THE oi.uchicago.edu ORIENTAL I NEWS & NOTES NO. 135 FALL 1992 © THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO EXCAVATIONS AT GIZA 1988-1991: The Location and Importance of the Pyramid Settlement By Mark Lehner, Associate Professor of Egyptology, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago Eight years ago I rendered the Giza to see if this change from labor camp limestone from quarries across the Pyramids Plateau in an isometric to temple community could be traced Nile Valley that were used for the fine drawing adapted from existing contour in the archaeological record. outer casing of the pyramids. Other maps to illustrate how the landscape material also had to be delivered: raw affected the mobilization of the Fourth Geomorphology at Giza presents foodstuff for the workers, fuel for Dynasty Egyptians (ca. 2550 B.C.) for important clues about the location of preparing bread and beer, the im­ the building of the Great Pyramid of the third millennium settlement. A mense quantities of gypsum mortar Khufu, the first pyramid on the plateau wadi or valley separates the used in building the Giza pyramids, (fig. 1). I thought that this first major Mokattam Formation, on which the copper tools, etc. Geological borings construction project must have pyramids rest, from the Maadi Forma­ in the area indicate a quay or revet­ determined the way that the rest of the tion to the south (fig. 2). This wadi, ment of some kind just a little further architecture and settlement developed known as the "Main Wadi," probably north of the mouth of the Main Wadi across the landscape over the three served as the conduit for building in front of the Khafre Valley Temple. generations of pyramid building at materials brought into Giza from A colossal wall built of stones as large elsewhere, such as the granite and fine Giza. continued on page 2 The location of the workmen's settlement is particularly interesting since the estimates of their numbers ranging from 100,000, according to Herodotus, to 20 or 30 thousand, according to modem Egyptologists, were comparable to the popUlations of sizable cities anywhere in the Near East in the third millennium. The scientific excavation of such a settle­ ment could tell us something about how the pyramids were built and what affect pyramid building had on the development of Egypt as a nation. Each pyramid was a functioning temple site at the same time that major construction continued on the next pyramid. A settlement attached a ritual center might differ signifi­ cantly from one that involved a large labor force. Giza continued to be a ritual center well after the din of building moved back to Saqqara and on to Abu Sir. It would be interesting Figure 1. Tbe Giza Plateau, witb tbe Great Pyramid 01 Kbulu in tbe center. oi.uchicago.edu as those in the pyramids extends that the builders could extract yet In 1991 the Giza Plateau Mapping 200 meters from the south side of the more tafla. With little hope of finding Project had two seasons of survey and wadi (fig. 2). domestic architecture in Area B, we excavation, the spring season lasted divided the 1988-89 team in two from May 8 until June 18, and the fall­ We know that after the completion of crews, sending one crew to work in winter season from October 15 until the three pyramid complexes, the area Area C, at the so-called Workmen's December 13. Our work was made north of the stone boundary wall was a Barracks located to the west of the possible once again through the harbor district since the three valley Khafre Pyramid (fig. 2), and the other interest and generosity of David Koch temples of the three pyramids would crew to work in Area A, where the and Bruce Ludwig, with additional each have had access to a harbor. It unique find of two bakeries was made. funds from The CKiental Institute. seems that the southern areas of Giza, Fiona Baker with Sheldon Gosline in the sandy bowl on top of the Maadi (spring) and Peter Piccione (fall) Formation (fig. 2, Area B) and the low AREAC served as square supervisors. desert just to the south of the stone Located in Area C is a great rectangu­ wall (Area A), would be the place to lar enclosure, formed by walls of In the spring season of 1991, Area A look for workers' accommodations. broken limestone, tafla, and alluvial was already the primary focus of our EXCAVATIONS AT AREAS A, B, AND C mud, measuring 400 meters north­ interest. Since we backfill the areas When the "Giza Plateau Mapping south and 80 meters east-west. There we excavated at the end of each Project" was launched for the 1988-89 are about 100 galleries, 30 meters season, we were able to