Bread and Pyramids on the Giza Plateau 2555 BC

Starlight through an opening in the hut wall was my awakening radiance unless the moon goddess was in the mood to visit us. Hemetra my wife (Honour of Ra) was asleep and I would not wake her so early. She was a being of the light and I a creature of the dark; but yet we so loved each other. She stirred before I was away and called after me “Nefermaat (meaning beautiful truth,) bid me goodbye properly.” I kissed her and rose quickly and after a draft of beer to wash away the taste of the night went to the door of the building.

The main pyramid village lay by the valley temple of the Great Pyramid close to the 'Wall of the Crow', (a boundary which separated the land of the living from the land of the dead.) * The sharp, blue starlight seemed to increase its size and cast shadows across the village. I hurriedly made my way to the bakery which was one of many within the village. Once inside I lit the oil lamp and then fired the first oven. We had five in total and once the first was lit the other ovens oven would be fired at 3 hour intervals throughout the day. The next would be fired at dawn and then temple priests rang the bells at each 3 hour period after dawn. Each oven was heated by wood or dung and then the ash was raked out and the bread placed in. The oven was then sealed allowing the bread to cook in the residual heat. The ovens were made of mud and straw and each bakery had a slightly different design of oven.

Our bread was mostly made from emmer** wheat, which is difficult to turn into flour.  Other than emmer, barley was grown to make bread and also used for making beer. The grit from the grinding stones mixed in with bread but for those who could afford better there was also finer bread baked from better sifted flour but this came rarely to me unless I was baking for high people. Flavorings used for bread included honey, spices, or fruit, seeds and dates, but for the poor it was usually wild herbs that grew locally. Here in the Giza plateau few herbs grew so bread was pretty basic for the average worker.  

The one thing we had discovered was that we could use the yeast culture from brewing ale for the process of making bread. Much bread at this time was unleavened and rather dense in texture. But if we added some yeast to the flour mixture and then waited a short time the results were amazing. Yeast culture was seemingly almost immortal if cared for properly. We could not make yeast but we could harness the wild strains that occur naturally everywhere. A portion of the yeast was used to bake the daily bread and the remainder carried forward for the next day. The mother yeast culture was treated with reverence lest it die. Over time it also lost its beery bitterness and became mellower and sweet. It was stored in a covered stone lined pit within the bakery building and was fed with flour and honey and many prayers to Tcheft, (the goddess of Food.) She did not always answer them and so a new mother starter would need to be made using the brewing yeasts or we would trade with another bakery.

 

I removed some of the starter from the pit into the warmth of the bakery and placed it into a wooden bowl. I then fed the mother culture with flour, honey and prayers. The main flour store was some distance to the bakery and was under the control of the priests. Each day I would get a new supply and would leave some ready in the mixing trough in the warmth of the bakery overnight. The rest was emptied from the sack into the grain bin. This warming was necessary during the bread process and also encouraged the beetles and mites out onto the surface of the flour to be skimmed off the next day. Water was also left through the night to warm in the residual heat from the hot day.

I skimmed the flour and threw the bugs on the fire in the courtyard. The flour exploded in a shower of sparks as the flour dust hit the flames. The flour was put into the trough up to a mark on its side, salt and water were added and the mixing began. The mixture was stirred with a large paddle shaped like a boats oar. It was hard work but the mixture was softer now than it would be once it was finished. Then the starter was added from the bowl and mixed in. Now the mixture thickened beyond the ability for me to stir so I climbed within the trough and began to knead the mixture with my feet. I trod the mix for 30 mins and then shaped the loaves onto cedar wood boards.

 

I made 30 loaves with a weight of 1.5kg from each trough mix. Each loaf was weighed on the scale. The priests would check and severe punishment handed to any baker making underweight loaves. In total 150 loves a day with a weight of 225kg; that’s almost a quarter of a tonne of bread per day. No wonder we didn’t live much past 40 years old. It took 30 minutes to shape the loaves and then I could rest for a short time. I downed a jug of beer and checked the first oven. The flames had subsided and now the glowing embers pulsated in the darkness like a sleeping demon. I raked out the oven and placed the embers in the second oven. It sprang to life instantly.

The bread was placed in the oven in the order it was shaped and then the wooden door was placed in position. The bread would not come out till the next loaves were proving. Dawn was just breaking. The great pyramid would be completed in the next few years and Khufu would have his resting place among the gods. The celestial barge*** would be brought with his body and his servants and goods entombed alongside him. Among the goods on the barge for the celestial journey across the sky to Ra (the sun god of Ancient Egypt) was bread. We would not see this. Once the pyramid was finished we could finally go home again.

*All archaeologists have their own methods of calculating the number of workers employed at Giza, but most agree that the Great Pyramid was built by approximately 4,000 primary labourers (quarry workers, hauliers and masons). They would have been supported by 16-20,000 secondary workers (ramp builders, tool-makers, mortar mixers and those providing back-up services such as supplying food, clothing and fuel). This gives a total of 20-25,000, labouring for 20 years or more.

The workers may be sub-divided into a permanent workforce of some 5,000 salaried employees who lived, together with their families and dependents, in a well-established pyramid village. There would also have been up to 20,000 temporary workers who arrived to work three- or four-month shifts, and who lived in a less sophisticated camp established alongside the pyramid village.

The sacred precincts of the Giza pyramid village cemetery were defined by the 'Wall of the Crow', a massive limestone boundary which separated the land of the living from the land of the dead. The main pyramid village lay outside this wall, close by the valley temple of the Great Pyramid. Unfortunately, this settlement now lies beneath the modern town of Nazlet es-Samman, and is largely inaccessible.

The village dead - men, women and children - were buried in a sloping desert cemetery. Their varied tombs and graves, including miniature pyramids, step-pyramids and domed tombs, incorporate expensive stone elements 'borrowed' from the king's building site. The larger, more sophisticated, limestone tombs lie higher up the cemetery slope; here we find the administrators involved in the building of the pyramid, plus those who furnished its supplies.

** Today emmer is primarily a heritage crop in mountainous areas. Its value lies in its ability to give good yields on poor soils, and its resistance to fungal diseases such as stem rust that are prevalent in wet areas. Emmer is grown in Armenia, Morocco, Spain (Asturias), the Carpathian Mountains on the border of the Czech and Slovak republics, Albania, Turkey, Switzerland and Italy. It is also grown in the U.S. as a specialty product. A traditional food plant in Ethiopia, this relatively little-known grain has potential to improve nutrition, boost food security, foster rural development and support sustainable land care.

***The Khufu ship is an intact full-size vessel from Ancient Egypt that was sealed into a pit in the Giza pyramid complex at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza around 2500 BC. The ship was almost certainly built for Khufu (King Cheops), the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Like other buried Ancient Egyptian ships, it was apparently part of the extensive grave goods intended for use in the afterlife, and contained no bodies, unlike northern European ship burials. The Khufu ship is one of the oldest, largest, and best-preserved vessels from antiquity. It measures 43.6 m (143 ft) long and 5.9 m (19.5 ft) wide.

This picture of the pyramids was taken from Eduard Spelterini's balloon on 21 November 1904