Recently discovered tombs in Egypt indicate that their occupants worked on and helped construct the Great Pyramids of Giza, proving that these ancient monuments were not actually built by enslaved people. In modest three-meter shafts, more than a dozen skeletons of pyramid builders have been found, preserved by the desert’s dry sand, alongside beer jars and even bread intended for the afterlife. These mud-brick tombs were uncovered near the Great Pyramids, outside a burial site first discovered in the 1990s and dating to the 4th Dynasty (approximately 2575–2467 BC), on the outskirts of modern-day Cairo.
Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian often called the “father of history,” once described the pyramid builders as enslaved individuals—a view most Egyptologists consider a myth. Popular fiction and Hollywood filmmakers have perpetuated this myth, portraying the builders as victims of a cruel ruler. Egypt’s chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, stated that the findings show the workers were hired laborers, not enslaved people: “The workers were not recruited from slaves, which was common in Egypt at that time.”
Egyptologists argue that one common and often repeated myth is that the pyramids were built by Israelites. Amihai Mazar, a professor at the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says this myth originated from a misstatement by former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. During a visit to Egypt in 1977, Begin reportedly claimed that the Jews built the pyramids. Mazar disagreed: “No Jews built the pyramids because Jews didn’t exist at the time of their construction.”
Dorothy Resig, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review in Washington, D.C., said this idea likely stems from the Old Testament book of Exodus, which states: “So the Egyptians enslaved the children of Israel with harshness (Exodus 1:13), and that Pharaoh forced them to work on building cities.” Mazar continues: “If Jews built anything, it was the city of Ramesses, as Exodus explicitly mentions.” According to The Guardian, Dieter Wildung, former director of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, said that “in serious Egyptology, it is well known” that the pyramid builders were not slaves. “The myth of slaves building these pyramids is merely a fabrication of tabloids and Hollywood,” Wildung asserts. “The world simply couldn’t believe that the pyramids were built without oppression and forced labor, but out of loyalty to the pharaohs.”
Zahi Hawass explains that the builders came from low-income families from both the north and south of the kingdom. Those who died during pyramid construction were honored with burials in tombs next to the sacred pyramids of their pharaohs. The proximity of these tombs and the burial methods used to prepare the builders for the afterlife support this theory. Hawass continues: “Under no circumstances would they have been buried with such honor if they had been slaves.”
The builders’ tombs contained no gold or other valuables, which protected them from tomb raiders throughout antiquity. The bodies were not mummified, but the skeletons were found in a fetal position: heads facing west and legs facing east, according to ancient Egyptian beliefs. They were surrounded by vessels once filled with supplies for their journey into the afterlife.
“The people who built these incredible monuments to their kings of the ancient world also regularly consumed meat and generally worked in shifts of three months at a time. Evidence indicates that about 10,000 workers laboring on the Great Pyramids consumed 21 head of cattle and 23 sheep sent to them daily from farms.” Ten thousand workers spent 30 years building just one pyramid, representing a tenth of the total workforce. According to Hawass, Herodotus visited Egypt over two thousand years after the pyramids were completed, around 450 BC, so he may have written his account based on legends or stories from his contacts there, rather than a more reliable factual record.
Adel Okasha notes that the builders’ lives were harsh: “Although these people were not slaves, the pyramid builders led an incredibly difficult life full of hard labor.” He also observes that “their skeletons show significant signs of arthritis, and the lower vertebrae indicate a life lived in hardship. Their bones tell us how hard they had to work.” Okasha further notes that the skeletal remains show healed fractures and evidence of excellent medical care. The workers had the necessary medical attention to continue their labor.
Wildung believes that the builders could have left voluntarily. Nevertheless, they chose to continue their work: “This discovery ultimately confirms the assumption that all pyramid builders were free people, ordinary citizens. But let’s not exaggerate; they lived short lives, and tomographic studies of the skeleton show they suffered from poor health, most likely due to hard labor.”
In the past, extracting DNA from Old Kingdom genetic material was virtually impossible. The desert heat quickly destroyed the material. However, in a recent study, scientists from the Francis Crick Institute and Liverpool John Moores University sequenced the oldest known Ancient Egyptian genome. Using the remains of a skilled potter who lived 4,500 years ago during the pyramid-building era, researchers published the first-ever whole-genome sequencing of a human from the Old Kingdom. Adeline Morez-Jacobs, a visiting researcher at Liverpool John Moores University and the study’s first author, said: “Combining all the data from this individual’s DNA, bones, and teeth allowed us to build a complete picture. We hope future DNA samples from Ancient Egypt will help pinpoint exactly when this movement from West Asia began.”
According to the researchers, 80% of his ancestry traces back to ancient people living in North Africa. The remaining 20% can be traced to ancient people living in the Fertile Crescent, particularly in modern-day Iraq. The data shows that extensive networks of migration and kinship existed in the ancient world. The genetic evidence also supports archaeological findings. During the pyramid-building era, Egypt used tools and crafts from other regions, such as the Mesopotamian potter’s wheel, as migrants shared their skills and traded their goods. Using skeletal analysis, chemical analysis, and genetic sequencing, bioarchaeologists have created profiles of individual citizens from the pyramid era. Linus Girdland-Flink, a lecturer in ancient biomolecules at the University of Aberdeen, visiting researcher at LJMU, and co-author of the study, said: “This potter made an extraordinary journey. He lived and died during a critical period of change in Ancient Egypt, and his skeleton was discovered in 1902 and transferred to the Liverpool World Museum, where it survived bombings during ‘The Blitz’ that destroyed most of the human remains in their collection. Now we’ve been able to tell part of this individual’s story, discovering that some of his ancestors came from the Fertile Crescent.”
Using DNA obtained from the skeletons of workers who built the pyramids, the research team hopes to reconstruct the genetic profiles of those who erected the monuments for the pharaohs.
Building the pyramids was no easy task. The workers’ skeletons show that their muscles were strained and their bones broken. But perhaps they felt a tremendous sense of purpose and even satisfaction as the pyramid rose from the desert sand. Scientists believe that the discoveries about the pyramid builders mean more than just resolving academic debates. “It touches on issues of cultural ownership, the legacy of colonialism, and the very definition of African identity. Understanding the available evidence is crucial to moving beyond simplistic and often ideologically driven narratives,” they say.
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