To prove this a team led by Lehner built a 30-foot-high pyramid and then extrapolated how much labor was needed to build a larger one. Some say the work could have been done by as few as 500 hundred skilled craftsmen and 5,000 laborers. 

The people who built the pyramids were likely made up of several thousand highly-skilled and well-paid craftsmen supported by thousands of manual laborers. Based on the number cattle, goats and sheep consumed it has been estimated that there were 6,000 to 7,000 workers at the site at one time, many times more if they only ate meat on special occasions. Supporting the pyramid builders were bakers, brewers and butchers and other service people.

Pyramid Building Workers

The workers worked hard. Exhumed skeletons show many workers 
had compressed vertebrae, likely the result of carrying heavy loads, and even missing fingers and limbs. Some had healed fractures and successful amputations. Most died in their thirties. The bodies of excavated women also showed considerable wear and tear and some scholars believe they may have been pyramid builders too.

Most of the pyramid builders were paid conscripts. Some were full-time employees. An inscription on a tomb of a priest judge buried near the pyramid builders city read: “I paid them in beer and bread, and I made them make an oath that they were satisfied.

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