Who Built the Pyramids? The Lost Town of the Builders at Giza | 3D Timelapse

South of the Sphinx lies a town that was buried for four thousand years: long sleeping halls, bakeries, a royal granary, the houses of scribes, a wall of huge stones with a gate under three lintels. Its seals name Khafre and Menkaure. When Menkaure's pyramid was finished, the town was taken down. This film follows the excavations of Mark Lehner and AERA, Zahi Hawass's work in the builders' cemetery, Lehner's model of the harbours, and the diary of Merer, who shipped limestone to Giza in Khufu's 27th year. This is a simulation. Every caption carries a label: KNOWN – measured or found LIKELY – widely accepted HYPOTHESIS – one idea among several ASSUMED – filled in for this film CHAPTERS 0:00 The water: the Nile branch, the harbour basins, the gap that may be Ro-She Khufu, Merer's boats, an older town 1:10 The wall and the galleries: the Wall of the Crow and its gate, four sets of sleeping halls 2:30 Bread, beer and meat: bakeries, the royal granary, the houses of scribes, the enclosure wall 3:35 The gangs: Friends of Khufu and Drunkards of Menkaure, phyles, how many they were, the builders' cemetery 4:40 The end of the town: the back bay, Menkaure dies, the town taken down, Khentkawes I and her town 5:55 Later: sand, the horse of 1990, the bakeries of 1991, what lies under the villages 6:55 What is known, and what is not THE MODEL • The town: the plan of Heit el-Ghurab after Lehner & Tavares (2010), measured on AERA's grid, which runs from the centre of Khufu's pyramid like this film's own. The heights and roofs of the buildings are not known; the film gives the walls one storey and roofs of mats (hypothesis). • The years: the town's seals name Khafre and Menkaure (known). The years in which each part goes up are this film's (assumed). An older level under the town may be Khufu's (hypothesis). • The water: Lehner's model of the harbours (2014–2020), with the levels of the Nile from his work and from Sheisha et al. (2022). The T-shaped basin, the canal and the back bay are hypotheses; the basin by Khentkawes' town is excavated. • Merer's diary: Tallet (2017). His boat is drawn after Tallet's estimate (hypothesis). • Khentkawes I: her monument and town after Selim Hassan (1943) and Lehner (2015). • Numbers of workers, food and health: Lehner, Redding and Hawass; their estimates are labelled as such. SOURCES M. Lehner & A. Tavares, "Walls, Ways and Stratigraphy: Signs of Social Control in an Urban Footprint at Giza" (2010) M. Lehner, "Lake Khufu: On the Waterfront at Giza" (2020) AERAGRAM, Ancient Egypt Research Associates (2004–2023) M. Lehner, "Shareholders: The Menkaure Valley Temple Occupation in Context" (2015) H. Sheisha et al., "Nile waterscapes facilitated the construction of the Giza pyramids during the 3rd millennium BCE", PNAS 119 (2022) P. Tallet, Les papyrus de la mer Rouge I: Le « journal de Merer » (2017) S. Hassan, Excavations at Giza IV (1943) Z. Hawass, The Pyramid Builders (2008) Oriental Institute Annual Reports, Giza Plateau Mapping Project (1991–2004) Herodotus, Histories II.124 History for Granite (YouTube) DATA, PHOTOGRAPHS AND MUSIC Positions: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); the plan of the town after AERA Elevation: Copernicus DEM GLO-30, © DLR e.V. 2010–2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014–2018, provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA Photographs and drawings (Wikimedia Commons): • A clay sealing with Menkaure's name: LACMA, public domain • The gate in the Wall of the Crow, drawn for Howard Vyse (1840): public domain • A clay bread mould: Museo Egizio, Turin, CC0 • Sealings from Heit el-Ghurab, reconstructed: Zemanst, CC BY 4.0 • Khentkawes' monument, early 20th century: Matson Collection, Library of Congress, public domain • Khentkawes I on a granite jamb: Jon Bodsworth, free use Music: generated with Google Lyria Rendered in the browser with three.js Previous film: the Pyramid of Menkaure. #Giza #PyramidBuilders #AncientEgypt