How can we know that the Great Pyramids weren´t built by slaves but by paid workers?
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They were built by workers, tablets left behind by the supervisors list detail like the beer that was brewed for the workers and other normal details which show they weren’t slaves.
There is an old joke that the most reliable records of any government are the tax records. Governments need to track the inflow and outflow of money to properly run the government. As such, we’ve found records of the payments to laborer groups.
Moreover, we’ve found the sites of the labor camps for the workers who built the pyramids. The conditions were far superior to those that slaves of the time would be afforded, so that is further evidence that the individuals who built the pyramids were paid craftsmen.
My favorite is the record of a work stoppage protest due to contract violations caused by inadequate supplies of makeup and beer.
The ancient Egyptians were a clever folk, capable of all the things we expect from a civilization including the ability to write things down. This written record included such mainstays of civilization as orders and delivery receipts of goods, including construction materials for building the pyramids.
Most relevant to your question would be the records of payment to the craftsmen working on the pyramids. An integral feature of slavery is that slaves don’t get paid, so records of their wages soundly disproves that idea.
The ancient Egyptians were thorough record keepers and we have artifacts in the form of stone tablets and hieroglyphics that detail their finances. This includes all financial records including the price of slaves and the work they produced.
First and foremost – by “slave”, most western people envision chattel slavery, like when you *own* a person like an object and can do whatever you want with them. That’s *definitely not* what was going Egypt at all.
What Egypt had was a sort of make-work system, like the US had during the Great Depression, but with slightly more “we’ll kill you if you don’t” in the background. Most Egyptians were farmers and during the off season you had tons of farmers who didn’t have much to do, so the government used them.
Based on copious written records (like the record keeping of food, material, and shelter purchased), things like graffiti and written accounts by the workers themselves, and also just our general knowledge of how Egyptian society functioned, we have created a picture of tens of thousands of people being fed, sheltered, paid, given medicine and healing, though with admittedly little choice in the matter, and essentially well cared for as citizens of ancient Egypt.
So calling them “paid workers” is maybe a little overly generous, but calling them “slaves” like we might use the term in modern days isn’t correct either.
We can’t “know” in the same way we can know the chemical composition of water. We can look at all the available data and use inferences to determine what was most probable. The biggest point of data I’ve heard against the pyramid builders being slaves is that they were buried in tombs beside the pyramids with beer and bread. This type of burial was unlikely to be wasted on slaves. They were most likely farmers who worked on the pyramids while their fields were flooded out of religious devotion and were compensated for it.
There’s enough comments about evidence but just wanted to note on how unnecessary slaves would have been. The Old Kingdom was growing way more food (money) than they needed. The farmers, which made up >90% of the population didn’t have much to do during the inundation months. So, the kings would gather up all the men to build monuments. That way, the surplus would go to the population and the king would get to display his greatness. If you were unemployed for a few months a year, you could go work for the government and bring home food for your family. The workers would get good food with more meat than they could get from their farms. They would also get great healthcare and benefits. If they were injured, the government would pay for their treatment and if they died, the government would cover the funeral expenses. Better than today’s work benefits if you ask me. This is something men would want to do, rather than being forced.
Besides the economic advantage, you have to also consider the religious aspect. The king is a god on Earth. He is responsible for keeping the balance of reality. Now imagine if you had a chance to work on your God’s tomb. Imagine how proud you would be telling your children and grandchildren that you helped build the resting place of a God. Not only did it pay well, but it would have been a great honor. With the economic and religious angle, you don’t need to force anyone when you have tens of thousands of willing workers.
When I visited Egypt and toured the pyramids the state-sponsored tour guides said the pyramid construction was too complex and difficult that it simply could not have been done by slaves who would have worked the bare minimum. It must have been done by paid and well-motivated workers.
Don’t take that as real evidence but I thought it was an interesting story lol
Remember that there are hundreds of Egyptian pyramids built over a period of 1000+ years. All attempts to generalize any aspect of that large a slice of history are bound to be futile, and the real answer to how they were built is likely “a bit of everything”. There are historical records of payments to skilled artisans. There is record of farmers building the pyramids when the Nile flooded and they could not work on their fields. There is evidence of some prisoners of war being forced to work on them. Some workers got religious burials near the construction site, a dignity not offered to slaves. There were foreigners brought in from as far as Canaan (modern day Israel, Lebanon and Jordan).
Overall, modern historians don’t claim that zero slaves were used in building the pyramids, just that a more reasonable and evidence-based explanation is that they were treated like any other large construction project requiring a skilled labor force.
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