DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6551#0183
146
OPERATIONS CARRIED ON AT GIZEH.
also came late in the morning, and were not fairly at
work before seven, or eight o'clock. They were allowed
an hour at twelve o'clock for dinner, and were dismissed
before sunset. A Reis received two piastres per day;
the men, and larger boys one piastre; and the women,
and children twenty, or thirty paras, according to their
size.3 The men employed in the interior of the pyra-
mids, and those subsequently procured from Cairo, and
from the quarries at the Mokattam, had of course higher
wages; and after the 13th of February, every person
received double pay when any discovery of consequence
occurred. This, however, instead of being an additional
stimulus to exertion, proved a mere waste of money.
The people at first assembled every morning and even-
ing, to be counted off, on the terrace, where the tents
were pitched; but, by a more convenient arrangement,
they afterwards collected, according to their villages,
upon the plain beneath.
In the course of the day a large stone, which seemed
to cover the aperture of a pit, was found near the grotto
where a sarcophagus had been discovered in the middle
shaft. It was broken with some difficulty, but nothing,
excepting sand, was beneath it. A rough wall had been
built from east to west across the lower part of this
shaft, apparently to divide it for separate interments.
More bones were taken out of the grottoes, which seemed
to have been enlarged from natural fissures.
4t/i.— I completed my copy of the hieroglyphics on
3 For the value of money see Appendix. Forty paras make a
piastre, and five piastres are worth a shilling.
OPERATIONS CARRIED ON AT GIZEH.
also came late in the morning, and were not fairly at
work before seven, or eight o'clock. They were allowed
an hour at twelve o'clock for dinner, and were dismissed
before sunset. A Reis received two piastres per day;
the men, and larger boys one piastre; and the women,
and children twenty, or thirty paras, according to their
size.3 The men employed in the interior of the pyra-
mids, and those subsequently procured from Cairo, and
from the quarries at the Mokattam, had of course higher
wages; and after the 13th of February, every person
received double pay when any discovery of consequence
occurred. This, however, instead of being an additional
stimulus to exertion, proved a mere waste of money.
The people at first assembled every morning and even-
ing, to be counted off, on the terrace, where the tents
were pitched; but, by a more convenient arrangement,
they afterwards collected, according to their villages,
upon the plain beneath.
In the course of the day a large stone, which seemed
to cover the aperture of a pit, was found near the grotto
where a sarcophagus had been discovered in the middle
shaft. It was broken with some difficulty, but nothing,
excepting sand, was beneath it. A rough wall had been
built from east to west across the lower part of this
shaft, apparently to divide it for separate interments.
More bones were taken out of the grottoes, which seemed
to have been enlarged from natural fissures.
4t/i.— I completed my copy of the hieroglyphics on
3 For the value of money see Appendix. Forty paras make a
piastre, and five piastres are worth a shilling.