Ruins of Bustling Port Unearthed at Egypt's Giza Pyramids

By Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor   |   January 28, 2014

TORONTO — The remains of a bustling port and barracks for sailors or military troops have been discovered near the Giza Pyramids. They were in use while the pyramids were being built about 4,500 years ago.

The archaeologists have been excavating a city near the Giza Pyramids that dates mainly to the reign of the pharaoh Menkaure, who built the last pyramid at Giza. Also near the pyramids they have been  excavating a town, located close to a monument dedicated to Queen Khentkawes, possibly a daughter of Menkaure. The barracks are located at the city, while a newly discovered basin, that may be part of a harbor, is located by the Khentkawes town.

Several discoveries at the city and Khentkawes town suggest Giza was a thriving port, said archaeologist Mark Lehner, the director of Ancient Egypt Research Associates. For instance, Lehner's team discovered a basin beside the Khentkawes town just 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) from the nearest Nile River channel.

This basin may be "an extension of a harbor or waterfront," Lehner said at a recent symposium held here by the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities. Lehner said his team also found at Giza charcoal remains of cedar, juniper, pine and oak, all trees that grew in a part of the eastern Mediterranean called the Levant, along with more than 50 examples of combed ware jars, a style of pottery from that region. Additionally, large amounts of granite from Aswan, located on ancient Egypt's southern border, have long been known to be at Giza, and these could have been brought down the Nile River to Giza's port.

"Giza was the central port then for three generations, Khufu, Khafre, Menkaure," said Lehner in his presentation, referring to the three pharaohs who built pyramids at Giza.

Egypt's city of bean counters suffered flash floods

05 June 2013 by Michael Marshall

IT'S the admin centre of the ancient world. The workers who built the pyramids of Giza and the accountants and managers who organised them achieved architectural immortality – but you wouldn't know it from where they lived. Built in a flood zone, their town was repeatedly destroyed by flash floods. Bizarrely, the Egyptians kept rebuilding in the same place despite the continual devastation.

During the reign of the pharaoh Menkaure, thought to be between 2532 and 2503 BC, Egypt was run from a city on low ground near the Giza plateau. Known as Heit el-Ghurab, this was a large administrative centre surrounded by houses, workshops and bread ovens. After decades of occupation, it was abandoned and buried under tens of metres of sand.

Karl Butzer of the University of Texas at Austin and colleagues have been excavating Heit el-Ghurab since 2001. They discovered layers of muds and sands, which they dated by identifying the relics in them, as well as radiocarbon dating.

The team found that the site was hit by three floods in 26 years during the reign of the previous pharaoh, Khafre. The first destroyed the town, while the others caused widespread damage. But under Menkaure the devastation multiplied.

Giza Secret Revealed: How 10,000 Pyramid Builders Got Fed

by Owen Jarus, LiveScience ContributorDate: 23 April 2013


The builders of the famous Giza pyramids in Egypt feasted on food from a massive catering-type operation, the remains of which scientists have discovered at a workers' town near the pyramids.

The workers' town is located about 1,300 feet (400 meters) south of the Sphinx, and was used to house workers building the pyramid of pharaoh Menkaure, the third and last pyramid on the Giza plateau. The site is also known by its Arabic name, Heit el-Ghurab, and is sometimes called "the Lost City of the Pyramid Builders."

So far, researchers have discovered a nearby cemetery with bodies of pyramid builders; a corral with possible slaughter areas on the southern edge of workers' town; and piles of animal bones.


Based on animal bone findings, nutritional data, and other discoveries at this workers' town site, the archaeologists estimate that more than 4,000 pounds of meat — from cattle, sheep and goats — were slaughtered every day, on average, to feed the pyramid builders.

This meat-rich diet, along with the availability of medical care (the skeletons of some workers show healed bones), would have been an additional lure for ancient Egyptians to work on the pyramids.

"People were taken care of, and they were well fed when they were down there working, so there would have been an attractiveness to that," said Richard Redding, chief research officer at Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA), a group that has been excavating and studying the workers' town site for about 25 years.

"They probably got a much better diet than they got in their village," Redding told LiveScience.

Museum Pieces - King Menkaura, the goddess Hathor, and the deified Hare nome

Photo credit: Museum Of Fine Arts Boston

King Menkaura, the goddess Hathor, and the deified Hare nome

• Egyptian, Old Kingdom, Dynasty 4, reign of Menkaura, 2490–2472 B.C.

The sublime beauty of this triple statue masks the sophistication of its composition. The central and largest figure is Hathor, an important goddess throughout Egyptian history associated with fertility, creation, birth, and rebirth. She was the king's divine mother and protector. Here, she wears a headdress of cow's horns and a sun disk, but otherwise her appearance is that of a human female, and she is depicted with the same hairstyle and garment as her earthly counterparts. 

