From 2005 to 2009, a survey and excavation project was undertaken at the Stone Village, a small settlement on the eastern desert plain of Amarna, not far from the Workmen's Village. This was the first concerted effort to record this site and introduce it into the story of Amarna. The fieldwork revealed a community of labourers likely engaged in tomb-cutting and related tasks, including at the Royal Tombs, but of lesser social standing than the occupants of the Workmen's Village. The piecing together of diverse strands of archaeological evidence sheds light on their experiences, the Stone Village serving jointly as a new source for the study of Amarna's vernacular urban architecture. The results of the fieldwork are presented in two volumes, the first devoted to the survey, excavation and architecture, and the second to the faunal and botanical remains, and objects.

Anna Stevens is a research archaeologist, specializing in Ancient Egypt, with a particular interest in exploring how everyday material culture and urban space can shed light on the experiences of people whose lives are rarely reflected in formal architecture and texts. Much of her research focuses upon the New Kingdom city of Akhetaten (modern Amarna), and includes the ongoing study of the city's non-elite cemeteries, funded by the National Endowment of the Humanities and other sources. She is the Assistant Director of the Amarna Project and an Affiliated Scholar at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge.