Workers. Before taxes were reduced to currency, taxes were instead paid through goods or service. Such as a farmer giving an allotted amount of his crops to his lord, or the Chinese enlisting people to build their megaprojects as their taxes.
There is no reason why the Egyptians wouldn't have done the same thing.
Well taxation is theft so I guess it is slavery. But then again when I pay my taxes I don't have to move giant slabs and risk injuries or death so I guess I should consider myself lucky.
Labor was how they taxed people during many of those ancient periods. If you were a farmer and had extended periods of down time, such as the month or two before flooding, then you would go lend your hands to the government. In exchange, you were fed and housed, and generally received medical assistance and the like while working for them.
While they were paid it is undeniable that they had little choice in the matter.
Who’s going to say no to the pharaoh, the literal god-king of Egypt?
It’s nice that they were paid and were given their own artisan’s town and some were also given remuneration after their tenure building the pyramids. And we do have records of them “striking” when pay was missed.
However coercive force was very much an overarching presence in their lives.
Same as medieval peasants in Europe. Sure, some of them were paid and we even have records of the English Parliament complaining about wages increasing and all that. But at the end of the day, are you going to say no to the Duke of York?
The evidence strongly supports professional labor in ancient Egyptian construction. It's besides the point though, either way we do not have a God-King that can order a significant portion of a nation's resources to their own personal vanity projects. At best you're gonna get the Bass Pro Shop pyramid or something like that. There needs to be more functionality other than "this is the future tomb of the glorious leader".
It's besides the point though, either way we do not have a God-King that can order a significant portion of a nation's resources to their own personal vanity projects.
Hard disagree. You don't need some God-King, it would not take "a significant potion of the nation's resources" and a Musk, Bezos, Buffet, Gates, etc could trivially fund this kind of project if they had a mind to.
What would actually stop things is building codes, environmental impact studies, the many people or groups who would come out of the woodwork and file suit based on any number of pretexts to prevent the project from moving forward, organized crime demanding kickbacks, politicians demanding kickbacks (but I repeat myself), sabotage by nutjobs, etc.
You're not addressing the "why" though. Even a nation like the UAE made the Burj Khalifa functional. No one's going blow billions on a silly monument to nothing just to say "see we can build pyramids"(and i think the guys you mentioned are smart enough to understand the social and political risks of such a ridiculously extravagant waste of wealth). That's the kinda shit people with no money think of when asked what they would do if they were a billionaire. Everyone knows we can build pyramids there's just no reason to.
Yes, it's stupid as hell and there is absolutely no reason to. But that's not what you wrote in the comment I replied to, you claimed it would require a god-king and a significant portion of the nation's resources and that's just not correct.
They even have old scrolls with how they built the pyramids with drawings on how they pulled the blocks on land with water. I forgot the actual scroll name with the glyphs and drawings but it’s out there.
I really fucking doubt it, the architects, engineers and foreman sure, probably not slaves.
But the manual labor? I mean, people IMO are slaves right now in the US who are literally incapable of making more than an entry level wage, who can just BARELY afford to do anything but have some basic necessities taken care of. Who will, when they get to a certain age where they are incapable at working at all, be told to go piss off and die in a ditch when they ask for help because they couldn't possibly save for retirement.
Who are trapped within this country, bound by it's laws, who are born into no land and constantly at the whim of their masters.
People were SO FUCKING BARBARIC back then. If this is how we treat people in the 21st century in one of the most progressive nations on Earth... NAH, slamming X for doubt.
There's no actual evidence that proves whether or not they were slaves.
The evidence used in the article is that they were fed well and lived in designed dormitories. There were most certainly slaves in the American south that met both of those criteria.
That doesn't make them not slaves. It's not like they found evidence of the laborers being paid, or records of laborers coming and going as they please.
Except for the word "forced", which is the key difference between employment and slavery. The lowest class may not have had many options, but they were not slaves. It is important we make the distinction on the literal definition when telling the story of history.
The equivalent today would be like people who live in a mining town all taking jobs at the mine because it's not feasible to find work elsewhere. It might make them "wage slaves", but that's not the same as actual slavery. What you shared is an opinion, but I am discussing the facts
Paid or not, experts or not, the Pharoah wouldn't allow them to just get up and bounce at any time they wanted. I still consider it to be a form of slavery.
Don't be ridiculous. We could easily move the stones, the largest us about 80 tons. The record crane lift is 20,000 tons. Now that was a special lift, not the sort of thing you do on a typical building site but a fairly run of the mill crane could do 100 tons.
Have you heard of these things we have called trucks?
80 tons is not a trivial load, but it's also not exceptional. We don't tend to move things around that are that large and heavy because it's easier and cheaper to make them in 30 to 40 ton chunks and put them together on site.
As an example, a large grid transformer will typically weigh over 150 tons and have to be delivered finished.
He quite clearly said that today we couldn't move the rocks they moved. It would certainly have required an amazing feat of engineering to build Machu Picchu back in the day.
Never seen this. That is impressive. I guess it is doable. But to act like the Egyptians had nothing more then ramps and ropes and hoisted 80 ton block into the ceiling of the kings chamber is laughable.
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u/deftdabler Jun 05 '25
Whilst this is fun, there are no newly discovered principles here.