water delivery, probably for one day)

[House of] Nebamente                     ¼ sack
House of Amenakhte, son of Dgdy        ½ sack
House of Mose                              ½ sack
House of Pashedu, son of Harmose       ½ sack
House of Karo                              ½ sack
[House of Pashedu], son of Hehnakht    ¼ sack
[House of] …                                ¼ sack
[House of] … son of Sibe                  ½ sack
       etc.

Ostrakon P2027 (Náprstek Museum, Prague)

"Said by Ta-khenty-shepse to her sister Iyt. In life, prosperity and health! Furthermore, to theeffect that: I will send this grain to you and you should have it ground for me and add emmer to itand make it into bread for me, because I am quarrelling with Mery-Ma'at. "(I will) throw you out,"so he says, when he quarrels with my mother enquiring after grain for bread. "Now, your motherdoes not do anything for you," so he says to me, saying "now, you have siblings, but they do not lookafter you!" So he says, arguing with me daily: "Now look, this is what you have done to me since Ihave lived here, although everyone supplies beer and fish daily (to) their people. In short, if yousay something, you will go down to the Black Land (the cultivation)". It is good if you attend".

(Translation from McDowell, 1999, p. 42)

Ostrakon Berlin 11238

The Mayor of West Thebes Ramose informs the two chief workmen and their crews that he has received a message from the Vizier Paser, saying:

Please let the wages be delivered to the crewof the necropolis, consisting of:vegetables, fish, firewood, beer in small vessels,small cattle and milk.Let nothing of it be postponed, so that I wouldbe in arrears with their wages.Be at it and pay heed!

Ostrakon Gardiner 59 (in Oxford)

Written by the workmen to a Vizier:To let our Lord (the Vizier) know:As regards the vegetables, oil, fish, our garments,our ointment and our grain rations,our Lord himself (Pharaoh) has providedus with these means of subsistence.

And finally, try this...

Place 1 large courgette and 2 large leeks, finely sliced, in a deep frying pan with a little olive oil.
Cover the pan with a lid. Cook the vegetables gently for 15 minutes. In a bowl, mix the pieces of pitta bread with the pine nuts and soak them in the milk. Beat 3 eggs and add salt and herbs. When the vegetables are soft, fold in the bread and nuts. Put the mixture on a baking tray and pour the spiced eggs over it. Cook in the oven at 200°C for 30 minutes. Once browned on the surface, carefully remove from the tray and leave to cool. Cut into wedges.

All ingredients would have been available in Pharaonic Egypt:

vegetables were grown on a large scale (Nunn, 1996, p. 13)

bread was a staple of Egyptian diet and was made from emmer-wheat (Shaw, 1995, p. 101)

olive oil was pressed from olives

eggs came from domestic hens and were also collected from wildfowl (Shaw, 1995, p. 102)

milk would have come from cows, goats, sheep or asses (Nunn,1996, p.14-16)

pine oil and nuts were used in cooking.

Choose organically grown and produced ingredients to come as close as possible in the taste to the
meal that could have been served by Wia to her Ramose in ancient Deir el-Medina.
Bon Appétit!

The text on this page was written by Lenka Peacock

Sources:
1. Berriedale-Johnson, Michelle: Food fit for Pharaohs : an ancient Egyptian cookbook
London : British Museum Press, 1999.
2. Nunn, John F.: Ancient Egyptian medicine
London : British Museum Press, 1996.
3. Shaw, Ian: British Museum dictionary of ancient Egypt
London : British Museum Press, 1995.
4. Strouhal, Evzen: Life of the ancient Egyptians
Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 1997.
5. McDowell, A.G.: Village life in ancient Egypt : laundry lists and love songs
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1999.
6. http://www.webkatalog.sk/egypt/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=32 (no longer exists)

Further Bibliography

Images of Deir el-Medina:

past & present

Food and drink at Deir el-Medina