Secrets of the Pharaohs: Part 2 - Archaeology Magazine Archive


Secrets of the Pharaohs: Lost City of the Pyramids	February 21, 2001
by Mark Rose

First aired February 20, 2001

Part 1 | Part 3

[image]

The sun sets behind the Giza pyramids, the only wonder of the ancient world to survive and until the end of the nineteenth century the world's tallest structures. (Courtesy PBS)

The second video in the three-part Secrets of the Pharaohs series, the Lost City of the Pyramids, focuses on recent work at Giza--excavations by Mark Lehner and Zahi Hawass, study of the human remains found there plus some DNA analyses, and a look at how the pyramids were built and what that tells us about ancient Egyptian society. Familiar to readers of ARCHAEOLOGY, the soft-spoken Lehner ("What we've been doing so far is opening small windows onto this ancient reality. It's this information brings the people back to life, that allows us to reconstruct their life.") and the exuberant Hawass ("When we write about this in the history book, in the archaeology book, it will be the most important chapter in this book.") appear throughout the video.

Once the video gets going, we join Lehner as he walks through the bakeries and fish-processing facilities he has excavated. Hawass then gets a turn and shows off the nearby tombs, more than 600 of them, that he has investigated, beginning with the story of the tombs' discovery by a horse (not related to the donkey who found the Bahariya Oasis mummies). Buried there, we learn, are laborers in unadorned tombs on a lower level and overseers and other big people in fancier ones on an upper level.

What picture do we get from the excavations? The animal remains, we are told, include evidence of "prime cuts" of beef from animals under two years of age. Tomb inscriptions tell of the hierarchy of overseers, work gangs, etc. The pyramid workers were well fed on beer, bread, fish, and beef, and well organized. The question--who were they?--takes us to Cairo, where the skeletal remains are shipped for study. A bioanthropologist covers the basic demographics: the adults are divided evenly between males and females, and children (as young as two months) amount to 23.6 percent of all individuals. The miracle of DNA analysis, illustrated by somebody dropping a whole bone into a blender and other laboratory scenes, is then invoked to determine that the deceased were family groups, illustrated by a re-creation of an ancient Egyptian family scene. We then return to visual examination of the bones, seeing evidence for a broken arm, an amputated lower arm, and many compressed vertebrae. Those workers may have been well fed, but they lived physically demanding lives. This is underscored by the comment that the workers died an average ten years before nobility. Nonetheless, the broken arm (which may have been set) and the amputation are taken as evidence of care provided for the workers.

The Greek historian Herodotus, writing two millennia after the pyramids at Giza were constructed, says that 100,000 slaves did the work. Old silent movie footage of slaves being whipped as they drag massive blocks is used to illustrate how Herodotus has influenced our perceptions. Hawass is skeptical of the figure, and proposes an 80-percent reduction, with a core of 5,000 fulltime specialists and administrators plus 15,000 laborers--volunteers, not slaves, says Hawass--who worked 12-hour days for three months, then returned to their villages.

[image]

Dramatic photography shows a skull in the cemetery of the pyramid workers at Giza. (Courtesy PBS)

In an interesting experiment, American contractor Craig Smith is called in. Familiar with managing large-scale construction projects, like airports, Smith is primed with what we know of Old Kingdom construction methods: stone and flint implements from the tombs, copper-working, and quarrying at Giza (partially cut-out blocks and ramps along which stones were hauled), an inscription depicting a colossal statue being dragged using ropes and water (to reduce friction), and results of failed stone-levering experiments inspired by Herodotus' tale of how blocks were moved. Smith gets to work, first determining how the pyramids were built. Computer modeling shows that a ramp built perpendicular to one side of the pyramid's base was most economical for positioning blocks until the structure reached one-third of its height (at which point one-half of the blocks would have been laid). Only then would the ramp be built, more narrowly since the blocks farther up would be smaller, spiraling around the upper part of the pyramid. A ramp spiraling up all the way from the base, explains Smith, would require much more fill and construction time. Having established the most economical way to build a pyramid, he looks at the numbers of people required. Surprisingly, Smith says it could be done in only ten years: two or three for preparation, five for the actual construction, and two to remove the ramp and finish the site. This schedule would require 40,000 workmen during the peak years, four through six. Lehner and Hawass believe more time was used, perhaps 20 years, which would bring the annual labor pool down toward the figure proposed by Hawass.

