How Giza build?

Answer 1

Shortly after ascending the throne circa 2589BC, Pharaoh Khufu commands Hemiunu, his cousin and overseer of works, to prepare a burial place in keeping with his status as a god-king, a pyramid tomb far grander than anything that had been built before or since. A site was chosen on the Giza plateau west of the Nile not far from his capital at Memphis. Great care was taken in orientating the site to the four points of the compass and in levelling the site to provide a foundation for Khufu's Great Pyramid. When the slaves had cleared away the sand and cut the site roughly to shape highly skilled masons were called in to level the foundations. This was done by cutting a grid of channels and filling them with water. The rock was then cut back to the water level to make it perfectly flat. Finally the water was drained away and the channels filled with rubble.

At any one time as many as 20,000 workers may have been involved on this massive project. Some of them were free men doing particular tasks such as masons, tool makers, carpenters, scribes and slave overseers. The remainder and by far the majority were slaves, naked slaves too low in status to wear clothes.

Through Khufu's reign, the construction site teemed with workers of all kinds hard pressed to complete the monument before the king's death. Day after day, year after year, the quarries buzzed with activity. Through the dust the sun baked bodies of the quarry slaves stand out dark against the yellow stone. Gangs of slaves bore holes using primitive drill bits and sand which acted as an abrasive. After they had drilled cores deep enough to define a block on one side, they packed the holes with pieces of porous wood and then doused it with water. The wood expands so fast that the block splits out with a crack. After the stone blocks are extracted from the quarry face they are strapped onto sledges. A mark is made on the stone by a scribe. This aided them to place the blocks in the pyramid just as they came out of the quarry ensuring a good fit without further finishing.

From dawn to dusk, gangs drag the sledges loaded with stones each weighing about 2.5 tons to staging areas at the base of the pyramid. Most of the stone blocks proceed up the ramp without future handling. Only a fraction of the stone blocks needed to be cut to precise dimensions by the masons. The slaves begin hauling the loaded sledges slowly up the clay and rubble ramp that spiralled around the emerging structure. The noise here is one of chanting slaves and the rumble of heavy sledges. Naked under the burning sun and streaming with sweat, the slaves bend to their thankless task.

At the working level teams of slaves called setters, using nothing more than primitive levers, brute force and experience from hard labour, shift the blocks from the sledges into their designated positions. Once the stones are delivered the hauling gang would make their way down the ramp carrying their sledge, in order to make the same back breaking journey up as they would several times a day. Toiling below were the support workers and guards under the watchful eyes of the Pharaoh's project managers, the scribes.

Other slaves are employed in maintaining and extending the ramps as the pyramid grew. These ramps are made of rubble, bound together with desert tafla (a type of clay) and laid with planks to ease the passage of the ramps. Rows of slave labourers are seen breaking up waste material from the quarries, mixing them with the desert tafla clay and loading the finished mixture into baskets. Individual baskets are loaded onto the shoulders of slaves for delivery to the ramp builders on the pyramid.

Boats made from reeds deliver brilliant white limestone from Tura just across the river. Here the slaves, in light provided by primitive lamps, toil in manmade caves to obtain the best stone. This stone will be used for the outer case of the pyramid. Once put in place and polished the effect will be awe inspiring.

Giant reed barges brought granite from Aswan over 400 miles upriver. Some of these granite stones weigh as much as 70 tons. Copper chisels used for quarrying limestone could not be used, a harder material was required. Balls of dolerite, a hard, black igneous rock, are used in the quarries of Aswan to extract the hard granite. These dolerite "pounders" were used to pulverize the stone around the edge of the granite block that needed to be extracted. To achieve this, a team of naked slaves would pound out the stone over a period of several days. At the bottom, they ram wooden pegs into slots they have cut, and fill the slots with water. The pegs will expand and split the rock with a resounding crack much more impressive than anything heard with the softer limestone. Then with hundreds of slaves hauling on ropes the great blocks are lowered onto long sledges. Long lines slaves, their unclothed sun baked bodies gleaming with sweat, drag the blocks to the river where they are loaded onto the barges.