this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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Pyramids weren't built by slaves, but there's certainly class warfare going on in other ways. Egypt had a lot of farmers sitting around while the Nile was in its flood stage, and they appear to have paid them to work on monuments. Still, it's a lot of work to feed the ego of one ruler.
Hugh, one another stereotype shattered I guess? But still, I don't feel these people workmaxxed themselves just to be the supreme male alpha predators. If they could just sit around, they could've done just that, or organized their living space, or anything, instead of a very traumatic and power-consuming labor. It's a different condition, but the dynamic seems close.
I mean, that isn't to say the egyptians didn't have slaves. Just that pyramid building was a job reserved to engineers and scholars rather than unskilled laborers. Evidence suggests they had a meat rich diet, access to medical care, and worked in 3 month shifts. I'd say they were doing better than the great majority of egyptians.
The group that navigated their project is usually left ignored. The main focus on those who dragged these heavy bricks into their places. There were obviously more of them than actual engineers.
Those were farmers who were not working at the time (due to periodic flooding of the Nile or whatever). I believe they paid their taxes in labor instead of grain, which earned them more money on their harvest. They benefitted from free food and the pharaoh had fewer people milling around with nothing to do (potential revolutionaries).
They weren't slaves, they were just normal farmers paying their taxes. They could probably just leave if they had to. I seem to remember we have records of their attendance. Some people were not present and the reason is like "drunk" or something.
They weren't just "dragging heavy bricks" though. They had pulley systems and used many techniques such as boats, sleighs or logs lubricated by animal fat to transport the stones. Obviously still hard work but far from the depiction we see in the media with people being whipped while pushing giant stones uphill.
Yeah, they used a lot of things that we use today in a more advanced form.
It's just these cartoons are historically incorrect, but they give highschoolers a great inspiration to pray for OSHA and 8\5 day rather than praying for the pharaoh and his last apartments.
It seems like a good result.
Probably all the same reasons we don't have 90% of the population doing their own thing now: they'll starve if they don't.
They aren't called business empires for nothing. And imho all empires should fall. And we should now build public restrooms to these persons. My urine'd leak by itself if I'd stay over a toilet named after a past or modern pharaoh. Ramzes, Bezos, piss off.
If I don't have enough food/money, and I can't work as a farmer, maybe doing other work in the off season isn't the worst idea. It's what my grandfather did. And what do I care if the end result is a stupid monument or whatever as long as the money is good?