Source: Dr. Mark Lehner, quoted in “How Egypt’s Great Pyrami…
Source: Dr. Mark Lehner, quoted in “How Egypt’s Great Pyramid Changed Civilization” Scientific American, 2015.When Lehner and his team began excavating the site, they expected to find a modest encampment at most—a handful of nondescript buildings where poor, low-status laborers would have eked out their miserable existence each night. Instead the team uncovered something far more elaborate—a city whose layout and architecture had been carefully preplanned by Khufu’s regime. The buildings each contained hearths and sleeping platforms for 20 people—the number of men in a work team—plus an extra room that may have been for their overseer. South of the Gallery Complex stood the bakeries and breweries, as evidenced by the bread ovens and beer jars found in the remains of the buildings there. South of the bakeries lies a large building next to what appear to be silos for storing grain and an enclosure wall that may have been used as a corral for livestock. West of the bakeries is a neighborhood that boasted big houses. The garbage dumps in this area showed that the residents here were eating a lot of very expensive veal, and clay sealings found in the vicinity bear the titles of high-ranking individuals, suggesting that the buildings served as the homes and offices for the city’s administrators. Far from being treated little better than slaves, the estimated 6,000 residents appear to have lived quite comfortably. The findings suggest that after a long day’s work of unloading the barges, the pyramid builders would have headed into town to eat. The smell of baking bread and brewing beer would have wafted from the bakeries. Meat would have been offered, too—probably goat for the crew, beef for the foreman. And remains of distinctive ceramic shipping containers suggest that they may have had access to olive oil imported from the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, a frill unavailable to most Egyptians. Question: What evidence does Mark Lehner use to study the pyramid workers?