Did Slaves Build the Pyramids? — A Workers' Town, Bones, a Papyrus, and a Vanished River Branch

26th Century BCE, the Giza Plateau

West of Cairo, the capital of Egypt, where the Nile floodplains end and the desert begins, lies the Giza Plateau. The three pyramids standing on this hill are the product of a single era. The Old Kingdom is the period when kings built giant stone pyramids after a unified dynasty was established in Egypt, referring roughly to the 27th through 22nd centuries BCE. In the 26th century BCE, about 4,500 years ago from today, Khufu, king of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt's Old Kingdom, built the first pyramid on this hill, followed by Khafre and Menkaure. Among the three pyramids, Khufu's, the largest, is commonly called the Great Pyramid. The pyramids were tombs for kings, and the tombs of royals and officials lined up all around them.

There is a widespread picture of who built these stone mountains. It is a scene of crowds of slaves dragging stones under overseers holding whips. An unvetted review article traces this picture as a story inherited from classical authors like the 5th-century BCE Greek historian Herodotus and grown by 20th-century cinema (DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.32995745, self-published).

Behind this picture also lies actual history. Ancient Egypt had various ways of enslaving people and forced labor since the Old Kingdom, and the path of being captured in war and becoming a slave continued for nearly 3,000 years. The ways of becoming and escaping slavery, and of squeezing labor, differed by era as the society and economy of the country changed (DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-13260-5_3). Therefore, the question to ask is narrower than "Were there slaves in Egypt?" Who were the people who built the pyramids of Giza, and under what conditions were they in that place?

This article re-reads this question with four pieces of evidence that have emerged over the past decades. They are the workers' town excavated below the pyramid hill, the bones from the Giza necropolis, the papyrus work logs from a port on the Red Sea coast, and the ancient Nile river channel revived through subsurface pollen. This is the final piece of this series.

The Village Below the Hill

Heit el-Ghurab is a Fourth Dynasty settlement excavated in the low foothills southeast of the Giza Plateau, bringing together the housing and facilities needed to build the pyramids. It spans 20 hectares, which is 200,000 square meters, and its site selection and zoning were handled by the central authority (DOI: 10.1111/apaa.12111). The pyramids had long been famous, but how and where the people who built them lived remained almost unknown until this village was excavated. The excavation revealed the village's complex layout along with traces of the plants and animals that these people ate to survive (DOI: 10.5334/ai.0811).

The routes for bringing in supplies were wide. A paper discussing the Giza settlement suggests that the central authority established a wide-ranging procurement network (DOI: 10.1111/apaa.12111). This abstract does not state how much food entered through that network or where it came from.

Eating habits differed at another site in Giza. People also lived inside the courtyard of the Valley Temple of Menkaure, who built the third pyramid, and this group was different from the pyramid workers, though this abstract does not clarify when they lived there. The animal bones left behind from their meals were mostly cattle, and those cattle were generally over 3.5 years old, bearing the hallmarks of having been eaten as offerings. The researchers tested the hypothesis that these occupants were temple dependents receiving shares according to rights established by royal decree, and note that their diet differed from the diets of people living in other sectors of Giza (DOI: 10.5913/jarce.56.2020.a002). This means what people ate in Giza must be read alongside where they belonged and lived. This comparison is with other areas of Giza and does not overlap in time with the workers' village.

One section of the village features accommodations built repeatedly using the same design. A layout combining a warehouse structure with the standard parts of a single house was stamped out repeatedly, and people bound into labor units were brought inside it. A paper discussing this village interprets that labor unit as an organization grouping people by age cohort—in other words, a repurposed version of a practice widespread in later East Africa and the upper Nile—and concludes that Heit el-Ghurab was closer to a company-built employee town than a city that grew on its own (DOI: 10.1484/j.jua.5.135657).

Among the ties that bound people together, some were pre-existing. The village zoning shows traces of the central authority utilizing existing ties from home districts, villages, and neighborhoods to make people work together. The fact that the village's architectural arrangement, the graffiti left by its builders, and recently discovered daily papyrus records marked with regional designations all align suggests that this village was connected to a network spanning the entire country. The same paper notes, with cautious wording, that even though people gathered in a place much larger and denser than their hometowns, "hints" of maintaining hometown-sized groups are visible (DOI: 10.1111/apaa.12111).

