Many movies show slaves building the pyramids while being hit with whips. But scientists have found a workers' town near the pyramids at Giza. The workers had bakeries and ate a lot of meat.

Some workers had broken bones that healed well, so they got medical care. They were buried near the pyramid with their job titles. So the builders were probably not whipped slaves.

The image of slaves building the pyramids comes partly from Herodotus, a Greek historian who visited Egypt about 2,000 years after they were finished. Since the late 1980s, however, archaeologists led by Mark Lehner have excavated a town south of the Great Pyramid where the builders lived. They found large bakeries, places to sleep, and huge numbers of cattle, sheep, and goat bones, which show that workers were well fed.

In 1990, workers' tombs were also discovered near the pyramids, and some skeletons showed broken bones that had been treated. Most researchers now think the builders were organized teams, including skilled workers and farmers who took turns working for the state.

The popular image of whipped slaves dragging stones to build the pyramids comes partly from Herodotus, a Greek historian who visited Egypt some two thousand years after they were completed and relied on hearsay. Since the late 1980s, excavations south of the Great Pyramid have uncovered the builders' town. It had large bakeries and barrack-like housing, along with vast quantities of cattle, sheep, and goat bones.

Nearby tombs, discovered in 1990, bear job titles. Skeletons show healed fractures, which are evidence of medical care, along with spinal wear from heavy labor. In 2013, French archaeologists at Wadi al-Jarf, an ancient Red Sea port, found some of the oldest surviving papyri.

Among them was the logbook of an inspector named Merer, whose team of about 40 men shipped limestone from Tura to Giza late in Khufu's reign. Most scholars now favor a corvée system, in which skilled craftsmen worked alongside farmers who served rotating shifts as a form of tax.

Some gaps are hard to close. Meat may not have been shared equally. Whether rotating farmers were buried there is unclear. And Merer's diary is a record of shipping stone. It says nothing about how the pyramid itself was raised.