7 ms·

Who Built the Egyptian Pyramids? Not Slaves

52 points by Ozzie_osman 6y ago

HaoZeke 6y ago
While this is an interesting read, without any concrete references just saying "archeologists" does not make it convincing. The article links to a dig site and asserts that slaves would not be treated as well. It is unclear if this is speculation or a quote. Still fun.
sxp 6y ago
Treating this as a binary question isn't useful for discussion. A better question would be "what percentage of the people who built the pyramids were slaves?". There will be semantic arguments about the definition of "slavery" in Egypt, but slavery did exist there in various forms [1]. Some people building the pyramids would have had a free choice about whether they wanted to work such as the skilled craftsman, bakers, etc. But others would have been chattel slaves, indentured servants, serfs, and other forms of laborers that didn't have a choice. At a minimum, they would be wage slaves since ancient Egypt didn't have a proper social safety net to deal with the economic cycles caused by the flooding of the Nile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Egypt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Egypt
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  > At a minimum, they would be wage slaves since ancient Egypt didn't have a proper social safety net to deal with the economic cycles caused by the flooding of the Nile. By that definition, Google was also built by slaves.
  - sxp 6y ago
    While the Alphabet Union might want you to believe that Google was built by slaves, Google pays its SWEs enough that they can easily weather economic downturns. Their safety net is in the form of large bags of cash.
josefresco 6y ago
"Nowhere have archaeologists found signs of slavery or foreign workers." What does (or would) evidence of slavery look like?
- spurgu 6y ago
  They would've (probably) buried slaves differently than other workers.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  I'm not an Egyptologists, but it's my understanding that the graves of many of the laborers have been found. You could probably tell slave labor from other labor by their bones due to poor nutrition and harsh treatment. There are probably other ways.
- the_gipsy 6y ago
  Consider the nearest civilization with clear evidence of slavery: greeks, romans etc. One key difference is that their armies outnumbered their slave count. Egyptians on the other hand did not have any significant army. They were neither threatened by neighbors, nor did they need to control slaves.
lqet 6y ago
> So, while archaeologists still have much to learn about the people who built the pyramids and how the work was organized and executed, it is easy to throw out this basic misconception. The pyramids were built by Egyptians. There are over 100 pyramids in Egypt, build over a time span of at least a thousand years. How can we be so sure that not one of them had foreign slaves working on the construction?
- Ozzie_osman 6y ago
  I think the article is primarily focused on the Great Pyramids, though they probably could have been more explicit about it.
- mcphage 6y ago
  > How can we be so sure that not one of them had foreign slaves working on the construction? When the article asks "Did slaves build the pyramids?", interpreting that question as "Was there a single slave among the people who built the pyramids?" is not a very meaningful or useful interpretation of the question.
fjabre 6y ago
"That’s hundreds of years before historians think the Israeli people first appeared. It’s also centuries before the oldest known Egyptian reference to the Jews on the Victory Stele of Merneptah." So the story of Moses out of Egypt has definitively been disproven by the word 'think.' I would encourage people to use critical thinking skills while reading this article. Of course slave labor was used over the thousand year period these structures were built. Perhaps not all the workers were slaves but some percentage of them were. This article merely points to the existence of some popular contractors at the time. Contractors who most likely used their own slave labor. What's the definition of a slave in Egyptian times? What would prove or disprove their existence 4000 years ago? This is not a logical or reasonable article. It makes far too many assumptions. It should be rewritten and the findings described without the interpretation of the author.
- bdcravens 6y ago
  > So the story of Moses out of Egypt has definitively been disproven by the word 'think.' Has the story of Moses out of Egypt been definitively proven?
Tuna-Fish 6y ago
Just to swim against the current a little: There were some Egyptian pyramids that are well recorded to have been built with at least some slave labor. Just not the great pyramids, which people usually think about when the word pyramid is mentioned. While the great pyramids are the largest of their kind, and the most iconic, they were not the last. The last tomb or cenotaph in the shape of a pyramid was possibly built as late as a thousand years after the great pyramids had been finished. During that thousand years of pyramid construction, some of the monuments were recorded to have used slave labor for construction. Notably, the Annals of Amenemhat II record of a expedition into the levant where two towns were destroyed and the survivors were brought back into Egypt and put to work building the White Pyramid.
HackStateUniv 6y ago
The Predator/Aliens with human slaves
miika 6y ago
Why it’s “conspiracy theory” to think it could have been done by some previous advanced civilization? The fact is modern people is still not able to build the great pyramid of Giza with such precision and within proposed timeline. And it’s not just the pyramid but there are simple things such as a block of granite, like the unfinished obelisk, weighting 1200 tons. The strongest mobile crane in the world that could operate on sand would still struggle immensely when trying to lift that, moving it few hundred meters would be demanding project. But they say these blocks came from hundreds of miles away, across Nile and over some mountain. We do not have capability to do that today. Not even close. But don’t believe me but do some research on your own.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  That is not a fact. Every technique required to build the pyramids has been demonstrated using simple technology available at the time. There is no need to make up fantastic stories without evidence.
  - miika 6y ago
    There is really good film called “Revelations of the Pyramids” in which engineers are looking at many ancient sites and tell what they found. They interview construction engineers etc. Historians and archeologists have no idea what they’re looking at. Their stories are the incredible fantasies that defy laws of physics and basic engineering. It’s just too much for many people to entertain the idea that our civilization probably isn’t the first advanced one.
    - pwinnski 6y ago
      When you find yourself dismissing large groups of people based on your own superior understanding after watching a ten-year-old documentary, that should often be a warning sign. For example, I by no means think our civilization is the first advanced one, and I also have a loosely-held belief that there used to be more humans on this planet than there are now. But I'm always looking for new information and revisiting those beliefs. Nobody is saying that the pyramids aren't a fantastic work of engineering, they absolutely are! But over-stating the case, as if building them is still far out of our reach, and therefore they can only be the work of aliens or whatever, that's just not supported by current evidence. Much has been learned, even within the last ten years, that make it clear that the pyramids were definitely buildable at the time using available technology, by some very, very clever people.
Jkvngt 6y ago
It wasn’t slaves, and it wasn’t Jews (who didn’t exist at the time the pyramids were built), this has been known for over a hundred years. But victimhood narratives are often too useful to let go, even when they have no basis in reality.
- _-david-_ 6y ago
  First, we don't know with certainty that some of the workers were not slaves. Egyptians had both chattel slavery and forced labor. Second, the Bible never claims the Jews built pyramids. The Bible only says they made bricks.
  - Jkvngt 6y ago
    It doesn’t even say they made bricks.
    - _-david-_ 6y ago
      It actually does in Exodus 5:6-8 >6 The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, 7 “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves. 8 But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’
      - Jkvngt 6y ago
        >the people Doesn't say which people, certainly doesn't imply slavery. The people the Pharaoh addresses seem to be foremen. And it only implies that the people addressed were distributing straw, not making bricks. 6 And Pharaoh commanded the same day the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying, 7 Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves. 8 And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish ought thereof: for they be idle; therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to our God.
grillvogel 6y ago
do we even know conclusively when they were actually built?
hikerclimber 6y ago
probably most of the slaves.

