The best examples of houses of the ordinary worker in ancient Egypt can be seen at the modern Deir el-Medina where the craftsmen and artists who constructed the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings lived for more than 500 years. Similar villages were situated around the Giza pyramids, where the people lived who were responsible for the cult of the dead king.
The town at Deir el-Medina was a walled settlement of about 70 houses for the workers and their families. The village had one entrance only with a central street and narrow houses on both sides. The houses had four rooms; one behind the other. The front room often had a mud-brick raised dais or bench decorated with figures of the benevolent god Bes. The second room was larger with storage space under the floor, whereas the third one also served as a storage area. The last room was open to the sky and could have been the cooking area.
Their tombs and temples of their local gods are nearby. They prepared the tombs of their masters and in the process decorated their much smaller tombs in a similar fashion. Their tiny funerary complexes included a vertical shaft with the burial chamber and another small room, a small mortuary temple. A small pyramid with an extra room where the stelae or tombstones were kept covered this temple.