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Pyramid workers

60 second histories

This video covers:

Who the workers were; where they came from and where they lived and we also look at how they worked in crews under a foreman.

I really enjoy my job as a foreman at Giza but have you ever wondered about the workers who actually built the Great Pyramid; where they lived and where they came from? Well I can tell you that men travelled from all over Egypt to work on the pyramid for our Pharaoh and it wasn’t just men who came, their families came too. In fact an entire town grew up beside the pyramid to house all the workers and their families. With thousands of workers on site, we had to divide them into crews of around two thousand which we then sub divided into smaller crews of a thousand which were again split into groups of two hundred, then finally into crews of around twenty men. Each crew was given its individual tasks and was managed by a foreman like me. Working in shifts meant that the correct number of workers would be on site at any one time, so as not to overcrowd, for instance, the ramp leading up to the pyramid. But even though the Great Pyramid is finished, our work here isn’t. We’ve already started work on another, so Giza and pyramid town will just get bigger.
Eras: 
Ancient Egypt
Topics: 
Buildings & Structures
Domestic Life
Character: 
Egyptian pyramid worker
Key words: 
Ancient Egypt, Egyptian, Egyptians, Egypt, pyramid, Giza, Great Pyramid, workmen, pharaoh, crews, foreman, shifts, pyramid town, KS2, key stage 2, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5, Year 6, KS2, key stage 2, primary, KS2 videos, KS2 history film, KS2 history clip, KS2 video, KS2 clips, KS2 history, Egypt, Egyptian, Egyptians, Ancient Egypt,