In the field: New workers' tombs discovered at Giza

A collection of tombs that belong to workers who built Khufu’s pyramid has been discovered in the area of the workmen’s tombs on the Giza plateau, Culture Minister Farouk Hosni announced.

Hosni added that the tombs were found by an Egyptian excavation team led by Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). Dr. Hawass said that the tombs are dated to the 4th Dynasty and belong to workmen who built the pyramids of Khufu (2609-25840 BC) and Khafre (2576-2551 BC).

“This is the first time to uncover tombs like the ones that were found during the 1990’s, which belong to the late 4th and 5th Dynasties (2649-2374 BC),” asserted Hawass, pointing out that this group of tombs can be considered one of the most important discoveries of the 20th and the 21st centuries, as they shed more light on the early period of the 4th Dynasty, as well as contradicting rumors that the pyramids were constructed through slavery.

“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,” concluded Hawass.

The most important tomb is the one belonging to Idu. It is rectangular in structure with a mud brick outside casing covered with plaster. It has several burial shafts cased with white limestone, as well as niches in front of each shaft.

Adel Okasha, supervisor of the excavation, said that the upper part of Idu’s tomb had a vaulted shape, symbolizing the eternal hill from which the human creation began, according to the Memphis religious tradition. This shape, said Okasha, is strong evidence that this tomb dates to the early 4th Dynasty. This shape is also similar to those of tombs located beside Snefru’s pyramid in Dahshur.

On the western side of Idu’s tomb, the mission uncovered another collection of workmen’s tombs as well as the remains of coffins, while on its southern side another large tomb has been found. It is a rectangular shaped tomb built of mud brick with several burial shafts, each one containing a bent skeleton along with sherds of clay.

Evidence uncovered also revealed that the families in the Delta and Upper Egypt sent 21 cattle and 23 sheep to the plateau every day to feed the workers. Hawass pointed out that the families who sent these were not paying their taxes to the Egyptian government, but rather they were sharing in one of Egypt’s national projects. The number of workers did not exceeded 10,000, said Hawass, contradictory to Herodotus, who recorded that the number of workers reached 100,000.

Hawass said that this discovery indicates that the workers came from top families of the Delta and Upper Egypt. Workers rotated every three months, and those who were buried there died during the construction process.

Dr. Hawass asserted that according to science and archaeology we cannot fix a time for the construction of the pyramid. Limiting it to a specific season is wrong as it was based on incorrect information that the construction process was only executed during the three months of the flood. The transportation of the granite, basalt and limestone blocks used in the construction was only conducted during the flood season, but the construction work was not limited to this season, and lasted for the whole year. The blocks used in the construction of the body of the pyramid were brought from the Giza plateau itself.

The discovery of the cemetery of the pyramid builders occurred in 1990 when a horse was stumbled on top of a mud brick structure ten meters far of the necropolis located to the south of the wall. The necropolis is composed of two levels connected by a ramp. It is composed of different shapes and styles of tombs, some are pyramid shaped while others are vaulted and some contain false doors.

Discoveries like these reveal other aspects of ancient Egyptian society besides just the stone monuments and temples frequented by priests, rulers and nobles, explained Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo.

''It is important to find tombs that belong to lower class people that are not made out of stone that tell you about the social organization and the relative wealth of a range of people,'' she said.

Workers' tombs from the 4th Dynasty were typically made of mud bricks and shaped like cones and covered in white plaster, probably echoing the nearby limestone-clad pyramids of the kings.

The most important new tomb discovered, according to Hawass, belonged to a man named Idu and the statement described it as rectangular in structure, with a plaster covered mud brick outside casing.

Egyptian archaeologists discovered a new set of tombs belonging to the workers who built the great pyramids, shedding light on how the laborers lived and ate more than 4,000 years ago, the antiquities department said Sunday.

The thousands of men who built the last remaining wonder of the ancient world ate meat regularly, worked in three months shifts and were given the honor of being buried in mud brick tombs within the shadow of the sacred pyramids they worked on.

The newly discovered tombs date to Egypt's 4th Dynasty (2575 B.C. to 2467 B.C.) when the great pyramids were built, according to the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass.

Graves of the pyramid builders were first discovered in the area in 1990, he said, and discoveries such as these show that the workers were paid laborers, rather than the slaves of popular imagination.

Egyptian archaeologists discovered a new set of tombs belonging to the workers who built the great pyramids, shedding light on how the laborers lived and ate more than 4,000 years ago, the antiquities department said Sunday.

The thousands of men who built the last remaining wonder of the ancient world ate meat regularly, worked in three months shifts and were given the honor of being buried in mud brick tombs within the shadow of the sacred pyramids they worked on.

The newly discovered tombs date to Egypt's 4th Dynasty (2575 B.C. to 2467 B.C.) when the great pyramids were built, according to the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass.

Egypt’s discovery of a group of ancient tombs of workmen who built the Pyramids of Giza suggests that the workers who built the final resting place of the Pharaohs weren’t slaves, the Culture Ministry said today.

The tombs which date back to the reigns of Pharaohs Khufu and Khafra are part of a complex of workers’ tombs that were first discovered when a horse stumbled upon the necropolis in 1990, the Cairo-based ministry said in an e-mailed statement. Khufu and Khafra ruled between 2609 B.C. and 2551 B.C., it said.

“These tombs were built beside the king’s pyramid, which indicates that these people were not by any means slaves,” Zahi Hawass, the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in the statement. “If they were slaves, they would not have been able to build their tombs beside the king’s.”