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Palace Workers

The Workers - The People

The Pharaohs and their devout population believed that the life they were living on earth was not as important as their eternal life in the Field of Reeds. Click here to visit the Field of Reeds

Therefore, the Palaces the Royals lived in, the Villas the Nobles occupied and the Farmsteads that the Workers dwelled in were all made of mudbricks. Frustrating for Historians and Egyptologists alike as they leave little to no real trace. Very much the total opposite to the Temples and Tombs that they built for themselves in everlasting stone. As these were the buildings that needed to survive in order for the Deities to allow the Afterlife they looked forward to enjoying.

However, the Pharaoh’s, their Royal Family and their Nobles needed functioning, practical and climate conditioned Palaces where they could administrate State and International Affairs with ease. So, although these were made of lesser materials the need for specialised Workers was no less important. As with all of the Pharaoh’s monumental buildings in stone, there were three types of Workers needed to complete any of Pharaoh’s great building projects: Skilled Workers, Seasonal Workers and Supporting Workers. The jobs allocated, but not limited to, were as follows:

  1. Skilled Workers: employed on a formal basis by the Royals to build their monuments and usually lived on site with their families; they were usually highly skilled in their given profession
  2. Seasonal Workers: utilised to Quarry materials, move the materials, set the stones in place, or in terms of building a Pyramid the “unskilled” labourers
  3. Supporting Workers: these workers could also be employed on a seasonal basis as the workforce grew, but some would have been employed full time as the Skilled Workers needed their support. These tended to be bakers, carpenters, butchers, leather workers, cooks, water carriers, brewers, weavers for clothing and others

For more details about the Workers, click here to read about how they were drafted for the building of the Pyramids at Giza.

 Once built of course the Palace was run by an army of domestic servants to ensure the smooth running of every part.

 

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