Some of the theories of who built the Pyramids suggest that the builders may not have been from Egypt. How do you respond to that?

One thing that strikes me when I read about these ideas—that it couldn't have been the Egyptians of the Fourth Dynasty who built the Pyramids and the Sphinx, it had to have been an older civilization—I think about those claims and then I look at the marvelous statue of Khafre with the Horus falcon at the back of his head [in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo]. I look at the sublime ship of Khufu that was found buried south of the Pyramid. We know that these objects date from the time of Khafre and Khufu. And I think, my God, this was a great civilization. This was as great as it comes in terms of art and sculpture and building ships from any place on the planet, in the whole repertoire of ancient cultures. Why is there such a need to look for yet another culture, to say, "No, it wasn't these people, it was some civilization that's lost, even older."

"It's very important to prove how the Pyramid was built," says Zahi Hawass, who has been excavating the workers' cemetery for clues to how they lived—and died. EnlargePhoto credit: © WGBH Educational Foundation

Then who built the Pyramids? It was the Egyptians who built the Pyramids. The Great Pyramid is dated with all the evidence, I'm telling you now, to 4,600 years, the reign of Khufu. The Great Pyramid of Khufu is one of 104 Pyramids in Egypt with superstructure, and there are 54 Pyramids with substructure. There is support that the builders of the Pyramids were Egyptians. They are not the Jews as has been said. They are not people from a lost civilization. They are not from outer space. They are Egyptian, and their skeletons are here and were examined by scholars and doctors. The race of all the people we found are completely supporting that they are Egyptians.

Herodotus, when he came here, met guides who told stories and things like that. But I personally believe that, based on the size of the settlement and the whole work of an area that we found, I believe that permanent and temporary workmen who worked at building the Pyramid were 36,000.

Hawass believes that some pyramid-builders worked permanently for the king, while others were rotated in and out on a temporary basis throughout the year. EnlargePhoto credit: © WGBH Educational Foundation

I come to that number based on the size of the Pyramid project, a government project, the size of the tombs, the cemetery. We know we can excavate the cemetery for hundreds of years—generations after generations can work in the cemetery—and the second is the settlement area. I really believe there were permanent workmen who were working for the king. They were paid by the king. These are the technicians who cut the stones, and there are workmen who move the stones and they come and work in rotation. At the same time there are the people who live near the Pyramids that don't need to live at the Pyramids. They come by early in the morning and they work 14 hours, from sunrise to sunset.

We found 600 skeletons. And we found that those people, number one, they were Egyptians, the same like you see in every cemetery in Egypt. Number two, we found evidence that those people had emergency treatment. They had accidents while building the Pyramids. We found 12 skeletons who had accidents with their hands, and they supported the two sides of the hand with wood. And we have another one, a stone fell down on his leg, and they did a kind of operation, they cut his leg, and he lived 14 years after that.

"The Pyramid, you know, has magic, it has mystery," says Hawass. Here, Khafre's Pyramid as seen from the top of that of his father, Khufu.EnlargePhoto credit: © WGBH Educational Foundation