“Heit el-Ghurab Ties to Kromer’s Dump.” AERAGRAM vol 22 no 1-2, page 5.Ģ021. “Stamp Seals from the Heit el-Ghurab in the Time of Khafre and Menkaure.” AERAGRAM vol 22 no 1-2, page 36.Ģ021. “Journeys of the Pyramid Builders.” ArchaeologyJuly/August.Ģ021. The Red Sea Scrolls: How Ancient Papyri Reveal the Secrets of the Pyramids. Boston: Ancient Egypt Research Associates.Ģ022. Ancient Egypt Research Associates’ Object Typology. Malak, Emmy, Claire Malleson, and Ali Witsell. Chicago: University of Chicago Oriental Institute, pages 45-50.Ģ022. “Giza Plateau Mapping Project.” Oriental Institute 2021-2022 Annual Report. A construction project on this scale had never been undertaken before.Ģ022. A major goal is to understand how pyramid-building-marshaling and coordinating a workforce and goods on a massive scale-contributed to the development of the Egyptian state, one of the first in the world. Since discovering the site, AERA has been clearing and excavating targeted areas to determine the layout and functions of the settlement. The fact that this site was in use for such a short time period makes it invaluable for us as a time capsule of the pyramid builders. Tools, equipment, and supplies still of use were carried away, while timbers and mudbricks were pulled out to be reused elsewhere, leaving walls and roofs to collapse. With the completion of the Menkaure’s pyramid, this large and busy settlement was decommissioned and demolished. Massive royal silos stood in a large compound where the grain was distributed to create the beer and bread used to help feed this massive workforce. ![]() During the annual Nile inundation, these materials were ferried by boat to the town’s doorstep on long extinct waterways, while at other times they were hauled there by men and animals. Raw materials from across Egypt flowed into the site for building, furnishing, and decorating the pyramid complexes and for producing the workforce’s food, clothes, shelter, tools, and equipment. The town’s streets and alleyways were lined with craft workshops, industrial yards, bakeries, commissaries, kitchens, warehouses, small houses, and stately homes/offices for site administrators. Here craftsmen made statues and furnishings for the temples, as well as the tools and equipment for actually creating the mortuary structures, while support staff worked to provide the town with food and basic supplies. This vast town not only housed the workers who built the pyramid complexes, but also those who sustained the town and its workforce. ![]() Its large population of laborers, craftsmen, managers, and administrators all directly or indirectly worked toward the single goal of erecting their king’s eternal home. Purpose-built by the crown, this city served as the base of operations for constructing the great pyramid complexes of kings Menkaure, Khafre, and probably Khufu. The 4th Dynasty settlement we discovered here proved to be an urban settlement that sprawled across more than 7 hectares (over 17 acres). In December 1988, we began excavating a previously unknown site 400 meters south of the Sphinx that was near a monumental stone wall known in Arabic as Heit el-Ghurab (or “Wall of the Crow” in English). In the 1980s Mark Lehner began to ask himself where was the “construction site trailer” and workshops for the building site? And where were all the people - the administrators overseeing the work, the managers, craftsmen, cooks, and workers? In other words, where was the pyramid city? At other Egyptian monumental structures, archaeologists had found nearby settlements that were the base of operations for the construction projects, but no one had ever discovered where the Giza pyramid builders lived. In the past most people who asked “How were the pyramids built?” focused on hauling and hoisting limestone, but we knew that far more went into the building of the pyramids. Building the pyramids of Giza was no small matter.
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