Can I ask what you know/evidence you have on how the great pyramid was made? I originally believed it was made by slaves as that makes sense but others have opposed this saying that it was an honour to be a part of the construction and that those who were a part of it were held in high esteem, I now don’t know what to think and if you could shed some light on the subject I’d be much appreciative

thatlittleegyptologist:

I’m just gonna keep saying this because I get asked this periodically and really thought I had this in my FAQ:

Slaves did not build the Pyramids. That is a misconception first put forward by Herodotus – who claimed Khufu kidnapped 100,000 people to work on the Pyramids (he also claimed Khufu whored out his daughter…but Khufu didn’t have a daughter), and then Hollywood combined it with the Exodus story where the Jewish folk were enslaved by Pharaoh to create the myth that slaves built the Pyramids. It’s not feasible that 100,000 people would be simultaneously enslaved and working on the Pyramids at the same time. Where are you keeping them for a start? How do you even police 100,000 enslaved people in one location? How do you stop them just getting in a boat at night and sailing up the Nile to freedom?

Who did build the Pyramids? 

Officials were sent out to all parts of Egypt to ask various single men to join the effort to build Pharaoh’s Pyramid (easier not to have families if you’re leaving for 20 years). This was considered an honour because Pharaoh was a literal god at this point in Egyptian history. Work for the god on his project? Excellent. 

So the guys travelled to the Giza plateau and began building the Pyramid. Quarrying stone from the nearby limestone quarries, or quarrying it near the Red Sea and transporting it via canals to Giza. The workers were paid in bread and beer. Egypt was a non monetary economy, which means they don’t have coins so they barter with various commodities. Food is payment. They didn’t really ‘receive’ this payment in bulk form, what would happen is that they would be fed by the women who also came to the Pyramid building site. These folks lived in what we now know as the Giza Workers Village which held about 20,000 people (only 5000 were permanent salaried workers, the other 15,000 were seasonal and different workers turned up every year). Men would meet women while working there and they’d settle down and have a family who also lived in the village. We have their graves that show us that ailments were well looked after by an onsite doctor and not just hastily repaired or not allowed to heal. More on this can be found here, here, here, and here.

Finally, were the guys who built the Pyramids were divided into two groups who liked to graffiti their group names onto the insides of the Pyramids: One – the Friends of Menkaure, and Two – The Drunkards of Khufu. Here’s the graffiti:

Slaves don’t generally call their gang ‘drunkards of Khufu’. That name is more ‘stag night in Magaluf’ than ‘enslaved by Pharaoh for 20 years’ so I’d say they were proud of their work.