this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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Anon experiences Joe Rogan (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Why would they be paid? Slaves probably worked the fields, so why not slaves all the way down?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

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.

Redding, who has worked at archaeological sites all over the Middle East, "was astounded by the amount of cattle bone he was finding," says Lehner. He could identify much of it as "young, under two years of age, and it tended to be male." Here was evidence of many people—presumably not slaves or common laborers, but skilled workers—feasting on prime beef, the best meat available.

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).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Slaves probably worked the fields, so why not slaves all the way down?

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

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.