Avenues for Further Learning
by John Romer
A huge quantity of books and articles that deal with the life and times of the villagers of Deir el Medina have appeared since Ancient Lives was first published in 1981. My book, which is still in print, contains a list of the basic source materials available at that time:Romer, John. Ancient Lives New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1984. (Originally published in Great Britain under the title Ancient Lives: The Story of the Pharaoh's Tombmakers.)
Its bibliography, however, may now be updated at the Deir el Medina website. Further links to other authoritative Egyptological websites may be found here.
The following are among the best of recent books that deal with the life and times of the Theban royal-tomb makers:A.G. McDowell's Village Life in Ancient Egypt: Laundry Lists and Love Songs (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) offers a rich collection of English translations and commentaries.
"Just Like Us?," Barry Kemp's thoughtful review of McDowell's book, discusses whether or not the writings of the pharaoh's tomb workers are geniune reflections of universal human experience. (Cambridge Archaeological Journal 11, no.1 (2001): 123-30.)
Edward Wente's fascinating Letters from Ancient Egypt also contains new translations of many of the villager's writings. (Atlanta, Ga: Scholars Press, 1990.)
Lynn Meskell's Private Life in New Kingdom Egypt (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton Univesity Press, 2002) is largely concerned with life within the tomb-makers' village and represents attitudes to the subject that have arisen in Egyptology since Ancient Lives was made.
The sumptuous catalog of a major exhibition which was held in Paris, Brussels, and Turin during 2002-03, Gli artisti del Faraone, edited by Anna Maria Donadoni Roveri and Guillemette Andreu (Milan: Electa, 2003,) contains very fine photographs of hundreds of things that the tombmakers made and used in daily life, and is most splendid souvenir of that unique community.
© John Romer 2009
.jpg)
