Dier el Madina was for seven hundred years the most extraordinary environment. Housing from seventy to a hundred plus families in a specially designed walled city space. Devotedly researched and excavated for over thirty years by the Czech archaeologist Professor Jaroslav Cerny we know much about these gifted artisan engineers who built and decorated the magnificent tombs of The Kings in the adjacent valleys.
There is a wonderful site predicated on Dier el Madina. St-Maat,
http://www.st-maat.org/
You must visit even if you have to switch off Rusticana to do so, You can return here when ever you want.