Although the houses in the village varied in size they followed a fairly standard plan.  The first room very often contained a rectangular mud brick structure partially or fully enclosed except for an opening on the long side,  which was approached by three steps. Bruyère found remains of these structures in twenty eight of the sixty eight houses known to him at the site.  The function of the bed-like constructions is still being discussed by Egyptologists today. It has been suggested that  they could have functioned as a birthing or nursing bed, or a bed-altar to an ancestor cult. Fragments from several paintings  from the exterior panels of some of these structures specifically involve themes in female life: labour, childbirth and daily grooming. It is assumed that the villagers  might have worshipped figures of deities or supplicated a recently deceased relative within these bed-altars. Recently it has been suggested (Brooker, 2009, p. 44-53...

The village was inhabited by the community of workmen involved in the construction and decoration of the royal tombs in both the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens. Together with their wives and families    The settlement was founded sometime early in the 18th dynasty, although by which king remains uncertain. Many bricks in the settlement's enclosure wall were stamped with the name of Thutmosis I (around 1524-1518 BC), who was the 1st pharaoh to be buried in the Valley of the Kings. However the reverence given to the previous king, Amenhotep I (1551-1524 BC) and his mother, Ahmose-Nefertari, indicates that they might have been instrumental in setting up the royal workforce at Deir el-Medina.     We have little information on the earliest years of the community. Most of our knowledge about the  settlement is drawn from the extensive evidence dating to the 19th and 20th dynasties, when the village almost doubled in size.The first workforce was proba...