Egyptian pyramids built by free men not slaves

[Joanne98]

Source: BBC


Cairo, Egypt -- Newly discovered tombs found beside Pharoah's Khufu and Khafre suggest that the 10,000 workers were not slaves, but well-fed free men who worked on contract.
An exciting discovery of 4,500 year-old well preserved mud-brick tombs has been made near the great pyramids of Giza reports BBC.

Lead archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, states that the near proximity of the discovery to the pyramids suggest that "if they were slaves, they would not have been able to build their tombs near their king's".
"No way they would have been buried so honourably if they were slaves", Hawass states.

Evidence also shows that these workers were fed well, receiving a daily supply of 21 cattle and 23 sheep from nearby farms.

The men were employed as shift workers, rotating on three shifts and three month stints. The national project took thirty years.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/285467

[Robb]

1. Perhaps free men.

But I'd be willing to guess their union representation was less than stellar. :D

[LiberalFighter]

5. Probably not a lot of good job choices either.

[Posteritatis]

15. You'd be surprised

There were rough equivalents to wage strikes during some of the pyramids' construction. A lot of the work would have been done by the general population at times - one of the "taxes" in a lot of ancient and medieval societies was a few weeks' labour per year - but there was also a good core of competent, professional workers who knew their own value.

[alfredo]

22. They were given bread and beer, so they must have had some

representation. My boss never bought me beer.

[blondeatlast]

30. Lol'ing. nt

[Hissyspit]

2. That's been known for a while.

I expect that this is more exact evidence than we've had previously.

[dipsydoodle]

19. ditto

.

[Make7]

3. Would that make them Free Masons? ( n/t )

[LongTomH]

20. Ouch!!!!!!!!!!

:spank:

[Joanne98]

25. It sure would. LOL

[doodadem]

4. The Egyptian Deal

Steady employment on government infrastructure projects.........

[No Elephants]

9. Are tombs infrastructure?

[No Elephants]

11. LOL. Kudos.

[LiberalEsto]

16. You can call it the Ancient Deal nt

[The Stranger]

6. Isn't this going to freak out the fundies?

I mean, Charlton Heston could've left any time he wanted. And they didn't have to have Yahweh massacre Yul Brenner's kid and the rest of the Egyptian children after all.

[Joanne98]

23. YES! It means major portions of the Bible aren't true. LOL

I've been googling to see what they're going to say but I haven't seen anything yet. Maybe their in shock!

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. According to a typical Bibical timeline, this was before Noah's flood

http://www.abiblestudy.com/part1.html#Flood

So they've got significantly more problems than whether slaves were used or not. To give it its due, the bible never claims the Hebrews built the pyramids. That's just extra nonsense claimed by some idiot at a later date.

[Joanne98]

34. And nobody ever wants to explain the watermarks on the Sphinx.

[ZombieHorde]

35. The Sphinx was a public urinal. nt

[tanyev]

40. Have you read The Mystery of the Sphinx by Robert Temple?

Just published in 2009. He has an interesting theory that the Sphinx was originally a figure of Anubis and the pit in which it sits was positioned so that it could be filled with floodwater from the Nile every year and then used for funerary rites. Fascinating read.

[Cleita]

7. I have a theory about public works and other building in the ancient world, not only

among the Egyptians, but the Greeks and Romans as well. I believe it was a way for kings to keep their population employed. I'm sure some slave labor was used in some of those cultures, but if peasants weren't farmers, they most likely were artisans and other skilled labor besides being just brawn. There were two ways of keeping them from rioting from lack of employment, one was recruiting them into the military and the other was for the kings to employ them in building public works, temples, palaces, tombs and garish monuments to themselves. Too bad our "kings" don't realize that this is a way we should be emulating during bad economic times. What happened to all those shovel ready public projects that were spoken of when Congress was passing the stimulus bills?

[No Elephants]

10. One of our kings realized it. Hence the cleverness of Reply #4.

[dugaresa]

13. completely agree with you

[ieoeja]

39. "What happened to all those shovel ready public projects?" They are underway.

I have driven by at least three. And I was contacted about one that could work to my benefit, but the rest of my family didn't care for the idea.

