The Great Pyramid: Ancient Egypt Revisited
The largest and most precise stone building in the world and a feat of  Bronze Age technology, the Great Pyramid of Giza was built around 2478 B.C. in  the reign of King Khufu. But how did the Great Pyramid's makers go about their  daily work? what were their timetables, their ambitions? Transposing to Giza  some known facts about the building rates of the Red Pyramid during the reign  of Khufu's father, Sneferu, archeologist Romer (Great  Excavations) concludes that it would have taken 14 years to build  the Great Pyramid and that a nationwide workforce of around 21,000 was employed  during the first year of construction and almost half that number as it  approached completion. Taking traditional Egyptologists to task, Romer warns  readers against swallowing the "myth" that the Great Pyramid was built by a  mindless rural labor force kidnapped from distant villages and enslaved by a  bureaucracy governed by talented noblemen. Instead, he posits that the workers  were intelligent and inventive. Moreover, the author believes that the builders  worked from a single construction plan, a "hidden logic" denied by many  scholars but that he claims he alone has recovered. Romer is a bracing writer  with attitude to spare, yet highly technical data render this volume more  suitable to architects than lay readers. Illus.(Apr.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.