Oldest Attendance Work Record Since 3000 Years Unveiled: Hawass

Dr Zahi Hawass

Tomb of the golden Pharaoh Tutankhamen was found in the eastern part of Valley of the Kings. The most famous Pharaohs who were buried at the Valley, included Thutmose III, Seti I, and Ramses VI, and Queen Hatshepsut.

While only two pharaohs, King Amenhotep III and King Ay, were buried in the western side of the valley.

Egyptian Archaeologist Zahi Hawass said, “We started excavating in the eastern valley in 2007. We discovered houses, where, workers who built, sculpted and painted tombs in the valley were living.

The workers lived in huts, which were built directly in front of King Tutankhamun’s tomb.

British archaeologist Howard Carter revealed some pictures of these huts.

The workers of such tombs were sleeping in the eastern valley inside those huts. The workers, who were in the western valley, came from Deir El Medina "The monastery of the city".

They used to come in the early morning and return in the evening.

It was surprisingly enough that we found attendance work records of those workers, in addition to other writings and graphic drawings.

It was the oldest Egyptian record so far, which dates back to about five thousand years.

We also discovered that some of the workers were sitting in the valley after the end of the work thinking of their wives or sweethearts; we found a worker who was drawing a picture of his beloved on a piece of stone.

We also found some games played by the workers in their free time. We found a stone plate pided into squares. This resembles a game known in Upper Egypt called “Sega”.

We have also found many graffiti showing that there are many tombs that have not been discovered yet, especially that kings ordered to bury some relatives in far places, as was the case with King Amenhotep III, who ordered the burial of his father and mother-in law called ‘Yuya’ and ‘Toya’ in the eastern Valley of the Kings.

In addition, King Amenhotep IV ordered to bury his beloved pets next to his tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

According to the discovered graffiti, several royal persons were buried in this place.

The graffiti also suggests that there is an important area, under which, we could find a royal tomb, especially that tombs of some kings, including Amenhotep I, Thutmose II, and Ramses VIII have not been discovered yet.

Is it possible that the Egyptian mission excavating in the Valley of the Kings will announce the discovery of these tombs one day?

Translated by Hassanain Tayea.