01-26-2010, 10:32 PM
I think the knowledge that the Pyramid builders were free peasants (for the labour) and specialist free workers and artisans (the permanent workforce) has been well known in the archaeology/Egyptology world almost as long as Egyptology itself - from about 150 years ago. While initially attention focused on the more glamourous Grand Pyramids, investigation of the archaeology of the workforce really came to the fore in 1888 , when British archaeologist Flinders Petrie started his investigation into the Middle Kingdom pyramid complex of Senwosert II at Ilahun. Here an associated walled settlement, Kahun, yielded a complete town plan whose neat rows of mud-brick terraced houses provided a wealth of papyri, pottery, tools, clothing and children's toys - all the debris of day-to-day life that is usually missing from Egyptian sites.
It did not take long to deduce that the permanent workforce numbered something like 4-6,000 skilled workers and their families living in a town on-site for the 20 or so years it took to build a pyramid, and that these were augmented by a temporary workforce numbering up to 100,000 peasants/fellaheen, working some 20,000 at a time for a 'shift' of several months - who would have been glad to work for Pharoah in return for the Labourer's wage (Old Kingdom) of ten loaves and a measure of beer per day during the Nile flood period, when fields could not be worked nor was there much other work available. We even know the size, organisation and even nicknames of many of the 'work-gangs'.
In the last twenty years or so, this work of studying the archaeology of the peasants has been extended to the area around the Great Pyramid at Giza by Egyptologist Mark Lehner and others, to which, in his usual fashion, Hawass has associated his name and credit for the results.....but genuine Egyptologists/scholars have had to accept this 'condition' if they are to obtain permission to work there.....
The idea that Pharoah Cheops enslaved and used 100,000 slaves ( an impossible number of slaves for all sorts of reasons) is a 'myth' which goes back to ancient times, for this is what Herodotus the Greek Historian (II.124-126) was told by his priestly Egyptian informers - to impress with the 'might and power' of ancient Egypt's rulers .......
It did not take long to deduce that the permanent workforce numbered something like 4-6,000 skilled workers and their families living in a town on-site for the 20 or so years it took to build a pyramid, and that these were augmented by a temporary workforce numbering up to 100,000 peasants/fellaheen, working some 20,000 at a time for a 'shift' of several months - who would have been glad to work for Pharoah in return for the Labourer's wage (Old Kingdom) of ten loaves and a measure of beer per day during the Nile flood period, when fields could not be worked nor was there much other work available. We even know the size, organisation and even nicknames of many of the 'work-gangs'.
In the last twenty years or so, this work of studying the archaeology of the peasants has been extended to the area around the Great Pyramid at Giza by Egyptologist Mark Lehner and others, to which, in his usual fashion, Hawass has associated his name and credit for the results.....but genuine Egyptologists/scholars have had to accept this 'condition' if they are to obtain permission to work there.....
The idea that Pharoah Cheops enslaved and used 100,000 slaves ( an impossible number of slaves for all sorts of reasons) is a 'myth' which goes back to ancient times, for this is what Herodotus the Greek Historian (II.124-126) was told by his priestly Egyptian informers - to impress with the 'might and power' of ancient Egypt's rulers .......
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
