Posted on 05/28/2011 12:36:29 PM PDT by decimon
Excellent comment on Hawass. Read post # 19.
“It is easy to imagine that Egypt had a “construction class” with it’s own form of engineers, project managers, and acquisitions specialists. “
Yes, you are correct. They were called “masons”. Term masons actually dates back to the 9th grandson of Adam - when his father divided his tribe into builders and those that supported the builders when the first city in the bible was built.
They taught geometry to the Egyptians - initially because during the raining season plots of land were flooded and markers were lost so a system of geometry was provided so when the new planting season was started every owner knew where there land started and stopped.
Now, about how populated Egypt was in those days, I'd guess anywhere from 500,000 to 2,000,000 total population on an annual average basis from the founding of the second kingdom right down to roughly the founding of Sparta in Greece. That's when Greece had a runaway population surge, due mostly to technological improvements and an improved variety of olive tree (and probably some other crops). Egypt shouldn't have been immune from that pressure.
Disease was big time back in the day. When Napoleon arrived they estimate the total population was about 3,000,000!
Here's a piece on it: http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/people/index.html
I think it could well have been a scenario where religious duty factored heavily in the construction, rather than slavery.
However, leadership skills are always necessary for any major project that takes people away from their comfort zone. You can tell from the gafitti left by pyramid work gangs that there was real comraderie and competition among them.
Grafitti such as: The floggings will continue until morale improves.
Ah, so obviously the Bible is wrong (again).
BTW, almost forgot, the current population of Egypt is about 82,000,000. That’s about 40X the population of the period we are talking about ~ a far different society!
When did they start hating Catholics?
Ah, so obviously the Bible is wrong (again). [/s]
Forgot the SARCASM.
“All men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights...” This statement transcends time and location. This statement is axiomatic and inherently true. It follows after the Founding Fathers yet preceeds them in its truth.
Why is the Bible wrong? As I recall it doesn’t say everybody there was a slave. It points to a single class of people who appear to have arrived as free people, overstayed their welcome, and ended up as slaves.
sull bhit
Well, I guess we can scratch Moses off the list of credible figures of antiquity. If we do that, there goes the Ten Commandments. There goes the Jewish sacrificial laws and practices pointing to the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf.
Mission accomplished, if this is adopted as the truth.
The truth it is NOT, and I will never buy into this lie.
Satan and his minions are hard at work, these days. That’s the one thing I can take away from this.
Overstayed their welcome?
Wow, you’re treading on some interesting ground there fella. Since when do Jews or anyone else overstay their welcome?
Either you believe in the Biblical story of the Israelites and Moses, or you don’t. Which is it?
What do you take away from the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt, if you don’t believe they were all delivered up from bondage as related in the Bible?
"No Jews built the pyramids because Jews didn't exist at the period when the pyramids were built," Mazar said.
Dorothy Resig, an editor of Biblical Archaeology Review in Washington DC, said the idea probably arose from the Old Testament Book of Exodus, which says: "So the Egyptians enslaved the children of Israel with backbreaking labour" and the Pharaoh put them to work to build buildings.
"If the Hebrews built anything, then it was the city of Ramses as mentioned in Exodus," said Mazar.
There is no hint that Hebrew slaves had anything to do with pyramids. All the known major ones were already ancient by 1500 BCE.
Oh, yes; got it!
...if you didn't do as you were told convert to Islam, you were either killed, driven out into the desert, denied food, or officially enslaved. So, IOW, you had a choice. See? Not slavery compulsion of religion.
Sometimes, no matter how different things are, they are still the same...celebrating 5,000 years of "freedom" in Egypt, this is what memorial Day is about?
Oh, and lest we forget, Ezek 29:15
15 It [Egypt] shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations.
KJV
...and it doesn't.
During the depression, we had the Works Project Administration putting people to work, sometimes doing make-work.
Could it be that the pyramids were giant WPA projects? During time of plenty, the rulers collected surplus wheat. During times of crop failure, they distributed the stored wheat, in exchange for labor on the pyramids.
Yeah, a pharoah with an army and thousands of paid guys with whips amounts to leadership Egyptian style.
No. The Root is the Latin word "Villa": a country dwelling. And the concept of the villein, technically a freeman owing labour service to his Lord as rent for his land, only arrived with the Normans.
Don't get into a contest with anyone on the net about who is more Jewish BTW. You'd be surprised.
The basic story is the Hebrews went to Egypt. They stayed 400 some years. They ended up enslaved. They rebelled. They left. Pharoah drowned.
Judaism begins with MOSES according to some, yet others argue that it begins with ABRAHAM. Take your pick.
NOBODY ELSE in Egypt is identified as having been enslaved at that time.
After the Britons left the area that became known as Essex, Wessex, West Essex, and East Wessex and became Bretons, the Saxons underwent an extensive metamorphosis and broadened the umbrella of rights.
Most Scandinavian societies up to the 10th or 11th century were pretty much Nobles and slaves.
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