Agricultural Activity by the Workmen of Deir El-Medina

Abstract

It is generally agreed that the workmen engaged in agricultural activity, although not to what extent. Farming is best documented in the late Twentieth Dynasty, when conditions were perhaps exceptional, but there is indirect evidence of agriculture at all periods. The workmen kept oxen and donkeys which they may have used in cultivation, and some had large numbers of private servants who perhaps worked the land. Agricultural tools and silos found in the village are further signs of farming. The source of land is a matter of speculation; some fields may have belonged to local cults, but a few texts suggest that workmen themselves owned land. Baer has shown that farming could be very profitable, and it is known that some New Kingdom officials enjoyed an extra income from land. Despite the lack of explicit textual evidence, it is possible that some Deir el-Medina workmen did the same.