Pyramid builders weren't slaves: Archaeologists

London, Jan 11: Egyptian archaeologists have dicovered that builders of great pyramids were not slaves but they were paid labourers.

According to archaeologists, thousands of men who built the last remaining wonder of the ancient world regularly ate meat and worked in three-month rotating shifts.

Head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass said, "The tombs date back to Egypt's fourth dynasty between 2575 BC and 2467 BC and it was during this time that the great pyramids were built."

"These tombs were built beside the King's pyramid which indicates that these people weren't by any means slaves. If they were slaves they would not have been able to build their tombs beside their King's," he was quoted by Daily Mail as saying.

The labourers were also given the honour of being buried in mud brick tombs within the shadow of the sacred pyramids they worked on.

"It is important to find tombs that belong to lower class people that are not made out of stone and tell you the social origin and wealth of a range of people," Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, said.

Similar tombs were first discovered in 1990 and showed that the workers were paid labourers, not slaves.

OneIndia News