Deir el-Medina

Deir el-Medina (Arabic: دير المدينة‎‎) is an ancient Egyptian village which was home to the artisans who worked on the tombs in the Valley of the Kings during the 18th to 20th dynasties of the New Kingdom period (ca. 1550–1080 BC) The settlement's ancient name was "Set Maat" (translated as "The Place of Truth"), and the workmen who lived there were called “Servants in the Place of Truth”. During the Christian era, the temple of Hathor was converted into a church from which the Arabic name Deir el-Medina ("the monastery of the town") is derived.

At the time when the world's press was concentrating on Howard Carter's discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, a team led by Bernard Bruyère began to excavate the site. This work has resulted in one of the most thoroughly documented accounts of community life in the ancient world that spans almost four hundred years. There is no comparable site in which the organisation, social interactions, working and living conditions of a community can be studied in such detail.

The site is located on the west bank of the Nile, across the river from modern-day Luxor. The village is laid out in a small natural amphitheatre, within easy walking distance of the Valley of the Kings to the north, funerary temples to the east and south-east, with the Valley of the Queens to the west. The village may have been built apart from the wider population in order to preserve secrecy in view of sensitive nature of the work carried out in the tombs.

A significant find of papyri was made in the 1840s in the vicinity of the village and many objects were also found during the course of the 19th century. The archaeological site was first seriously excavated by Ernesto Schiaparelli between 1905–1909 which uncovered large amounts of ostraca. A French team directed by Bernard Bruyère excavated the entire site, including village, dump and cemetery, between 1922–1951. Unfortunately through lack of control it is now thought that about half of the papyri recovered was removed without the knowledge or authorization of the team director. Around five thousand ostraca of assorted works of commerce and literature were found in a well close to the village.Jaroslav Černý, who was part of Bruyère's team, went on to study the village for almost fifty years until his death in 1970 and was able to name and describe the lives of many of the inhabitants. The peak overlooking the village was renamed "Mont Cernabru" in recognition of Černý and Bruyère's work on the village.

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