Notes

Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a set of tombs that they believe to belong to workers who died during the construction of the Great Pyramids of Giza. The Great Pyramids house the mummies of Egyptian kings (or pharaohs). According to experts, the centuries-old burial chambers are conclusive evidence that contrary to popular myth, Egypt's ancient pyramids were built by paid laborers, not slaves.

In the shadows of the Great Pyramids, situated outside present-day Cairo, archaeologists found a series of modest tombs containing a dozen skeletons. The bones were perfectly preserved by dry desert sand. The skeletons were found surrounded by pots and jars once filled with supplies for the afterlife, including food and beverages. Zahi Hawass is head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. According to Hawass, the newly discovered tombs are over 4,000 years old. They date to the Fourth Dynasty, a period spanning 2575 BCE (Before the Common Era) to 2467 BCE. This is the period during which the Great Pyramids were erected.

Archaeologists believe the tombs, which are made of mud brick, belong to laborers who built the Great Pyramids. According to Hawass, it was typical for workers' tombs from the Fourth Dynasty to be made of mud brick. Archaeologists also believe the recently discovered tombs belong to laborers, as opposed to kings or others of higher rank, because they were lacking gold or other valuables. Also, the bodies were not mummified.

According to popular belief, the builders of the Great Pyramids were slaves. However, experts on ancient Egyptian history and culture—called Egyptologists—have long dismissed the notion as myth. The discovery of workers' tombs so close to the Great Pyramids, Hawass says, proves the idea wrong once and for all.

"These tombs were built beside the king's pyramid, which indicates that these people were not by any means slaves. If they were slaves, they would not have been able to build their tombs beside their king's."

So where did the myth come from? Experts have several ideas.

Dorothy Resig is an editor of Biblical Archaeology Review in Washington D.C. Resig suspects the myth likely arose from the biblical book of Exodus, which says:

"So the Egyptians enslaved the children of Israel with backbreaking labor [and the pharaoh put them to work to build buildings]."

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian. He also described the pyramid builders as Israelite slaves. This myth was later spread, Egyptologists say, by Hollywood films.

Dieter Wildung is the former director of Berlin's Egyptian Museum. "The myth of the slaves building pyramids is only the stuff of tabloids and Hollywood," said Wildung. "The world simply could not believe the pyramids were built without oppression and forced labor, but out of loyalty to the pharaohs." Wildung added that it is "common knowledge in serious Egyptology" that the pyramid builders were not slaves. The pyramids were constructed hundreds of years before the Israelites were said to be in Egypt, he said.

The newly discovered tombs reinforce the notion that the builders of Egypt's Great Pyramids were indeed free, ordinary citizens. Slaves or not, however, the pyramid builders did lead a life of hard labor. According to Adel Okasha, supervisor of the excavation, the skeletons in the recently discovered tombs display signs of arthritis. In addition, their lower vertebrae reveal lives passed in difficulty.

"Their bones tell us the story of how hard they worked," Okasha said.

The laborers' work on the pyramids, Hawass said, was highly respected—so much so that those who died during construction were bestowed the honor of being buried near the sacred structures built for the pharaohs.

"No way would they have been buried so honorably if they were slaves," Hawass said.In the United States, some like to think that with hard work and good luck, people can "strike it rich" and live a life of ease, but in ancient Egypt, that wasn't the case. People were separated into classes, and it was hard to move from one class to another. Royalty made up the top class. The ruling class, which included members of the king's family, priests, and top officials who assisted the king, came next. Soldiers were next, followed by scribes, who kept historical and business records and therefore had to be well educated. Merchants, who could become wealthy in business, were next. Skilled artisans who made jewelry, pottery, tools, and other useful or decorative goods ranked a little lower in society because they worked with their hands, but they could also make money by selling their goods. For this reason, they were usually wealthier than the people who ranked below them. Farmers, servants, and slaves were at the bottom of the social scale.

The article "Who Built the Pyramids? Now We Know!" states that the pyramid builders weren't slaves. So what class did they come from? It's possible that they were drawn from the lower social classes. We know that in ancient Egypt, farmers had to do more than just grow crops and tend livestock—they were often called upon to quarry stone and build monuments. The workers who built the pyramids might have been drawn from this class. Farmers weren't exactly "owned" like slaves, although they might have been required to work for someone from a higher class. One author suggests that these labor responsibilities were sometimes bought and sold, so it's possible that if a nobleman wanted to build a monument, he could buy labor from people to whom it was owed and use that labor for his own purposes. This might have been the source of the labor you read about in the article.

The people assembled to build royal tombs often lived in towns built especially to house them during the work. Many lived in multi-family dwellings like apartment buildings, which were made of stone. They had few furnishings, apart from bed frames and a few baskets for storage, and people sat either on the floor or on low stools—only some homes had tables. Just as it was throughout Egyptian society, the richer you were, the more furnishings you had. As you read, class divisions even outlasted life itself: High-ranking people were buried in stone tombs full of valuables, while people of lower classes were buried in tombs made of mud brick.