Hathor embraces King Menkaura, who is standing to her left. He wears a crown symbolic of Upper Egypt (the Nile Valley) and a wraparound kilt whose sharp pleats conform to the outline of his body. In his right hand he holds a mace, a weapon frequently wielded by kings in relief, but until now not reproduced in stone sculpture. Here, artists solved the problem of carving its thin and fragile shaft in the round by resting it on Hathor's throne. In Menkaura's left hand is a short implement with a concave end; it is generally interpreted as a case for documents. Size corresponds to hierarchical position in Egyptian art, and while visually Hathor and Menkaura appear to be the same height, the seated goddess is significantly larger in scale. Like Menkaura's queen in the pair statue (pp. 86-87), Hathor's embrace is one of association, not affection, and all three figures gaze impassively into a distant horizon. 

The third and smallest figure is a goddess of lesser importance, associated not with the entire country, but with a single district in Upper Egypt known as the Hare nome. It is symbolized by the rabbit standard she wears on her head. An artist has cleverly merged the ankh sign she carries in her left hand with Hathor's throne. The Hare nome goddess, like Hathor and Menkaura, exhibits a body proportioned according to the Old Kingdom ideal of beauty and is modeled with the restrained elegance that makes this period a highpoint of Egyptian art. 

The inscription on the sculpture's base clarifies the meaning of this complicated piece: "The Horus (Kakhet), King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Menkaura, beloved of Hathor, Mistress of the Sycamore. Recitation: I have given you all good things, all offerings, and all provisions in Upper Egypt, forever." It signifies that all the material goods produced in the Hare nome will be presented to the king to sustain him in perpetuity. One theory suggests that eight such triads, each featuring the king and Hathor with one of the other nome deities, were set up in Menkaura's Valley Temple.

Source: http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/king-menkaura-the-goddess-hathor-and-the-deified-hare-nome-138424

FINDSPOT

Giza, Egypt

DIMENSIONS

Width x height x depth x weight: 43.5 x 84.5 x 49 cm, 187.8 kg (17 1/8 x 33 1/4 x 19 5/16 in., 414.02 lb.) Mount (Steel pallet sits on wooden reinforced pedestal/4-steel clips): 10.2 x 62.5 x 64.8 cm (4 x 24 5/8 x 25 1/2 in.) Case (wooden pedestal): 100.3 x 68.6 x 71.1 cm (39 1/2 x 27 x 28 in.) Block (Plex-bonnet): 105.4 x 64.5 x 67 cm (41 1/2 x 25 3/8 x 26 3/8 in.)

MEDIUM OR TECHNIQUE

Greywacke

CLASSIFICATION

Sculpture

PROVENANCE

From Giza, Menkaura (Mycerinus) Valley Temple. 1908: excavated by the Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts Expedition; 1909: awarded to the MFA by the government of Egypt.

(Accession Date: May 17, 1909)

CREDIT LINE

Harvard University—Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition

ACCESSION NUMBER

09.200

ON VIEW

George D. and Margo Behrakis Gallery (Egypt Old Kingdom) - 207

Royal Statuary through Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt

This article covers the trends through Egyptian royal statuary through the Old and Middle Kingdoms. It shows how the changes in society, in attitude and structure, drove these artistic trends.

by Lorna Phillips

Many changes occurred in the Old and Middle Kingdoms in Egypt, especially in relation to the attitude of the people towards the king. The trends in royal statuary during this time reflect these fluctuations in society, both physically and in their purpose. One of the main physical changes in royal statues was the development of portraiture. The sculptors had to try and accomplish a sense of naturalism yet still show the magnificence of the king.

Throughout Egyptian history, the statuary of royals has had a firm funerary grounding. This is definitely true for the Old Kingdom, as it was still strongly believed that the statue could hold divine power and was a place for the king’s ka (spirit) whilst he was in the afterlife. As they were sacred items, most were hidden away, often in a serdab, and were the focus for the cults of the dead kings as a link between the living and the dead. Although they could not see the statue, it gave them something solid upon which to focus their worship. According to Cyril Aldred, the statues were purely practical, not aiming to be emotional for the viewer, as the viewer was not for whom the statue was made. The statuary of this time was focussed only on the deceased and their needs.

Even though the statues continued to be associated with the king after his death, during the Middle Kingdom they also began to represent the king while he was still alive. The kings of the Middle Kingdom had not emerged from the unrest of the First Intermediate Period with full support. Statues were therefore placed in temples around Egypt as monuments, aiming to remind the people of the king’s dominance. Through this worship, the bonds between the king and the local communities strengthened.