The touch of administration also remained on clay sealings. A clay sealing is a lump of clay pressed onto a jar or door and stamped with a seal. Roughly 1,200 clay sealings from the reign of Menkaure—who built the last of the three pyramids—were recovered from a bundle of garbage deposits at Giza, and among them, a core group of 424 was stamped with a mere 12 seals distributed to officials by the central government (DOI: 10.1017/9781108160186.019). Although this is the story of a selected core bundle, it reads as though the authority to seal supplies was concentrated among a small number of officials issued seals by the government. The routes for supplies also extended beyond the country. When 36 imported pottery shards excavated from the workers' village and high-status officials' tombs were ground thin and viewed under a microscope, most were found to have been made in what is now central Lebanon, between Beirut and Tripoli. The authors suggest that this supply line was connected to the importation of coniferous lumber (DOI: 10.1080/00758914.2019.1664197).

Heit el-Ghurab was a planned village where the state laid out the site, stamped out the housing, and brought in supplies through a broad procurement network. However, this is the story of a single archaeological site. The paper proposing the company town interpretation notes that until settlements near later-era pyramids are further excavated, it remains impossible to know whether this housing method was a widespread innovation or a short-lived exception (DOI: 10.1484/j.jua.5.135657).

Tombs and Bones

Giza also contains the tombs of the people who built the pyramids (DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935413.013.29). Bones leave behind traces of how a body was used in life. A study comparing the bones of 195 Old Kingdom individuals from Giza read these traces. Based on cemetery location and structure, grave goods, and writings and images left in the tombs, these people are divided into two strata: laborers and high-ranking officials.

Musculoskeletal stress markers are changes on the bone surface where muscles, tendons, and ligaments attach to bone, and they form in response to various factors including the extent of physical exertion. The researchers compared these markers across 14 major joints of the body. For both men and women, the markers were more pronounced in laborers than in high-ranking officials, and more pronounced in men than in women. The authors suggest that this difference points to a division of labor, while concluding that reading the activities of ancient people from these markers must be done with caution (DOI: 10.1002/oa.2748). The bodies of laborers appear to have performed different work from the bodies of officials. Whether that work involved dragging or cutting stone is not revealed by these markers.

How broken bones healed also remains. In a study examining 2,287 long bones from 204 Old Kingdom adults (112 men, 92 women) found in the Giza cemetery, fractures numbered 45, or 1.97%. Most fractures healed straight, and the authors view this as "likely the result of successful treatment." Only 3 were misaligned (PMID 24304109). This study did not separate laborers and officials. Therefore, this result is the story of all Old Kingdom people buried in the Giza cemetery as a whole, and cannot be said to apply to laborers alone.

Traces of disease are also present. One study examining Giza Old Kingdom bone samples found a protein common to four types of malaria pathogens in 56% of the individuals, and because a protein specific to falciparum malaria did not appear in even a single sample, it views the condition as non-falciparum malaria. There was no significant difference between the high-ranking official group and the laborer group. The authors propose living close to natural and human-made waterways as the main risk factor (PMID 30151391, single study). The Giza bone samples have separate laborer and official groups, and in this single study, differences in this disease were not seen between the two groups.

The cemetery itself is also evidence. The king's pyramid, the officials' tombs, and the laborers' town and tombs together show how this cemetery operated and how it was structured by hierarchy (DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935413.013.29). Laborers also had tombs, and those tombs shared space within the same cemetery alongside the tombs of the king and officials.

The bones of laborers retain traces of heavier physical exertion than those of officials, but what social status those people held while doing that work is not written in the bones. The fact that broken bones mostly healed straight is a result for the people of the Giza cemetery as a whole, without separating laborers and officials.

A Work Log on the Red Sea Coast

If you cross the desert eastward from Giza, on the coast of the Gulf of Suez of the Red Sea lies a place called Wadi el-Jarf. Since 2011, a joint excavation team from Paris-Sorbonne University and the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology (IFAO) in Cairo has been digging up an early Old Kingdom port here. They found a breakwater stretching far into the water, ship parts, houses and warehouses, traces of administrative control, and large workers' quarters. This port was the departure point for royal expeditions going across the sea to the copper and turquoise mines of the Sinai Peninsula, and judging by the excavated artifacts and inscriptions, all the facilities date from the very beginning of the 4th Dynasty (DOI: 10.5913/jarce.52.2016.a009). The port was used for only a short period and closed down at the end of the reign of Khufu, and the excavation team considers it the oldest harbor known to date (DOI: 10.5615/neareastarch.77.1.0004). The first two years of excavation yielded warehouse corridors that held ship parts in part, along with their closing mechanisms, a campsite, a pottery workshop, an L-shaped pier, and stone anchors, and based on inscriptions, the date of these facilities is pinned to the reign of Khufu (DOI: 10.2458/azu_jaei_v05i1_tallet).

