There are a lot of different ideas about who built the Pyramids in Egypt. A lot of the time, they are about aliens from the past, lizard people, the Freemasons, or a technologically advanced civilization that has been lost.
Scientists have tried to fight these silly ideas but have failed. But Egyptian scholars have had another wrong idea about how the pyramids were built for hundreds of years: slaves did not build the pyramids.
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The strongest evidence suggests that the people who worked on the pyramids were from the area and were paid well and fed well. This is known because their tombs and other things that show how they lived have been found by archaeologists.
The Lives of Pyramid Workers
A surprising number of simple tombs for pyramid workers were found not far from the tombs of the pharaohs in 1990. Inside, archaeologists found all the things that pyramid workers would need to get to the afterlife. These are simple things that common slaves probably wouldn’t have been given.
But that’s not all. Archaeologists have also spent years digging up a huge complex that they think was home to thousands of workers on the side. The place is known as Heit el-Ghurab, and it was probably part of a bigger port city on the Nile River.
Food, supplies, and building materials for the pyramids came from all over the area to this port city. In the ruins of Heit el-Ghurab, they found signs of large barracks where at least 1,600 workers could have slept together. Archaeologists also found a lot of evidence of the many foods they ate, such as a lot of bread and a lot of meat from animals like goats, sheep, cattle, and fish.
Graffiti from these workers can also be seen on the buildings they made. The Egyptian writing was hidden on blocks inside the pyramids so no one would ever see it. They write down the names of different work groups, such as “the Drunkards of Menkaure” and “the Followers of the Powerful White Crown of Khufu.” (Each gang was named after a different pharaoh from that time.)
In Egypt, other marks show towns and regions. Some of them look like mascots for groups of workers, and they have pictures of animals like ibises on them.
These hieroglyphs help archaeologists figure out where the workers were from, what their lives were like, and who hired them. Archaeologists have not found any evidence of slavery or work by people from other countries.
At the same time, there is a lot of proof that Egypt collected labor taxes. That’s why some researchers think workers may have been sent on tours of construction, kind of like national service. It’s not clear, though, if that means the workers were forced to do what they did.
