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claws and he stank worse than fish excrement... The field-hand cries out more than the quail. His voice is louder than the raven's. His fingers have become ulcerous with an excess of stench. When he is taken away to be enrolled in Delta labour, he is in tatters. He suffers when he proceeds to the island... if he comes back from the marshes there, his house has fallen down, for the forced labour has ruined him... But if you understand writings, then it will be better for you than the professions I have set before you."

"There is no office free from supervisors, except the scribe's. He is the supervisor!"

(from the Satire of the Trades, a Middle Kingdom scribal instruction text)

Obviously the description of other trades in this text cannot be taken entirely at face value since the author wanted to extol the virtues of the scribal profession, but it does demonstrate the importance attached to the profession. Scribes were everywhere, at the counting of the taxes and tithes that saw Egypt through famine to the enrolment of soldiers to protect the land and the empire, scribes were an essential and valued part of society. They helped run the temples, they often supervised others at work on royal projects such as the tombs of the Valley of the Kings, and they accompanied the army to record victories and plunder. Thus, they fall below the wealthy nobility, but above the skilled craftsmen and peasant farmers in Egyptian society. The profession of scribe often ran in the family, so there was potential for families to become quite powerful as administrators and bureaucrats.

The skilled craftsmen and peasant farmers must have made up the majority of ancient Egypt's population (estimates vary from 70% to nearly 90% of the total population). Again, with many of the professions and ranks in Egypt, it often passed from father to son. Skilled craftsmen were valued for their ability to produce necessary goods, including the funerary goods sealed up in tombs. There are instances of whole villages being dedicated to the manufacture of royal funerary goods and the construction of tombs, the best example being the Workmen's Village of Deir el Medina near the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank of Thebes. This village was occupied for almost three hundred years, and provided a unique view of life in an ancient Egyptian village. The residents were responsible for the construction of royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings and the adjacent Valley of the Queens. They also manufactured

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