Egypt displayed today newly discovered tombs more than 4,000 years old and said they belonged to people who worked on the Great Pyramids of Giza, supporting evidence that slaves did not build the ancient monuments.
Hawass said the builders came from poor families from the north and the south, and were respected for their work – so much so that those who died during construction were bestowed the honour of being buried in the tombs near the sacred pyramids of their pharaohs.
Evidence from tombs suggests workers were paid, well nourished and buried with honour, perhaps indicating that these were skilled craftsmen rather than slaves.
By Shakespeare's time, the church was already nearly 500 years old, crammed with crumbling tombs and memorials, some of them dating back to the Crusades.
Flat roofs of reinforced concrete have held together as they crashed down and became tombs, making a solid barrier against rescue work.
Some of their grand chapels were demolished; others now stand forlorn and ruined amid the tombs, ghostly hollow shells.
According to reports in the New Vision yesterday, a man walked into a Kampala police station and confessed to setting the tombs on fire.
The mud-brick tombs were uncovered last week near the Giza pyramids, stretching beyond a burial site first found in the 1990s and dating to the 4th dynasty (2575BC to 2467BC), on the fringes of the present-day capital, Cairo.
The reconstruction of the Kasubi tombs, destroyed by fire earlier this month, could take up to six months and cost around UShs 10bn, UShs 5bn more than first expected.
The tombs contained no gold or valuables, which safeguarded them from tomb raiders throughout antiquity, and the bodies were not mummified.
Related: Delhi's new breed of independent restaurants, bars and clubs The first thing to do is stroll around the historic Hauz Khas complex, with its medieval madrasa, tombs, mosque and lake.
