Egyptian Slavery

[Ozrat]

At least the Egyptians cared for their slaves.

This is true, by the way. Alot of societies way back when actually cared for their slaves as a part of the family rather than a dog to kick. Just look at the slaves of Ancient Greece.

If you look at the archaelogical evidence being uncovered even today in Egypt you can see that the "slaves" were actually men who brought their entire families to live at the construction sites so they could pay tribute to their great civilization by providing some labor in building one of the many great monuments that they constructed. In fact, that's why they had so many. In prehistoric Egypt, one for of taxes was to provide labor rather than material wealth and it was a popular choice that the citizens voluntarily made. It was their chance to prove their worth AND to take claim that they were a part of creating the religious wonders while also boosting the power of their nation and faith.

Now tell me how that's shitty treatment of Egyptian "slaves"?

[Jimmyjay86]

At least the Egyptians cared for their slaves.

This is true, by the way.

Ha, ha yes it's true because you saw it on tv? It's assumed at best if you make certain assumptions. If you assume that the people that built the pyramids were slaves. Nobody knows with 100% certainty but I heard that from the more recent research that the majority of people working on the pyramids were not slaves at all.

[Ozrat]

Hahaha, no because this is what they teach you in modern archaelogical/prehistoric anthropology courses at the university level.

That, and I had been reading this for quite a few years now in books about academic subjects and other sources of information on prehistoric Egyptian life.

And I do believe that I pointed out in my post that it would be hard to consider those people working on the monuments "slaves". If I didn't, it was at least in my intentions to do so. Either way, the whole point of Moses or whomever "freeing the Pyrmid slaves" is a bunch of shit when you look at what really happened back then.

This is what happens when you read history backwards. You're misapplying modern thoughts to things that happened without that viewpoint.

[Jimmyjay86]

Hmmm, actually I think Anthony's statement is pretty stupid because of the little that is actually known about Egyptian slaves.

Hawass believes the pyramid builders were not slaves like those depicted in Hollywood's The Ten Commandments, but skilled craftsmen. Evidence at the tombs suggests that 20,000 laborers worked for 20 years to build the largest pyramid at Giza, the Great Pyramid of Khufu, more than 4,000 years ago.

Nat Geo Article

[Mandalorian FaLLouT GoD]

If the slaves were near the bottom of Egyptian society, their lot was rarely as bad as that of slaves in other societies. As servants in a temple or in the household of a rich family it was often better than that of the "free" peasants, the serf-like meret [7] and the sejdemash [8] called up for the unloved corvée [11].
Treating a slave well was a moral precept, but the very fact that decent treatment of slaves was a moral duty means that they must have been treated badly quite often.

oh and your use of the word prehistoric is aggrivating/wrong. last time i checked, the definition of prehistoric was historical periods/cultures before written record.

EDIT: http://www.nefertiti.iwebland.com/timel ... lavery.htm

[Ozrat]

Hawass believes the pyramid builders were not slaves like those depicted in Hollywood's The Ten Commandments, but skilled craftsmen. Evidence at the tombs suggests that 20,000 laborers worked for 20 years to build the largest pyramid at Giza, the Great Pyramid of Khufu, more than 4,000 years ago.

Just to clairify this before anybody decides to go off on a tangent about how somebody working on a pyrmid for 20 years at a time should be considered a slave. (No, not you JJ)

They were not working at all times during that 20 year period. As you may or may not know, the Ancient Egyptian lifestyle was based around the harvesting of their crops. There was, and still is, an annual flooding of the Nile River that would bring nutrition from upstream down into the Nile valley where growing conditions would be the highest in the region. Farmers would work after the flooding in their fields tending to the crops, but when the crops were done with they had a long assed waiting period of doing nothing until the next flooding season and the next crop to follow that.

The Pharohs knew that there was a whole subdivision of their population that were twiddling their thumbs when they could be exploited in order to reinforce their royal religious powers AND get a few nifty monuments to symbolize their power at the same time.

There probably were a few laborers who worked on the pyrmids as a full time job during these twenty years, but the majority of the workers were only on the job a couple of months once a year every year during the same season.

oh and your use of the word prehistoric is aggrivating/wrong. last time i checked, the definition of prehistoric was historical periods/cultures before written record

Yeah, yeah. I was just trying to use another word instead of "ancient" again. Just a few hundred/thousand years off...


EDIT:

At least the Egyptians cared for their slaves.

Guess Moses got pissed over nothing.

Yes, that would be correct.

[Jimmyjay86]

Seeing that Ozrat is such a great hand at driving a thread off-topic, we may as well create a new thread just for him.

[Franz Schubert]

Hmm, that's funny cause all this time I was under the impression that the slaves were forced to work day after day in excruciating heat until many simply dropped dead from exhaustion and were immediately replaced by more slaves.

You have to admit, that is the impression that Hollywood/schools/children's books give.

And the slaves in Greece I'm pretty sure were treated worse than pets. They were NOT allowed to wear clothes, that's a fact.

[Jimmyjay86]

It is very hard to make sweeping generalizations about all slaves based on written records. We know alot about the problems of American slavery because it happened fairly recently and there are many records on its abuses. But even then, not all black slaves were treated poorly. If you can look beyond the fact that they had no rights and were just pieces of property, quite a few were treated very well. (I know that is a major stretch because being a piece of property is not exactly "being treated well")

Now we know very little about the actual slaves in ancient societies. We can make some assumptions on their life based on some archaeological evidence but there are very few firsthand accounts. The Romans kept some accounts that we have managed to find but the Egyptians left few. This means the experts have to make a lot of assumptions and posit theories which may or may not be true. So lets not go too far off on a limb saying that anything specific about Egyptian slaves are a fact. What we have agreed on is that the people who built the pyramids were not slaves. Most details about their life are conjecture.

