The Community of Craftsmen and Workers

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Studies were carried out on the organization of this worker's village , one of the rare urban structures known today in Egypt , and of the tombs in the necropolis , as well as an Epigraphic analysis of the elements found in the course of the excavation , among which , there are numerous ostraca (pieces of pottery) and limestone fragments containing sketches of notes or annotations that have made possible a detailed reconstruction , not only of the way of life in the settlement , but also the social and industrial organizations of these workers of Tuthmosis I , whose name is stamped on the mud bricks of the wall that surrounded the 1st community .
We have little evidence about the village in the 18th dynasty , It seems that , it did not take up the entire area behind the wall , but that there was some open space for the village animals such as cattle .
The 1st village was destroyed by fire , possibly during the Amarna Period , and during the reign of Hormoheb the village seems to have been reorganized . The village expanded to the south and the west and spilled out over the wall of Tuthmosis I , a new stone-wall was built to enclose the suburbs . Still the village grew and new quarters sprang up outside the enlarged wall , It contained seventy houses while another forty or fifty lay outside the wall .
Founded at the beginning of the New Kingdom , the village was a fully-fledged official institution placed under the authority of the vizier , and almost certainly dates back to king Amenhotep I , as suggested by the special cult to him and his mother Ahmose-Nefertari practiced by the inhabitants of Setmaat .
In fact , up to the end of the Ramesside period , both of them were considered the patrons of the community and were depicted in the decorations , in the village burial ground , as divinities venerated under specific aspects .
The patron goddess was goddess Meretseger , beloved of silence depicted in the form of a cobra , placed in charge of protecting the necropolis at Thebes .