Egypt tombs suggest free men built pyramids, not slaves

[Marcus Wendel]

Tombs discovered near Egypt's great pyramids reinforce the theory they were built by free workers rather than slaves.
The location of the tombs, where workers who built the pyramids of Khufu (Cheops) and Khafre (Chephren) are buried, suggests they were not slaves.
The tombs, made from bricks of dried mud, date back 4,500 years.
They are the first to be discovered since the first such workers' tombs were found in 1990.
"These tombs were built beside the king's pyramid, which indicates these people were not by any means slaves," Zahi Hawass, the chief archaeologist heading the Egyptian excavation team, said in a statement.
"If they were slaves, they would not have been able to build their tombs beside their king's."
Evidence from the site indicated the approximately 10,000 workers who built the pyramids had eaten 21 cattle and 23 sheep sent to them daily from farms in the Delta and Upper Egypt, said Dr Hawass.
This would suggest the farmers who sent the animals were not paying their taxes to the Egyptian government, but were sharing in one of Egypt's national projects, he added.
The workers were employed for three-month stints, and the tombs, which date from the 4th and 5th Dynasties (2649-2374 BC), were for those who died during construction.
The authorities have long fought what they call the "myth" of slaves building the pyramids, saying it undermines the skill involved in their construction, and the sophistication of ancient Egypt's civilisation.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8451538.stm

/Marcus

[phylo_roadking]

LOL , Sadly, there's two little words in there that open the WHOLE thing up for question...

Zahi Hawass

Said gentleman as Curator of Antiquities seems intent in ensuring HIS interpretation of Egyptian history is the only orthodoxy accepted...in MANY areas of Egyptian history. He's held the free study of Egyptology back for thirty years now, has the reins of ALL archeology in Egypt in his hands, and controls ruthlessly what is or is not excavated in Egypt. He's about as open-minded on orthodoxy as a Borgia Pope...

There are SO many question raised by that short article and his interpretation of things...

1.

"These tombs were built beside the king's pyramid, which indicates these people were not by any means slaves," Zahi Hawass, the chief archaeologist heading the Egyptian excavation team, said in a statement.
"If they were slaves, they would not have been able to build their tombs beside their king's."

UNTIL it was finished and/or there was an actual DEAD king in it...it wasn't a pyramid it was a building site!

2.

Evidence from the site indicated the approximately 10,000 workers who built the pyramids had eaten 21 cattle and 23 sheep sent to them daily from farms in the Delta and Upper Egypt, said Dr Hawass.
This would suggest the farmers who sent the animals were not paying their taxes to the Egyptian government, but were sharing in one of Egypt's national projects, he added

??? THAT is a complete non-sequitor. Frankly it would indicate EXACTLY that, that they were forwarding a mandated daily levy to the site.

3.

The authorities have long fought what they call the "myth" of slaves building the pyramids, saying it undermines the skill involved in their construction, and the sophistication of ancient Egypt's civilisation.

What's so wrong about the quality of slave labour??? Didn't it build the Imperial Palaces of Rome, the Colosseum, the harbours of Ostia...as opposed to gurt big piles of Lego bricks beside the Nile?

And I'm afraid "slavery" isn't in any way the antithesis of a socially-advanced/sophisticated civilisation; in fact, a lot of historians would argue that a reliance on slave labour permitted a greater degree of cultural development in classical civilisations....BECAUSE it permitted the growth of a larger "leisured"....and thus by implication "educated"...class than would otherwise be possible - in a epoch whan ALL labour was manual- or animal-powered!

It's not often I would say this of anyone - but the sooner that Old Father Time removes Zahi Hawass from the history of Egyptology...the sooner it'll get back into the 21st Century - so to speak! His orthodoxy and control has held the whole field back decades.

[Vanagas]

http://www.arthurkemp.com/?p=522
Well, it seems mister Hawass truly show himself as pile of ...... in front of the world.

if scholar wants to hide results of his researchs...
Well, what more can be said?

[The_Enigma]

This isnt the first time i have heard this, although i cant for the life of me remember were i read it last. Something along the same lines, skilled paid labour brought in to work on the construction during the non-harvest season.

[OpanaPointer]

He's held the free study of Egyptology back for thirty years now,

In other words, he's cut the woo out of the study of a serious subject.

[Aquarius1011]

It is also said (which I agree with) that the pyramids, at least by Cairo, were built in the time of Atlantis.
Atlantis was said to be a continent with a civilisation more advanced than now. It turned bad, corrupt, evil, decadent, and thus submerged. That was around 10,000 years ago.

[OpanaPointer]

It is also said (which I agree with) that the pyramids, at least by Cairo, were built in the time of Atlantis.
Atlantis was said to be a continent with a civilisation more advanced than now. It turned bad, corrupt, evil, decadent, and thus submerged. That was around 10,000 years ago.

