Pyramid Builders Were Not Slaves - 4,000-Year-Old Skeleton DNA Proved

Newly discovered tombs in Egypt are revealing that their occupants worked on and helped build the Great Pyramids of Giza, providing evidence that enslaved people did not, in fact, build these ancient monuments. The modest 9-foot shafts hold over a dozen skeletons of pyramid builders, preserved by the desert's dry sand, along with jars of beer and even bread for the afterlife. These mudbrick tombs were uncovered near the Great Pyramids, stretching beyond a burial site first found in the 1990s and dating to the 4th Dynasty (approximately 2575 BC to 2467 BC), on the fringes of the present-day capital, Cairo.

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The Slave Myth that Refuses to Die

Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian, often called the “father of history,” once described the pyramid builders as enslaved people, a claim most Egyptologists say is a myth. Popular fiction and Hollywood filmmakers have propagated the myth, portraying the pyramid builders as abused victims of a cruel ruler. Egypt’s chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, said the finds show the workers were paid laborers rather than enslaved people: "the workers were not recruited from slaves commonly found across Egypt during those times".

Reconstruction of the Fourth Dynasty Giza Plateau showing the Lost City of the Pyramid Builders (Heit el-Ghurab). From The Lost City of the Pyramids project. (The Lost City of the Pyramids project/Ancient Egypt Research Associates)

Egyptologists say one popular myth that is widely perpetuated is that the Israelites built the pyramids. Amihai Mazar, a professor at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says the myth stemmed from an erroneous claim by the former Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin. During a visit to Egypt in 1977, Begin was reputed to have claimed that Jews built the pyramids. Mazar disagreed, “No Jews built the pyramids because Jews didn’t exist during the period when the pyramids were built.”

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Archaeology vs. Popular Culture

Dorothy Resig, an editor with Biblical Archaeology Review in Washington, DC, said the idea probably originated in the Old Testament book of Exodus, which says: “And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor (Exodus 1:13 KJV), and that the Pharaoh put them to work constructing cities. Mazar goes on to say, “If the Hebrews built anything, then it was the city of Ramses as directly mentioned within Exodus”. According to The Guardian, Dieter Wildung, the former director of Berlin’s Egyptian Museum, said it is “common knowledge in serious Egyptology” that the pyramid builders were not enslaved people. “The myth of the slaves building these pyramids is only the stuff of tabloids and Hollywood,” Wildung maintains, "The world simply could not believe the pyramids were built without oppression and forced labour, but out of loyalty to the pharaohs."

Reconstruction of an administrative house in the Lost City of the Pyramid Builders (Heit el-Ghurab), Giza Plateau, Egypt. From The Lost City of the Pyramids project. (The Lost City of the Pyramids project/Ancient Egypt Research Associates)

Cemeteries Beside the Pyramids

Zahi Hawass explains that the builders came from low-income families in both the north and south of the kingdom. Those who died during the construction of the pyramids were given the great honor of being buried in tombs near their pharaohs' sacred pyramids. The proximity of these tombs and the manner of burial given to these builders in preparation for the afterlife support this theory. Hawass continues. “No way would they have been buried so honorably if they were slaves.” 

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The builders’ tombs contained no gold or other valuables, thereby safeguarding them from tomb raiders throughout antiquity. The bodies weren’t mummified, but the skeletons were found in a fetal position, the head pointing to the west and the feet to the east, according to ancient Egyptian beliefs. They were surrounded by jars once filled with supplies for their journey to the afterlife.

Excavations of Galleries III.3 and III.4 at the Lost City of the Pyramid Builders (Heit el-Ghurab), Giza Plateau, Egypt. From The Lost City of the Pyramids project. (The Lost City of the Pyramids project/Ancient Egypt Research Associates)

Feeding Thousands of Workers

“The men who built these incredible monuments to their kings of the ancient world also ate meat regularly and worked mainly in three-month shifts. The evidence indicates that the approximately 10,000 laborers working on the Great Pyramids ate up 21 heads of cattle and 23 sheep sent to them daily from farms.” Ten thousand workers labored for 30 years to build just one pyramid, a tenth of the workforce. According to Hawass, Herodotus visited Egypt over two thousand years after the pyramid construction was complete, around 450 BC, so that he may have written his account based on legends or stories from his contacts there, rather than a more factual report.

