Deir el-Médineh is the Arab name of a village of the ancient Egypt where the brotherhood of the craftsmen charged resided to build the tombs and the funerary temples of the Pharaon S and their close relations during the Nouvel Empire (of with). The site is on the way which leads Ramesséum to the Vallée of the queens.

Its ancient name, Set Maât her imenty Ouaset , means “the place of Maât (or truth Places) in the occident of Thèbes”. Indeed, the village is in the west of Thèbes, on opposite bank of the the Nile. The Arab name of Deir el-Médineh means “the convent of the city” because, at the time of the conquest of the Egypt by Arabic, the temple of the village had been converted into Christian church. Perhaps a legend, but the craftsmen venerated Amenhotep {{Ier}} (-) like founder and guard of the brotherhood.

The inhabitants of Deir el-Médineh are at the origin of most of the tombs of the Vallée of the kings and funerary temples which skirt western bank of the the Nile. They are inter alia at the origin of the tombs of the Aménophis, of the Thoutmôsis, the Ramsès and most media of the Pharaons, the young person Toutânkhamon. One also owes them the monumental temple of Hatchepsout on the Site of Deir el-Bahari. On the hillside bordering the village, the tombs of the workmen were built and decorated by the workmen with the necropolis them-even. One finds inter alia the tombs of Ipy , Pached , and Senedjem . The excavations made it possible to find a great number of ostraca (remains of materials on which one wrote or drew) and of papyri, which informs in a way detailed about the daily life of the workmen. Those seem a very qualified personnel of small civils servant, placed well, nourished, looked after, profiting from an enviable statute. This great work was thus not completed, contrary to a tough legend, by a population of slaves.

The village was given up, then plundered, during the Third period intermediate which began at the end from the reign from Ramsès {{XI}}.

The goddess Mert-Seger (the summit) was protective village. She resided at the top of the natural pyramid formed by a peak of the mountain thebaine (450 m).

Structure of the village

With its apogee, the village covered a surface of 5600 m ² and counted less than one hundred inhabitants.

Girds by high wall approximately a five meters, bored of a kept door night and day, the village is composed of joint houses giving on a main street. Each house includes/understands three or four parts: an entry; a part of life to the ceiling elevated and bored small windows letting spend the day, equipped with a kind of collect-wind intended to bring a little freshness inside; one or two parts giving on a court equipped with a furnace and being used as kitchen. These courses were protected from the sun by canisses of reed. Lastly, the houses were supplemented by a cellar, intended to maintain with the expenses the foodstuffs.

The tombs of the craftsmen were out of the enclosure and were next to the village.

A ptolémaïque temple of construction was built there by Ptolémée {{IV}} for the goddesses Hathor and Maât.

Temples and venerated divinities with Deir el-Médineh

Divinities venerated

• Maât, the straightness, regulates paramount of the brotherhood;

• Mert-Seger, protective of the village;
• Thot, owner of the scribes and the draftsmen;
• Khnoum, owner of the potters and the sculptors.

Temples

The ptolémaïque temple

From ptolémaïque time, the small temple of Deir el-Médineh (nine meters broad on twenty-two meters length) comprises three juxtaposed sanctuaries preceded by a hall supported by two columns with Chapiteau hathoric.

Here were venerated Amon - Re - Osiris, Amon - Sokar - Osiris and Hathor and one finds in one of the sanctuaries a very rare representation of the weighing of the heart in front of Osiris which was to determine whether the late one were ready or not to enter the kingdom of deaths.

Although extremely modest, the temple is equipped with a mammisi, currently visible in the form of a recess in one of the walls outside of the temple, even surrounded to him by a raw brick enclosure typical.

Other constructions

In addition to the temple of Deir el-Médineh, the site is strewn with foundations of other older temples, in particular the small temple of Amenhotep {{Ier}} and the vault of Hathor built by Séthi {{Ier}} whereas other elements go up with Ramsès {{II}}.