HistoryThe Early Dynastic Period and the Old Kingdom

The State That Built the Pyramids

Pyramids needed an organized state: a vizier, scribes, taxes in grain and labor, quarries, boats and a fed, housed workforce.

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A pyramid like Khufu's needed stone, tools, boats, food and thousands of people, organized for twenty years or more. It is a monument to a king, and also to a state: the officials, scribes and work crews who could plan and run a project on that scale.

Key idea

Pyramids needed an organized state: a vizier at the head of the government, scribes to keep accounts, taxes in grain and labor, quarries, boats and canals, and a workforce that was fed, housed and cared for. The evidence points to organized Egyptian crews, not huge gangs of slaves.

The evidence from Giza

  • The workers' town: south of the Giza pyramids, excavations led by Mark Lehner uncovered bakeries, breweries, storerooms and barracks, with the bones of many cattle, sheep, goats and fish eaten there.
  • The workers' tombs: on the slope above the town, excavations led by Zahi Hawass found the tombs of overseers and workers, some with titles. Skeletons show hard labor and also healed fractures, a sign of medical care.
  • The crews' own names: work gangs painted names like "Friends of Khufu" on blocks.
  • The Diary of Merer: papyri found in 2013 at Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea, the oldest inscribed papyri known, are the logbook of an official named Merer whose crew carried limestone by boat from the Tura quarries to Giza late in Khufu's reign.

Why it works

Grain was Egypt's wealth. The state collected it as tax and paid it out as rations of bread and beer. During the inundation, when the fields were under water, many farmers could be called up for state work. A permanent core of skilled builders worked all year, while larger rotating crews came and went.
The Great Pyramid's passages and chambers, to scale (simplified).

What is known and what isn't

We know where the stone came from, how it was cut with copper tools and stone pounders, and that it was moved on sledges and boats. Exactly how the blocks were raised, by straight, zigzag or spiral ramps or some mix, is still debated. That is an honest gap in our knowledge, and archaeologists keep testing ideas against the remains.

Worked example: Weighing a story

The Greek writer Herodotus, about two thousand years after Khufu, said 100,000 men labored in shifts on the Great Pyramid. How should a historian use this?
  1. Herodotus wrote long after the event and repeated what guides told him.
  2. The excavated town, tombs and papyri are evidence from Khufu's own time.
  3. Modern estimates from that evidence are in the tens of thousands at most, including people who baked, brewed and hauled.

Answer: As a late story to be tested against the archaeology, which points to a smaller, well-organized workforce.

Common mistake

Picturing huge gangs of slaves. The workers' town, bakeries, tombs and the Diary of Merer point to organized, fed Egyptian crews, some skilled and some called up for a season. Ideas that others (or a lost civilization) built the pyramids are rejected by archaeologists, because the builders left their town, tools, graves and records.

Practice

Pass with 3 right answers, the last 2 in a row. Each right answer earns 2 XP.

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Builds on

Leads to

This is one of the top rungs of History of Ancient Egypt.

Sources and further reading

  • Ian Shaw, ed., The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (Oxford, 2000), ch. 5
  • Wikipedia, "Giza pyramid complex"
  • Wikipedia, "Diary of Merer"
  • Wikipedia, "Heit el-Ghurab"
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