Who is put in a pyramid

And without any secret sophistication or hidden technology, just basically what archaeologists say, this is what these folks had. And they have very specific calculations on every single aspect, from the gravel, for the ramps, to baking the bread.

So I throw that out there, not because that's gospel truth, but because reasoned construction engineers, who plan great projects like bridges and buildings today and earthworks and so on, look at the Great Pyramid and don't opt out for lost civilizations, extraterrestrials, or hidden technologies.

No, they say it's a very impressive job, extraordinary for the people who lived then and there, but it could be done. They are human monuments. What do the inscriptions say? LEHNER: One of the most compelling pieces of evidence we have is graffiti on ancient stone monuments in places that they didn't mean to be shown.

Like on foundations when we dig down below the floor level, up in the relieving chambers above the King's chamber, and in many monuments of the Old Kingdom, temples, the Sun temples, other pyramids.

Well, the graffiti gives us a picture of organization where crews, where a gang of workmen was organized into two crews. And the crews were subdivided into five phyles. The word phyles is spelled p-h-y-l-e-s. It's the Greek word for tribe. The Egyptian word is za. They were divided into five za's. In later times when the Greeks came and in bilingual inscriptions, when somebody was translating za into Greek they used the word phyles, the word for tribe, which is extremely interesting actually.

Were these militaristic kinds of conscripts? Certainly they weren't slaves. Could they actually have been natural communities of the Nile Valley kind of contributing like the way the Inca build their bridges and so on? So the phyles then are subdivided into divisions. And the divisions are identified by single hieroglyphs with names that mean things like endurance, perfection, strong.

OK, so how do we know this—you come to a block of stone in the relieving chambers above the Great Pyramid. And first of all you see this cartouche of a King and then some scrawls all in red paint after it. That's the gang name. And in the Old Kingdom in the time of the Pyramids of Giza, the gangs were named after kings. So for example, we have a name, compounded with the name of Menkaure, and it seems to translate 'the drunks or the drunkards of Menkaure. None of this sounds like slavery, does it?

And in fact it gets more intriguing. Because in certain monuments you find the name of one gang on one side of the monument and another gang, we assume competing on the other side of the monument.

You find that to some extent in the temple, the Pyramid temple of Menkaure. It's as though these gangs are competing. So from this evidence we deduce that there was a labor force that was assigned to respective crew gang phyles and divisions. NOVA: Where did the gangs come from? Were they local people or did they travel from afar?

So that you could be a young man in a village say in middle Egypt, and you had never seen more than a few hundred people in your village, maybe at market day or something. And the King's men come and it may not have been entirely coercion, but it seems that everybody owed a labor tax.

We don't know if it was entirely coercive, or if in fact, part of it was a natural community donation as in the Incan Empire for example, to building projects where they had a great party and so on. But anyway they started keeping track of people and their time on the royal labor project.

And if you were brought from a distance you were brought by boat. So can you imagine floating down the Nile and say you're working on Khafre's Pyramid, and you float past the great pyramid of Meidum and the Pyramids of Dashur, and my God, you've never seen anything like this. These are the hugest things. We're talking about a society where they didn't have cameras, you didn't see yourself age. You didn't see great images. And so here are these stupendous, gigantic things thrusted up to the sky, polished white limestone, blazing in the sunshine.

And then they go on down to Giza and they come around this corner, actually the corner of the Wall of the Crow right into the harbor, and there's Khufu, the biggest thing on the planet actually in the way of a building until the turn of the century—our century. And you see, for the first time in your life, not a few hundred, but thousands, probably, of workers and people and industries of all kinds. And you're rotated into this experience and you serve in your respective crew, gang, phyles and division, and then you're rotated out and you go back because you have your own large household to whom you are assigned on a kind of an estate organized society.

You have your own village, maybe you even have your own land that you're responsible for. So you're rotated back but you're not the same.

You have seen the central principle of the first nation state in our planet's history, the pyramids, the centralization, this organization. And so they must have been powerful socializing forces. Anyway, we think that that was the experience of the raw recruits. But there must have been a cadre of very seasoned laborers who really knew how to cut stone so fine that you could join them without getting a razor blade in between. And perhaps they were the stone cutters and setters, and the experienced quarry men at the quarry wall.

And the people who rotated in and out were those doing all the different raw labor, not only the schlepping of the stone but preparing gypsum and we don't know to what extent the other industries were also organized in the phyles system. But it's quite an amazing picture. And one of the things that really is motivating me now is the question of what vision of society is suggested by a pyramid like Khufu's?

Was it in fact coercive? Was it a militaristic kind of state WPA project? Or is it possible that we could find evidence that would bring Egypt into line with what we know of other traditional ancient societies. Also located at Giza is the famous Sphinx, a massive statue of a lion with a human head, carved during the time of Khafre.

Pyramids did not stand alone but were part of a group of buildings which included temples, chapels, other tombs, and massive walls. Remnants of funerary boats have also been excavated; the best preserved is at Giza. On the walls of Fifth and Sixth Dynasty pyramids are inscriptions known as the Pyramid Texts, an important source of information about Egyptian religion.

The scarcity of ancient records, however, makes it difficult to be sure of the uses of all the buildings in the pyramid complex or the exact burial procedures. It is thought that the king's body was brought by boat up the Nile to the pyramid site and probably mummified in the Valley Temple before being placed in the pyramid for burial. There has been speculation about pyramid construction. Egyptians had copper tools such as chisels, drills, and saws that may have been used to cut the relatively soft stone.

The hard granite, used for burial chamber walls and some of the exterior casing, would have posed a more difficult problem.

Workmen may have used an abrasive powder, such as sand, with the drills and saws. Knowledge of astronomy was necessary to orient the pyramids to the cardinal points, and water-filled trenches probably were used to level the perimeter. Mummies might also be buried with religious artifacts, such as amulets and scarabs. Sacrificial objects intended for use in this new realm found their way into the pyramid tombs as well.

Additionally, pets and servants were buried to help guide and accompany the dead while weapons were buried next to them for any battles in the afterlife. Pharaohs were buried with priceless treasures to take to the afterlife with them. Gold, other precious metals and rare jewels are examples of treasure often placed in a tomb. Masks, statues and jewelry are additional examples of treasures often placed in a pyramid.

In some cases, a mummified pet would be buried in a pyramid with its owner, so the owner could spend the afterlife with beloved animal. If came across an untouched Ancient Egyptian tomb, just what might you find there?

Isabel and Imogen Greenberg, author and illustrator of Discover: The Ancient Egyptians lay it out in this fascinating gallery!

Facebook Twitter. Ancient Egyptians were mummified when they died and the body preserved then wrapped up in linen. Pharaohs were mummified with amulets and jewels inside the linen wrappings and then buried in lots of coffins inside coffins to protect the body.

This coffin was placed inside two elaborately painted wooden coffins, which fitted inside each other. Then it was placed inside a red quartz sarcophagus, to keep them safe. This was placed inside four gold shrines, each one bigger than the last. When ancient Egyptians were mummified, their organs were removed. The liver, intestines, lungs and stomach were placed inside special containers, called canopic jars.