All of the evidence from the Giza excavations--food, tombs, family groups, and medical care--suggests to Lehner and Hawass something quite different than Herodotus and Hollywood's notions of masses of abused slaves. The video returns to this topic at the end. Hawass notes that in the Giza cemetery there are small mud or stone pyramids, showing this was a funerary monument used by all people. For him, the building of the pyramids was an act of devotion to the pharaoh and a matter of national pride. DNA analysis is invoked a second time--the ancient and modern Egyptians are of the same stock, we are told, and regional differences discernable today existed in the past. Egyptians from throughout the Nile Valley labored at Giza, says Hawass. Lehner likens pyramid building to an Amish barn raising--the work was obligatory but the people were not averse to it. Ultimately, Lehner looks to the pyramids for what they can tell us about the rise of Egypt and Egyptian society. What is interesting, he says, is how the pyramids built Egypt rather than how the Egyptians built the pyramids.

There are a couple of "startling secrets" and "fabled lost city of the pyramid builders" moments at the beginning of the video, but the narration and clips of researchers are generally well done and informative. In fact, I'd like to see more about just this site and the studies of the finds from it, especially about the DNA analysis and the human bones from the cemetery and the animal bones from the production area. Not enough information is given to evaluate the interpretations from the snippets in the video. Dating is sketchy at best, whether for particular pharaohs (no dates are given for Khufu, Khafre, or Menkaure, for whom the pyramids were built) or for the production facilities excavated by Lehner (important for linking them with the actual construction of the pyramids) or the tombs investigated by Hawass (how many of the 600-plus burials date from the time the pyramids were being built and how many are later). This may be a quibble, but it may be important given the interpretations presented in the video all assume that the remains are from the construction phase and not succeeding generations.

A variety of reconstructions are employed in the video. Some are live--such people baking bread in the Old Kingdom way, hauling blocks, or setting a bone fracture--and they are basically okay, though the scenes of Menkaure being carted about in a sedan chair are a bit campy. There are also computer-generated graphics of the pyramids, being built after completion. Hybrid scenes using live-action foregrounds and computer-generated backgrounds of the are of mixed quality. Those showing the a partially built pyramid in the background with workers in the foreground work well, those showing a model boat floating in water and the completed pyramids in the background are less successful. Significantly, it is the quality of the live-action foreground (e.g. the laborers or boat model) that determines the success of the hybrid scenes.

Lost City of the Pyramids presents a coherent picture of how the pyramids at Giza were built and by whom in an enjoyable way. If there are minor complaints, there are simply that. The only real concern is that the video encapsulates so much evidence that the story Lehner and Hawass weave from is presented as fact, with no way for the viewer to evaluate the evidence. While I like the story, at the same time I wonder if the idea of happy laborers voluntarily working for a paternal pharaoh isn't going too far in the opposite direction from the old view.

MARK ROSE is Managing Editor of ARCHAEOLOGY.

For more on Mark Lehner and Zahi Hawass's work at Giza, see the following articles in ARCHAEOLOGY: "The Great Sphinx of Giza," special section in September/October 1994, pp. 30-47 and "Builders of the Pyramids" (pp. 30-38) and "Tombs of the Pyramid Builders" (pp. 39-43) in January/February 1997. See also, "Dating the Pyramids," September/October 1999, pp. 26-33.

Secrets of the Pharaohs is a three-part series. Part 1: Tut's Family Curse aired February 13, 2001. Part 3: Unwrapping the Mummy aired February 27. To purchase ($49.98 for the series, $19.98 for individual videos), call 1-800-336-1917. The companion book, Private Lives of the Pharaohs, can be ordered at the same number for $25.00. At http://www.pbs.org you can find more information about the series, a timeline, maps, and links to Egyptology sites.

See also our reviews of Tut's Family Curse and Unwrapping the Mummy.