[LlamaGod]

Yeah, but wernt they allowed to work/buy their freedom? And have jobs like teaching?

[Franz Schubert]

Surely it was slaves who pulled the massive blocks up the ramps though, right? I mean, there's all those drawings of like 50 slaves pulling/pushing single blocks.

[Jimmyjay86]

Surely it was slaves who pulled the massive blocks up the ramps though, right? I mean, there's all those drawings of like 50 slaves pulling/pushing single blocks.

Those drawings were made before we found out that UFO's moved the blocks......

[The Gaijin]

Yeah, but wernt they allowed to work/buy their freedom? And have jobs like teaching?

Depends on who they were owned by, where they lived, etc. In certain areas even if you were technically free and had all your papers, they'd still sell you off to a plantation if they caught you walking about.

[Bleusilences]

I think whatever they did was a little wasnt of time( making gigantic tomb for theire dead) but the bright side is they made it like a huge history book, and that's one of the many thing I found amazing about egyptien tomb.

[Thor Kaufman]

Those drawings were made before we found out that UFO's moved the blocks......

or the Atlantis people ?
I find that a rather interesting theory, though.

One hears all the time that the egyptians couldn't have the technology, engineering etc to build such perfect buildings,
like the stones are lined up with almost no gaps and all that.
It is said that this accuracy couldn't even be achieved with today's techniques ?

About the slave issue: Well, whatever you call it, does it matter, really ?
Take many of the bureau or assembly line workers of today for instance, aren't those even more like slaves than those dudes back then ?

[Wolfman Walt]

At least the Egyptians cared for their slaves.

Guess Moses got pissed over nothing.

Yes, that would be correct.

Well as with most of history, I suppose that depends on whose side you take right? According to alot of history the Pharaoh was getting abit too uncomfortable with the rising Hebrew population and had the firstborn son of every Hebrew family killed. As for your servants who got treated so well, records show that if the master died that the slave got sentenced to death to "join the master in the afterlife". Ofcourse there were some slaves who were treated well, but those were mostly house servants or worked in pastors, not all were as lucky. Some became forced into the work force or into the military, I seriousily doubt they were treated as lovingly. This leads me back to "Moses" who is undoubtably pissed and atleast says he gets a message from god (I don't care if you believe it or not and don't start a religious argument from it) that says "Let my people go, they do not wish to be slaves anymore" because <I>they are slaves</I> and human nature demands freedom (even if that freedom is artificial). So I doubt he was "pissed over nothing".

And then after the Jews were freed, they kept slaves of their own.

[Ozrat]

I think whatever they did was a little wasnt of time( making gigantic tomb for theire dead) but the bright side is they made it like a huge history book, and that's one of the many thing I found amazing about egyptien tomb.

Ah, but you're buying into even more of the "slaves" theory and it's like-minded assumptions.

These "tomb[s] for theire dead" weren't designed mainly to be a burial ground, as most people are led to believe, but rather a way of enforcing power and influence onto peasants, as I've stated above.

It was a way of building up their religious beliefs, as they had both the new (or at least soon to be completed) monuments to signify the power that the Pharohs and gods had AND the workers that made them would feel even more empowered because they created something to believe in. It was also a way to keep the lowly workers busy with something to do in the off-season by making something that will propogate the Civilization and its beliefs rather than just having a shitload of farmers and other workers having a nice long vacation where they could plot to take over themselves. While all of these workers from all over Egypt were toiling away on the pyrmids and other assorted buildings, the overseers were easily able to keep track of how many citizens they had, who they were, where they came from, what they do, etc. It was a handy way of bringing all the workers to THEM and to gain more economic/political/religious control over the masses as well.

Building something to host the deceased was just the "official reason" for the buildings while these other political/economical/whatever influences were the actual goals of the head honchos who organized the whole damn things. This is, at least in my opinion, why a few of these monuments ended up not actually holding any corpses, as the real purpose(s) of the building had already been accomplished.

Surely it was slaves who pulled the massive blocks up the ramps though, right? I mean, there's all those drawings of like 50 slaves pulling/pushing single blocks.

See what JJ said. Also, this is what I was referring to when I said "when you read history backwards". So some artist who was hired to illustrate a children's book is supposed to be the almighty word on the status of Egyptian slavery five or six thousand years ago?

Depends on who they were owned by, where they lived, etc. In certain areas even if you were technically free and had all your papers, they'd still sell you off to a plantation if they caught you walking about.

OMG topic derailment. Go find your own damn thread to post your non-egyptian-slave-related slavery topics, please.[/JJ86 always gets pwned by Ozrat]

[Radoteur]

And the slaves in Greece I'm pretty sure were treated worse than pets. They were NOT allowed to wear clothes, that's a fact.

Hey, if I had female slaves, I wouldn't let them wear clothes. At least in my house. In public I would let them, since I don't want anyone else deriving free sexual pleasure from MY slave.

One hears all the time that the egyptians couldn't have the technology, engineering etc to build such perfect buildings,
like the stones are lined up with almost no gaps and all that.
It is said that this accuracy couldn't even be achieved with today's techniques ?

Ever heard of secrets of the ancients?

[SDMVersion3]

Ever heard of secrets of the ancients?

The Ancients built the StarGate right?

[Grey Fil]

Slavery was not always the same thing in ancient times. Even slaves in the same culture where not equal. The Romans treated greek scholars who sold themselves into slavery very differently then they treated captured germanic warriors. OTOH the land bound servants in the middle ages where often treated as slaves although they where not considered slaves. The vision that people have of slavery is often based in the more recent periods where black slaves where used by white plantation owners. Slavery is one of the most ancient human institutions and had very different forms.