In a letter from Deir el-Medina, an Egyptian village of artisans working on pharaonic tombs during the period of the New Kingdom, Nakhtsobk, the self-described “scribe of the necropolis,” complains to Amennakhte, a workman, about being neglected. “It is only to me that you don’t send anything whatsoever, really this is a rotten day,” Nakhtsobk writes. “What offense have I done against you? Aren’t I your old eating companion?” In another letter from the same village, the sender, possibly Nakhtsobk, writes dejectedly, “It is I who write to you continually, but you never write to me.”