A cemetery, not a city
Giza is often described as an “ancient city,” but in the Old Kingdom the plateau was a cemetery. People lived and worked near it, yet the pyramids, temples and tombs were built as a funerary landscape for kings and their families, officials and priests. The ordinary living population of the region was elsewhere, in towns along the Nile, and the modern city of Giza is a later settlement beside the monuments. The word usually used by Egyptologists is necropolis, “city of the dead.” That fits the layout well, because the plateau was planned with streets of tombs, a processional approach from the river, and temples where offerings were made.
The royal complexes
Each of the three main pyramids stood at the heart of a group of buildings.
- Mortuary temple. Built against the pyramid’s east face, it was where the king’s cult was performed and offerings were presented. Khafre’s temple is notable for very large limestone blocks and granite casing.
- Causeway. A long covered path ran from the mortuary temple down to the edge of the cultivated land. Its walls were often decorated, though few reliefs survive in place.
- Valley temple. At the lower end, near a canal or harbour, the valley temple was the entrance to the whole complex. Khafre’s valley temple is among the best preserved and has pillars of red granite. Statues of the king, including one carved in a dark hard stone, were found there.
Khufu’s complex also included boat pits beside the pyramid. A full-size cedar boat found in one pit in 1954 was reassembled and is now displayed in a museum; another pit holds a second boat. Their precise purpose, whether for the king’s funeral journey or for his travel with the sun in the afterlife, is debated.
Queens’ pyramids
Small subsidiary pyramids stand close to each king’s pyramid. Three lie beside Khufu’s, on its east side, and are traditionally linked with royal women, though their occupants are not all firmly identified. Near them was found the burial shaft of Queen Hetepheres I, who is generally thought to have been Khufu’s mother. It held furniture, including parts of a gilded bed and canopy, which provide rare examples of Old Kingdom royal furnishings. Menkaure’s complex has three small pyramids to the south of the main one. Another unusual monument is the tomb of Queen Khentkaus I, whose form stands apart from the typical pyramid.
Nobles’ tombs
East and west of Khufu’s pyramid, officials and relatives were buried in rows of flat-roofed mastaba tombs laid out on a grid. Such cemeteries are sometimes called the Eastern and Western Fields. Burial close to the king was a privilege, and it reflected the belief that proximity to the ruler brought continuing benefit after death. These mastabas often contain carved chapels, offering scenes and inscriptions that name titles and family links, so they are an important source on royal administration. One such figure is the Egyptian vizier Hemiunu, usually regarded as a close relative of Khufu. Inscriptions of this kind are written in the Egyptian hieroglyphic script and give details about the careers of the officials buried here.
A mastaba had a chapel above ground for offerings and a burial chamber far below, reached by a shaft. The structure tells us much about how Egyptians approached their own temple architecture and tomb design: the visible part was for rituals and for the living, while the burial itself was sealed. Study of such tombs also informs the history of the stone sarcophagus design used in elite burials, and of the funerary offerings of bread, beer and meat pictured on chapel walls.
The workers’ town
Immediately south-east of the main plateau, excavators have uncovered a large settlement, often called the “Lost City of the Pyramid Builders” in popular writing, though “workers’ town” is more accurate. It lies behind a huge stone wall, known as the Wall of the Crow. It contained bakeries, breweries, storage rooms and long galleries where crews may have slept. Nearby were cemeteries for workers, with modest tombs placed on the slope close to the royal monuments. This evidence matters because it shows that the builders were provided for and buried with some dignity. The people who actually built the monuments are the subject of a separate article.
Later history of the plateau
Giza did not stop mattering after the Fourth Dynasty. Priests continued to serve the royal cults for some time, and the Sphinx was honoured as a divine figure during the New Kingdom. Kings such as Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV left chapels or inscriptions there. Tombs were reused, and in later periods people also cut burial shafts into the older cemeteries. In the Middle Ages, much of the pyramid casing and many temple stones were removed for building in Cairo, which explains why the surfaces look so different from the originals.
Reading the layout
Seen as a whole, Giza shows planning that was carried through three reigns. The main pyramids stand on a rocky shelf above the flood, the tombs of the court are arranged around them, and the causeways link everything to the river. The ordered grid of mastabas suggests that space was allocated by authority. Understanding the plateau as a necropolis, with an adjoining town for its builders, gives a more accurate picture than the idea of a lost city.