Who built the pyramids? Some people say slaves did. But the pyramids were built by Egyptian workers, not by slaves. The Great Pyramid at Giza was built as the tomb of a king named Khufu. When it was new, it was about 481 feet tall.

The Great Pyramid has more than two million stone blocks. An average block weighs about 2.5 tons. The smooth white outer stone was limestone from a quarry at Tura; the quarry was about 8 miles away.

How did workers move the blocks? The cut blocks were likely placed on sledges, and teams of men or cattle pulled them. About a dozen men pulled a sledge that held a 2-ton block. That is heavy work.

The workers were hired and paid. Egypt had no money then, so pay came in food, such as grain. Near the pyramids, diggers found a workers' town; it had bakeries. Bread was baked there in big bell-shaped clay pots.

Next to the pyramids sits the Sphinx. Much of it was carved right out of the limestone rock at Giza. It is about 240 feet long, and it is more than 65 feet tall. For most of its life, desert sand buried it, sometimes up to its shoulders.

So who built the pyramids? Egyptian workers did. They were hired and paid. The bakeries near the pyramids show that the workers had bread to eat. They were not slaves.

Words to know

• limestone: soft stone
• quarry: stone pit
• sledges: sleds
• tomb: a grave
• Sphinx: lion statue