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The Old Fox's Library · Episode 1
The Great Pyramid wasn't built by slaves
Forget the old films. The Great Pyramid wasn't built by slaves.
Twenty years, over two million blocks, a gleaming white casing later carted off to build Cairo, the workers' town with its bakeries and breweries, and the 4,500-year-old logbook of an inspector called Merer.
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What the fox said
Pull up a chair. Tonight's page: the Great Pyramid of Giza.
It was built for a pharaoh called Khufu, around four and a half thousand years ago.
It took around twenty years, and more than two million stone blocks. Many of them heavier than a car.
For almost four thousand years, nothing built by human hands stood taller.
And it didn't always look like this. It was covered in polished white limestone that gleamed in the desert sun.
Most of that casing was later stripped away, and carted off to build Cairo.
Now, forget the old films. It wasn't built by slaves.
Archaeologists found the workers' town. Bakeries, breweries, and the graves of the builders, buried with honour beside the pharaoh.
The work crews even gave themselves names. Painted inside the pyramid, one reads: Friends of Khufu.
Then, in 2013, archaeologists found the oldest written papyrus ever discovered.
It was the logbook of an inspector called Merer, shipping limestone down the Nile to the pyramid.
And here's one to keep. Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the building of this pyramid.
Close the book. Keep your nose to the wind.
Sources
- The Great Pyramid's builders were paid labourers, not slaves: excavations at Giza found a workers' town with bakeries and evidence of brewing (Mark Lehner / Ancient Egypt Research Associates, AERA).
- Workers' tombs were found beside the pyramids at Giza in the 1990s (Zahi Hawass, excavations at Giza, 1990s).
- In 2013 papyri found at Wadi al-Jarf, the oldest inscribed papyri known, included the logbook of an official called Merer recording boat shipments of Tura limestone to Giza (Pierre Tallet, Wadi al-Jarf excavations, 2013).
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