Fodor's Expert Review Workers' Town and Cemetery

In the 1980s, the discovery of the workers' town and cemetery in the southeastern area of the Giza Plateau confirmed that construction of the pyramids was very much an earthly endeavor—requiring the labor of thousands of human beings—and not, as some conspiracy theorists maintain, the result of intervention by otherworldly aliens.

The site consists of the Lower Cemetery of the Workers, containing the remains of laborers, bakers, brewers, draftsmen, and the like; the Upper Cemetery, where high-ranking supervisors and their families were interred; and the so-called Lost City of the Pyramid Builders (Heit el-Ghurab).

Findings in both the cemeteries and the city—an organized grid of streets with dwellings, storage facilities, and administrative structures—have revealed much about the builders. For instance, archaeologists have determined that although skeletal remains show signs of a life of hard labor, injuries like bone breaks had healed properly, indicating that workers received good medical care. Other findings suggest that workers also had access to both cattle and fish, important sources of protein, and that bread was manufactured on an industrial scale in several large bakeries.