this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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The claims that they were built by the slaves or voluntary labor are both wrong. They were built by levied labor. Think a military draft, but you're performing general labor for the state instead of fighting. Yes, those on the work gangs were fed, housed, and paid while there. But they weren't building pyramids of their own free will either. It was still conscripted and forced labor. After their term of service, the workers got to go home. But it was still forced labor.
That's pretty much my understanding too, but I'd like to point out that conscripted labor is pretty analogous to a tax. My contemplation on the subject:
I think equitable taxes are good when the revenue is used for things that benefit society.
I don't know how equitably the labour was conscripted.
I don't think enormous pyramids are good for society, but on the other hand I don't know how ancient Egyptian workers would have felt about the topic.
I suspect that the Pharoahs weren't very concerned about how the workers felt about the topic.
And I'd like to point out that the "proof" that slaves weren't used to build the pyramids is some laborer villages being found and gasp
They got to eat FOOD!
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE
Some of the people that died in accidents were buried on site! By people that thought you'd serve them in the afterlife too! What an honor!
So we know SOME laborers were paid! And they got to eat food! And serve eternally instead of having their bodies dismembered and fed to hogs! For some pyramids!
And a KNOWN slaver culture definitely wouldn't have had some people working on it be slaves and some wouldn't be! As any student of history knows, either everyone's a slave or no one is!
Cue a thousand Redditor "UM AKSHUALLYS!"
Yeah, we know a lot about ancient Egypt, but there's a lot we don't know too.