Hieroglyphic Graffiti
In 2011, Zahi Hawass, former head of Egypt’s’ Supreme Council of Antiquities, organized an exploration of two eight-inch shafts deep within the great pyramid at Giza. The purpose of the shafts, located between the King and Queens chambers are unknown but, using a robot called Djedi, after the magician consulted when the pyramid was planned, Hawass hoped to reveal their mysteries. Instead, the robots’ flexible “micro snake” camera discovered something else: 4500-year-old graffiti left by the work teams who built the pyramid.
These illicit scribblings inside the pyramids most inaccessible areas were never meant to be seen. However, they have provided a great deal of information about how the workers were organized and motivated when building the pyramid. Daubed in red paint, the hieroglyphics reveal that the men were organized into small work gangs. To give an extra sense of cohesion and identity, these bands all adopted individual names, each prefixed with the name of the Pharoah they were laboring for: Khufu.
Some of the names were relatively neutral such as ” The Green One.” However, other names indicate that the gangs were highly motivated to do the best job possible. The team that chose the name “Endurance” were intent on seeing the job through to the bitter end, no matter what the obstacles, while the “perfection gang” were focusing on being the best. The position of one set of graffiti showed that these gangs often competed against each other. One section of the tunnel had graffiti from one group on one side and a different team opposite it, suggesting different gangs labored on the same jobs but competed against each other to be the quickest and the best.
The graffiti also shows how the workers felt about their employer. One gang, who scribbled their name close to the burial chamber of Pharoah Khufu himself called themselves “The Friends of Khufu Gang,” demonstrating a familiar goodwill towards the King they labored for.
Egyptian workers were not the only people to deface their national monuments. The Mayans did it too.