This New Exhibition Explores the Lives of Ancient Egyptian Makers

These talented craftspeople specialized in ceramics, sculpture, jewelry, stonemasonry, coffin decorating and other art forms

Sarah Kuta | Daily Correspondent

October 8, 2025

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Archaeologists have unearthed troves of artwork from ancient Egypt, from intricately decorated coffins to colorful wall paintings. But how were they made? And who was responsible for creating these masterpieces?

A new exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, attempts to answer these questions, offering a glimpse into the lives and careers of ancient Egyptian makers—the talented craftspeople who specialized in ceramics, sculpture, jewelry, stonemasonry, coffin decorating and other art forms.

Called “Made in Ancient Egypt,” the exhibition includes finished and unfinished artworks, as well as sick notes, work orders, invoices and instructions. Together, the artifacts—which primarily date from roughly 4,500 to 1,800 years ago—are intended to help museumgoers understand ancient Egyptian artists’ technical processes, as well as how they lived, worked and worshiped.

Wandering through the exhibition is meant to feel like “shaking hands with the ancient Egyptians,” says Helen Strudwick, the museum’s senior curator of the ancient Nile Valley, to the Art Newspaper’s Alexander Morrison.

“I really hope that at the end people feel that they get them in a different—and perhaps even better—way,” she adds.

Much of what Egyptologists know about makers and artisans comes from two ancient villages, Deir el-Medina and the “lost golden city” of So’oud Atun, reports Artnet’s Jo Lawson-Tancred.

First excavated in the 1920s, Deir el-Medina was inhabited by specialized makers—including stonemasons and hieroglyphic artists—from roughly 1550 to 1080 B.C.E. Archaeologists know these individuals worked two four-hour shifts each day over the course of an eight-day work week, then got to take two-day weekends. As state employees, they enjoyed middle-class status.

“We know the individuals who lived in these houses,” Neal Spencer, the museum’s deputy director, tells Artnet. “We know what their names were, what they did, we know a lot about their family, their family trees.”

So’oud Atun, meanwhile, was discovered in 2020 and is still being excavated today. The city’s residents fled in a hurry around 1346 B.C.E., leaving behind everyday objects as if they simply stepped out for a few hours but planned to return. Archaeologists have discovered a variety of objects that likely belonged to artisans, such as textile needles, amulet molds, and tools for tasks like leatherwork and glass production, per Artnet.

“It’s very much a snapshot in time—an Egyptian version of Pompeii,” Salima Ikram, an archaeologist at the American University in Cairo, told National Geographic in 2021.

Archaeologists have also been able to gain insights into the lives of artisans by poring over “ostraca,” or notes jotted down on small pieces of limestone or broken pottery. Ancient Egyptians used ostraca like notepads, writing out their laundry lists, letters, receipts, doodles and even divorce records.

Several ostraca are on display at the Fitzwilliam Museum, including one that describes how an entire group of workers at the Valley of the Kings took two days off to attend a funeral. “You imagine it was a beer-fueled sendoff,” writes Jonathan Jones in a review of the exhibition for the Guardian.

Another explains that a worker named Panebu took the day off after being bitten—though it doesn’t mention who or what bit him. And a 3,200-year-old example, on loan from the Louvre in Paris, is a receipt for decorating a coffin, which cost as much as three months’ wages.

One piece from between 1295 and 1186 B.C.E. appears to be an order for windows, complete with a drawing of a man raising his arms to show how big the windows needed to be. The text reads: “It's a job to do four of this type exactly, exactly! Hurry, hurry by tomorrow.”

Curators hope these and other artifacts will help make ancient Egyptian makers more relatable, demonstrating how they grappled with many of the same concerns and issues we still do today. “We can all recognize the tone of voice of the man who needed his windows the next day,” Strudwick tells the BBC’s Katy Prickett.

“Made in Ancient Egypt” is on view at the Fitzwilliam Museum from now through April 12, 2026.

Sarah Kuta | Read More

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.