Slaves Didn't build Pyramids

[caseagainstfaith]

CAIRO (Reuters) – New tombs found in Giza support the view that the Great Pyramids were built by free workers and not slaves, as widely believed, Egypt's chief archaeologist said on Sunday.

Films and media have long depicted slaves toiling away in the desert to build the mammoth pyramids only to meet a miserable death at the end of their efforts.

"These tombs were built beside the king's pyramid, which indicates that 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."

He said the collection of workers' tombs, some of which were found in the 1990s, were among the most significant finds in the 20th and 21st centuries. They belonged to workers who built the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre.

source - news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100110/sc_nm/us_egypt_antiquities_tombs

[MaybeNever]

It doesn't rule out slaves being involved. Such massive construction projects could easily have involved a mix of slaves and free workers. In fact it might have been necessary, insofar as slaves tend to make for lousy technical specialists. At the very least, the engineers behind the project could have been free people with an obviously great reward for working on the pyramids.

[Dan]

Where does the bible say that the Israelites were involved in pyramid-building during their enslavement?

The fact that the pyramids were not built by slaves does not mean that the Egyptians did not have slaves.

[Aqualung]

o.O This is news?? Hell I read something about that YEARS ago when I was into Egyptology. :/

[caseagainstfaith]

Jan 11, 2010 16:32:14 GMT -5 Aqualung said:

o.O This is news?? Hell I read something about that YEARS ago when I was into Egyptology. :/

Amazing how long some things take to get into the main stream >.>

[Vene]

I was under the impression that their citizens worked on the pyramids during the seasons when they were unable to farm for whatever reason. A bit of slave labor wouldn't surprise me, but I highly doubt the majority of it was slaves.

[wackadoodle]

It never made sense to me why'd they'd let abunch of filthy slaves have the honor of building the God-King's eternal resting place. Seems like the Pharoah would have gotten the absolute best, most professional and reverent workers he could, not abunch of slaves who don't believe he's god and despise him.

It's like if god descended down to Earth and ordered a monument built for him. No one's gonna get abunch of cheap 3rd world workers who don't even believe in your god to build it. Your gonna scout around for the absolute best in every field of construction and make sure they have the proper respect for the lord to work on his pyramid or cube or whatever.

[MaybeNever]

Jan 11, 2010 16:51:59 GMT -5 @wackadoodle said:

It's like if god descended down to Earth and ordered a monument built for him. No one's gonna get abunch of cheap 3rd world workers who don't even believe in your god to build it. Your gonna scout around for the absolute best in every field of construction and make sure they have the proper respect for the lord to work on his pyramid or cube or whatever.

That depends. Is it Republican God?

[Old Viking]

The only ones who believed slaves were involved were Cecil B. DeMille and a few fundamentalist rabbis.

[ironbite]

Really? Cause I thought Aliens built them.

Ironbite-god damn paracites.

[Aqualung]

No, aliens built Stonehenge.

[big_electron]

Whether it was slaves or paid workers, the Jews and their exodus didn't come to be until 1000 years after the Pyramids.

[chad sexington]

Jan 11, 2010 16:33:24 GMT -5 caseagainstfaith said:

Amazing how long some things take to get into the main stream >.>

I find it amazing how many discoveries get recycled over and over. I'm half expecting to see this exact same announcement again in about fifteen years.

[Vypernight]

Jan 11, 2010 22:13:22 GMT -5 Aqualung said:

No, aliens built Stonehenge.

no, the druids build Stonehenge to carry out their pagan rituals, until the good Christians showed up and saved them from the evils of the world.

"You can't sacrifice that woman! I need to rape her and say it was her fault so she'll get executed for it in the name of God!"

[secretsquirrelsock]

Jan 12, 2010 8:10:35 GMT -5 Vypernight said:

Jan 11, 2010 22:13:22 GMT -5 Aqualung said:

No, aliens built Stonehenge.

no, the druids build Stonehenge to carry out their pagan rituals, until the good Christians showed up and saved them from the evils of the world.

"You can't sacrifice that woman! I need to rape her and say it was her fault so she'll get executed for it in the name of God!"

Hopefully I'm misreading a Poe, but

a. Stonehenge was built several thousand years before the Druidic cult of celtic paganism was practiced in Britain, or indeed, before it had even been invented.

b. Druidism was exterminated by pagan Romans, before Christianity even existed. One of the ultimate ironies in all of history, is that the Romans cited the Druidic practice of human sacrifice as a cassus belli to rabble rouse and generate support for the war against them.