Draft:Heit el-Ghurab

• Comment: Use the most relevant sources in Further reading to flesh out the article and add citations to what's already there. Snowman304|talk 02:44, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

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Heit el-Ghurab aka the Wall of the Crow or the City of the Pyramid builders is an ancient Egyptian town from the Old Kingdom in Giza where the builders of the Giza pyramids lived. It has been under excavation by Mark Lehner and the Ancient Egyptian Research Associates since 1988.

To the south of the giza plataeu lies an archaeological site where up to 2000 workers lived who built the pyramids of Giza. This includes shelters for temporary workers, called the galleries. And lower class and middle class housing for the permanent workers. The housing of the permanent workers has evidence for administration and weaving and support of the workmen. To the east of the town is an industrial bakery area that likely made the food of the workmen. The Eastern Town, next to the bakery has evidence for grinding and bread molds to show the supply, cooking, and baking support for the temporary workman. Additionally, the "Royal Administrative Building" has large silos and evidence for control over the food and tools of the workmen. Thousands of seal impressions rations token support the administrative interpretation.

After the Old Kingdom, in the Late Period through Ptolemaic period, people regarded this area as sacred. Hundreds of later intrusive burials were set directly into the town so that they could be buried near the historic pyramids. Most of these burials are clumped on the northern closest to the Wall of the Crow to show that the wall itself became sacred thousands of years later.

Mark Lehner and the Ancient Egyptian Research Associates have been excavating this area since 1988, with an enormous excavation from 1999 to the present day. Their team is proudly and international team, with people from all over the world, but nearly half of whom are Egyptians. Hundreds of donors have supported their work, including the Koch Brothers. Lehner's team has also used these excavations to support the Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism by training hundreds of inspectors in modern, advanced archaeological techniques. They have also lead a community based project to learn about local conceptions of the pyramids and the modern archaeology.

Further reading

• Lehner, Mark E. "Labor and the Pyramids The Heit el-Ghurab "Workers Town" at Giza". International Scholars Conference on Ancient Near Eastern Economies. 5.
•    Lehner, Mark 2022. Sensory experience and social space at Heit el-Ghurab, the Giza pyramid builders' settlement. In Sigl, Johanna (ed.), Daily life in ancient Egyptian settlements: conference Aswan 2019, 131-149. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz
•   Lehner, Mark 2016. The name and nature of the Heit el-Ghurab Old Kingdom site: worker's town, pyramid town, and the port hypothesis. In Hein, Irmgard, Nils Billing, and Erika Meyer-Dietrich (eds), The pyramids: between life and death. Proceedings of the workshop held at Uppsala University, Uppsala, May 31st - June 1st, 2012, 99-160. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet.
• Lehner, Mark 2015. Labor and the pyramids: the Heit el-Ghurab "workers town" at Giza. In Steinkeller, Piotr and Michael Hudson (eds), Labor in the ancient world: a colloquium held at Hirschbach (Saxony), April 2005, 397-522. Dresden: ISLET.
• Lehner, Mark 2013. The Heit el-Ghurab site reveals a new face: the Lost Port City of the Pyramids. AERAgram 14 (1), 2-7.
• Tavares, Ana 2011. Village, town and barracks: a fourth dynasty settlement at Heit el-Ghurab, Giza. In Strudwick, Nigel and Helen Strudwick (eds), Old Kingdom, new perspectives: Egyptian art and archaeology 2750-2150 BC, 270-277. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
• Lehner, Mark (ed.) 2011. Giza Plateau Mapping Project, season 2009: preliminary report. Giza Occasional Papers 5. Boston, MA: Ancient Egypt Research Associates.
• Lehner, Mark 2010. Villages and the Old Kingdom. In Wendrich, Willeke (ed.), Egyptian archaeology, 85-101. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Lehner, Mark 2021. Giza Plateau. In Bárta, Miroslav and Vladimír Brůna (eds), The pyramid fields of ancient Egypt: a satellite atlas, 24-53. Prague: Faculty of Arts, Charles University.
• Brichieri-Colombi, Stephen 2020. A spurred spiral ramp for the Great Pyramid of Giza. PalArch's Journal of Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology 17 (3), 1-20.
• Yoshimura, Sakuji 2020. Projects at Giza: I. Report of the joint project of Egypt and Japan on the second boat of king Khufu. II. The Great Pyramid Project - season 2019. In Kamrin, Janice, Miroslav Bárta, Salima Ikram, Mark Lehner, and Mohamed Megahed (eds), Guardian of ancient Egypt: studies in honor of Zahi Hawass 3, 1683-1699. Prague: Charles University, Faculty of Arts.
• Nolan, John 2018. Sealings and seals from pyramid age Egypt. In Ameri, Marta, Sarah Kieldt Costello, Gregg Jamison, and Sarah Jarmer Scott (eds), Seals and sealing in the ancient world: case studies from the Near East, Egypt, the Aegean, and South Asia, 271-288. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Lehner, Mark and Zahi Hawass 2017. Giza and the pyramids: the definitive history. London: Thames & Hudson.  
• Lehner, Mark 2007. Pyramid city, Giza. In Fagan, Brian M. (ed.), Discovery! Unearthing the new treasures of archaeology, 160-163. London: Thames & Hudson.  
• Lehner, Mark 2002. The pyramid age settlement of the southern mount at Giza. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 39, 27-74. DOI: 10.2307/40001149.

Category:Buildings and structures of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt Category:Buildings and structures in Giza