What Was a Normal Workday Like in Ancient Egypt?

What was a normal workday like in ancient Egypt? The men who built the tombs of the pharaohs had bosses, sick days, money worries, and friends they would rather be drinking with. If you have ever called in sick to work, they would have understood you perfectly. This is Deir el-Medina, the village of the royal tomb builders, around 1200 BC. We follow one ordinary working week, from the long walk to the Valley of the Kings to the day the grain stopped coming and the workers did something no one had ever written down before: they went on strike. Topics covered: daily life in ancient Egypt, the workmen of Deir el-Medina, the Valley of the Kings, the ancient register of excuses for missing work, being paid in bread and beer, doctors and scorpions, the oracle of Amenhotep I, the will of Naunakhte, the scandal of Paneb, and the first recorded strike in history under Ramesses III. Chapters 0:00 We are hungry 1:37 A village in the desert 3:24 Going to work 4:57 Inside the tomb 6:26 The register of excuses 8:29 Paid in bread 10:10 Doctors, scorpions and remedies 11:22 A day off, and a god who settles arguments 13:22 The women of the village 15:06 Bosses, rivals and scandals 16:10 When the grain does not come 18:16 What they left us Stay until the end, because the men who started the first strike in history left us something even more personal than their tombs. #AncientEgypt #DailyLifeInHistory #History REFERENCES 🪨 British Museum EA 5634: register of absences, year 40 of Ramesses II 📜 Strike papyrus, Museo Egizio di Torino, Cat. 1880 (scribe Amennakht, year 29 of Ramesses III) 📜 Will of Naunakhte, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (P. Ashmolean 1945.97) 📜 Papyrus Salt 124, British Museum: the complaint against Paneb 🏛️ J. J. Janssen, Absence from work by the necropolis workmen of Thebes (1980) 🏛️ Deir el-Medina Database, Leiden University Disclaimer Pendua, Khonsu, Amennakht, Naunakhte and Paneb are real people known from ancient documents, but they lived in different decades, and the video says so. Pendua's family and some of their moments are imagined and presented as such. Dates follow the most common chronology and can differ by a few years. Visuals are created with the help of AI tools. Script researched and written for this channel.