HUTS | Images of Deir el-Medina : Past & Present

The workmen's huts

The craftsmen of Deir el-Medina worked
throughout the year, in the hot summer as well as in the winter. The working week consisted of 8 working days, with rest days on the 9th and 10th. The Egyptian month consisted of three periods of 10 days each. Workers often seem to have taken longer weekends of three days. Apart from these days off, workers often had time off to celebrate the festivals of the major gods. These were usually spread over several consecutive days. The working day consisted of two shifts of about four hours each, with a lunch break at midday (Bierbrier,1982,52-53).

Deir el-Medina and the emerald fields of the Nile Valley, seen from the footpath linking the village to the stone huts.

The path between the settlement of Deir el-Medina and the Valley of the Kings is the same ancient path the artisans used on their way to work 3,500 years ago.

The play of shadows on the Theban cliffs in the late afternoon.

None of the paths are difficult but sometimes the edge of the cliff is quite close.

The workmen were mainly employed in the Valley of the Kings, preparing the tomb of the Pharaoh, or in the Valley of the Queens, preparing the tombs of the king's wives, although they also worked in other parts of the Theban necropolis, preparing the tombs of those high officials to whom the Pharaoh lent his labour as a sign of his favour. Between working days, the men spent their nights in the Valley of the Kings or in simple huts close to it.

Towards the west the view of the Valley of the Kings and the surrounding desert is magnificent...

...and the view towards east - the view of the Nile Valley - is breathtaking.

" It is impossible to imagine a contrast more striking than that presented by the two scenes that we had before or eyes: on one side solitude, aridity, desolation and death; on the other temples, palaces and beautiful river, vegetation, cultivated fields, herds, people, and all the movement of living nature."
This remarkable view was described by M. Costaz, a member of the Commission des Arts et des Sciences, who arrived in Egypt with Napoleon's army in July 1798. army in July 1798. (Roehrig,2001,10)

No doubt the ancient craftsmen would sit on the top

of the cliffs near their huts and admire the view.

On a clear day it is possible to see can see as far as 40 kilometres to the Red Sea Hills to the east.

There were two main groups of huts at the top of the cliffs - the east and west huts - divided into four groups by the path. The huts were originally excavated by Bernard Bruyère in 1935.

Each hut had two rooms, an inner room, possibly a sleeping room, and an outer room with stone seats placed along the wall of the hut.

It has been noted that the construction style of the huts is consistent with the style of the main settlement at Deir el-Medina. Evidence of skilled stone cutting and the same technique of building low structures with common walls to regulate temperature is present at both sites (Meskell, 2000, 266).

The exact purpose of the stone huts is not known. Apart from the obvious time-saving aspect of staying overnight, saving about half an hour's walk back to the village and the same again in the morning, while building and decorating a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, craftsmen may have set up small workshops here to make shabtis and stone stelae. Previous excavations
revealed that the rooms contained artisans' tools and pottery (Meskell,2000,266).

The stone huts were used not only by the tomb workers, but also by door-keepers, guardians and possibly medjay (police).

There is ample evidence that there were two door-keepers of the tomb. Each door-keeper was assigned to one of the two sides

of the crew. A hieratic ostrakon from the early 19th dynasty (O. Černý 17, 2-6) tells us that "there was not any door-keeper here except Psarpot, for Sanehem slept --- and the door-keeper Sunero came [only] at noon". Therefore, there must have been three door-keepers at some points. It has been suggested that the western huts were occupied by door-keepers.

The guardians of the tomb were not members of the workmen's crew, but were closely associated with them. They guarded the materials and tools used in the tomb and issued them to the workmen when necessary. This was done in the presence of the foremen and the scribe, who recorded the event. They could also replace a blunt tool with a new sharp one (Černý, 1973, 160).

There may have been a guard or police post in the northern cluster, used by the medjay associated with the community.
This police force was needed to ensure the security of the tombs in the royal necropolis in the Valley of the Kings and Queens, as well as to to ensure the safety and good behaviour of the people working there. In the Old and Middle Kingdoms the Medjay were Nubian nomads, but during the 19th and 20th dynasties they were almost completely Egyptianised. They were part of the Medjay of Thebes-West, under the command of the "Mayor of Thebes-West". Ostraka and papyri dealing with the tomb workers repeatedly mention the number of eight policemen of the tomb (Černý,1973,261-263).

Until 2009, there was no evidence of fireplaces, food preparation or bulk water storage in and around the huts, suggesting that they were not permanently occupied. This was consistent with the textual evidence we had for supplies of food and tools - they were from the main settlement (Meskell,2000,266).

During the 2nd and 3rd seasons of excavation in 2009/2010, the Finnish team, led by the late Jaana Toivari-Viitala, found important new evidence in the form of a number of fireplaces - both inside and outside the rooms! The evidence was found in both the North Cluster and the East Cluster.

The seats were made of limestone blocks. They were U-shaped, as if to imitate the wooden seats of the furniture in the village houses.