Nonsense. We have good timelines for Egypt. The Platonian fable is just that, a fable.

[Aquarius1011]

I don't believe it was Atlantis that Plato was referring to. (And, many people who believe in Atlantis reckon that.) Plato could have e.g. just thought it was Atlantis, it could have once been at Atlantean colony (like Egypt) etc.

[South]

Good morning The Enigma,

I read about the pyramids of Egypt not being built by slaves in a book titled:

THE VIEW FROM NEBO by Amy Dockser Marcus, 2000, ISBN: 0-316-56167-3.

From her chapter "Exodus", a couple of excerpts:

[Government Pyramids Research Director Zahi Hawass]"concluded that the workers weren't slaves but rather skilled craftsmen helped seasonally by peasants who labored as a corvee when flooding made agricultural work impossible."

""Villages throughout the country had to supply either food and wine for the workers' sites or laborers to work for the king's building projects as part of what was evolving into a widespread national tax system."

Both above from page 59.

"Many of the foreigners who worked in Egypt were prisoners of war and were repatriated to their native lands after working long enough to afford...". page 65.

The chapter tells of the archelogical digs at the cemeteries of the workers. Findings include broken bones attended to and 2 amputations among the skeltons. Slaves wouldn't be receiving this medical treatment.


Warm regards,

Bob

[Ironmachine]

Findings include broken bones attended to and 2 amputations among the skeltons. Slaves wouldn't be receiving this medical treatment.

Or perhaps they would. That would depend not on them being slaves, but on how valuable and difficult to replace they were. Slaves were, after all, just tools. You repair your tool if it is too much difficult/expensive to replace. The same could happen with slaves. Not to mention that if you want to practice your medical skills, better do it with an slave...
Regards.

[South]

Good morning Iron Machine,

We're using different definitions.

I'm using the definition fitting in to the biblical story.

When, eg, the Barbary states, circa early 1800s AD, captured US merchant marine vessels and their crews, the ship's captain might be assigned as a clerk - because of his skills and education whereas the crew would be assigned to a prison's slave labor force with projects such as blasting rocks and building roads. This is my inference as from the point you're raising.

I understand your post but must say Egyptian medical skills needed little, if any, practice for bone repair. This civilization produced the Egyptian pharmacopia with embalming chemicals that as recently as current times, archelogists report smelling the fragrance during exhuming. They were good at this stuff.......

Warm regards,

Bob

[phylo_roadking]

I understand your post but must say Egyptian medical skills needed little, if any, practice for bone repair. This civilization produced the Egyptian pharmacopia with embalming chemicals that as recently as current times, archelogists report smelling the fragrance during exhuming. They were good at this stuff.......

But how do you think they became good...?

Let's take a modern example...

By WWII the techniques of debridement and excision were standard operational techniques for dealing with bullet trauma in the U.S. Army Medical Corps...

But but in Germany, Mengele was still only experimenting with debridement on his victims...and excision was virtually ignored; there's plenty of anecdotal evidence, and also a very good report by a U.S. Army doctor, that German surgeons simply didn't bother with excising bone fragments etc. from wounds.

Also...if we think more of a labour draft or work levy...then while the workers mightn't have exactly been "slaves" - they certainly wouldn't have been free to leave...until their time of service was finished Doesn't give Pharoah the right to negelct them or to have them killed, however...

[OpanaPointer]

I don't believe it was Atlantis that Plato was referring to. (And, many people who believe in Atlantis reckon that.) Plato could have e.g. just thought it was Atlantis, it could have once been at Atlantean colony (like Egypt) etc.

You don't believe it because you don't want to. Have a nice fantasy.

[Ironmachine]

I understand your post but must say Egyptian medical skills needed little, if any, practice for bone repair.

Phylo got my point correctly. Egytian medicine could need no further experimentation for bone repair, but each individual Egyptian doctor did. After all, medicine is far more advanced today, but still medicine students beguin their practice with corpses...
Those who built the pyramids may have been slaves, or they may have been free men. But infering whether they were one or the other, or something in between, from the evidence of some broken bones attended to and a pair of amputations is, IMHO, going too far.
Regards.

[phylo_roadking]

There's another aspect to remember - there is always a hierarchy within any slave group...be it the kapos in the camps, or black chief field hands, or Moses and his brother...

Egypt, like all ancient civilisations, was buoyed on the labour potential of slave labour - but we don't know how the Egyptians "worked" their slave system; however - if we accept the Biblical version...then slave communities and nationalities lived cohesively within the Egyptian system, often regulating their own affairs etc.

And thus it makes perfect sense that there would have been individuals and familes within the "slave" community that would be too valuable to the everyday functioning of that community to see dead if it could be prevented.