CAIRO: Egypt's Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni announced the discovery of a new set of tombs of workers who built the Pyramids. The tombs, he said, date back to the 4th Pharaonic Dynasty (2649 – 2513 BC) and that these tombs are the tombs of the workers who built the Great Pyramid. This is the first time Egypt discovers tombs related to the Great Pyramid builder, Cheops, (2609-2584 BC) and Khafra (2576-2551 BC), pointing out that the tombs discovered date back to the late 4th and 5th dynasties (2649- 2374 BC). Hosni said it was another exampled the great past that is part of the Egyptian legacy for the world. Zahi Hawass, the country's top archaeologist and Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the discovery of the tombs of the workers is one of the ” most important archaeological discoveries of the 20th and the 21st centuries,” noting that the discovery process of these tombs began in 1990. He added that the “discovery sheds light on the early period of the fourth dynasty and denies all reported about building the pyramids by forced labor, as these tombs are located directly next to the pyramid, but it directly overlooks it.” He continued that “if they were slaves, they would not build their graves in this area.†He pointed out that one of the most important tombs discovered is the tomb belonging to Edo, which is a rectangular building with several burial wells, which are covered with a local limestone plateau and the walls of the graves are covered on the outer layer with brick and painted with white mortar. Hawass stressed that this discovery “gives us a clear idea of the religious life of the workers who participated in the construction of the pyramid,” pointing out that this “area is the beginning of the huge cemetery, which is spreading at a distance of some kilometers to the south of that discovery.” He said that evidence was uncovered indicating that large families deployed in Upper Egypt, or southern Egypt, and the Delta, with some 11 calves, and 23 sheep being brought to the areas on a daily basis for the subsistence workers, and in exchange, “they do not pay taxes to the State.” Hawass added that this evidence “establishes that the pyramid was the national project for the whole of Egypt, and that all the people who were involved in building the pyramid.” He added that “the number of workers who participated in building the Great Pyramid in particular, did not exceed 10,000 workers, contrary to what Herodotus said that the number of workers was up to 100,000.” **additional reporting by Mohamed Abdel Salam BM
