Egypt tombs suggest pyramids not built by slaves

[John Picard]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100110/sc_nm/us_egypt_antiquities_tombs

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.

 

[Miss Chicken]

It isn't as if this is a new belief, I first heard about when the tombs were discovered several years ago. I have even see a documentary about it.

 

[RevdKathy]

Me too. Maybe the beeb was having a slow news day.

 

[trekkiedane]

As far as I know, not only were they not slaves, they even went on strike at some point...

 

[Alidar Jarok]

This has been known for at least 10 years and I thought was practically common knowledge by this point.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Tacccccccy!! You have some 'splainin' to do!

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

While that is commonly used in Biblical movies (the Hebrew slaves building the pyramids), it's interesting to note that even the Bible itself says nothing about their building pyramids. Rather, it states in Exodus 1 they were instead involved with building a couple of cities as "storage cities" (how this is phrased depends on the translation), that they worked the fields, and worked with brick and mortar. From that last bit Hollywood seems to have jumped on the pyramid thing (after all, it makes for some pretty dramatic imagery), but nowhere is there anything to suggest that's anything but a Hollywood invention.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Yeah, it's most likely a Hollywood invention and my first thought was to associate it with the bible (I was trying to remember if Herodotus mentioned slavery, but I don't think he did).

 

[Skywalker]

Futurama already explained to us who really built the pyramids.

 

[Danoz]

This has been known for at least 10 years and I thought was practically common knowledge by this point.

I actually thought the same thing... but I do watch a lot of History channel.

 

[Mr Awe]

I went to Egypt back in the 80s and this was suspected even then. I later did a college research paper on the building of pyramids, and, yeah, it was highly suspected that a lot the workers were not slaves. It's possible that some were slaves though.

Also, a tip, anyone who goes to Egypt should try bribing the site guards to gain access to "closed" areas. We gained access to closed areas and had basically private tours of areas not open to the public. We didn't feel bad about doing this because nothing was damage.

Mr Awe

 

[Alidar Jarok]

As I understand it, they're a bit more strict than they were back then about bribes.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Yeah, but how bad can an Egyptian prison be? I'd advise giving it a try.

Bwahaha.

 

[Finn]

This is not the first time I've seen something like this. Time to time, I'd see "headline news" on media sources or something on the cover of a popular magazine, about something that had been known for some time.