Whether in Near Eastern studies or in Egyptology, the poor (and poverty more generally) are a subject that remains relatively unexplored. There are several reasons to explain this situation. First is the matter of choices made by scholars who have focused on certain subjects and social groups perhaps easier to study or at least considered more appealing. Then there are the issues of definition(s). Nowadays, there are economic criteria that define poverty on the basis of a conventionally fixed threshold. However, it is not possible to apply this kind of criteria to antiquity. It would be anachronistic and on such a basis, most of the poor of today would then appear to be the rich of the past. Poverty in ancient societies can therefore only be a relative poverty which, as some sociological studies have shown, can take many forms that are not just economic ones. Furthermore, there is the problem of sources, the nature of which may partly explain the limited number of scientific studies dedicated to the poor. Indeed, most texts and images that have survived to the current day were produced only by and for the elites. The need for other sources is therefore imperative, making the contribution of archaeology crucial as it provides evidence coming directly from the poor themselves, even if this is not without raising other concerns. This paper will thus expand on all the different reasons that make it difficult to write a history of the poor, and will introduce the questions and problems that will be discussed over the two and a half days of the conference.