Monumental Record

Recently discovered papyri give unprecedented insight into the lives of the workers building the Great Pyramid of Giza.

papyrus containing the diary of Merer from day 19 to 25 (read right to left) at the Wadi al-Jarf exhibition, Cairo Museum, 2016.
Papyrus containing the diary of Merer from day 19 to 25 (read right to left) at the Wadi al-Jarf exhibition, Cairo Museum, 2016.

In 2013 archaeologists uncovered what has since been called ‘the greatest discovery in Egypt in the 21st century’: hundreds of papyrus fragments dating to the last years of King Khufu’s reign (c.2500 BC) at the oldest harbour in Egypt, a site on the Red Sea coast called Wadi al-Jarf. 

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