In 2013, papyrus fragments were found at this port, and they now number about 1,000 pieces (DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah55265). These are among the oldest written papyri ever excavated in Egypt (DOI: 10.5615/neareastarch.77.1.0004). In the excavation team's 2016 report, the fragments already numbered in the hundreds and narrative documents were mixed with administrative documents, some of which bear the name of King Khufu and report various tasks linked to the construction site of the Great Pyramid (DOI: 10.5913/jarce.52.2016.a009).

The most famous among them is a set of work records. The Diary of Merer is a papyrus work log written around the 26th year of the reign of Khufu, recording the days when the overseer Merer and the crew he led transported blocks of limestone. The diary records that the stones were transported from the quarries of Tura to "Akhet Khufu," and this preprint reads Akhet Khufu as Khufu's pyramid. The dates were written according to a calendar composed of 30-day months, weeks of ten days, and five days added each year, and Merer's work changed depending on the seasons (DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2411.08061, preprint). Because these records were left behind right at that time by the people who did the work, their weight is great. For the exact same reason, we must first ask who wrote the text and for what purpose. The Diary of Merer is a work log that records the work of a crew by date.

This collection of records contains accounting records along with the diary, and both belong to the team led by the overseer Merer. The work recorded in the documents includes managing the water basins of the Giza harbor, transporting limestone from the Tura quarries, and managing supplies. The accounting papyri show that the state precisely controlled and distributed food, tools, and supplies to the workers (DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah55265). This is the record of Merer's team from Wadi el-Jarf, not the ration ledger of the entire Giza construction site. Still, it is a rare piece of material in that the details of the state distributing food and tools to workers remain in the handwriting of that era, as part of the accounting records of a single team connected to the pyramid construction.

What the records of Merer's team note are the days when they transported limestone, managed the Giza harbor, and managed supplies. What the excavation team reported in the academic journal was also that some of the papyri note various tasks "linked" to the construction site of the Great Pyramid (DOI: 10.5913/jarce.52.2016.a009). What is read from the diary is the link of transporting stones, and the basis for this diary recording the order in which the pyramid was designed and stacked is not in the abstract collected by this text.

On the Giza side, ships and work crews also appear together. A paper discussing the Giza settlement suggests that the people there also worked as ship's crew and as work crews (DOI: 10.1111/apaa.12111). This paints a picture where the work of operating ships and the work of handling stone were together within a single community.

The Vanishing Khufu Branch

Stand in front of the Giza pyramids today, and what you see is a cityscape and a desert. The Khufu branch is a now-vanished branch of the Nile that the Giza pyramids once overlooked. Boats could sail along this waterway right up to the pyramid harbor complex, but the environmental history of this waterway has not been known in detail (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2202530119).

Paleoecological data is like reading which plants grew around a lake or wetland by pulling out the layers of pollen that settled and piled up year after year at the bottom. In Giza, this bottom is the floodplain of the ancient river. The research team read the shifts in plant distribution from pollen in sediment cores pulled from beneath the floodplain, translated that into shifts in water height, and brought 8,000 years of the waterway back to life (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2202530119; DOI: 10.5194/egusphere-egu26-12933).

The results divide into a long flow and a single point in time. Looked at as a long flow, water was highest when Africa was wetter than it is now, and as East Africa slowly dried out afterward, the water dropped as well, reaching its lowest point near the end of the dynastic period. Looked at as a single point in time, during the reigns of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, the Khufu branch stayed high—at roughly 40% of the highest water level recorded in the reconstructed 8,000-year span—making it convenient to ship construction materials to Giza (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2202530119). The 40% is a proportion compared to the maximum. It does not mean the water during the pyramid age was the highest in this river branch's history.

Other sediment cores drilled at the harbor site show that an earlier side channel turned into a floodplain and harbor environment, and that environment matches the harbor's use during the Old Kingdom. In the same sediment, copper pollution made by humans increased multiple times starting from the Predynastic period and had peaks during the reigns of the three kings as well. The research team views these peaks as environmental signals of increased metal processing tied to construction and subsequent activity (DOI: 10.5194/egusphere-egu26-12933, conference abstract).

