It all started with a question: Where were the tens of thousands of
workers who built the monumental structures at Giza housed? A massive
ancient gateway, which came to be known by early travellers as the Wall
of the Crow, drew the attention of two figures instrumental in research
on the Giza plateau. These were Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the
Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and former director of the Giza
Plateau who, in 1989-90, discovered the cemetery of the
pyramid-builders, and Mark Lehner, director of the Giza Plateau Mapping
Project (GPMP), who in 1991 had found ancient bakeries due south of the
Sphinx. Few had previously questioned the purpose of this enigmatic
structure, the Wall of the Crow, which has been visible for thousands of
years and through which horse-riders from Neslet Al-Siman regularly
passed. Whether it was a causeway, a bridge or a tunnel was not clear.
However it did pose another question: a gateway to what? It seemed
certain that something really big lay to the south, and in 2001 Lehner
set workmen to clear a deep layer of sand and debris to the north side
of the structure.
It was no easy task. Sand bags were used to hold back the rubble that
had accumulated along the sides of the wall, and only when cleared was
it realised what an impressive structure it really was. The gate was
more than 2.5 metres wide and about seven metres high, and the wall
itself was more than 10 metres thick. It is one of the largest gateways
of its kind in the world. The roadway passing through it was carefully
paved with what appeared to be abraded ceramic fragments, well trampled
and worn. It sloped down several metres under the sand to what Lehner
suspected might be a buried harbour to the north.
It seemed certain that the fourth-dynasty Egyptians who built the
pyramids between 2613 and 2494BC constructed both the wall and the
gateway, and that the purpose was to control the flow of people and
material from a harbour into what, on further excavation, proved to be a
pre- planned settlement area for seasonal workers. The Wall of the Crow
was, in fact, an integral part of a production facility. It might also
have served a secondary purpose: to protect the site from periodic flash
floods. Lehner speculated that the design of the massive wall might have
incorporated a symbolic function — to demarcate the sacred
pyramid-temple precinct from the production zone...
Who built the pyramids?,
Jill Kamil, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 847, May 31 - June 06, 2007.
A search for the lost city
Mark Lehner, director of the Giza Plateau Mapping Project (GPMP),
realised that the excavation of the vast ancient settlement site at Giza
offered him "an opportunity to give back to Egypt something in return
for all the years I have enjoyed excavating here." He envisioned running
a rigorous training programme for Egyptian inspectors to guide them in
the basics of standard archaeological practice around the world, and
today, all over the country, selected SCA inspectors are being trained
in the standard practices that are now used for stratigraphic excavation
and recording in Britain, France, other European countries, and the
United States.
Lehner's aim harmonised with the objective of SCA director Zahi
Hawass to train Egyptian inspectors in advanced techniques of field
archaeology in order, eventually, to make prior training at one of the
professional field schools a condition for appointment to join foreign
missions...
A search for the lost city,
Jill Kamil, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 847, May 31 - June 06, 2007.
cf. Photo Caption: Jill Kamil interviews Mark Lehner,
Jill Kamil, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 847, May 31 - June 06, 2007.
cf. Mark Lehner's website: Ancient Egypt Research Associates.
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