This is What Life Was Like for an Egyptian Worker Building the Pyramids

This is What Life Was Like for an Egyptian Worker Building the Pyramids

Aimee Heidelberg - February 27, 2023

This is What Life Was Like for an Egyptian Worker Building the Pyramids
Ancient Egyptian pyramid workers had a rather balanced diet. Public Domain.

What they Ate

Large numbers of workers on the Pyramid project, and they needed to eat. Even so, the food for the pyramid builders was quite good. Every day of the Great Pyramid project, farmers sent 21 cattle and 23 sheep to the workers village to feed the laborers. They got the best cuts of meat, demonstrated by animal bones archaeologists uncovered in the worker’s village. The bones show a diet that included fish, beef, goat, duck, sheep, and the (much more rare) pig. Pigs were not commonly part of the Egyptian diet because they were a one-trick animal. They were used for food, but there was nothing much more the Egyptians would do with the byproducts, thereby wasting the animal. They also ate fruit, dates, honey, cakes, copious amounts of beer, and fresh baked bread rounded out the meal.

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