Egyptologists and historians have long debated the question of who built the Pyramids, and how. Standing at the base of the Pyramids at Giza it is hard to believe that any of these enormous monuments could have been built in one pharaoh's lifetime. Yet scholars think they were built over mere decades for three pharaohs who were father, son, and grandson (Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure).
Mark Lehner and Zahi Hawass agree wholeheartedly: Egyptians built the Pyramids. But who were they exactly?EnlargePhoto credit: © Ugurhan Betin/iStockphoto
Egyptologists Mark Lehner and Zahi Hawass have been trying to solve the puzzle of where the 20,000 or 30,000 laborers who are thought to have built the Pyramids lived. Ultimately, they hope to learn more about the workforce, their daily lives, and perhaps where they came from. In the meantime, Lehner has been excavating the bakeries that presumably fed this army of workers, while Hawass has been unearthing the cemetery for this grand labor force.
The two scholars believe that Giza housed a skeleton crew of workers who labored on the Pyramids year-round. But during the late summer and early autumn months, when the Nile flooded surrounding fields, a large labor force would appear at Giza to put in time on the Pyramids. These farmers and local villagers gathered at Giza to work for their god-kings, to build their monuments to the hereafter. This would ensure their own afterlife and would also benefit the future and prosperity of Egypt as a whole. They may well have been willing workers, a labor force working for ample rations, for the benefit of man, king, and country.
In the following interviews, Mark Lehner and Zahi Hawass address the long-standing question of who actually built the Pyramids at Giza:
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