How Were the Egyptian Pyramids Built? - Part 6
‘They Were Not Slaves’ - Mark Lehner
Marking the end of the 6 part series How Were the Egyptian Pyramids Built?’ is an article written by Jonathan Shaw for Harvard Magazine on the discovery of the ‘city of the pyramid builders’ by Mark Lehner.
Lehner tells how he first travelled to Egypt in 1973 with the hope of discovering the fabled “Hall of Records” thought to be located beneath the paws of the Sphinx and stayed for 13 years. Lehner relates his experiences on the plateau, his work with the Stanford Research Institute’s remote sensing project at the Sphinx and the pyramid and the mapping of the Sphinx, sponsored by the American Research Centre in Egypt (ARCE) which ultimately expanded to the larger task of mapping the entire plateau.
Spurred on by Harvard professor of Egyptology George Reisner’s observation that there was probably a “pyramid city” located beyond ‘the wall of the crow’, a wall built from very large stones, Lehner investigated the area and discovered the settlement of workers who had built the pyramids.
“The question of who labored to build them, and why, has long been part of their fascination. Rooted firmly in the popular imagination is the idea that the pyramids were built by slaves serving a merciless pharaoh. This notion of a vast slave class in Egypt originated in Judeo-Christian tradition and has been popularized by Hollywood productions like Cecil B. De Mille’s The Ten Commandments, in which a captive people labor in the scorching sun beneath the whips of pharaoh’s overseers. But graffiti from inside the Giza monuments themselves have long suggested something very different.
Until recently, however, the fabulous art and gold treasures of pharaohs like Tutankhamen have overshadowed the efforts of scientific archaeologists to understand how human forces—perhaps all levels of Egyptian society—were mobilized to enable the construction of the pyramids. Now, drawing on diverse strands of evidence, from geological history to analysis of living arrangements, bread-making technology, and animal remains, Egyptologist Mark Lehner, an associate of Harvard’s Semitic Museum, is beginning to fashion an answer. He has found the city of the pyramid builders. They were not slaves.”
Read the full article: Who Built the Pyramids?
More information on the Giza Reports and the Giza Mapping Project can be found at the AERA website. The site has some great features such as an interactive map of the Lost City, an overview of the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) as well as highlights of some of the artifacts discovered. Other resources offered on the website include free document downloads of the official newsletter of Ancient Egypt Research Associates, and articles from Journals written by Mark Lehner.
AERA was established in 1985 “for the purpose of funding and facilitating the research of the Giza Plateau Mapping Project”.