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What the Skeletons Reveal About the Builders’ Daily Lives

Adel Okasha points out that the builders’ lives were difficult: “Though these men weren’t slaves, the pyramid builders led an incredibly tough life made up of hard labor.” He also notes that “Their skeletons have significant signs of arthritis, and their lower vertebrae point to a life passed in difficulty. Their bones tell us a story of how hard they had to work.” Okasha also notes that the skeletal remains show healed fractures and evidence of excellent medical treatment. The workers had healthcare that they needed to continue in the workforce. 

Wildung believes that the builders were free to leave. Still, they chose to continue their work: “The finding ultimately reinforces the notion that the pyramid builders were all free men, ordinary citizens. But let’s not exaggerate here; they lived a short life, and tomography skeletal studies show they suffered from bad health, very much likely because of how hard their work was."

Artist's reconstruction of a vaulted gallery building at the Lost City of the Pyramid Builders (Heit el-Ghurab), showing workers living and carrying out daily activities beneath barrel-vaulted roofs during Egypt's Fourth Dynasty. (The Lost City of the Pyramids project/Ancient Egypt Research Associates)

DNA Breaks: Isolation Myths

In the past, extracting DNA from Old Kingdom genetic materials was almost impossible. Desert heat rapidly degraded the material. In a recent study, however, scientists from the Francis Crick Institute and Liverpool John Moores University have sequenced the oldest known genome from ancient Egypt. Using the remains of a skilled potter who lived 4,500 years ago during the time of pyramid construction, researchers published the first-ever whole-genome sequencing of an Old Kingdom individual. Adeline Morez Jacobs, Visiting Research Fellow at Liverpool John Moores University and first author of the study, said:

“Piecing together all the clues from this individual’s DNA, bones, and teeth has allowed us to build a comprehensive picture. We hope that future DNA samples from ancient Egypt can expand on when precisely this movement from West Asia started.”

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According to the researchers, 80% of his ancestry is mapped to ancient individuals who lived in North Africa. The remaining 20% could be traced to ancient individuals who lived in the Fertile Crescent, particularly in modern-day Iraq. The data show that extensive human migration and relationship networks existed across the ancient world. The genetic data also support the archaeological evidence. During the pyramid construction era, tools and crafts from other regions, such as the Mesopotamian potter’s wheel, were also used in Egypt as migrants shared their crafts and sold their goods. Using skeletal analysis, chemical breakdowns, and genetic sequencing, bioarchaeologists have created profiles of individual citizens from the pyramid era. LinusGirdlandFlink, Lecturer in Ancient Biomolecules at the University of Aberdeen, visiting Researcher at LJMU, and co-senior author, said:

“This potter has been on an extraordinary journey. He lived and died during a critical period of change in ancient Egypt, and his skeleton was excavated in 1902 and donated to the World Museum Liverpool, where it then survived bombings during the Blitz that destroyed most of the human remains in their collection. We’ve now been able to tell part of the individual’s story, finding that some of his ancestry came from the Fertile Crescent.”

Using DNA from the pyramid workers’ skeletons, the research team hopes to reconstruct the genetic profiles of those who built the monuments to the pharaohs.

Building the Pyramids Required a Strong Back and a Resilient Spirit

Building the pyramids was not an easy job. The workers’ skeletons show that their muscles were strained and their bones broken. But they may have felt great purpose and even a level of pleasure as the pyramid rose out of the desert sand. Mohamed Samir, writing in Daily News Egypt, believes the discoveries about pyramid builders mean more than resolving an academic debate. “It touches on cultural ownership, the legacy of colonialism, and the very definition of African identity. Understanding the evidence is crucial to moving beyond simplistic and often ideologically driven narratives.”

Top Image: The Great Pyramid of Khufu, Giza, Egypt. Photograph by [Photographer's Name], Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Source: kallerna/CC BY-SA 3.0

By Ramsey Hardin 

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