> Building the Great Pyramid: 4.2 Million Hours of Labour
Around 4,200 years ago, on the Giza Plateau beside the Nile, humanity achieved one of its most astonishing feats: the construction of the **Great Pyramid of Khufu** (also known as the Pyramid of Cheops). Rising 146 meters high and built from more than two million limestone blocks, it stood for millennia as the tallest human-made structure on Earth.
Though wrapped in myth and mystery, archaeology and engineering now give us a more grounded picture of how it was done — not by slaves dragged in chains, but by thousands of skilled labourers working in an organized, almost industrial system.
# The Scale of Effort Modern estimates suggest that the Great Pyramid required roughly **4.2 million hours of human labour**. Spread over an estimated **20 years of construction**, this would average around **210,000 labour hours per year**, or about **600 hours of coordinated work per day**. If a workforce of 5,000–10,000 skilled builders was employed full time, this labour would have been distributed among stonemasons, haulers, surveyors, bakers, brewers, and administrators — a small city dedicated to precision and endurance.
# How It Was Built Each limestone block weighed between 2 and 15 tons. The core stones were quarried nearby, while the fine white casing stones came from Tura across the Nile. Copper chisels and dolerite pounding stones were used to shape them, and wooden sledges transported them along lubricated ramps. The pyramid’s alignment — true north to within a fraction of a degree — shows astonishing astronomical knowledge. Surveyors used stars and the sun’s shadow to set the orientation before the first stone was laid. Workers lived in a planned settlement beside the plateau, with bakeries, breweries, medical facilities, and barracks. Excavations show they ate well — bread, beef, fish, and beer — supported by an agricultural surplus from the Nile’s fertile floodplain. Far from being slaves, they were likely **rotating teams of paid labourers**, serving in state projects as part of a tax or civic duty system.
# Legacy When completed around **2560 BCE**, the Great Pyramid shimmered in the desert sun, its polished casing stones reflecting light like a massive white jewel. It was built not only as a tomb for Pharaoh Khufu, but as a cosmic statement — a staircase to eternity, linking earth to the divine. To this day, the pyramid’s sheer precision remains a marvel. It embodies the organization, astronomy, and engineering genius of Old Kingdom Egypt — a civilization capable of focusing **4.2 million hours of human effort** into a single, immortal monument.
