Deir el-Medina: royal tomb workers and their rations

Deir el-Medina lies on the desert edge of western Thebes, near the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens. The settlement housed workers on royal tomb projects and their families. Cutting stone, building and decorating chambers required sustained labor and provisions that enabled those workers to live.

The workforce was connected to senior Egyptian officials and supervised by the vizier. Scribes recorded activities in the village and at the worksite, making attendance and supplies matters that could be checked. Tomb construction thus depended on an organization combining personnel, writing and provisioning.

References: [2]

A limestone ostracon in the British Museum preserves a register of workers’ absences under Ramesses II. Red ink beside dates records reasons including illness, relatives’ deaths, building one’s own house and working for a superior. An administrative register also preserves aspects of workers’ families and health.

One worker attended others as a healer and was consequently absent from his usual position. Recorded labor extended beyond stonework and painting: caring for sick people and handling household affairs also took time. The recurrence of individual names on different dates makes the scheduling of personal life alongside large construction projects visible.

References: [3]

The Strike Papyrus records events in year 29 of Ramesses III and was written by the tomb scribe Amunnakht. Workers stopped work when their rations failed to arrive, left their posts and gathered around royal mortuary temples to demand grain from the officials responsible. Continuing construction depended directly on their access to provisions.

The papyrus records both the demands and the sequence of official payments and further protests. Grain was delivered, yet another stoppage followed. Workers wanted their hardship reported in writing to the pharaoh and vizier; shortages of food, drink and other supplies entered official communication through the scribe.

References: [1] [2]

These records bring another group of protagonists into tomb history: people who attended work, left because of illness, waited for grain and carried messages between workers and officials. The settlement’s everyday affairs help explain how state construction functioned in practice.

Brief entries on stone flakes and longer narratives on papyrus served different purposes but illuminate a shared working environment. Construction required organization, and organization required provisions. Delayed supplies affected household life and could lead to collective action. Deir el-Medina preserves unusually specific voices from ancient labor relations.

References: [1] [2] [3]