Egypt displayed on Monday newly discovered tombs more than 4,000 years old and said
they belonged to people who worked on the Great Pyramids of Giza, putting the discovery forth as more evidence that slaves did not build the ancient monuments.
The series of modest nine-foot-deep shafts held a dozen skeletons of pyramid builders, perfectly preserved by dry desert sand along with jars that once contained beer and bread meant for the workers' afterlife.
The mud-brick tombs were uncovered last week in the backyard of the Giza pyramids, stretching beyond a burial site first discovered in the 1990s and dating to the 4th Dynasty (2575 B.C. to 2467 B.C.), when the great pyramids were built on the fringes of present-day Cairo.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus once described the pyramid builders as slaves, creating what Egyptologists say is a myth later propagated by Hollywood films.
Graves of the pyramid builders were first discovered in the area in 1990 when a tourist on horseback stumbled over a wall that later proved to be a tomb.
Egypt's archaeology chief Zahi Hawass said that discovery and the latest finds last week show that the workers were paid laborers, rather than the slaves of popular imagination.
Hawass told reporters at the site that the find, first announced on Sunday, sheds more light on the lifestyle and origins of the pyramid builders.
Most importantly, he said the workers were not recruited from slaves commonly found across Egypt during pharaonic times.
Hawass said the builders came from poor Egyptian families from the north and the south, and were respected for their work -- so much so that those who died during construction were bestowed the honor of being buried in the tombs near the sacred pyramids of their pharaohs.
Slaves Didn't Build Pyramids: Egypt : Discovery News
and he can't even get rudimentary facts straight. Dude has made a nice living being a proponent of nonsense. It's so demonic.
@ pronouncing Baʻalbak as "bail back"
's.
For what it's worth
