The sandy ground, the dry air, the clean skies, make it a perfect place to see limestone pyramids from 4700 years ago. You are honestly used to the crazy trips your parents take you on. Your parents are a “vacation-phile” while you are a “vacation-phobic”. The tour guide says these square blocks of limestone were carried by slaves. You wondered how the slaves carried the limestones up the big structure. Then you wonder, were the Pyramids built by slaves? Let’s pop this balloon to find out!
What are the Pyramids?
The Pyramids of Egypt are giant stone monuments built as tombs for the pharaohs, Egypt’s ancient kings. Their four sloping sides meet at a point, a shape thought to represent the sun’s rays reaching down to earth. The largest, the Great Pyramid of Giza, was built around 2560 BCE from about 2.3 million stone blocks, mostly limestone, with granite inside. Each block averages about 2.5 tons. It was originally covered in polished white limestone that made it shine in the sun. At about 146 meters (481 feet) tall, it was the tallest human-made structure in the world for nearly 3,800 years. Its sides line up almost perfectly with north, south, east, and west. Egypt has more than 100 pyramids, and the earliest was the Step Pyramid of Djoser, built around 2670 BCE. The Great Pyramid is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing. The Great Pyramid took about 20 years to build.
Were the Pyramids built by slaves?
No, the Pyramids were not built by slaves. They were built by paid workers. This myth most likely came from the Greek historian Herodotus. He visited Egypt around 450 BC — roughly two thousand years after the pyramids were built — and wrote that slaves built them. Hollywood spread that version to a mass audience. According to archeology, in 1988, Mark Lehner uncovered a purpose-built workers’ village at Giza called Heit el-Ghurab. It had dormitories, bakeries producing bread jars by the thousand, bureaucratic name stamps and seals tracking the operation, and evidence of medical care. Workers were buried in tombs right beside the pyramids, with proper Egyptian funerary rites.
Fun Facts
A pyramid work crew gave themselves a team name and wrote it on the wall. “The Friends of Khufu Gang” — four and a half thousand years ago, builders tagging the job site. Herodotus got the workforce wrong by a factor of ten — and he’s the reason everyone believes the slavery story. One tourist’s write-up, two thousand years late, shaped what the whole world thinks. Around 10,000 workers were fed roughly 21 cattle and 23 sheep a day, shipped in from farms across Egypt — and they got good cuts.