52 points by Ozzie_osman 6y ago

While this is an interesting read, without any concrete references just saying "archeologists" does not make it convincing. The article links to a dig site and asserts that slaves would not be treated as well. It is unclear if this is speculation or a quote. Still fun.

sxp 6y ago

Treating this as a binary question isn't useful for discussion. A better question would be "what percentage of the people who built the pyramids were slaves?". There will be semantic arguments about the definition of "slavery" in Egypt, but slavery did exist there in various forms [1]. Some people building the pyramids would have had a free choice about whether they wanted to work such as the skilled craftsman, bakers, etc. But others would have been chattel slaves, indentured servants, serfs, and other forms of laborers that didn't have a choice. At a minimum, they would be wage slaves since ancient Egypt didn't have a proper social safety net to deal with the economic cycles caused by the flooding of the Nile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Egypt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Egypt

burntoutfire 6y ago
> At a minimum, they would be wage slaves since ancient Egypt didn't have a proper social safety net to deal with the economic cycles caused by the flooding of the Nile. By that definition, Google was also built by slaves.
- sxp 6y ago
  While the Alphabet Union might want you to believe that Google was built by slaves, Google pays its SWEs enough that they can easily weather economic downturns. Their safety net is in the form of large bags of cash.

josefresco 6y ago

"Nowhere have archaeologists found signs of slavery or foreign workers." What does (or would) evidence of slavery look like?

spurgu 6y ago
They would've (probably) buried slaves differently than other workers.
reaperducer 6y ago
I'm not an Egyptologists, but it's my understanding that the graves of many of the laborers have been found. You could probably tell slave labor from other labor by their bones due to poor nutrition and harsh treatment. There are probably other ways.
the_gipsy 6y ago
Consider the nearest civilization with clear evidence of slavery: greeks, romans etc. One key difference is that their armies outnumbered their slave count. Egyptians on the other hand did not have any significant army. They were neither threatened by neighbors, nor did they need to control slaves.

lqet 6y ago

> So, while archaeologists still have much to learn about the people who built the pyramids and how the work was organized and executed, it is easy to throw out this basic misconception. The pyramids were built by Egyptians. There are over 100 pyramids in Egypt, build over a time span of at least a thousand years. How can we be so sure that not one of them had foreign slaves working on the construction?