Kenherkhepshef, who held the office of scribe from at least year 40 of Ramesses II until year 1 of Siptah (c. 1239-1193 BC), occupied the largest and most centrally located hut in the settlement. Unlike the other huts, it had three rooms. Each room was paved with limestone slabs.

It may have served as Kenherkhepshef's office, where he kept records of the work on the tomb and wrote his letters to the officials of the administration.

Another mark or sign was found on the path between Deir el-Medina and the huts.

In the southernmost group of huts we found
this sign or inscription shown in detail below. Similar signs are found on some ostraka of the 18th dynasty. Perhaps this is the name of a or a mark of ownership.

"Identity marks and their relation to writing in New Kingdom Egypt" is a PhD research programme, planned for May 2011 - August 2015, at University of Leiden under leadership of Dr. Ben Haring. The objectives of the research are to explain the shapes and nature of the marks themselves, and their affinity with writing and to assess precisely how the marks were used in the workmen’s community – in addition to writing.

http://hum.leiden.edu/lias/research/smes/id-marks.html

The rich and varied textual documentation (ostraka and papyri) from the Deir el-Medina community helps us to understand the semantic problem of translating the words for huts and houses. It has become standard to translate the word '.t as "hut", a place outside the village walls, while the pr was the "house", the official residence within these walls. (Demarée,2006,57)
Andrea McDowell noted that "...when a workman entered the service of the necropolis he was assigned a group of buildings as his official property; this group, sometimes called the swt or "places", consisted of a house in the village (pr), a hut near the Valley of the Kings ('.t), a tomb (m'h't) and a hnw. She also concluded that "... to possess a house in the village with its corresponding out-buildings was part and parcel of being a member of the gang. This official property belonged to the state, and it could not be alienated or shared".
Jac Janssen and Pieter Pestman concluded that "it seems that in Deir el-Medina a building erected by the owner himself remains his personal property (O. Petrie 61), and is usually heritable, while the pr belongs to the crew (O. Petrie 61, 6-7), (Janssen/Pestman,1968,160).

Conclusions drawn by Robert Demarée, following observations emerging from the collection of all available
data from the texts from Deir el-Medina, are as follows:

the word pr always refers to a dwelling house, a home (or even a household) inside the village,
clearly the '.t is a structure or building outside the village proper
an '.t is a place where work is done
the workmen could stay or sleep in an/their '.t, also when they were ill
objects could be stored or hidden in a '.t. There could be enough space inside for storing a big
object like a coffin
a private stela erected in an '.t identified its owner, and could be used against claims by fellow
workmen or others (below)
an '.t could be inherited and be part of a transaction or exchange deal

(Demarée,2006,65)

Dispute over a hut
From Deir el-Medina
Mid 20th dynasty, Ramesses III
Limestone
Fragment of a limestone ostrakon with a hieratic inscription describing the settlement of a dispute over a hut inherited by a craftsman named Wennofer. The author of the text, Wennofer, claims ownership of his father's hut, which at the time was occupied by another craftsman who also claimed ownership. They both went to the chief craftsman Khonsu and his deputy to settle their dispute. It was decided that Wennofer had the right to the hut, but that he should compensate the other party for any improvements made while he lived there. There follows a list of items made in payment.
The inscription is not written in ink. It is unusual in that it is cut into the limestone and filled with blue frit, a technique used for formal hieroglyphic inscriptions. Andrea McDowell suggests that Wennofer may have set this ostrakon like a stele into a wall of the disputed hut in order to make his claim to the building widely known.
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Inv. no. ANAsh.H.O.655
Gift of Sir Alan Gardiner

[Reporting by] the workman Wen-nefer (and)
the work[man...saying] there be given to me
the hut (of) my father [...] in the presence of:
the chief workman Khonsu
the deputy [...]
[...] And they said to me, "Give him grain
[...for the construction] that he made in it."
List of the silver [given to him...]
box: 2 deben, 3 oipe of it belonging to me
[...from his?] wood
And I made for him a staff [...from?] his wood
and [...] hen-box, X deben [...]
(Translation from McDowell,1999,180)

There are many rock carvings on the rock surfaces in the immediate vicinity of the stone huts.
The majority of the textual graffiti dates from the
19th and 20th dynasties, when the number of workers at Deir el-Medina increased. It is likely that most of them were somewhat literate and perhaps their movement around the necropolis was more relaxed.
The inscriptions are spread over large areas of the rock surface, but are sometimes found in small clusters.
(Peden,2001,147-170).
We found some textual graffiti along the lower part of the rock spur on the east face of el-Qurn by the southernmost stone structure, which may have functioned as a watch for the guards.

The archaeological evidence suggests that the huts were abandoned at the latest at the beginning of the 21st dynasty, around the years 17-18 of Ramesses XI, when the community of craftsmen left Deir el-Medina and moved to the safety of the walls of Medinet Habu. The decline suggests that the stone huts and the surrounding cliffs were rarely visited during these troubled times.(Peden,2000,289).

It is not only the textual evidence that so richly documents the site's past. The area around the huts, and indeed the whole of the ground at the top of the cliffs in the Theban hills, is littered with thirty-million-year-old fossilised clamshells.
Some small, some as big as a fist. They are reminders
of the time when the area was under the sea.
(Weeks,2005,224).

