Ancient Egyptian ‘sick notes’, receipts and urgent orders are on display in the new Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition.

Everyday documents from ancient Egypt, from absences at work to urgent building orders, have gone on public display at The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Made in Ancient Egypt opened on October 3, 2025, and is the first exhibition to focus on the people who built one of history’s most remarkable civilisations. It brings to light the daily lives of ordinary Egyptians, from stonemasons and coffin decorators to royal sandal makers.

Revealing their untold stories alongside the technology and techniques behind the extraordinary items on display, the exciting new exhibition brings together jewellery, ceramics, sculpture and more, including spectacular objects never before seen in the UK.

Everyday notes on pottery and stone

The exhibition centres on ostraca – shards of stone or pottery used as notepads by ancient Egyptians. Like a modern envelope or post-it note, ostraca were used for reminders, administrative jottings, orders, receipts, sketches and doodles. Many were discovered in a huge pit close to the workers’ village of Deir el-Medina in Luxor.

Among the highlights is a 3,500-year-old ostracon on loan from the Louvre, Paris, which records absences from work on the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings. One entry notes that a worker named Panebu was away after being bitten by something; another records the foreman Ramery as off sick; while five others also “did not work” that day.

A 3,200-year-old ostracon, also loaned from the Louvre for the first time, is a rare receipt for decorating a coffin. Because the costs of materials were almost never itemised, such receipts provide unique evidence of craftsmanship and value. This record suggests that a complete coffin cost about the same as three months’ wages.

Other ostraca on display include an urgent order for four windows, accompanied by an illustration of a man with arms raised to indicate size and height, with the written plea: “It’s a job to do four of this type exactly, exactly! But hurry, hurry by tomorrow. I will let you know!”

Landmark international loans

The exhibition includes 22 artefacts from the Louvre, the most significant loan from its Department of Egyptian Antiquities to the UK in 20 years, and 29 objects from the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin. The Berlin loans are the largest number ever sent by the museum for a UK exhibition and include one of the famous heads from statues of Amarna princesses.

By combining these written documents with unfinished objects and the results of scientific analysis, the exhibition shows how Egyptian craftspeople worked, how they corrected mistakes, and how they represented themselves both in life and in the afterlife.

“These remarkable ostraca on loan for the first time from our colleagues at the Louvre take us right into the lives of the craftsmen.

We can all recognise the tone of voice of the man who needed his windows the next day. We can sympathise with Panebu suffering from a bite. Mention of the foreman Ramery starts to give us an idea about the organisation of these workers.

The texts on these ostraca are part of a huge body of information about these craftspeople who become living individuals, with similar concerns to us today.”Dr Helen Strudwick, Senior Curator (Ancient Nile Valley) at The Fitzwilliam Museum and curator of the exhibition

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with new research and essays by Helen Strudwick, Alessio Delli Castello, Dimitri Laboury and Sara Hany Abed.