Ozzie_osman 6y ago
I think the article is primarily focused on the Great Pyramids, though they probably could have been more explicit about it.
mcphage 6y ago
> How can we be so sure that not one of them had foreign slaves working on the construction? When the article asks "Did slaves build the pyramids?", interpreting that question as "Was there a single slave among the people who built the pyramids?" is not a very meaningful or useful interpretation of the question.

fjabre 6y ago

"That’s hundreds of years before historians think the Israeli people first appeared. It’s also centuries before the oldest known Egyptian reference to the Jews on the Victory Stele of Merneptah." So the story of Moses out of Egypt has definitively been disproven by the word 'think.' I would encourage people to use critical thinking skills while reading this article. Of course slave labor was used over the thousand year period these structures were built. Perhaps not all the workers were slaves but some percentage of them were. This article merely points to the existence of some popular contractors at the time. Contractors who most likely used their own slave labor. What's the definition of a slave in Egyptian times? What would prove or disprove their existence 4000 years ago? This is not a logical or reasonable article. It makes far too many assumptions. It should be rewritten and the findings described without the interpretation of the author.

bdcravens 6y ago
> So the story of Moses out of Egypt has definitively been disproven by the word 'think.' Has the story of Moses out of Egypt been definitively proven?

Tuna-Fish 6y ago

Just to swim against the current a little: There were some Egyptian pyramids that are well recorded to have been built with at least some slave labor. Just not the great pyramids, which people usually think about when the word pyramid is mentioned. While the great pyramids are the largest of their kind, and the most iconic, they were not the last. The last tomb or cenotaph in the shape of a pyramid was possibly built as late as a thousand years after the great pyramids had been finished. During that thousand years of pyramid construction, some of the monuments were recorded to have used slave labor for construction. Notably, the Annals of Amenemhat II record of a expedition into the levant where two towns were destroyed and the survivors were brought back into Egypt and put to work building the White Pyramid.

HackStateUniv 6y ago

The Predator/Aliens with human slaves

miika 6y ago

Why it’s “conspiracy theory” to think it could have been done by some previous advanced civilization? The fact is modern people is still not able to build the great pyramid of Giza with such precision and within proposed timeline. And it’s not just the pyramid but there are simple things such as a block of granite, like the unfinished obelisk, weighting 1200 tons. The strongest mobile crane in the world that could operate on sand would still struggle immensely when trying to lift that, moving it few hundred meters would be demanding project. But they say these blocks came from hundreds of miles away, across Nile and over some mountain. We do not have capability to do that today. Not even close. But don’t believe me but do some research on your own.

pwinnski 6y ago
That is not a fact. Every technique required to build the pyramids has been demonstrated using simple technology available at the time. There is no need to make up fantastic stories without evidence.
- miika 6y ago
  There is really good film called “Revelations of the Pyramids” in which engineers are looking at many ancient sites and tell what they found. They interview construction engineers etc. Historians and archeologists have no idea what they’re looking at. Their stories are the incredible fantasies that defy laws of physics and basic engineering. It’s just too much for many people to entertain the idea that our civilization probably isn’t the first advanced one.
  - pwinnski 6y ago
    When you find yourself dismissing large groups of people based on your own superior understanding after watching a ten-year-old documentary, that should often be a warning sign. For example, I by no means think our civilization is the first advanced one, and I also have a loosely-held belief that there used to be more humans on this planet than there are now. But I'm always looking for new information and revisiting those beliefs. Nobody is saying that the pyramids aren't a fantastic work of engineering, they absolutely are! But over-stating the case, as if building them is still far out of our reach, and therefore they can only be the work of aliens or whatever, that's just not supported by current evidence. Much has been learned, even within the last ten years, that make it clear that the pyramids were definitely buildable at the time using available technology, by some very, very clever people.

Jkvngt 6y ago

It wasn’t slaves, and it wasn’t Jews (who didn’t exist at the time the pyramids were built), this has been known for over a hundred years. But victimhood narratives are often too useful to let go, even when they have no basis in reality.

_-david-_ 6y ago
First, we don't know with certainty that some of the workers were not slaves. Egyptians had both chattel slavery and forced labor. Second, the Bible never claims the Jews built pyramids. The Bible only says they made bricks.
- Jkvngt 6y ago
  It doesn’t even say they made bricks.
  - _-david-_ 6y ago
    It actually does in Exodus 5:6-8 >6 The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, 7 “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves. 8 But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’
    - Jkvngt 6y ago
      >the people Doesn't say which people, certainly doesn't imply slavery. The people the Pharaoh addresses seem to be foremen. And it only implies that the people addressed were distributing straw, not making bricks. 6 And Pharaoh commanded the same day the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying, 7 Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves. 8 And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish ought thereof: for they be idle; therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to our God.

grillvogel 6y ago

do we even know conclusively when they were actually built?

hikerclimber 6y ago

probably most of the slaves.