Cats, coffins and sick notes: discovering Egypt’s forgotten workers in broken pottery

<p>Cambridge exhibition showcases the lives of skilled workers who built some of the most famous sites in ancient Egypt</p><p>More than 3,200 years ago at a workshop near Thebes in Egypt, a man called Nakhtamun grabbed a broken piece of pottery and scribbled on it an urgent order for a craftsman to make him four windows.</p><p>“It’s a job to do four of this type exactly. Exactly!” he wrote in hieratic characters, a form of writing derived from hieroglyphics. “But hurry, hurry, by tomorrow. I will let you know!” Beneath his demanding message, Nakhtamun sketched the windows he wanted, with their precise dimensions – the character for “height” is a figure of a tiny person with their arms raised aloft.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/oct/02/egypt-uk-cambridge-museum-exhibition-culture-art-history">Continue reading...</a>