Now let us follow a single block of stone. Limestone blocks are quarried at Tura. Merer’s crew ferries those stones to Akhet Khufu, and their work shifts depending on the season (DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2411.08061). The same team was also in charge of managing the water basins at the Giza harbor (DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah55265). During the reigns of the three kings, the Khufu branch had high water, and boats could sail along this waterway right up to the pyramid harbor complex (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2202530119). On the hill slope behind the harbor, a planned town was built by central authority in the Fourth Dynasty (DOI: 10.1111/apaa.12111), and bones from the Giza workers' cemetery left behind traces of physical labor beyond that of administrators (DOI: 10.1002/oa.2748).

Along this path, Merer’s team's records provide two direct links: the work of shipping stones from Tura, and the care of the Giza harbor water basins. Reading Akhet Khufu, the destination of those stones, as Khufu's pyramid is the reading of the preceding preprint. The river water height, the town, and the cemetery are each different pieces of evidence, and have merely been placed side by side here. None of the evidence tells us whether that town was already standing in that form during the year Merer worked, whether Merer’s crew stayed in that town, or whether they were buried in that cemetery. Nor does the evidence along this path tell us how the stone traveled the remaining 140-odd meters from where it reached the harbor up to the top of the pyramid (DOI: 10.20944/preprints202609.1287.v2).

Three Remaining Questions

The first question is under what conditions these people worked. Conscripted labor is labor where the state obliges subjects to work for a set period and calls them up. At one end of this question lies the enslavement we saw earlier, at the other end lies labor coming to work of its own accord, and conscripted labor lies between them. The term conscription already carries the state's call within it. Even if the conclusion that they were not a mob of slaves is correct, that does not immediately mean they came willingly.

The peer-reviewed papers gathered by this article point mainly to organization. Central authority drew upon hometown ties to make people work together, and the authors cautiously call the traces of this "hints" (DOI: 10.1111/apaa.12111). The stamped dormitories housed people grouped into labor units (DOI: 10.1484/j.jua.5.135657). There are also traces of food and a wide procurement network (DOI: 10.5334/ai.0811; DOI: 10.1111/apaa.12111). Merer's team's account papyri detail how the state precisely distributed food, tools, and supplies to workers, but this is a document left by a single team (DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah55265). Documents detailing the individual legal status, wages, or whether workers could refuse the call are not in the abstracts collected by this article.

The remaining documents are scarce to begin with. The Old Kingdom recorded administrative documents on easily decaying papyrus, and as a result, very few administrative documents from this era survive. The most important bundles came from the port of Wadi al-Jarf and the royal temple of Abusir, and judging by their recording systems, the author estimates that among the tens of thousands of documents that originally existed, only a few dozen have been discovered so far (DOI: 10.1515/9783112215692-006). About 1,000 items from Wadi al-Jarf count papyrus fragments, whereas the few dozen here count documents, so the units differ. This gap is one reason why the conditions of the people who built the pyramids still remain a matter of interpretation.

The picture of who worked also does not converge into a single one. A study rereading Heit el-Ghurab across various temporal units of environment and society suggests there was marked social continuity across the multiple generations that built the royal tomb (DOI: 10.1093/9780198945239.003.0087). Depending on how many people were called in and returned versus those who stayed across generations, the same settlement is read through different labor systems. While evidence has accumulated that the pyramid builders were provided with planned housing and food, where they stood between conscription and free labor remains a realm of interpretation.

The second question is how many people there were. There was once an estimate that up to 25,000 people were at the construction site during its busiest period. A paper introducing this estimate reports that a considerable share of them went into building and managing a gigantic ramp, and argues that using the pyramid's slope itself as a transport path would have sufficed with far fewer personnel (DOI: 10.1353/tech.2003.0063). A 2026 preprint calculates on-site construction alone—excluding quarrying and transport—at about 47 million person-days, meaning 47 million times the amount a single person works in a day, and estimates that if the construction period is set to 27 years, an average of about 5,800 people were at the site, or if set to 23 years, about 6,900 people. The authors note that the result depends most heavily on the time taken to turn around and load cargo on the ramp (DOI: 10.20944/preprints202610.0852.v1, preprint). These numbers are not records of someone counting workers. They are model outputs that vary depending on which construction method is assumed.

