Archaeologist explores the secrets of Egypt's pyramids

In this guest article, Dr Meredith Brand, an expert contributor on 'Bradley Walsh: Egypt's Cosmic Code', talks about her extensive work as an archaeologist and Egyptologist. Dr Meredith Brand explains what it was like accompanying Bradley Walsh on his quest for answers, as well as her own experience working on expeditions across Egypt.

Bradley Walsh: Egypt's Cosmic Code is available on Sky HISTORY from Tuesday, 18th March.

Filming Egypt's Cosmic Code with Bradley Walsh was fun for me as an Egyptologist and archaeologist to explore how the pyramids were built. Like many visitors to the Great Pyramids of Giza, Bradley arrived with his own theories. As soon as he saw the pyramids, he was struck by their humanity. The outer fine limestone casing of the Great Pyramid has been lost to time (and looters), and what remains today is the pyramid’s inner core.

This core is a little wonky - the blocks are slightly uneven and fitted with human imprecision. Immediately, Bradley put aside the conspiracy theories and wanted to understand the archaeological evidence. By taking a step back and looking at the pyramids, as Bradley found out, you can see the efforts of the people who built them. He looked at the stones and could spot the hand of the workers and could recognize where, almost 4,500 years ago, someone stuck a chisel, or filled gaps in stone with mortar. This led to our central questions in Egypt's Cosmic Code, who built the pyramids, how did they do it, and what were their lives like?

Ancient Egypt is full of beautiful art and spectacular monuments of the pharaohs. Most historians and history buffs want to understand the lives of the pharaohs and the courtiers who enjoyed these exquisite things. But, I tend to see pyramids and temples and wonder who the hidden people behind their construction were. I am interested in the regular, ordinary people of ancient Egypt. Perhaps it's my own perspective as a 'regular person', but I connect more with the daily realities of the past: work, family, and daily life, rather than the intrigue of palaces.

My interest was also shaped by my first archaeological dig in Egypt. I moved to Cairo when I was 17 to study Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, and a year later I got my first chance to work on an archaeological project. I joined Ancient Egypt Research Association’s (AERA) excavations directed by Mark Lehner at the town of the workmen who built the great pyramids of Giza. I assisted in the artifact storeroom, categorizing and organizing objects. I watched the archaeologists study tiny charred plant remains and animal bones, and peer into microscopes to analyze bits of ancient charcoal and traces of pigments. I was fascinated by the ceramicists examining fragments of pottery to learn what people cooked with, and ate and drank from. I learned from the Giza archaeologists that through the often-overlooked traces of garbage, we can glimpse the lives of invisible people. I was hooked. I wanted to study ancient trash to understand ordinary ancient Egyptians.

When it came time for me to start my own project during my PhD, I turned to Ancient Egyptian jewelry. To me, it’s some of the most beautiful pieces of craftsmanship in history. Bradley Walsh and I went to see the Tutankhamun treasures in the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir (which are being moved to the must-see Grand Egyptian Museum. Even though I have seen the funerary mask of Tutankhamun dozens of times, I am still blown away by its beauty and opulence.

For the last ten years, I have been working with an amazing team of archaeologists and scientists trying to understand the same questions that Bradley and the AERA archaeological team asked at the pyramids of Giza: Who made these amazing things?

To answer these questions I joined up with Kate Liszka (California State University San Bernardino) and Bryan Kraemer (Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art, California State University San Bernardino) to start the Wadi el-Hudi Expedition. Our goal is to survey and excavate Middle Kingdom (c. 2055 - 1650 BCE) amethyst mining sites and worker settlements in an area of Egypt’s Eastern Desert called Wadi el-Hudi.

Amethyst was fashionable in the Middle Kingdom. Archaeologists discovered jewelry belonging to Middle Kingdom queens and princesses in pyramids at a site called Dahshur around 25 miles south of Cairo. Many of these gorgeous pieces had shiny purple amethyst. Our project aims to study the scores of workers who mined this precious stone.

Ancient Egyptian mining sites at Wadi el-Hudi are impressive. They usually have a giant open pit mine (some are over 250 feet wide), and a dry stone settlement nearby where the workers lived and the administration ran things. There are also hundreds of rock inscriptions made by soldiers and administrators who pecked out a drawing or a few sentences that give insights into their lives. And the administrators set up massive inscribed stones called stelae recording that the pharaohs sent them to extract purple amethyst. But it's the excavations of these sites that give us deeper clues as to the lives of these miners.

Almost every winter, we travel to the desert and work at these sites where we have discovered a lot of evidence about ancient miners, soldiers, and administrators. We have studied the mines and recorded traces of chisels from the miners’ work, mapped massive spoil heaps, and discovered huge hammer stones of strong dolerite that crushed quartz revealing purple amethyst. In some rooms of the mining settlements, we have uncovered huge amounts of crystal quartz with tiny bits of leftover purple amethyst (more than 800 pounds of quartz chips in one room!).

Our excavations found the workers’ houses and administrative areas where we discovered invaluable treasures: small fragments of animal bones, little bits of desiccated plants, charcoal and pieces of wood, stone tools, and pottery. These clues help to piece together the lives of ancient Egyptian miners.

To study these treasures, we put together an amazing team of researchers inspired by the Giza workmen's village excavation.

One of the most fascinating things we discovered is evidence for food. The ancient mining team at Wadi el-Hudi were well-fed. The discarded animal bones showed that they ate a lot of sheep and goat, and even brought salted beef and fish from the Nile. We also found gazelle bones, showing they hunted in the desert too.

The hearths had charcoal made from desert acacia trees, it seems the miners and soldiers cut wood in the desert and burned it. We can imagine some of the men roaming the desert searching for occasional trees to burn.

We also discovered the workforce was made up of men from all over Egypt and even Nubia, the land to the south of Egypt. Texts from the site list men from many districts in southern Egypt and Nubia. In the housing areas, we excavated Egyptian-style pottery and Nubian-style pottery alongside each other, suggesting this varied population lived and worked together.

These guys must have been pretty close. Excavations of the houses show that they shared small kitchens and probably cooked their own food from a mix of royal supply and small amounts of hunted meat.

Life in the desert breaking rocks for the Pharaoh's gems was pretty rough. But we have overwhelming evidence of ancient Egyptian people who achieved amazing feats. And I hope these miners would be happy to know that people around 4,000 years later are interested in them and their work.

While we still have many questions about ancient Egypt, as Egypt's Cosmic Code with Bradley Walsh shows, archaeology is the way to find out the answers to these questions, not internet conspiracies. We have so much evidence of the people who dragged stones to build pyramids and crushed rocks in the desert for gemstones. It’s important to recognize that ancient Egyptians achieved incredible things, and to learn more about the men and women whose hard labor and persistence created the splendor of the kings.