reopen the season from Yale graduate school, a long, arranged in a comb-like pattern squares dug in 1988-89 and continue collaboration began with Dr. Zahi fonned by walls attached to the our investigation of this building. I had Hawass, General Director of Giza and western and northern walls of the thought that this building in AA was a Saqqara for the Egyptian Antiquities enclosure. Petrie dug two of the granary, but our latest investigations Organization (EAO). This collabora­ galleries and concluded that these cast serious doubt on this early tion and the support of David Koch, were the barracks of workmen, an interpretation. There is now good Bruce Ludwig, and the William K. and identification that is still recognized. evidence that small square compart­ Marilyn M. Simpson Endowment for Our excavations, however, have ments (as opposed to round grain Egyptology made it possible to provided little evidence that people silos) stood on the pedestals, albeit investigate ideas about the settlement lived there. Most of the galleries had over the spaces between the pedestals. and ancient logistical support of been stripped clean in antiquity, but Several seal impressions retrieved pyramid building. what evidence was left indicated only from the alleyway between this craft and storage activities. building and a partially excavated At the very beginning of the 1988-89 alluvial mud building to the east season, a walking survey showed that mention the w ~bt of Menkaure. W~bt, we could forget about domestic AREA A derived from the root denoting "pure" architecture in Area B since clay-like in Egyptian, is a teno for "embalming marly limestone (tafla) could be During five short weeks of excavation workshop." A w (bt can include exposed by simply scraping the loose in 1988-89, we opened five 5 x 5 workshops with metal workers, sand in the bottom of this sandy bowl meter squares (AI-6, later designated joiners, painters, and draughtsmen. with the edge of one's shoe. It looked AA in the fall season of 1991) about W(bt may refer in a more general like the bowl may have been widened 250 meters to the south of a large sense to the royal administrative unit by quarrying for tafla, a major ingredi­ stone wall and close to the sandy responsible for equipping the grave, ent in construction ramps, roads, and eastern slope of the Maadi Formation including storage of offerings and craft embankments at Giza, and in the (fig. 3). Here we revealed the ruins of production for funerary products. architecture that we found in Area A. a building that was certainly not The huge stratified dump of settlement residential. It is rectangular, 9 meters The spring season of 1991 marked the debris-mud bricks, fishhooks, flints, long (north-south) and 6 meters wide return to excavations at Giza after a ivories, ashes, sherds, and bones-that (east-west). Its walls and floor were hiatus of two years. In the interim, an Austrian team under Karl Kromer plastered carefully with tafla. A Zahi Hawass had made many discov­ excavated in the early 1970s in Area central wall divides the building down eries. Construction work for a sewage B (fig. 2) might indicate that a its axis, and on either side there is a system for the nearby village of settlement existed here at one time, series of low rectangular pedestals, Nazlet es-Samman uncovered evi­ which was probably razed and dumped about 50 to 70 centimeters in width dence of the causeway of the Khufu in the northeast comer of the bowl so and 120 centimeters in length. Pyramid as well as basalt slabs that 2 oi.uchicago.edu Figllre 2. Map 01 Ori."""'nstitute exca.,.,ions, witlt the IIMGin Wfldi ll in th./owtr Ith. may belong to the Khufu Valley gives a panoramic view of the royal meters to the southeast of the large Temple. The EAO supervised borings pyramid precinct to the north (fig. 4). stone wall. We designated this area throughout Nazlet es-Samman and Our first trench was placed against the A7 (fig. 3). When we cleaned out the monitored a continuous trench along wall within contour loop 19 (near the backhoe trench and peeled the sand the Mansouriyah Canal, which runs top of fig. 3). back in a 15 x 20 meter square, we through the center of the town. This could immediately see a series of wall Augusta patiently excavated to the work indicates that Old Kingdom foundations composed of stone rubble base of the wall through a massive material, probably from the context of in a compact surface. The walls, which deposit of limestone chip construction a settlement, is very wide spread are nicely oriented north-south, debris. The wall is 10 meters in height, under the modern town.