Ancient superyacht
this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2025
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I mean the artisans who worked on the pyramids were payed quite well. They even got buried nearby when they eventually passed away.
And no, slaves were not the ones building a the pyramids.
From what I have seen the newest consensus seems to be that they were essentially a massive jobs program.
This is speculation but I'd bet there was some amount of less-than-voluntary aspect to the construction of at least some of the pyramids. As in "we'll pay you, but this is your job for the next 30 years while you're not harvesting."
to be fair, there was fuck all to do inbetween harvests. if someone came up to me as i'm bored out of my mind watching grains grow and said "hey wanna help build a huge fucking triangle? the pharaoh pays well" i'd say yes in a heartbeat. i doubt they had trouble finding workers
Should have just called it the pyramid scheme.
*paid
The ROI was eternal life
Do people just forget religion exists and believers take it fully seriously?
I honestly forget that frequently. My general attitude when any type of believer says something I consider obvious bullshit is to spend a couple of seconds thinking we're in on a pretend joke until it hits me.
In my experience the overwhelming maj{rity of believers don't. Theyll say they do and argue and gwt offended, bit its just an identity/social thing to them.
It's kinda sad,
Somebody once advanced the theory that the pyramids may have been public works projects, to keep the whole economy from collapsing. The pharaohs had accumulated so much of the available wealth, they spent some of it to put people to work. I think that's an interesting speculation.
So trickle down eventually works. You just have to let them get to godhood first. Got it.
Capitalism probably
Wasn't there some archeological evidence that many of the workers and their families were actually compensated?
Im not sure if its the great pyramid but I know some of the Egyptian great works were used as a jobs program during the off season of harvest.
Im sure the majority was slavery, but there was a tiny bit of good in those.
Workers were paid. More interesting to ask why they built the pyramids.
'Paid'. When some egyptaboo tells you that "there weren't slaves in Egypt at this time", remember the 'workers' were paid in housing, bread, and beer. And were kinda bound by their duty to the God-Pharaoh. Totally not slavery!
Tho now thinking of it it's not like my wage stretches farther than that either...
Edit: spelling and punctuation are hard.
remember the 'workers' were paid in housing, bread, and beer.
That's more than many people will get today from a single job. 💀
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tourtue: a more direct version of capitalism
they were actually paid labourers, the slave thing is a victorian invention i believe
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Religion.
The profit motive was covered by the Pharaoh's exploitation of the entire nation of Egypt as his personal plantation and palace; each Pharaoh's Pyramid was the resulting useless passion project wasting all that accumulated profit. Albeit at reduced cost, considering the widespread use of corvee and legal limits on the ability of worker's to negotiate contracts with the agents of the Pharaoh compared to with non-government notables.
Death
The ROI was outstanding if it facilitated their journey to a good afterlife well.
It was a public works project, just like government jobs, infrastructure, and the military are for the US.
Motive was someone's huge fucking ego to be remembered forever.
Glory and worship is equally addictive as profit. The whole point was to have a badass setup in the afterlife. So you could consider this "profit"
It's how the labour caste paid their taxes
In medieval times that's certainly true. Egyptian laborers were paid. Generally in food and housing, as coinage wouldn't be introduced for quite some time. Especially skilled laborers were sometimes given land. Egypt had a very routinized farming season and most laborers were farmers with nothing to farm in the off season.
Skilled stone masons could kinda go wherever so locking them in to work with taxes was a great way to get them to leave.
Fun fact, they had a daily meal of a particularly thick beer that had chunks of bread in it. And one time they went on strike when they ran out of wigs.
I mean the pyramids were wholly improductive multi-decade undertakings, so that's not making the point you think it's making.
Probably brought in some tourism revenue
Slavery.
Archaeologists aren't so sure.
https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/were-the-egyptian-pyramids-built-by-slaves
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