The construction of a large, elaborate royal tomb was a complicated undertaking that required a variety of skilled workers and artists. Since the Pharaohs wanted to remain undisturbed by grave robbers in the afterlife, their burial places were designed with mazes of secret passages and trapdoors. Once draftsmen had created a plan and had it approved, quarrymen began digging into the limestone hillside to carve out a passage. They were followed by carpenters, who built moveable scaffolds so that plasterers could finish the walls. Next, draftsmen wielding rulers and strings dipped in red pigment outlined decorative art on the walls, and sculptors carved them into three-dimensional bas-relief scenes, which painters then detailed in bright colors. When the artwork was complete, priests performed a ritual intended to bring the images of gods and other beings in the artwork to life.

Instead of formal training, Deir el-Medina’s tomb builders mostly learned their trades from their families, who passed various skills down from generation to generation. Mastering a trade such as tomb painting, however, required hard work as well as pedigree. Painters spent years learning to work with dyes made from copper compounds, sulfides of arsenic, dolomite and charcoal to create the brilliant hues that the Egyptians favored. Artists also had to possess a rudimentary knowledge of chemistry, since sometimes the dyes had to be heated to a precise temperature to bring out the desired color.

The tomb builders' craftsmanship is all the more amazing because of the primitive tools and materials they had to use. Quarrymen had to use stone hammers and adzes — a chisel-like head, usually made of copper, mounted at a right angle to the wooden handle to cut into the hills. Even so, they managed to carve passages that usually were true to the plans, down to a fraction of an inch. They didn’t have hard-setting plaster of the sort later invented by the Greeks, and had to make do with a less sturdy mix of gypsum and quartz to finish the tomb walls. (Fortunately, Egypt had a dry climate that helped preserve their handicraft.) Wood was scarce in ancient Egypt, so carpenters had to use it sparingly. They used crude saws with straight teeth rather than the more efficient bent ones that modern saws have, so cutting beams and pillars was hard work. To make the job even more difficult, the tomb builders had to labor in dark passageways, ineffectually lit by lamps filled with olive oil.

Though tomb builders labored for years on their projects, sometimes they were confronted with tight deadlines. When the Pharaoh Merneptah died unexpectedly in 1199 B.C., for example, workers discovered that his black-granite outer coffin would not fit through the ornate passageways that they’d built years before. They tore apart the passageways and raced to rebuild them in time for a royal funeral whose date was dictated by the positions of the stars and planets. (Ultimately, they cut their losses by discarding part of his casket instead.)