Nonkers they were workers and vonlunteers. Ancient Egypt had a vast and efficient agriculture system and was well fed by the resources of the Nile. Animal protein was furnished by fish, birds and cattle. They have found the cities the workers lived in during the construction and they included large bakeries that were city blocks in size , meat processing areas and cafeteria style dining facilities. So your asumptions are correct and they did.

BTW I move furniture for a living, and during the height of the moving season I have to take in 6000 calories a day just to maintain my body weight at 230lbs. So you're right on the money there. Cheeseburgers for breakfast anyone? (Real ones, not Macdonalds)

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

A large part of the Egyptian labourers daily calories was from beer. Barley beer was supposedly nutritious and safer to drink than water.

For a lot of history, the water hasn't been particularly safe to drink, but different organisms grow in beer and wine.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Hey Ozzie, a large part of the furniture movers caloric intake is also beer. And the water's pretty safe here.

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

I believe the ancient Egyptians were much smaller on average than the typical first world denizen today. Their units of measurement were named after the body and one palm was only 7.5 cm. When you recall that the hard labour most Egyptians performed should have given them proportionately larger hands than we see in the first world today, this seems quite small. I wouldn't be surprised if the average labourer only weighed 60 kilos. Of course its easy enough to find out how big they were. It's not as no one has ever not found an old old dead body in Egypt.

I wasn't aware that training would lengthen bones. Or where you thinking lamarckian evolution?

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An emperor without enemies, a king without a kingdom, supported in life by the willing tribute of a free people.

Mr. Olsen, I know a lot of life long furniture movers who's hands are so out of proportion we call them "Mickey Mouse" hands. Since I didn't start until I was in my late thirties I didn't see that effect. But after the first season of moving all good movers get really big lower legs. Because of the hills, San Francisco has a lot of places with absurb amounts of stairs. AKA the dreaded "stair job".

On one house on a hillside I did near Koit Tower there were 78 stairs to the front door. Yes, we count them. Me and another guy had to move 15,000 pounds of furniture up them stairs. When we cried to home base about noon, they sent one other guy. But that's an extreme. Most bad stair jobs are in the low fifties as that seems to be the limit most people are willing to walk up.

Edit: Wrong tower, BD says don't drink and post

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

I don't know if the bones lengthen but the hands certainly get bigger. Looking at my own mitts I can see that my dominant hand is thicker and meater than my off hand. In Australia it's often older people who have the big hands as we got it easy compared to them in the physical labour department. You can also see a similar effect in people who don't wear shoes. People who like to go barefoot often have broader feet than habitual shoe wearers. This is one reason why Queenslanders are such good swimmers. Many of us come with natural flippers.

Royal Ontario Museum: The People of Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt Magazine: Woodworking in ancient Egypt

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Thanks for the links 01101001. One of them says Ancient Egyptians averaged about 4 centimeters shorter than modern Europeans, which isn't bad as it makes them taller than medieval Europeans. This makes it sound as though ancient Egypt might not have been too awful for the average person in terms of getting enough to eat.

How many workers are estimated to have built Giza?

Would they have worked while the sun was directly overhead? Is it physically possible to work at that kind of heat, or would they only have worked for the first 3 and last 3 hours of the day?

Are there any mysteries or conundrums left as to exactly how it was built, or is the prevailing attitude that it was "easy-peasy", and that we today could build a better, bigger pyramid, or Baalbek, in one year, if given the money?!

Nonkers, did you just say that the folks who came up with Pyramids couldn't come up with a Sun shade? You know, pieces of cloth on poles? Just checking.

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

The Egyptians had sunshades, but there were, as I recall, complicated religious aspects to them that meant they couldn't be used by your average pyramid-builder. The whole sun-god thing, you know? At least to the umbrella kind, that which can be carried around and is therefore of some use when you're moving great big stone blocks.

However, a brief glance over at Britannica tells us that the climate in Egypt, while it gets pretty bloody hot in summer, tends to have fairly cool winters--from the mid 60s to the mid 70s F. They also have very long days, with generally 10 to 12 hours of sunlight daily. This means, even assuming a four- or five-hour siesta (or whatever the Egyptian word is), there's still a good amount of daylight to be used in high summer. And I know the Egyptians didn't necessarily work on pyramids all year, though I'm not sure I've ever mentally lined up the three Egyptian seasons to the four "Western" ones. (Unfortunately, right now, I can't remember all three Egyptian seasons' names--I can't remember "inundation," but that may be a Pratchett variation on same--"In the Good Old Inundation" is the only reason I remember it.)

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

As has been stated we know now they were built by a voluntary work force. The people were predominantly farmers who saw a chance to work on their God-King's (the Egyptians didn't use the word Pharoah, that was a name given by the Greeks) tomb as an honor. In fact it is often portrayed that the Isrealite slaves were the builders of the pyramids around the time of the Exodus, while in fact the pyramids were already over 1,000 years old at this time.

The workers diet likely consisted almost entirely of the crops that were grown in the land made fertile by the Nile. They also had some fruits and vegetables to increase their sugar intake (like dates and figs). Most common Egyptians didn't eat much meat, that was reserved for the wealthy.

The theories for the number of people it took to build the pyramids are as numerous as the theories of HOW they were built. Estimates put the number everywhere from 2,000 to 300,000. The Egyptians didn't really put that kind of information in the records on their temples or documents so we just don't know.

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

The seasons of Ancient Egypt were Inundation (June-September), Growing Season (October-February), and Harvest Season (March-May). Respectively: Akhet, Peret, and Shemu.

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

You're thinking about two totally different issues here. The pyramid for the most part was done with (relatively) small stones, with the exception of some in the inside (I think the stones above the "king's chamber". But Baalbek is another thing altogether. IIRC, there are two stones in the fortress that is estimated to weigh 900 tons or something, and one in the quarry that's like 1200 tons. We do have cranes today that can lift that much, but I don't think it would really be that easy, I mean lifting it and setting it down on a truck and then moving it and then lifting it again and positioning it into the wall.

That's another thing with the pyramids, but we have to remember that beyond just the lifting, there was also a lot of careful positioning for each stone.

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As above, so below

There were a lot of skilled craftsmen who worked on the pyramids (and probably other local projects i.e mortuary temples), all year round. They had town close to the pyramids that shows evidence of many cooked animal bones. the artisans were not peasants. They were also given the honor of being allowed to be buried in the shadow of the pyramid. Many of the labourers worked for barley bear and bread. I would image that some would only work when they were not needed in the field.

Do you think that daily work on the pyramid would follow the shadow of the pyramid? Makes sense.... and a loooooooong siesta.

The large blocks above the Kings chamber are granite. 3 or 5 I cant remember? Could the pyramids have been built from the inside out , rather than layer upon layer?