this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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There's actually a belief that the pyramids weren't built by slaves, but rather paid workers during the seasons when fields couldn't be worked.
In the modern era we'd call it a job program.
Government needs something done, unemployed workers need to be kept busy for social order, and fed so they're ready when the fields are workable again.
There is evidence of a levy based job program, with wages paid in food, not coin, for some pyramids.
So, you know, forced labor.
Also, they would still have used regular slaves, because that's literally what slaves are for, and the fuckin things were built over a period of a thousand years.
Do you honestly think your "job program" looked the same that entire period?
No? Why so hostile? I'm literally referring to other people who know more than I do on the topic.
Do you have some particular attachment to it being slave labor? I just thought it was an interesting thing that the common conception of how they were built is believed to be incorrect by experts.
Everyone on Lemmy is an absolute arsehole, that's why so hostile.
I have an aversion to the public whitewashing of history based on something someone once read on a trending r/History post.
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids-html
Do you have a particular reason to have your beliefs that contradict "historians"? Or are you just invested in history feeling a particular way and you can't imagine a society being layed out differently than you thought, or changing your belief?
You should consider actually reading that article, which among other things acknowledges that slaves certainly existed in Egypt, were probably involved in construction of the pyramids, and that the inhabitants of the pyramid city were most likely laborers who were most likely "obligated," aka forced, labor, and then maybe think just a little critically about whether "The Hollywood version of an entirely enslaved workforce" not being true is the same thing as "slaves didn't build the pyramids."
The author even outright admits we don't know if the workers were free or not, just states that they weren't "slaves as we think of it," because they "ate like royalty" on the basis of...
There being evidence of bread and cattle at this one dig site?
Interesting conclusion. I wonder what he thinks American chattel slaves ate.
But hey, what do you expect from the kind of person that tries to draw conclusions for a thousand years of history and at least 118 pyramids from one dig site?
Gotta love extrapolating what I said into me saying there was no slavery in Egypt, and that therefore you know better then the people who actually study it.
How about his: where's your evidence to contradict the researchers?
100% of the time I'm going to listen to historians over some rando who's weirdly offended by the notion that slaves weren't used in a particular context.
Why would they be paid? Slaves probably worked the fields, so why not slaves all the way down?
Can't tell you, I'm not an Egyptian. All I can say is that it seems like the evidence says they weren't slaves.
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids-html
It mostly ends up being discussed in the last quarter, with the rest of the article being about the guy and the process that resulted in the findings.
Tldr: paid in food and lodging, rather than currency. There appears to be a degree of honor associated with the work, which was mandatory but not in a slavery sense, more akin to how you "can't" opt out of helping an older relative move.
You're obligated to work, but you're celebrated and rewarded as well, feasting on pizza and beer, and ceremonially refusing your uncle's attempt to give you gas money.
That's a long article, I'll dig through it later.
I'm guessing it's a mix. Like the people in that village would be the skilled workers, while slaves provided the labor in moving the blocks from the mountains to the work site.
So I'm sure there were a lot of "employees" at the site, I just also think it's highly likely slaves did most of the work bringing materials to the site. And that seems to be what Rogan is talking about (how did the stones end up here).
This is the view of people in the antebellum south. So why not slaves all the way down?
It's possible people didn't think it was moral. Or maybe they had problems with slave revolts. Or maybe a combination of both.
The reasons in the past for not using slaves for everything were probably the same as the reasons we have today.
Or even non-pragmatic reasons we wouldn't guess in isolation. It's been thousands of years, and sometimes it's hard to track the why of how people chose to do stuff, only what they actually did.
We've lost details on how to make some of their breads because they never bothered to write it down, because why would you document how to do something everyone does regularly?
It could be something like it wasn't considered proper. Building the tomb is an honor, or something you wouldn't want to force someone to do for whatever reason.
I think it's probably a mix. They probably used slaves to move the stones from the mountains to the work sites, and then Egyptian citizens at the actual work sites.
So you have slaves swapping from fields to stone caravans, and citizens staying at the work site. So maybe they're not "building" the pyramids by actually placing stones and whatnot, but they're probably doing most of the work by getting the stones to the work site.