Editing Great Pyramid of Giza (section)

=== Workforce ===
The [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greeks]] believed that [[Slavery in ancient Egypt|slave labour]] was used, but modern discoveries made at nearby workers' camps associated with construction at Giza suggest that it was built by thousands of [[Civil conscription|conscript labourers]].{{sfn|Lehner|1997|pp=39, 224}}

Worker graffiti found at Giza suggest haulers were divided into ''zau'' (singular ''za''), groups of 40 men, consisting of four sub-units that each had an "Overseer of Ten".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Lehner|first=Mark|date=2004|title=Of Gangs and Graffiti: How Ancient Egyptians Organized their Labor Force|url=http://www.aeraweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/aeragram7_1.pdf|journal=Aeragram|volume=7-1|pages=11–13|access-date=27 March 2021|archive-date=22 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210422084726/http://www.aeraweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/aeragram7_1.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>{{sfn|Tallet|2017}}

As to the question of how over two million blocks could have been cut within Khufu's lifetime, stonemason Franck Burgos conducted an [[Experimental archaeology|archaeological experiment]] based on an abandoned quarry of Khufu discovered in 2017. Within it, an almost completed block and the tools used for cutting it had been uncovered: hardened [[Arsenical bronze|arsenic copper]] chisels, wooden mallets, ropes and stone tools. In the experiment replicas of these were used to cut a block weighing about 2.5 tonnes (the average block size used for the Great Pyramid). It took four workers 4 days (with each working 6 hours a day) to excavate it. The initially slow progress speeded up six times when the stone was wetted with water. Based on the data, Burgos extrapolates that about 3,500 quarry-men could have produced the 250 blocks/day needed to complete the Great Pyramid in 27 years.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Burgos|first1=Franck|last2=Laroze|first2=Emmanuel|date=2020|title=L'extraction des blocs en calcaire à l'Ancien Empire. Une expérimentation au ouadi el-Jarf|url=http://www.egyptian-architecture.com/JAEA4/article27/JAEA4_Burgos_Laroze.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210627235809/http://www.egyptian-architecture.com/JAEA4/article27/JAEA4_Burgos_Laroze.pdf |archive-date=2021-06-27 |url-status=live|journal=Ancient Egyptian Architecture|volume=4|pages=73–95}}</ref>

A construction management study conducted in 1999, in association with [[Mark Lehner]] and other Egyptologists, had estimated that the total project required an average workforce of about 13,200 people and a peak workforce of roughly 40,000.<ref name="civilengineer2">{{cite magazine|last=Smith|first=Craig B.|date=June 1999|title=Project Management B.C.|url=http://www.pubs.asce.org/ceonline/0699feat.html|url-status=dead|magazine=Civil Engineering Magazine|volume=69|issue=6|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070608101037/http://www.pubs.asce.org/ceonline/0699feat.html|archive-date=8 June 2007}}</ref>