Hello, this is Matt from the Explorers podcast. I want to invite you to join me on the voyages and journeys of the most famous explorers in the history of the world. These are the thrilling and captivating stories of Vigelin, Shackleton, Lewis, and Clark, and so many other famous and not so famous adventures from throughout

history. Go to Explorespodcast.com or just look us up on your podcast app. That's the Explorers

podcast. Around 1290 BCE, give or take, a worker near Deer El Medina, the village of the tomb builders,

sat down to write a note.

His name was Pabaki, he was a scribe, and he was part of a work team building tombs or monuments

on the west bank of Wased, modern Luxor.

Alas, Parbaki had recently welcomed a new member to his team.

He had done so at the request of his father, but the new worker was proving an issue.

Grabbing a shard of yellowish-gray pottery, Parbaki picked up a pen, dipped it in ink, and wrote a short letter.

Quote, a message from the scribe, Parbaki, to his father, the scribe of the outlines,

Mani Naqdef. He says, I heeded what you told me when you said, let Ibi work with you.

But look, he spends all day bringing a jug of water, even though there is no other task

assigned to him.

Every day, he has not heeded your admonition when you said, what have you accomplished today?

Behold, the sun has set, and he is still far away with the jug of water."

In the hills west of Wasset, the desert looms large.

Builders working at the Valley of the Kings, Queens, the Nobles' tombs, and Deer El Medina itself,

all relied on deliveries of water to slake their thirst.

These would come in jugs, either carried by donkeys or slung across poles and held on the shoulders of porters.

Alas, the newcomer Ibi was not pulling his weight.

Literally.

Harbaki wanted it fixed.

...