A Louvre exhibition gives a rare glimpse into the everyday lives of the Ancient Egyptians, writes David Tresilian from Paris The Ancient Egyptian village of Deir Al-Madinah is the subject of Pharaoh's Artists: Deir Al- Madinah and the Valley of the Kings, an exhibition which opened in April at the Louvre in Paris and brings together hundreds of artefacts from the lives of the artists and artisans who built and decorated the tombs of the New Kingdom (1500 -- 1050BC) Pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor. Exceptionally well conserved owing to the village's location in the dry Theban hills, excavations at the site have yielded a wealth of unique objects from Ancient Egyptian domestic life, focusing attention not on the grand monuments of central state and religion but instead on the daily lives of the population. It is these objects that the present exhibition presents, allowing a rare glimpse into the everyday lives of the Ancient Egyptians. According to the catalogue, the exhibition aims to "unveil the everyday lives, the work, leisure, joys and sorrows" of the Egyptian artisans and their families who built the tombs and monuments of the Ramessid period. But it also invites the visitor to look at the surviving tombs and monuments in a different way, noticing evidence of playfulness, or whimsy, on the part of the ancient artists. Though using an inherited vocabulary of hieratic symbols and narratives to decorate the tombs of their royal masters, the exhibition nevertheless shows how the artists who painted the New Kingdom tombs experimented in the corners of the wall panels they painted in the tombs' interiors, doodling and filling in spare lines with rows of flowers, trees, decorative baboons and other bricolage. The thousands of ostraka, or painted and written stone fragments, found dumped at the site reinforce the impression of the artists' experimentation and occasional humour, showing them in informal mood trying out designs in sketch form, some of which later made it onto the finished tomb walls. Among the designs made for domestic use are pieces showing a monkey playing an ancient musical instrument rather like a modern oboe, a mouse being served a meal by a cat, dogs chasing a hyena and a boy feeding a pig, which show the anonymous craftsmen "giving free rein to their imagination and to their sense of humour". These pieces are quite unlike what usually passes as Ancient Egyptian art, causing the visitor to look again at the better-known tomb-paintings. Divided into four sections: Life, Creation, Beliefs and Death, the exhibition's Life section includes a reconstruction of an artisan house from Deir Al- Madinah, showing the furniture, household implements and leisure activities of 3,000 years ago. Among the pieces on show are written ostraka and papyrus records setting out disputes and their resolution, allowing parts of the period's legal framework to be reconstructed. The Naunakhte Papyrus (XIX Dynasty, 12th Century BC), for example, records actions carried out by a mother wanting to disinherit three of her eight children, the three having been insufficiently attentive to her in her old age. Other ostraka dating to the 13th Century BC contain what seem to be lists of furniture ("a folding seat, a chair, a footrest...") and orders for household improvements ("To Nakhtamon, Please make me four windows according to this model [design]. And hurry up. I want them by tomorrow."). The exhibition's Beliefs and Death section continues the theme of domestic life and belief. However, it is the Creation section that contains some of the most fascinating material, showing how the work of constructing and decorating the royal tombs would actually have been carried out. There is, for example, an ostrakon showing the number of absences from work recorded for a tomb-building team during the reign of Ramses II (XIX Dynasty, 13th Century BC), with five absences being recorded for "making medicine" and two for tending a "sick mother". Similarly, a papyrus dating from the XX Dynasty (12th Century BC) records an artists' strike, with protesting workers inviting the authorities to "write to the Pharaoh" about their lack of fish and vegetables. A papyrus fragment of only a few lines records the construction of the tomb of the Pharaoh Ramses V, which was unfinished at his death and had to be continued by his successor Ramses VI. The fragment records calculations of the amount of material that would have to be removed to construct the tomb, estimating that it should be finished in three years. Even in ancient times tomb robbery was a problem. A papyrus found at Thebes and on display in the exhibition records actions taken following the looting of the tomb of Sobekemsaf II, an obscure XVIIth Dynasty Pharaoh. According to this document, which dates to the XXth Dynasty (1092 BC), a certain Amonpanefer was arrested and confessed to the crime, tomb-robbing being an increasing problem at this time for the authorities in Upper Egypt. The history of this papyrus itself is also interesting, showing the often roundabout ways such material has reached us. Discovered in the mid-19th century during illicit excavations at Thebes, it was cut in half by its discoverers to increase their profits from the find. Half went to New York and is now in the Pierpoint Morgan Library, with the other half finding its way to Brussels, where it was discovered hidden in a statuette belonging to King Leopold II. Les artistes de Pharaon, Deir el-Médineh et la Vallée des Rois, Louvre, Paris, 19 April -- 5 August 2002
