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Pyramid builders and a rich diet

24 April 2013
Archaeology

The notion that slaves, or the lower orders of society, from any origin (foreign or inigenous) built the pyramids is given another blow by recent discoveries associated with the Giza pyramid complex – see www.livescience.com/28961-ancient-giza-pyramid-builders-camp-unearthed.html

A large catering enterprise accompanied the building projects which involved an awful lot of meat. We've seen that enormous amounts of meat were consumed when the Stonehenge complex was being built, or rearranged (the Riverside Project led by Mike Parker-Pearson) and now we find a massive enterprise at the 'workers' town which has been found not far from the Sphinx. This is thought to be just the workers involved in the third pyramid, of Mycerinus, and had a lifetime of around 30 years. Around 4000lb of meat from cattle, sheep and goats were slaughtered every day (an average figure) in order to fuel the workers and provide them with the necessary nourishment and energy. Clearly, these people were not deprived as far as diet was concerned and one can assume there was a certain amount of jostling involved in getting on the team. After all the diet was far superior than the surrounding agricultural workers – no gruel or stew made with bones and gristle here.

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