What kind of settlement is the Heit el-Ghurab site?

He Heit el-Ghurab site has been described as a worker’s camp.66 A camp can designate a place for a temporary stay, a set of buildings where people are housed temporarily, for example, as prisoners, refugees, or troops; or describe a site with short-term, removable accommodation. his later definition is not applicable to the Heit el-Ghurab site as it is characterised by very large buildings using up to 185,000 mud-bricks alone in each individual gallery structure.67 However the central part of the site certainly seems to have been a barracks providing accommodation for a rotating labour force or perhaps for troops.68 he settlement could be considered ‘temporary’ to the extent that it seems to have been abandoned and dismantled soon after the completion of the building task.69 Nevertheless the Heit el-Ghurab site functioned at least for the duration of the reigns of Khafre and Menkaure which is possibly twice as long as the life span of the city of Amarna. Furthermore based on the titles found on mud sealings in the Western Town, an important part of the central administration may have been located here.70

He Heit el-Ghurab site has also been described as the

Ikaouhor-Menkaouhor’, RdE 31 (1979), 3-28; J. Yoyotte, ‘Le bassin de Djaroukha’, Kemi 15 (1959), 23-33. For the ra-she as a storage and delivery area around a harbour, R. Stadelmann, ‘La ville de pyramide a l’Ancien Empire’, in RdE 33 (1981), 163-164; Lehner, MDAJK41 (1985), 136.

64  Lehner, MDAIK 41 (1985), 133-136 and graphically shown in M. Lehner, he Complete Pyramids (London 1997), figure on pages 230-231.

65  he eastern settlement in the cultivation was confirmed by subsequent work see El-Sanussi and Jones, MDAIK 53 (1997) 241-253, and Lehner, JARCE 39 (2002), 27-74. he inferred desert edge settlement was located in 1988 and is the subject of the present article. For the identification of the Heit el-Ghurab settlement with the ‘Southern Tjeniu of Khafre’ see M. Lehner, ‘City on Edge: Gateways to Giza South’ Dispatch 1_2011ii17_ML (AERA: GPMP Reports on file).

66  Kemp, Anatomy, 188-190, fig 66.

67  Heindl estimates a total of 5,088,000 bricks for the total four sets of galleries. G. Heindl, Methods of reconstructing the worker’s house ‘Gallery III-4’ in the workmen’s settlement south of the Wall of the Crow in Giza (GOP, Boston forthcoming).

68  Lehner, in AERAGRAM 7.1 (2004), 14-15.

69  Lehner in Lehner and Wetterstrom (eds), Giza Reports 1, 46-47. Parts of the site may have functioned later into the fifth dynasty (John Nolan, personal communication).

70  For evidence of a closed community of important scribes connected with the vizier’s office and the royal residence see Nolan and Pavlick, in AERAGRAM 9.1 (2008), 2-4, and Nolan, Mud Sealings, 323-382.

‘largest known pyramid town’.973 he definition of pyramid towns and the identification of these with excavated settlements remains a source of debate.974 While Bietak includes settlements housing pyramid builders, craftsmen and officials within the definition of pyramid town,975 Stadelmann sees pyramid towns as specialised settlements, for those involved in the administration of the funerary cult, which developed around valley temples. hus he considers that pyramid builders’ settlements did not develop into pyramid towns.976 In his discussion of seventeen Old Kingdom pyramid related settlements Bussmann regards only two of these as pyramid towns.977 Recent excavation results compel us to refine and modify our understanding of these settlements.978

We should also consider that the Heit el-Ghurab site functioned in the wider context of settlements, industrial installations and large stone enclosures at Giza.979 hese included the settlement southeast of Menkaure’s pyramid,980 the structures west of Khafre’s Pyramid,981 the settlement in the Menkaure Valley Temple982 and the Khentkaues Town.983 After the reign of Menkaure settlements at Giza seem to have contracted into smaller areas associated with Pyramid temples. Further investigation is needed for a better understanding of the longevity of these sites beyond the fourth dynasty; however it is clear that the Khentkaues town and the village inside and around the Menkaure Valley Temple continued to function at least until the end of the Old Kingdom.