The Last Pyramids Of Egypt

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5-26-2012 @ 1:34PM

Katie said...

Not sure why the author proclaims that zero slaves built the pyramids. Seems like this is a bit of revisionist history, to go along with recent articles coming out of Egypt and published in the West, that claim a small cemetary of 600 workers are proof they are the true builders. Since it takes 30 years to build even 1 pyramid, and thousands of workers every year, most of which I imagine have to be rotated regularly, it seems a stretch to proclaim you've found all the builders. (And even those bodies indicate extreme fatigue to the bones, arthritis, and a shortened lifespan).

These theories are politically motivated. Egypt doesn't want their skills to go unhearalded, and certainly detest the legacy of slave labor. I shrug my shoulders, because even in US history, there are artisans, experts, scientists, craftsmen and so on, but it doesn't mean there wasn't also slave labor, near-slave labor, indentured servitude and sharecropping. Of course there was, and of course they all built America. It would be as if WE said, oh, the slaves really didn't do much, after all.

One of the researchers compared the pyramid-building to an old-fashioned Amish barn-raising. Happy and willing workers, all volunteers, proud to be Egyptian and contribute to their great society. "That was one heck of a barn", he said. Really? That's all I have to say...really?

5-26-2012 @ 1:59PM

Sean McLachlan said...

Katie,

There's a lot more evidence than what you cite. For example, numerous inscriptions at the pyramid sights indicate skilled, literate workers, not slaves. Any detailed book on the pyramids will go into this. Here's a good article to start with:

http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids

The article you quote is linked to below. He does not state that they were willing volunteers. He says the Egyptians paid part of their tax in labor:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/who-built-the-pyramids.html

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