The third question is how the stones were raised. There are many proposals, including a straight ramp, a ramp winding up the pyramid face, levers, and a method of pulling blocks up by sliding counterweights through internal tunnels within the pyramid (DOI: 10.20944/preprints202609.1287.v2; DOI: 10.1038/s40494-025-02018-w; DOI: 10.1038/s40494-026-02405-x). A preprint that computer-simulated the entire process from the quarry to the stone-laying crews changes the question. In all setups ending within Khufu's reign, the quarry set the construction speed, and the lifting side had a margin of roughly nine out of ten days. Therefore, the schedule could not distinguish between construction methods. Three different ramp methods all reached the capstone within a margin of three months. The exception is the lever; if raising a single block on a tier took more than 30 minutes, no matter how much the lever crew was expanded, the work would not finish within the reign. Instead, the amount of earth and stone entering the ramps ranged from 0 to 5.38 million cubic meters depending on the method. Although the proposal that the debris now filling the Khufu quarry may be a collapsed ramp has already been made, no one has measured its volume. The authors add that simulation is merely a tool that invites thought and verification, not proof in itself (DOI: 10.20944/preprints202609.1287.v2, preprint).

How many people raised the stones and how they did it remains a matter debated by model calculations, and the volume of quarry debris—which the preprint above cites as the measurement that could differentiate construction methods—has not yet been measured.

In the Final Part

What shook the picture of a mob of slaves under the whip are fragmented evidence. The traces of lodging and food in the village below the hill, the different bodies of workers and overseers, the work journals and accounting records left by a single team, and pollen in the ground each added a piece. Gathered together, those pieces point to an organization where the state bound, fed, and housed people, and hauled stones along a river channel where the water was high. The social status of those people, their number, and the method of raising the stones still await the next excavation and measurement.

The tools used in this article have already been covered one by one in other parts. How to ask who wrote a record left by the party at the time and for what purpose, like the Diary of Merer, is in "Reading Historical Records — Grandmother's Diary and That Day's Newspaper". How to read what work was done in life from the bones of workers and overseers continues in "What Bones Tell — One Person's Diary, Split Between Teeth and Bone".

