Egyptian Discoveries no. 5*: The Architects' and Stone masons' village : excellence at work, excellence at home

The official name for the Valley of the Kings site in ancient times was The Great and Majestic Necropolis of the Millions of Years of the Pharaoh, Life, Strength, Health in The West of Thebes, or more usually, Ta-sekhet-ma'at, the Great Field.

And when you see the very complicated system in which the tombs were carved out under the mountain, and the way the design and positioning was done in such a way that no one would ever discover these tombs after they were closed up, it is a wonder that any of them were ever found.

But, up to date, 63 tombs have been discovered, and it is not impossible that there are many many more waiting to be found. In recent times all sorts of heat sensors and radar and sophisticated technological methods have been put to use to try and see if there are more tombs and where they are, but the geological make-up of the area means that there would be many natural cavities in the mountains, which makes it hard to know which are natural and which are man made.

The types of soil where the Valley of the Kings is located are an alternating sandwich of dense limestone and other sedimentary rock which form the cliffs in the valley – and the nearby Deir el-Bahri – and soft layers of marl. The quality of the rock in the Valley is inconsistent, ranging from finely-grained to coarse stone, the latter with the potential to be structurally unsound. The occasional layer of shale also caused construction and conservation difficulties, as this rock expands in the presence of water, forcing apart the stone surrounding it. It is thought that some tombs were altered in shape and size depending on the types of rock the builders encountered. Builders took advantage of available geological features when constructing the tombs. Some tombs were quarried out of existing limestone clefts, others behind slopes of scree, or were at the edge of rock spurs created by ancient flood channels

Between 1998 and 2002 the Amarna Royal Tombs Project started investigating the valley floor using ground-penetrating radar and found that, below the modern surface, the Valley's cliffs descend beneath the scree in a series of abrupt, natural "shelves", arranged one below the other, descending several metres down to the bedrock in the valley floor. I found it quite fascinating gazing out at the distant mountain ranges we passed during our long drive through the desert. Every now and then there were areas where it seemed the wind had eroded away the side of the mountain to reveal flat, carved, structured ledges, which, I was so very sure, HAD to be more temples or tombs. I know that other travellers must have noticed these before me, but there were quite a few moments when I felt the flutter of excitement having 'discovered' some hitherto unknown temples from several thousand years ago!

We were not allowed to take any photographs while walking through the Valley of the Kings and visiting three of the tombs. And I so wished I could -- because if there were so many discoveries and even more surprises for me while visiting the Egyptian antiquities, then the insides of the tombs of the pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings was probably the biggest discovery and the best surprise of them all. I knew there were amazing sarcophagi -- and all sorts of paraphernalia that were put in the tombs to accompany the kings to the underworld. Years ago, in the early seventies, I stood in the rain and freezing cold for almost ten hours waiting my turn to be whisked past the displays of the Tutankhamun Exhibition in the British Museum in London. The stunning little sculptures in solid gold, the delicate carvings in lapis lazuli, the intricate leather sandals and woven linen clothing, embroidered with gold thread and beautiful designs, the sheer luxuriousness and splendour of it all, was overwhelming. But -- I never realised, until we stepped into the first tomb -- of Ramses III -- that the interior of these tombs, right from the entrance, the long walk downhill into the depths of the mountain, the side chambers (where for instance the musical instruments were placed,(I like the idea of having music to accompany me across the Styx!) the chariots, the books, the jewellery, the clothes -- and all the other things that the pharaoh might need in the underworld, and further down where, eventually, the chamber is where the actual sarcophagus containing the coffins and mummified body was put, -- all of this area which could be vast is decorated; not only is it decorated with carvings in the soapy soft lime stone, but painted as well. The walls and ceilings, every square centimetre, is decorated with carvings that are painted. The ceilings are painted dark dark blue with a million gold stars. The walls are painted with stories from the pharaoh's past -- like a life size comic strip, showing his growing up, the people in his life, his achievements, his family, his projects -- a complete pictorial biography of a great man. It is beautiful. And the most wonderful of it all is that the colour of these paintings are preserved as they were when they were done almost 3000 years ago; the yellows are as bright as asters in the garden; the blues are bright as the sky, the green as fresh as the spring foliage in your backyard, the reds as deep as the ketchup on your table.
Yes -- it is very very beautiful.

Now, if you were anything like me, you probably always imagine everything in Egypt built and constructed by sweaty slaves who are struggling under the whips of their slave masters. We have seen enough Hollywood renderings of these dramatic dusty scenes to have that image imprinted in our minds. But -- here was yet another surprising discovery for me: The tombs -- in the Valley of the Kings at least (and remembering these tombs were carved into the mountain over many hundreds of years, were all built by highly skilled craftsmen who were most certainly all Egyptian themselves -- as the secrets of the tombs of the Pharaohs were far too sacred to ever be shared with anyone who was not of pure Egyptian blood. And, these craftmen, experts in their fields -- architects, engineers, stone masons, stone carvers, sculptors, paint specialists and painters, they all lived close to their work -- just on the other side of the one flank of the valley. These experts, with their families, lived in the village of Deir el-Medina, located in a small wadi between this valley and the Valley of the Queens, facing Thebes. The workers journeyed to the tombs via routes over the Theban hills. The daily lives of these workers are quite well known, recorded in tombs and official documents
Workmen and their families left a record of village life that spans almost four hundred years and parallels much of the history of the New Kingdom dynasty. Surviving records shed little light on the major events, rather they talk of everyday life - work, money, people, education, legal and religious matters.
The village is located deep within a valley and is not visible from most key vantage points in the area. In fact, this home to workers of the royal necropolis and might be viewed as a microcosm of life in Ancient Egypt even though although the workers were at the 'top' of their profession. 

The ancient name of the site was Set Maat, 'the Place of Truth' and the workmen were 'servants' in the Place of Truth. The community seems to have been established near the beginning of the 18th Dynasty, at least by the reign of Tuthmosis I (whose name has been found on bricks in the walls surrounding the village) or perhaps a few years earlier - since the villagers through many generations held Amenhotep I, and his mother Queen Ahmose Nefertari, in high esteem (maybe as patrons).

From research over the last century we know much about the people, how they lived and where they were buried and what they owned. They also left behind their own tombs that they built for themselves where, as can be expected, they practised the skills they were using in their work in the kings' tombs -- the walls are as well decorated -- carved, sculpted and painted as in the pahraohs' tomb s themselves, albeit in a much smaller scale and much more modestly.

Unfortunately -- as is so often the case elsewhere in the world, many finds were removed in the free-for-all of previous centuries and pieces are found in nearly every major museum in the world. But it is ironic that almost more is known about the workmen who cut the New Kingdom tombs than we do about the kings who commissioned them.