Before we look more closely at the educational system in Deir el-Medina, however, a quick survey of some of the recovered ostraca will help reconstruct life in the village and the context in which this extraordinary rate of literacy developed. As the large number of administrative documents suggests, the Egyptians of this period were obsessive bureaucrats, keeping careful records of the tools issued to the men laboring on the tombs, the rations delivered to the gang, the overall progress of the work and almost every other detail that could be quantified.
The residents' private jottings are even more varied. Many are purely practical: receipts for purchases or records of legal battles (the villagers were avid litigators). The most intriguing texts are perhaps the personal letters, which take the reader straight into the world of New Kingdom Egypt. In one such missive, a father, Pay, writes to his son about his eye disease-apparently one of the hazards of tomb building because of the dust, bad lighting and flying splinters of stone associated with the task:
The draftsman Pay says to his son the draftsman Pre[emhab?]:
Do not turn your back on me; I am not well. Do not c[ease] weeping for me, because I am in the [darkness(?) since] my lord Amon [has turned] his back on me.Pay's lament is not surprising: blindness would have completely incapacitated a draftsman, who painted the figures and hieroglyphs inside the tombs. Descriptions of the mixture of honey, ocher and black eye-paint that Pay requested appear in specialized medical papyri, suggesting that It was a common remedy. Indeed, honey does have antiseptic properties, and ocher, an ingredient in many other prescriptions of the day, feels cool on the eyelids and was thought to reduce swelling. Because so many workmen suffered from this type of eye disease, this treatment may have been well known, and Pay was ordering it for himself. Alternatively, Pay could have been asking his son to fill a doctor's prescription.May you bring me some honey for my eyes, and also some ocher which is made into bricks again, and real black eye paint. [Hurry!] Look to it! Am I not your father? Now, I am wretched; I am searching for my sight and it is not there.
Roughly half the texts found at Deir el-Medina are religious
or literary pieces. Copies of most of the "classics" from ancient Egyptian
literature have been found at the site; in some cases, ostraca from the
village provide the only surviving example of a work. These classics were
a fundamental part of a student's education: thousands of school texts
bear extracts from the masterpieces of Middle Kingdom (roughly 20001640
B.C.) literature, composed in a language as remote from the vernacular
of the students as the English of Chaucer is from ours. Furthermore, many
of the villagers were authors in their own right, composing instruction
texts, hymns and letters. For example, the scribe Amennakhte wrote a poem
in praise of the cosmopolitan city of Thebes, located just across the Nile:
What do they say to themselves in their hearts every day, those who are far from Thebes?The villagers held knowledge of and ability in the literary arts in high esteem, as indicated on a papyrus found in the archives of a resident scribe. In this extract, the writer presents an unusual tribute to learning: whereas other documents tend to emphasize primarily writing skills and familiarity with classical literature, this description of the profession of scribe emphasizes authorship, the creation of texts and the fame that can come after death. In short, the writer appeals to the great Egyptian aspiration for immortality:They spend the day dreaming [?] of its name, [saying] "If only its light were ours!"...
The bread which is in it is more tasty than cakes made of goose fat.
Its [water] is sweeter than honey; one drinks of it to drunkenness.
Behold, this is how one lives in Thebes!
The heaven has doubled [fresh] wind for it.
As for the learned scribes from theThey did not make for themselves pyramids of copper with tombstones of iron. They were unable to leave an heir in the form of children [who would] pronounce their name, but they made for themselves an heir of the writings and instructions they had made.time that came after the gods-those
who foretold the things to come-
their names endure forever, although
they have gone, having completed
their lifetimes, and their relatives are forgotten.