I am always surprised by the number of DUers who haven't encountered any of the stimulus projects. I must live in an area that was better prepared for it. Or that advertises the point. If you're in a Republic controlled state, then I suspect they'd pretend any such projects were not funded in part by the stimulus.

[Exultant Democracy]

44. I've read a theory that postulated that the excess energy available to the population

of an early stratified state society, due to the advances in agricultural tech, tended to be used either in military conquest or in large building projects.

[superconnected]

8. I don't believe it. This is one archaeologist's opinion. And it's based on where tombs were and

not on written record. Let's also not forget that some slaves usually are treated well so they could have gotten honorable burials. Why would we assume ancient Egypt treated all slaves poorly. Bet some slaves were highly trusted and highly regarded.

[No Elephants]

12. You are astute. I was in Egypt in 1978 and was told then that

slaves did not build the pyramids. That was long before the tombs were found. The man who told me based his conclusion on how well the pyramids had been built. He said, "Slaves never built that." (maybe he should see Washington, D.C.?)

Guess which Egyptian man told me that?

[alfredo]

26. Egyptians wrote everything down. They have pay records.

They have no record of the Jews being enslaved or a mass exodus. There was no stigma attached to owning slaves, so I don't think it was censored from the record.

some believe that Moses was a creation myth.

[Akoto]

21. I am inclined to give this particular archaeologist some leeway.

Wherever there is a pyramid, ruin, or tomb, Zahi Hawass is there. The guy is all over everything Ancient Egyptian (it's his job). Having seen as much as he has, he probably has a fair grasp over what's within the realm of possibility.

[Joanne98]

24. Yep.

[Nihil]

45. Whilst not disputing the subject of the post ...

... (i.e., that the builders were free, not slaves) I will heartily
dispute your "justification" for accepting it.

Zahi Hawass is indeed "all over everything Ancient Egyptian" and will
*ALWAYS* be publicised as being "the discoverer" of anything remotely
eye-catching as he is a despotic publicity whore.

He routinely abuses his position as head of the SCA (a position that
he worked hard to get as powerful as it is now) in order to keep his
photo in the paper and to blackmail every archaeologist who desires
to visit (never mind dig) any of the sites in Egypt.

As I said, this in no way detracts from the OP update of (old) evidence
that the builders were not slaves - I just object to that particularly
odious & corrupt individual manipulating the field and the media.

[Haole Girl]

14. Oh really? Very interesting.

Thanks for posting this.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. Did it have to be either/or?

Couldn't it have been slaves doing the heavy labor with skilled free men like masons, carpenters, etc. that ended up in the tombs?

[harun]

18. Exactly, not enough info to draw conclusions.

[mistertrickster]

27. Ancient Egypt under the Pharoahs was never a slave society. Which makes Exodus rather bogus history

The Egyptians were also very good historians for their time. No mention of enslaving Jews/Israelites.

I don't see much in the historical record that supports the whole "let my people go" thing . . .

(editted for spelling)

[sixmile]

29. Watch where you tread

Biblical evidentiary proof is a touchy subject. Throwing thousands of year of dogma into the sunlight is bound to ruffle some feathers.

[invictus]

33. The Bible is almost completely fiction.

[invictus]

32. +1

[Deep13]

38. No, the myth was likely imported by others. nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

41. lol wut?

While I'll agree there's little evidence for enslaving Jews/Israelites specifically when it comes to corroborating the Bible, I do believe there's plenty of evidence of slavery in Ancient Egypt.

[invictus]

31. Those were Union workers. No wonder the pyramids lasted this long.

:sarcasm:

[Canuckistanian]

43. Yes, the "bricks without straw" contract dispute got ugly

The union steward almost resigned over that one.

[Spazito]

36. I watched a program on Canada's History Channel that made this point...

until then I had always believed they had been built primarily by slaves. It is fascinating how new discoveries are continually changing what was once touted as historical fact!

[Deep13]

37. True, they were not slaves. Sorry Cecil B. DeMille. nt

[Canuckistanian]

42. I think this has been known for a while

Ever since they found some of the the dwellings of the workers some time ago. They lived well, according to the findings. They were no slaves.