The pyramids and the sphinx

The pyramids and the sphinx

Giza, the site of the Great Sphinx and the three pyramids of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, may be the most famous archaeological site in the world. Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, sponsored George Reisner, who excavated the pyramids, tombs, and temples of Giza from 1903 to 1942, when he died at Harvard Camp on the summit of the Giza Plateau. Reisner was ahead of his time in the development of systematic digging and careful recording by notes, maps, and photographs. He found fabulous pieces of ancient art as he excavated the temples of the Pyramids and hundreds of tombs of the most powerful Egyptians of the Pyramid Age. Modern archaeologists are able to use his records as a basis for their own work at Giza.

Archaeology at Giza has advanced beyond the measuring tapes and trowels used during the early part of this century to infrared distance measurers and computers. While the tape and trowel continue to play an important part in excavation, modern equipment such as photogrammetric cameras, electronic survey instruments, and computers help reconstruct the Sphinx and Pyramids as they were in ancient times.

Today archaeologists ask new questions about the society and economy of the people who built the Sphinx and Pyramids. Archaeologists not only ask how the Egyptians built the pyramids, but also how the pyramids helped to build Egypt as a powerful state. Clues about the role of pyramid building in the development of Egyptian civilization are found in the material culture of the Pyramid Age. Excavators now search for the settlement that housed the great number of people and the vast infrastructure that the Egyptians must have pulled together at Giza to build their largest stone monuments. Recent excavations have discovered storehouses, tombs of the workers, and ancient bakeries. These kinds of discoveries give archaeologists a glimpse of everyday life behind the veil of royalty that colors so much of our knowledge of ancient Egypt.