Egypt tombs suggest pyramids not built by slaves

[Sean Manning]

...I'm afraid that depends on the translated version, Sean.

I was once party to a discussion held by Ben Isaac about whether archaeologists should read Greek and Latin. Certain Romano-British archaeologists in the company claimed that it was sufficient to consult the Penguin edition of an ancient writer. But Isaac argued (quite rightly, in my opinion) that, if the words of an ancient author are to be used in support of an argument, only the original words (as far as we know them) have any credibility.

According to the received Greek text, Herodotus actually wrote: "[1] ... For, having first closed all the holy places, he stopped them from their sacrifices, and then ordered all the Egyptians to work for him. ... [3] They worked distributed into ten myriads of men, each for a period of three months".

Anything extra is just the individual translator's spin.

Unfortunately I don't have any Greek yet so I'm reduced to going world-by-word between a Loeb and a Greek-English lexicon (or asking a non-barbarian) in situations like this. If I do graduate training as an ancient historian that will be my first priority. As you say, you can't make a precise argument about a statement in a language unless you can read it.

Still, even with basic knowledge of ancient languages, looking carefully at the original texts can reveal surprising things. The danger is using them without that basic knowledge, or getting too far from the texts in the barrage of modern scholarship and other kinds of evidence.