Traces of small stone huts of Ramesside date have been found in the area opposite the shrine of Ptah.

At the bottom of the Valley of the Kings, remains of these huts have been excavated and studied.

“From our modern perspective, it is upsetting to see how the village was first excavated and then left to be destroyed. Passers-by have used the huts as dumps and rest rooms,” said Jaana Toivari-Viitala.
“Fortunately, while we still have some surface cleaning to do, documentation and conservation are off to a good start. Comparing the names found in the village and in Deir-el-Medina provides useful information. Judging from the construction methods, settlement in the village can be divided into two separate periods: the initial settlement and a later one.”

The team worked at the site during three further field seasons, each consisting of three months. The research group, called "Workmen's huts in the Theban mountains", returned to the site in October 2009.

http://www.egyptologinenseura.fi/tyomiesmajat-theban-vuoristossa-projekti-2008-2013/

I recently discovered a fascinating image on the Brooklyn Museum's Flickr page. The image is part of the Brooklyn Museum's collection of lantern slides (a lantern slide is a transparent image on glass that could be projected in magnified form onto a surface using a "magic lantern" or "sciopticon"). In the second half of the 19th century, this technology expanded the uses of photography, allowing photographic images to be seen by a wide audience. This view of the temple site at Deir-el-Bahari, taken from the top of al-Qurn, captures the stone huts in the centre of the picture. Unfortunately, this slide is undated, but there are about 100 years between the black and white slide on the left and the colour digital photograph on the right. The older image is owned by the Brooklyn Museum. Brooklyn Museum Archives (S10|08 Deir-El-Bahari, image 9931).

Sources:
1. Černý, Jaroslav: Egypt from the death of Ramesses III to the end of the 21st dynasty.
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1965.
2. Bierbrier, Morris : The tomb-builders of the pharaohs
Cairo : The American University in Cairo Press, 1982.
London : Phoenix, 1984.
4. Clayton, Peter A.: Chronicles of the Pharaohs : the reign-by-reign record of the rulers and dynasties of ancient Egypt
London : Thames & Hudson, 1994.
5. Davies, Benedict G.: Who's who at Deir el-Medina : a prosopographic study of the royal workmen's community
Leiden : Nederlands Instituut voor Her Nabije Oosten, 1999.
6. Weeks, Kent R.: The treasures of Luxor and the Valley of the Kings
Cercelli : White Star Publishers, 2005.
7. Roehrig, Catharine H.: Explorers and artists in the Valley of the Kings
Cairo : The American University in Cairo Press, 2001.
8. Meskell, Lynn: Spatial analyses of the Deir el-Medina settlement and necropoleis IN: Deir el-Medina in the Third
Millennium AD : a tribute to Jac. J. Janssen / edited by R.J. Demarée and A. EgbertsLeiden : Nederlands Instituut voor
Het Nabije Oosten, 2000.
9. Janssen, J. J. and Pestman, P. W.: Burianl and inheritance in the community of the necropolis workmen at Thebes. IN:
Journal of the Economic and Socail History of the Orient 1968, no. 11, p. 137-170.
10. Černý, Jaroslav: A community of workmen at Thebes in the Ramesside period
Cairo : Institut Francais d'archeologie Orientale du Caire, 1973.
11. Haring, Ben: Tombs, papyri and ostraca : historical developments in the royal necropolis administration of the New Kingdom
Lecture delivered at the Egypt Exploration Society London study day: The Men of the gang : the village of Deir el-Medina
and its inhabitants, 25th October 2008.
12. Demarée, Robert J.: A house is not a home - what exactly is a hut? IN: Living and writing in Deir el-Medine: socio-
historical embodiment of Deir el-Medina texts / Andreas Dorn, Tobias Hofman (eds).
Basel : Schwabe Verlag, 2006.
13. Peden, A.J.: The workmen of Deir el-Medina and the decline of textual graffiti at West Thebes in late dynasty XX and
early dynasty XXI IN: Deir el-Medina in the Third Millennium AD : a tribute to Jac. J. Janssen / edited by R.J. Demarée
and A. EgbertsLeiden : Nederlands Instituut voor Het Nabije Oosten, 2000.
14. Peden, A.J.: The graffiti of pharaonic Egypt : scope and roles of informal writings (c. 3100-332 B.C.)
Leiden : Brill, 2001.
15. http://www.egyptologinenseura.fi/English/engframe.htm
16. http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/archives/lantern_slide_collection/copy/history
17. http://hum.leiden.edu/lias/research/smes/id-marks.html

18. http://www.egyptologinenseura.fi/tyomiesmajat-theban-vuoristossa-projekti-2008-2013/

Further bibliography

Images of Deir el-Medina:

past & present

The workmen's huts

Deir el-Medina and the emerald fields of the Nile Valley, seen from the footpath linking the village to the stone huts.

The path between the settlement of Deir el-Medina and the Valley of the Kings is the same ancient path the artisans used on their way to work 3,500 years ago.