Dajr al-Madina
I will name this (Deir al-Medina; Dayr al-Madinah means Monastery of the City in Arabic, City Monastery) it carries a village in the valley between the Ramesseum and Medinet Habu. In ancient times, the settlement was called the Place of Truth or the Place of Order (Set-Size). It was inhabited by workers employed in the construction of royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings between the early 18th Dynasty and the late Ramessid period. It consisted of approx. 70 small houses and family residences, located in nine separate districts. In the heyday of the nineteenth dynasty in the settlement, was alive 120 workers, what with families gave a fellowship to 1200 people. The village had a necropolis with the graves of craftsmen and construction supervisors, as well as temples. Nothing is known exactly, when the settlement was established. The bricks of the outer wall bear stamps from the reign of Thotmes I., but it could have been founded much earlier, because the village includes the temple of worship of Amenhotep I.. The remains of houses from the eighteenth to the twentieth dynasty have survived to our times. During the Amarna period, the village was abandoned. Perhaps the artisans were forced to migrate to Akhetaton, and they returned in the time of Horemheb. The settlement was then enlarged according to a rigorous urban plan, and individual tombs were replaced with family tombs on the west hill.
The excavations have brought to light not only the remains of houses, but thousands of artifacts, on the basis of which it is possible to recreate the life of the inhabitants of the settlement. The community of the Place of Truth consisted of laborers and artisans employed in forging and decorating the tombs of royal and Egyptian notables. During the Ramessid era, the settlement expanded and the number of approx. 50 homes. A district adjoined the craft part from the north, where the overseers and work managers lived. The houses were built of mud bricks on a stone foundation. They usually consisted of four rooms, internal staircase to the terrace or to the upstairs rooms and sometimes from the basement. The ceiling and roof were made of palm trunks, the inner walls were covered with whitewashed and painted plaster. The floor was laid out of stones. Many houses had home chapels, where the ancestors were worshiped. The goddess Meretseger was also worshiped, patroness of the Theban necropolis. The main room was lit by a small window. The storage part was used as a place to sleep. The kitchen was in the open space at the back of the house. Personal belongings were stored in baskets made of papyrus or wicker stalks and clay jugs, as well as food and drinks. The houses were not much different from those in the modern Egyptian countryside. There were no courtyards, and the animals were kept outside the city walls.
The village was organized like military-type settlements, and its inhabitants were kept in isolation, because they knew the secrets of the royal tombs. Their wealth and high status came at a price: they could not freely dispose of their time and leave their settlements, and the place of residence was determined by belonging to the appropriate brigade. One of the districts was inhabited by the "law team", and the second - "left team", working shifts. At the end of the street there was a guarded gate, locked at night. The first crisis affected the inhabitants at the end of the 19th dynasty. Economic difficulties and the incompetence of procurement officials led to unrest. Riots and civil wars at the end of the 20th Dynasty caused a crisis, and the situation was aggravated by a strike of artisans, who in 29. year of the reign of Ramesses III (XX dynastia) they did not receive the payment to which they were entitled. At first, the workers did not cooperate with the criminal world in robbing tombs, but their morale deteriorated over time, and they increasingly took part in nocturnal escapades for treasure. In Ramses IX, the robbery of graves became profitable, and at the same time with almost unpunished practice. When the craftsmen were threatened by the Libyan invasion, they moved to the vicinity of Medinet Habu. The settlement was deserted, only its temples and shrines were visited. They were protected by the high priest of Amun of Medinet Habu and thus they survived to the Ptolemaic times, when they erected the little temple of Hathor in the northern part of the settlement. It became a monastery during the Coptic times, from which comes the Arabic name of the settlement.