Panoramatic views of Deir el-Medina and plan of a private house

View of the east side of the settlement as seen towards west

The page was last modified on June 1st 2008

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Take a stroll along the eastern (lower) side of the settlement of Deir el-Medina, viewing each house from east towards west. The main
cemetery can be seen at the top of the photographs in the distance.
Scroll to the right to view all the houses.

This house used to belong to Neferhotep

Ipuy' house

This house used to belong to Ramose

Kaha's house is on the right

Plan of a typical Deir el-Medina house. Drawn by Lenka Peacock, after a drawing of Mary Winkes, in Pharaoh's workers.

Although the houses in the village varied in size they followed a fairly standard plan. The first room very often
contained a rectangular mud brick structure partially or fully enclosed except for an opening on the long side, which
was approached by three steps. Bruyere found remains of these structures in twenty eight of the sixty eight
houses known to him at the site. The function of the bed-like constructions is still being discussed by Egyptologists
today. It has been suggested that they could have functioned as a birthing or nursing bed, a bed-altar to an
ancestor cult. Fragments from several paintings from the exterior panels of some of these structures specifically
involve themes in female life: labour, childbirth and daily grooming. It is assumed that the villagers might have
worshipped figures of deities or supplicated a recently deceased relative within these bed-altars.
The second room was the main living room and it stood higher than the first one. The flat roof of the room was
supported by one or two wooden pillars that rested on stone bases. By archaeological evidence it is widely
acknowledged that the second room had a sacred significance. Offering stelae were found near shallow rectangular
and arched wall niches, which occur in several houses in the first and second rooms. Limestone offering tables were
found in their vicinity. In the second rooms of most houses false door dedications were discovered. All this evidence
seems to indicate that the second room, among other multiple settings, was used to connect with and gain protection
of those outside the bounds of ordinary moral existence.
Some houses had a small chamber off the second room, which seems to have been used both as a general storeroom
and as a place where someone might sleep. Beyond this room there was a kitchen and a staircase leading up to the
roof, which was partially open to the air to allow smoke to escape. Two cellars complete the dwellings.

Sources:
1. James, T.G.H.: Pharaoh's people : scenes from life in Imperial Egypt
New York : Tauris Parke, 2003.
2. David, A. Rosalie: The pyramid builders of ancient Egypt : a modern investigation
of Pharaoh's workforce.
London : Routledge, 1986.
3. Pharaoh's workers : the villagers of Deir el-Medina / edited by Leonard H. Lesko
Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 1994.
4. http://www.pbase.com/galleria_rusticana/aegyptica

For more quality photography visit
http://www.pbase.com/galleria_rusticana/aegyptica

This breathtakingly beautiful panorama was created by Warwick Barnard of Sydney, Australia, while he was walking across the Theban
hills in January 2007. The magnificent panorama was rendered from six contiguous images and then processed into a reduced size
image. The original was over 25 MB.
Scroll to the right to view the whole picture.