Craftsmen usually worked together in workshops, and depending on the nature of their craft, would be based in either temple or palace workshops. Those catering towards the local community were based in smaller local workshops.

Deir el-Medina. This New Kingdom workman's village was located in Thebes and around one hundred or so people, including children, lived in the community, together with a significant number of "foreigners". In addition to the names of the viziers and other high officials who oversaw from Thebes, the names, families, and other details of the workmen’s lives are known. The tomb of Sennedjem and his wife and family is probably one of the best known.

Deir el-Medina  has produced an incredible wealth of material providing invaluable information about the way these people lived: their marriages, inheritances, divorces, legal business and advice from the gods. Scribes would use papyri and pieces of limestone (ostraca) as notepads, and thousands of these were discovered inscribed with letters, notes, records, and many other kinds of evidence concerning the lives of the men and their families, most dating from the 19th and 20th dynasties.

After a century of occupation the town was deserted. Whatever the reason, the inhabitants of the town left suddenly, practically overnight, leaving behind many of everyday belongings, including high-quality tools, papyri, serving-dishes, 'magical' wands and masks.

Giza. The Old Kingdom worker's villages of the Giza plateau are currently being excavated. Since the reign of Snefru, an entire town was associated with each pyramid, full of people employed to maintain the king’s afterlife. New villages and agricultural estates were founded, specifically to supply the pyramid cult and those who worked for it.

To build and maintain the pyramids an enormous support system must have existed. Production, facilities for food, pottery, building materials, and supplies, storage depots, and housing for the workmen and those responsible for servicing the pyramid temples were necessary. Evidence of a sewage system was uncovered. The oldest known paved street, with drainage facilities, and the oldest known hypostyle hall have been found here.

Although nowhere to the scale of a royal burial, tomb workers and craftsmen from Deir el-Medina were buried in often elaborate and highly decorated tombs.

The tomb of the worker Sennedjem has a tiny underground chamber that contained his body and that of his wife and several relatives - twenty in all, nine enclosed in coffins, eleven simply wrapped in bandages. The nine coffins housed the bodies of Sennedjem and his wife lyneferti, his son Khonsu and his wife Tamaket, and his other four children. The coffins and funerary furniture found in the vault are exquisite pieces, and recall the high quality of the tomb paintings.