Source Papers

• "Skilled, Fed, and Honoured" (2026) — DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.32995745 (self-archived synthesis before peer review) — Cited only as research history: the summary that the horde-of-slaves narrative was inherited from Herodotus and amplified by 20th-century cinema.
• "Nile waterscapes facilitated the construction of the Giza pyramids during the 3rd millennium BCE" (2022) — DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2202530119 — Reconstruction of an 8,000-year water route using pollen. During the reigns of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, the Khufu branch rose to roughly 40% of its Holocene maximum, aiding the transport of construction materials.
• "Neighborhood to National Network: Pyramid Settlements of Giza" (2019) — DOI: 10.1111/apaa.12111 — A 20-hectare settlement planned by central authority. Labor mobilization through hometown ties, and correlation with daily records on region-marked papyri, suggest a nationwide network; residents were sailors and work crews.
• "The Harbor Facilities of King Khufu on the Red Sea Shore" (2016) — DOI: 10.5913/jarce.52.2016.a009 — Wadi el-Jarf harbor: breakwaters, quarters, and administrative traces; departure point for Sinai mining expeditions; very early 4th Dynasty. Hundreds of papyrus fragments from 2013, some reporting Khufu's name and work at the Great Pyramid site.
• "Dryland Nile waterscapes and human footprints at Giza" (2026) — DOI: 10.5194/egusphere-egu26-12933 (conference abstract) — Sediment core pollen and harbor topography, Old Kingdom harbor environment, copper pollution peak during the reigns of three kings.
• "Timekeeping at Akhet Khufu, as shown by the Diary of Merer" (2024) — DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2411.08061 (preprint) — In the 26th year of Khufu's reign, Merer and his crew transported limestone from Tura to Akhet Khufu. A 30-day month, 10-day week, and 5 epagomenal days, work aligned with the seasons.
• "THE HARBOR OF KHUFU on the Red Sea Coast at Wadi al-Jarf" (2014) — DOI: 10.5615/neareastarch.77.1.0004 — The oldest harbor, Egypt's earliest inscribed papyrus, closed late in Khufu's reign.
• "Provisions for the pyramid builders" (2004) — DOI: 10.5334/ai.0811 — Discovery of the builders' settlement, complex layout, and evidence of food plants and animals.
• "Combinatorial Evolution and Heterogeneous Cohabitation at the Giant Pyramids" (2023) — DOI: 10.1484/j.jua.5.135657 — Warehouse structures + modular housing repeating standard parts, labor units drawn from peer-age groups (interpretation), a company town. Without excavations of other settlements, it is unknown whether this was an innovation or an exception.
• "Entheseal changes in ancient Egyptians from the pyramid builders of Giza—Old Kingdom" (2019) — DOI: 10.1002/oa.2748 — 195 individuals, 14 sites. Laborers > high officials, men > women — suggesting division of labor, used with caution.
• "Ancient Egyptian Slavery" (2023) — DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-13260-5_3 — Forms of enslavement and forced labor from the Old Kingdom to the Ptolemaic period. The enslavement of war captives was a constant, while forms changed across eras.
• "Pyramid Building and Panarchy" (2026) — DOI: 10.1093/9780198945239.003.0087 — Heit el-Ghurab reinterpreted across multi-temporal scales, the social continuity of the generations who built the royal tomb.
• "The Art and Archaeology of the Giza Plateau" (2018) — DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935413.013.29 — Heit el-Ghurab and the builders' cemetery contribute to understanding the function and hierarchy of the necropolis.
• "The petrography of imported Levantine Combed vessels from early Old Kingdom Giza" (2019) — DOI: 10.1080/00758914.2019.1664197 — 36 items, mostly from central Lebanon (Beirut to Tripoli), supply lines linked to acquiring coniferous wood.
• "Sealings and Seals from Pyramid Age Egypt" (2018) — DOI: 10.1017/9781108160186.019 — About 1,200 sealings from Menkaure's reign, with 424 core pieces stamped by 12 seals distributed by the central government.
• "Building the Great Pyramid: Probable Construction Methods Employed at Giza" (2003) — DOI: 10.1353/tech.2003.0063 — Introduces estimates of up to 25,000 people; transport on inclined slopes instead of ramps would require far fewer personnel.
• "Understanding the Construction of the Great Pyramid" (2026) — DOI: 10.20944/preprints202610.0852.v1 (preprint) — Roughly 47 million person-days; over 27 years this averages about 5,800 people, over 23 years about 6,900 people. Most sensitive to ramp turning and loading times.
• "A Critical Review of the Logistics and Construction Methods for the Great Pyramid Using a Discrete-Event Digital Twin" (2026) — DOI: 10.20944/preprints202609.1287.v2 (preprint) — Speed was determined by the quarry and lifting had slack; construction methods cannot be determined by schedule alone; ramp volume 0 to 5.38 million m³, quarry debris volume unmeasured. Simulation is not proof.
• "Construction of the Great Pyramid with pulley-like systems using counter-weights on sliding-ramps" (2025) — DOI: 10.1038/s40494-025-02018-w — Proposal that blocks were raised by sliding counterweights within internal passages.
• "A computational framework for evaluating an edge-integrated, multi-ramp construction model of the Great Pyramid of Giza" (2026) — DOI: 10.1038/s40494-026-02405-x — Examination of throughput and structure for an exterior spiral ramp model.
• "Wadi el‐Jarf papyri, Red Sea" (2026, Encyclopedia of Ancient History) — DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah55265 — Roughly 1,000 fragments, the oldest Egyptian papyri. Logs and accounting records of overseer Merer's team: management of the Giza harbor basins, transport of Tura limestone, supply management. Accounting papyri show precise state-controlled rationing of food, tools, and supplies.
• "Minding the Gap: The Administrative Documents of the Old Kingdom and the Wadi el-Jarf Archive" (2025) — DOI: 10.1515/9783112215692-006 — Old Kingdom administrative documents barely survive because papyrus rots. Based on the record system, only dozens of documents have been found out of hundreds of thousands that once existed.
• "Success of long bone fracture healing in ancient Egypt: a paleoepidemiological study of the Giza Necropolis skeletons" (2013) — PMID 24304109 — 45 fractures (1.97%) out of 2,287 long bones from 204 Giza Old Kingdom adults, mostly healed straight (likely successful treatment), 3 misaligned. No distinction between laborers and officials.
• "The Immunodetection of Non-Falciparum Malaria in Ancient Egyptian Bones (Giza Necropolis)" (2018) — PMID 30151391 — Non-falciparum malaria proteins detected at 56%, no significant difference between high-official and laborer groups, suggesting residence near waterways as a risk factor.
• "Faunal Remains from Excavations at the Menkaure Valley Temple (MVT-W), 2019" (2021) — DOI: 10.5913/jarce.56.2020.a002 — Food waste of courtyard residents in the temple mostly cattle over 3.5 years old, appearing to be the consumption of offerings. Tests the hypothesis of dependents bound by royal decree. Diet differs from other areas of Giza.
• "Research Report: The Wadi el-Jarf Site: A Harbor of Khufu on the Red Sea" (2013) — DOI: 10.2458/azu_jaei_v05i1_tallet — Storage galleries, encampment, pottery workshop, L-shaped pier, stone anchors, inscriptions dating to Khufu's reign.