Although the Egyptians invented the hour as a unit of time (which they measured by making marks on the side of a burning candle), the concept of a 40-hour workweek was unknown to them. Instead, tomb workers labored long and hard every day during a project, sometimes even sleeping at the construction site. Without modern safety gear, the work was dangerous. In one letter found by archaeologists, a draftsman named Pay writes to his son about one of the biggest hazards — eye injuries from dust and pieces of stone. "May you bring me some honey for my eyes and also some ocher ... " he wrote. "Hurry! ... I am wretched. I am searching for my sight and it is not there." Pay may have been asking his son to fill a prescription from a village doctor; honey is a mild antiseptic, and ocher, a pigment used in paints, also has analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties.

The Egyptian economy didn’t use currency, and so tomb builders, like everyone else, were paid in food or goods that they in turn used to barter for other things they wanted or needed. Despite their esoteric skills, the tomb builders weren’t compensated as highly as soldiers, who got meat instead of the fish that the craftsmen received with their grain. The Egyptians believed that workers should be treated fairly, but in practice, that didn’t always happen; In 1153 B.C., a crew of tomb builders actually staged what may have been the first strike in labor history, refusing to work until corrupt officials stopped shortchanging them on their grain rations. But workers also got away with slipping in some moonlighting during the regular workday. Many of the tomb builders augmented their income by making crafts. Deir el-Medina’s carpenters, for example, also built beds, chairs and tables, while painters hired themselves out to decorate private tombs. Some tomb workers even kept cattle.

Because of all that hard work, the tomb builders and their families enjoyed a relatively high standard of living for commoners in the ancient world. Workers and their families lived in mud-brick houses that generally measured 15 feet by 45 feet, with ceilings made of trunks and branches from palm trees, and whitewashed walls sometimes decorated with plant or animal designs. Their homes were furnished with baskets woven from reeds and pottery. They dressed in loose linen garments and wore papyrus sandals in hot weather, and donned leather slippers and wool cloaks when it got cool and windy in the desert. Despite their arduous work schedules, they found time to play harps and flutes, kept cats and monkeys as pets, and enjoyed parties and festivals at which they served home-brewed barley beer. One continual downside to life in the village was a shortage of drinking water, since the village had no natural supply. Instead, a nearly continuous procession of donkeys brought tall earthenware jars of water into the village.

Though the village population consisted largely of families who’d known one another for generations, relations weren’t always peaceful. There were quarrels about work assignments and sometimes thefts. The village had a courthouse where hearings were conducted on accusations of minor offenses such as unpaid debts. More serious crimes were referred to royal authorities in Thebes for prosecution. One of the most heinous offenses on the books was grave robbery, which was punishable by death.

When they weren’t working on the Pharaohs’ tombs or moonlighting to increase their incomes, the tomb builders worked on their own burial places. They buried their dead in cemeteries in the hillsides just outside the village. One of the few completely intact, well-preserved tombs found by archeologists is the burial place of the family of Sennedjen, a tomb worker who lived and died somewhere around 1300 B.C. The decorative art in the main chamber includes a famous image of Anubis, the slim, black jackal god who oversaw embalming, taking care of the tomb builder’s own mummy.